Short Stories Science

In the magic lands of the Fae Wild, the Goblin King's virility is the lifeblood of the realm. But an insidious curse has put the kingdom on the precipice of a population panic. Enter Thomas Stone: architect, engineer, and unknowing half-blood heir to the goblin throne. Whisked away to a world where baby-making makes the world go round, Thomas finds himself in a pickle thicker than goblin stew. Birth rates are dropping faster than a fairy on a bad flight path, and it’s up to Thomas to save the fae from themselves.

Hugh Howey is known for crafting riveting and immersive tales of boundless imagination. Now comes Machine Learning, an impressive collection of Howey's science fiction and fantasy short fiction, including three stories set in the world of Wool, two never-before-published tales written exclusively for this volume, and 15 additional stories collected here for the first time. These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author's note.

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

Arthur Cain was a hero to his city, the most accomplished and respected of the firefighters in his entire district. But when a call comes in from the so-called "Halfbreed Heights", the monsterfolk part of the city, Arthur's life gets flip-turned upside down. Though he saved the life of a matronly lamia that day, he was also partially crippled and forced into early retirement. Now unable to fit the image of her personal superman, Arthur's wife divorces him and leaves him to move into a cheaper home in the same monsterfolk slum that caused his current situation.

The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories expands upon the epic legend of the dark elf with 12 tales performed by the all-star cast of Felicia Day, Dan Harmon, Greg Grunberg, Tom Felton, Danny Pudi, Sean Astin, Melissa Rauch, Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, Michael Chiklis, and David Duchovny!

They say only fools enter the tower… Dive into the complete box set of the best-selling Tower Climber series with over 2,500 pages of epic LitRPG adventure. All Max wants is to become a climber and search for his long lost sister. But citizens aren’t allowed to climb, they aren’t even allowed remotely in the vicinity of the mysterious and magical tower. Plus, even if citizens could enter, it didn’t change the fact that Max’s body is paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair. No way would anyone let him enter the tower. Ever.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Edgar-award winning author Dana Stabenow is best known for her Kate Shugak novels, but the unifying protagonist of almost all her writing - be it crime, fantasy, horror, or science fiction - is Alaska. This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many listeners will expect.

While training for a manned mission to Mars, Dr. Sophie Winston and her team of scientists find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped inside a biosphere deep within the confines of Cheyenne Mountain, Sophie and crew discover they are the survivors of a brutal alien invasion. But as they struggle to stay alive, they realize their safe haven is far from safe and that they must team up with other survivors around the world to defeat the aliens before it’s too late for humanity and the Earth.

The Emperor's vision of mankind ascendant lies in tatters. The Great Crusade is naught but a fading memory. The dream of Unity is no more. But with Horus's rebellion spreading to every corner of the Imperium and war engulfing new worlds and systems almost daily, there are some who now ask: were the signs there to be seen all along?

Astarte, grew up an orphan and she had no recollection of ever having known her mother. From childhood, she could hear the silver ringing of the music of the fairies as they twirled in the moonlight below the caves. She saw them dancing, the fireflies glittering in and around them, adding a shimmer of gold in the moonlight.

Are you ready to journey through explicit, unapologetically steamy sex stories in magical realms, where every encounter is wilder and hotter than the last? Flora Winston’s life takes a sharp, seductive turn when she discovers she’s next in line for the Fae throne. But there’s a catch: to claim her crown, she must embark on a sexual journey across the supernatural realms, exploring their forbidden desires and unlocking her hidden powers through raw, unrestrained passion.

E. E. Isherwood presents Books 1-3 of the Neighborhood Watch series.

You define life or it defines you. In Shawn Speakman’s case, it was both. Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, Shawn quickly accrued a massive medical debt that he did not have the ability to pay. That’s when New York Times best-selling author Terry Brooks offered to donate a short story that Shawn could sell to help alleviate those bills—and suggested he ask the same of his other writer friends. Unfettered is the result: An anthology built in order to relieve that debt, featuring short stories by some of the best fantasy writers in the genre.

From Dickens's A Christmas Carol to the ghost stories of M.R. James, the tradition of a haunted tale at Christmas has flourished across the centuries. The twelve stories of The Winter Spirits are all centred around Christmas or Advent, boldly and playfully re-imagining a beloved tradition for a modern audience. Taking you from a haunted Tuscan villa to a remote Scottish island with a dark secret, and drawing inspiration from festive traditions from all around the globe, these vibrant haunted stories are your ultimate companion for frosty nights.

We are Draekons. Dangerous, fire-breathing dragon shifters. For the safety of the galaxy, we’ve been exiled to a prison planet. Then, a spaceship carrying human women crashes into our lives. The instant we lay eyes on them, we know. They are our mates. Ours to protect. Ours to cherish. Ours. Forever. Draekon Desire: Exiled to the Prison Planet: The Complete Collection features hours of exciting, heart-pounding, panty-melting alien dragon shifter menage romance.

Quantum Hughes doesn't know how long he's been trapped in a cyber noir world known as The Loop. For each day that passes, Quantum adds an item to his inventory list, hoping that he'll one day be free. Has it really been nearly 550 days? Has he gone mad? Will Quantum ever be free?

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.

With Ravenheart defeated and his regal duties done, Josh and his lovely misfits return to their idyllic home nestled in the shadows of the Hangsane. Will they hang up their weapons, end their monster-hunting days, and settle down for a cozy slice of farming life like so many heroes? Absolutely not! Attacked, rescued, forced into the Hangsane to seek more power, Josh and the Misfits are hurled straight into the thick of it.

These are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within this audiobook, you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies.