Video Games Literature

The car crash was the last thing I remembered...then I woke up here. Where "here" was felt like an impossible nightmare. I died, but this wasn't what I'd expected to find when they said I'd meet my maker. The afterlife is just like a video game, except I didn't start in a noob world like everybody else. I started out on one of the most challenging dungeon worlds meant only for ancient souls who've been dead much longer than I have.... Welcome to Epoc.

They are twelve men who shouldn't be alive. They have survived the sudden blinding sandstorm that crippled their air freighter. Survived a desperate crash landing in the Sahara of Central Libya. Survived to face the slow, dry, agonizing death of the desert. Twelve men with one hope: to build a new plane from the wreckage of their Skytruck and make a flight out of hell.

Would you be prepared to work for free? How would you like to bust your hump for a large corporation 60-plus hours a week without a wage or a single day off for the vague promise of some mysterious perks in the distant future? You'd refuse point blank, wouldn't you? But what if the job in question was playing a state-of-the-art fantasy MMORPG game? And what if this was the only thing you're really good at? Especially considering that your in-game partner is someone really special to you - and this person already lives a virtual life?

Roman Tribune Clavius is assigned by Pilate to keep the radical followers of the recently executed Yeshua from stealing the body and inciting revolution. When the body goes missing despite his precautions, Clavius must hunt it down. His investigation leads him from the halls of Herod Antipas to the Garden of Gethsemane and brings him in touch with believer and doubter alike. But as the body still remains missing, Clavius commits to a quest for the truth - and answers that will not only shake his life but echo throughout all of history.

Zeke de'Godfrey was never meant to fight. As the second son of a fading noble line, his job was simple, stay out of the way, enjoy the food, chase the girls, and let his older brother carry the weigh. Artax did exactly that. Thirty-four Emblems. A blade that never broke. The last hope of House Godfrey. Until he lost everything in a battle against Socrax the Frost Dragon. His Aura core shattered. His legend ended. Now the knives are out, and their house is circling the drain. Zeke makes a choice. Before the Senate, he speaks five words that change everything: "Then I'll become his sword.

Bernd Stromberg ist zurück! In einer von Work-Life-Blending, Genderdebatten und Chatbots bestimmten Welt kehrt der Chef der Schadensregulierung bei der CAPITOL-Versicherung zurück, um ordentlich aufzuräumen. »Zehn Jahre nach dem ersten Film fragen mich immer noch so viele Leute nach dem Bernd, dass ich irgendwann auch wissen wollte, was aus ihm geworden ist, in der neuen Arbeitswelt. Und aus den ganzen anderen Graupen. Vielleicht ist Chef ja wie Corona: Die neuen Varianten sind angeblich harmloser.

À chaque génération, il y a une élue. Seule, elle devra affronter les vampires, les démons et les forces de l'ombre. Elle s'appelle Buffy. Retrouvez l'univers culte de la tueuse mythique, ses alliés et ses ennemis de toujours !

Something is wrong in the Emerald Empire. The emperor is ailing, the court is weak and the Great Clans threaten to escalate their petty squabbling into all-out war. But in the shadows, another threat lurks—sinister Bloodspeaker cults attempt to resurrect the forgotten sorcerer Iuchiban, who possess a power so great it could destroy all of Rokugan. Now seven samurai, one from each of the Great Clans, must put aside their pride, fear, and rivalry to unite and prevent the Bloodspeakers from finding the legendary tomb of Iuchiban, and the hideous treasure locked inside.

In an abandoned mineshaft, they discovered a lost journal that once belonged to William, a legendary explorer who has gone missing. The first journal took them on a daring adventure to a secret temple deep in the desert. Now they have the second journal, and they're more determined than ever to find the missing explorer.

Here, in Lynne Truss' first novel, we meet Osborne Lonsdale, a down-at-heel journalist, mysteriously attractive to women, who writes a regular celebrity interview for Come into the Garden. This week his "Me and My Shed" column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. Unbeknownst to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela in her country retreat, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management.

This is the story of Ellasif, a barbarian shield maiden who will stop at nothing to recover her sister from a nation of witches, and Decclan, a ne'er-do-well young spellcaster-turned-forger who wants only to prove himself a hero. Together, they'll face monsters, magic, and the fury of Ellasif's own cold-hearted warriors in their quest to rescue the lost child. Yet when they finally reach the ice-walled city of Whitethrone, where trolls hold court and wolves roam the streets as people, will it be too late to save the girl from the forces of darkness?

