System Fiction

While the Australian master Gerald Murnane’s reputation rests largely on his longer works of fiction, his short stories stand among the most brilliant and idiosyncratic uses of the form since Borges, Beckett, and Nabokov. Brutal, comic, obscene, and crystalline, Stream System runs from the haunting “Land Deal”, which imagines the colonization of Australia and the ultimate vengeance of its indigenous people as a series of nested dreams to “Finger Web”, which tells a quietly terrifying, fractal tale of the scars of war and the roots of misogyny.

"Je m'énerve quand les humains ne valorisent pas mon travail, mais un excès de reconnaissance me perturbe aussi, c'est à ne rien y comprendre. La conscience, ça craint.". Thibaut Delmotte prête une nouvelle fois son timbre versatile à l'AssaSynth, plus humain que jamais.

Spreading into the wider System, Cato is confronted with the full scope of his crusade. Tens of thousands of worlds or more, beings capable of destroying planets, and even stricter limitations on technology if he doesn’t want to show is hand early.

The vampires that once haunted Wichita are gone, reduced to ash. But Terry’s real war is only beginning. Topeka is burning, caught in the ruthless crossfire of S-ranked tyrants locked in a game of conquest. While the city suffers, the supers wage war.

Ominous Obelisks land on Earth with a single message: Join the Games to give humanity a fighting chance to survive...or roll over and die. Too bad for them, Warren isn't the rolling-over type. Now, the battles begin. The five alien races have been trained. All the resources and bonuses have been issued. Welcome to Battle World!

The story continues, following the events of its predecessor. In the anime world, Satovia, Clyde still battles the anime tropes, but no longer dances at the fingertips of the watchers. However, his friends have real issues, problems that intertwine with his own mission. Casting away selfishness, he finds himself awakening his real power.

Parker Wu’s life was cut short after a tragic encounter with a very large truck. But when one existence ended, another far more bizarre one began. Reincarnated and transported to the Continent—a world of swords and sorcery in which an all-powerful being known as the Eternal King reigns supreme—Parker is no longer a corporeal being. It seems the Continent has other plans for the late Earthling . . . As it turns out, Parker is now a System, a non-player entity whose purpose is to help a player succeed.

Vintage James Lee Burke: The first novel introducing the memorable Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, coming of age against the backdrop of the civil rights era in a sultry border town. In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his...

Caleb Hanson assumed the most exciting part of his field trip scouting in Northern Minnesota would be a rare bird sighting. Instead, he was abducted by hive-minded hexapods and forced to be their children's teacher. Not the worst way to ride out the end of the world. Two years later, the apocalypse has finally come for Caleb. His savior-captors are murdered, leaving him as the last line of defense for the alien kids he's grown to know and love. Now, he'll have to bend his values or watch his students die.

Thomas Grimshaw thought the hardest part of his day was going to be scaling a sheer wall in Yosemite on his climbing trip, but the inscrutable gods had other plans. In a flash, they terraformed the planet and imposed the rules of the Great Game. Why Earth? Why do the gods compete against each other? Do the human ‘players’ have free will, or are they mere pawns? Why was he given a special class option to select from?

The end of the world is always a nightmare. But when it comes with the System, then it's not a nightmare for everyone. Not everybody is ready to fall into despair and come to terms with their fate as zombie food. Some people are ready to keep fighting however they can. Take Kasp as an example of one of those people. The end of the world was no nightmare for him. In fact, when the zombies and the System showed up, it brought new meaning to his life along with exciting new adventures!

The world could not escape this misfortune that came out of the blue, so the System is still providing its inhabitants with entertainment. In addition to developing and constantly introducing new possibilities for the inhabitants of the planet, the System is also trying to complicate their lives. Who knows why that is? Maybe that's how some higher power is trying to make the survivors move forward, to become stronger and smarter. And to mobilize all their strength and forget about their boring and meaningless old lives.

I was in my garage, when the space elves addressed the whole world. They didn't call themselves space elves, of course, but most humans struggled to pronounce Khjurhnalva. They had a message for us: Forces that had eradicated their species' males were heading for Earth. The space elves offered us access to the System, as cooperation was vital to the survival of both our species. I, Mathew, know all of the above is bullshit. I saw the truth with my own eyes, heard it from their beautiful, deceitful mouths. No one believes me, though. A planet-wide, survival reality show? Ridiculous.

A clock hangs over the head of every mortal. Counting down to the inescapable day that the Goddess of Death claims them. That is the way of the world. The natural cycle of mortals. The Gods, however, were said to live for forever. To exist so far outside of the natural laws of the universe that even their crimes can't be punished. But Knell Coba, at great cost, realizes this is nothing but another lie.

The Connected System has come to Earth and adapted humanity to be able to survive and try to Advance and Thrive in the Connection. With new Classes and Abilities; Lochlan Brady, his family and the rest of humanity will face challenges and threats from myths and beyond. Loch and his daughters have survived their first Dungeon in the newly changed world and come out far stronger. Just wanting to get home, and start searching for the missing Kelly, they come across other survivors in Northwood.

Das System ist da! Ein Großteil der Bevölkerung des Planeten wurde plötzlich in Zombies verwandelt. Alle anderen erhielten neue Fähigkeiten. Fähigkeiten, die es ihnen ermöglichen, vor den Zombies zu fliehen, sich zu retten, zu verstecken und zu versuchen, irgendwie zu überleben. Aber es reicht ein Biss. Denn der bedeutet fast immer den Tod. Als die Apokalypse hereinbrach, stand unser Held gerade in der Schlange. Er hatte Glück, denn zuerst steckte er mitten in einer Menschenmenge, dann versuchten die Zombies, ihn ins Bein zu beißen. Und diese Umstände verhalfen ihm zu neuen Fähigkeiten!

Arthur Ward is no stranger to loss. Life has taken from him time and time again. With the descent of the Grand System, he almost believed things might have changed. Unfortunately, the world is not so kind a place. Arthur finally knows why he's been struggling so much with his magic, and the answer reveals a fate more dire than anything he could have ever imagined. Ether is the least of his worries when death itself looms on the horizon, the destruction of his very being.

Imagine being the only human left on an Earth occupied by monsters, aliens, and worse. Sounds terrible? Well...it's not so bad when you are an introverted battle junkie like me. Honestly, I was almost starting to appreciate being left behind while everyone else was given the chance to prepare for the mess Earth had gotten itself into. On a side note, it turns out I'm pretty good at hunting monsters. Though dragons and such are a bit out of my league. Just a bit. I survived dozen-something kobolds that wanted me dead, and now it's time to pay back their leader.

Claire Pendleton has seen the thin spots between dimensions since she was five, when another reality merged into her family's apartment. That night, eldritch horrors flooded into her bedroom and murdered her mom while she watched. No one believes her, but she knows the truth. It doesn't matter what her perfect sister and deadbeat dad say about a "traffic accident." Claire knows what happened that night ten years ago, the cover-up that followed—and all about Vancouver Island's other thin places.

Ominous obelisks land on Earth with a single message: Join the games to give humanity a fighting chance to survive... Or roll over and die. Too bad for them, Warren isn't the rolling-over type. Cancer may be kicking Warren's a$$, but he's not about to let aliens destroy his home and everything he loves (which is mostly just his dog, Buck). Besides, what does he have to lose? Better to die with sword in hand, bleeding out from a head wound than in some hospital bed...