Short Stories Science

The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

Captain Joe Ledger - former cop, former Army Ranger, and currently the top-kick of Echo Team, an elite squad of first-class shooters who roll out to face down the world's most dangerous terrorists. Not fanatics with explosive vests or political hostage takers. Joe and his team square off against terrorists who have the most advanced and exotic weapons of mass destruction, designer bioweapons, cutting-edge transgenics…real mad-scientist stuff.

New York Times best-selling author TJ Klune invites you back to the land of Verania in a new collection of short stories starring the beloved characters from the Tales of Verania series.

Earth is a dying planet. To survive, humanity founds the Circuit, a string of colonies across the solar system, dedicated to mining resources vital to preserving what remains of mankind. Here there are no heroes or villains, only those willing to do what's necessary to survive. The New Earth Tribunal, a powerful religious faction, has risen to rule the Circuit. They believe a Spirit within the Earth will one day appear and welcome humanity back home.

Alaria Hartwood vanquishes a legendary kraken, becoming a Tentacle Mage. Her newfound talents and wealth bring hope of a quiet retirement but fate has far different plans. While Alaria wants to turn her retirement dream location into a place where she can focus on enchanting, potion making, and spell crafting it won't be easy. She quickly finds herself having to vanquish orcs and demons with a vibrant assistant. Mia is a great student, and a gifted soul, but even with her help, it seems like Alaria's shop on Brighthill will have to wait for the brewing storm to calm.

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.

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. An AI awakens to its purpose. A researcher seeds a thousand new worlds for one more chance at love. A murder rocks the crew of an interstellar ship. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy . . . and the horizons of humanity’s potential.

Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history - these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as The Mabinogion. They tell of Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers; of Math the magician whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin; of hanging a pregnant mouse and hunting a magical boar.

Celebrate the legacy of The Empire Strikes Back with this exciting reimagining of the timeless film featuring new perspectives from forty acclaimed authors. On May 21, 1980, Star Wars became a true saga with the release of The Empire Strikes Back. In honor of the fortieth anniversary...

When good fights evil, the battle does not always go as planned. The Crimson Pact anthologies (Volumes 1-5) include a wide variety of standalone tales about the members of the Crimson Pact fighting demons across the multiverse. Now, three acclaimed tales from darkly disturbing author Donald J. Bingle are collected for you to taste and find out if demon-hunting is in your blood.

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.

How does the stranger know Cadie’s real name – and why she’s on the run – and what it all has to do with the Ukrainian mob? He’s offering her freedom from possessions and a totally new way of life. But he wants just this one little favor… This story was originally published in the Hugo Award-nominated METAtropolis.

Aspen is a Norm. A non-magic. A human. And in this supernatural city, that's a quick way to wind up dead. Or worse. She didn't plan on becoming an apprentice to Lucien Dunadine, one of the strongest members on the Council of Mages. She really didn't plan on taking part in a deadly competition against Isak Uchida, her handsome, aggravating, deadly opponent. But with something sinister going down in the magic boroughs, they'll all have to work together if they want to uncover the source of an ancient evil threatening their home.

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman's touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changes the day that Debra Rocks enters his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar.

The pulse hits without warning. In one harrowingly destructive instant, a mysterious seismic pulse in the Scottish Highlands rips away all semblance of global security. When peace is shattered, fear takes over. The stakes rise without mercy. As the pulse's chaos spreads across the world, it becomes painfully clear that Piper McCarthy - a child born like no other - might hold humanity's only hope of averting total disaster.

Take a trip to a terrifying carnival and uncover the secrets within, solve a mysterious puzzle box and await your reward, join a travelling circus and witness the strangest ventriloquist act you've ever seen. In this follow-up to the bestselling Cursed: An Anthology, you'll unearth curses old and new. From a very different take on Snow White, to a new interpretation of The Red Shoes, the best in fantasy spin straw into gold, and invite you into the labyrinth.

Jane Sagan: Soldier. Killer. Lover. Dreamer. In John Scalzi's best-selling Old Man's War series of science-fiction novels, we see this warrior woman as the other characters see her - silent and strong, from the outside. But now The Sagan Diary shows us Sagan from another point of view: her own, as she prepares to leave military life and join her new husband and adopted daughter on a colony world.

I guess you could call my latest job interview a success. I got hired, and it's way beyond my wildest dreams. The pay isn't great. And the hours are pretty much 24/7. But there's magic. And a portal to a fantasy world. Those kind of outweigh the negatives. At first, I thought I was just testing the latest VR survival RPG, but I'm starting to think this might not be a game after all. The monsters are definitely life-like and capable of carving me apart on their worst days. But on their best days, I make them mine.

This exciting new anthology has over a dozen original tales starring the vicious foes of Marvel's superheroes: Greg Cox's chronicle of the Super-Skrull's conflict with the Avengers, Michael Jan Friendman's story of evil Loki's latest attempt to snare his stepbrother Thor, Adam-Troy Castro's tale of a mutant who brings Magneto and X-Men's Professor X together in a unique manner, Glenn Greenberg's pairing of Venom and the Absorbing Man in an unlikely jailbreak.

Tantor Media presents a collection of some of the most popular Christmas stories read by award-winning narrators Renee Raudman and Alan Sklar. This special anthology will transport listeners back to the Christmases of their youth, when they first heard these holiday tales.