In a world where even the smallest and most remote village is being terrorized by the monsters that stalk the night, there is a hamlet, prosperous and peaceful, where mortals and vampires have lived in harmony for years. It is there that seventeen-year-old Sheavil Schmidt has slept, neither waking nor aging, for thirty years since first receiving the vampire's immortal kiss. The mysterious Vampire Hunter D is lured to the tranquil oasis by recurrent dreams of the beautiful, undying girl bathed in an eerie blue light and dancing in a ghostly chateau.

Autumn brings its own haunting beauty to the sun-soaked beaches and dunes on Isle of Palms, where Olivia “Lovie” Rutledge lives in her beloved Primrose Cottage with her daughter, Cara. Looking back as summer fades, Lovie can remember many island summers, but especially one. . . .In 1974, America was changing, but Charleston remained eternally the same. Lovie had always done what was expected — marrying the son of a historic Charleston family, Stratton Rutledge, and turning over her fortune and fate to his control. But one thing she steadfastly refuses to relinquish: her family’s old seaside cottage. The precious summers spent on the barrier island are Lovie’s refuge. Here, she can escape with her children from the social expectations of her traditional Southern mother, and her overbearing husband’s ambition and philandering. Here, she indulges her lifelong vocation as a “Turtle Lady,” tending the loggerhead sea turtles that lay their eggs in the warm night sand and then slip back into the sea. This summer, however, is different. Visiting biologist Russell Bennett arrives on the island to research the loggerheads. What begins as a shared passion for the turtles changes to a love far more passionate and profound than Lovie has ever known — but one that forces her to face the most agonizing decision of her life.For Charleston’s elite, divorce is an unforgivable scandal, and Stratton’s influence is far-reaching. If Lovie dares to dream beyond a summer affair, she risks losing everything: her reputation, her wealth, even her precious children.Beach House Memories — a poignant and emotional tale of a strong, passionate woman torn between duty and desire, between the traditions of the old South and the social changes sweeping America — will capture your heart. For Lovie, it is an empowering journey of seasons of self-discovery. Until this autumn, this time of changing tides, of holding on and letting go. . . .“This luminous tale — set in the South Carolina Lowcountry that we both love so deeply — was hard to put down. Fans of The Beach House will at last discover what happened during the summer of 1974. But readers new to Mary Alice Monroe need not worry, for this emotional story of love and loss stands alone.” — New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank

Countess Alessandra Zorzi, international adventurer and thief, arrives in Arkham pursuing an ancient body freshly exhumed from a mound in Oklahoma, of curious provenance and peculiar characteristics. But before she can steal it, another party beats her to it. During the resulting gunfight at the Miskatonic Museum, the countess makes eye contact with the petrified corpse and begins an adventure of discovery outside her wildest experiences.

The bold investigators of Arkham Horror are humanity's best hope against monstrous terrors from beyond the void in this second collection of extraordinary eldritch novellas.

Opening night at the Foxfire Theater is set to be a huge success for Daidoji Shin, amateur detective turned theater impresario. The City of the Rich Frog's leading lights are all there, but even as the performance begins, the Three Flower Troupe's new lead actress is found dead backstage—and everyone in the venue is a potential suspect. Shin has only until the curtain falls to find the killer. But the clock is ticking and Shin can only hold the great and the good hostage so long. As the night wears on, the chance of the murderer escaping justice grows ever more likely.

Daidoji Shin, former louche layabout turned amateur investigator, and his long-suffering bodyguard, Kasami, are called away from the comforts of the City of the Rich Frog and into Unicorn lands to investigate a seemingly open-and-shut case of murder. But it's never that straightforward....

Striking Dawn Castle defends the mountains between the Rokugan empire and the demon-haunted Shadowlands. When a mythical city is discovered in the forbidding peaks, Hida Haru, heir and sore disappointment to his family, seizes the opportunity to prove himself. His rash expedition ends in disaster - just one samurai returns alive, and Haru is lost.

More islands. More sharks. More women. Jack and the girls can't rest. There are more of their friends still out there. They'll have to journey to new islands and face new challenges as they search for a way to live and love in a hostile archipelago. With each new island discovered, they learn more about what came before them and what is coming for them. Plus, there is something out there, always watching.

Lawrence Talbot's childhood ended the night his mother died. After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget. But when his brother's fiancée tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search. He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector has come to investigate.