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.

Now every breath has a price tag, every monster works on commission, and the Doom System keeps the books in blood. Hiro Johnson thought the First Interim was hell. Now he’s entered the Second Interim—a financial apocalypse where survival depends on your net worth. Debt drains stats. Monsters collect interest. And the System’s new motto? Survivors must be punished. Armed with a demon dog, a sarcastic shield, a slew of odd weapons, and dwindling Soul Cash, Hiro’s running out of ways to stay alive.

It has been over two years since the System arrived on Earth, leaving survivors fighting to rebuild and save humanity. Thanks to the help of a creature thought to be a legend, Jason and his friends have a path to discovering the truth behind what has happened. The System has been stacked against them, but these quests give them a chance to level the playing field against those off-worlders trying to exploit Earth and its people. Although the team has never wanted to be in charge, they are now Earth’s best hope of remaining in control of their own destiny.

Terry Fairway came back from the Underworld stronger, faster—changed. But the power he won came at a cost. He saved a world. He might have damned his own. All across the globe, incursion rifts split the sky, flooding Earth with Awakened invaders from distant worlds. Cities burn. Alliances crack. And Earth’s defenders race to seal the breaches—before the next city falls to ash.

The fieldtrip to the planetarium is foiled when the museum turns out to be closed, but Ms. Frizzle saves the day. The Magic School Bus turns into a spaceship and takes the class on a trip zooming through the atmosphere, to the Moon, and beyond! With up-to-date facts about the solar system, revised for this edition.

In the aftermath of their last battle, several of Quinn's allies are still healing. In the meantime, while the Library and Lynx are still regaining all their memory pathways, Quinn must help resolve the mystery of the Ashiron pillar. But that's not their only problem. In order to expand the Library's power, more branches must be opened, but it's difficult to do that when not everyone is willing to return their books.

A brilliantly imagined literary debut of love, despair, and two people’s search for belonging in a world literally spinning out of control. The acceleration of Earth’s spin begins gradually. At first, days are just a few seconds shorter than normal. Awareness of the mysterious phenomenon...

Declan Dark never signed up to be a vampire—let alone a blind one with a mysterious System whispering in his skull. After one disastrous bachelor party, he's plunged into Sin City's secret supernatural underworld, where every shadow conceals a predator, and even his allies might be out for his blood.

With the Slosth and Devil Incursions taken care of, Drew Wright should be settling down for some well-deserved rest. But… the world is still in shambles, survivors are fighting over limited resources, and he no longer has access to magical, gun-wielding minions. So, rest will have to wait. Drew needs to find a new way to control hordes of undead minions without his brain leaking out through his ears. Becoming an undead Lich is certainly an option, but that involves losing certain… assets that he’d rather hold on to, especially with him and Amber considering the option of having children.

After my last fight with Darius Windstorm, the Refuge has struck. With the Blobber world consumed by war, I know there’s only one place my team and I can find safety, and we start a frantic quest to find the runaway warriors in the deepest recesses of the dungeons. Even with a few new friends, the overbearing System won’t stay down for long. A reckoning is coming, and my status as a warlord means I’ll be at the forefront of any new strike against their world.

After an unfortunate accident, Handry is forced to wander a world he doesn't understand, searching for meaning. He soon discovers that the life he thought he knew is far stranger than he could even possibly imagine. Can an unlikely savior provide the answers to the questions he barely comprehends?

on Fanwath. But he had other ideas—bigger, bolder, bloodier ideas. Now known as Lord Victor after a hard-fought campaign to claim the newly christened Free Marches, his legend grows beyond his own lifetime. With yet another conquest, Victor must set order in his new realms, a task more daunting than battle with all it entails. But above all, he must somehow save his dear ally Edeya, whose spirit was stolen in the chaos of war.

In 2014, the ESA spacecraft Rosetta lands a small probe named Philae on 67P, a Jupiter-family comet. The lander goes radio-silent two years later. Suddenly, in 2026, scientists receive new transmissions from the comet. Motivated by findings that are initially sensational but soon turn frightening, NASA dispatches a crewed spacecraft to the comet. But as the ship approaches the mysterious celestial body, the connection to the astronauts soon breaks. Now it seems nothing can be done anymore to stop the looming dark danger that threatens Earth....

Ever since he became gifted with the high-tech Werewolf System, Gary Dem's life has gone completely barking mad—but in a good way. He's risen from a nobody street scrapper to forming his own fighting gang, the Howlers, now dominating the low-tier burg of Slough. He's got respect, money, and some serious bite. Life is good. Just not good enough for Gary.

Fool's Play is the first book in a new series in the System Apocalypse universe. Written by David R. Packer in Tao Wong's bestselling post-apocalyptic LitRPG universe, System Apocalypse: Kismet follows a different path through a post-apocalyptic world, one of hope, redemption, and second chances.

Das System beschert unserem Helden und seinen Freunden immer und immer mehr neue Erfahrungen. Der eigentlich ziemlich asoziale Einzelgänger Kasp wurde vom System zum Siedlungsvorstand ernannt. Nichts liegt Kasp allerdings ferner, als eine Führungsrolle zu übernehmen. Das System wird von Tag zu Tag schwieriger. Hinter jeder Ecke lauern neue Gefahren und aggressive Monster. Doch jede Herausforderung birgt auch frische Chancen. Die menschliche Zivilisation schrammt gerade an der totalen Vernichtung vorbei und könnte einen kleinen Hoffnungsschimmer gut gebrauchen …

Es ist nicht einfach, ein Systemreisender zu sein. Gut, zumindest der Teil mit dem Reisen ist schwierig. Aber nachdem Derek erst einmal Fuß gefasst hat, legt er einen Blitzstart hin und rettet dabei eine ganze Region vor einem gewaltigen Dungeonüberlauf. Er hat sogar ein paar Gefährten gefunden, die ihm dabei helfen, das riesige Loch in seinem Inneren zu stopfen, das sich bei ihm während all den Jahrzehnten allein in der Leere gebildet hat.

War is brewing on the horizon... Whether it was in the Netherworld, the Mortal Realm, or the Spirit Plane, war was coming. For some, it was already here. It was not something Salvos wanted to partake in, since she just wanted to protect her friends, but when her very first companion wanted to overthrow the Demon King, she had no choice but to help him in his rebellion in freeing the legions from their servitude. But when she has to face down Jofis the Disgraced Hellking, former ruler of the Netherworld, she is forced to learn that perhaps she is not as prepared for war as she thought she was.

In A Matter of Importance by Murray Leinster, the routine duty of a space police officer turns into a defining moment for humanity. As the passenger ship Cerberus sends a desperate distress call, veteran Sergeant Madden finds himself racing against time—not just for the passengers, but for his son’s fiancée trapped aboard. What begins as a standard rescue mission spirals into a delicate confrontation with the mysterious alien race known as the Huks.

Getting hit by a truck didn't Isekai Arthur Ward, but he did wake up in a world forever changed. When Earth evolves, passing a threshold few even knew existed, humanity is whisked away by the Grand System to engage in an educational Tutorial to bring them up to speed, the introduction of the new energy source that has been made available: Ether.