Showing results by author "Tim Pratt" in All Categories

Best-selling writer Orson Scott Card founded the online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show in 2006. It has been a big success, drawing submissions from well-known science fiction and fantasy writers, as well as fostering some amazing new talents. This collection contains some of the best of those stories.

With strength, wit, rakish charm, and a talking sword named Hrym, Rodrick has all the makings of a classic hero - except for the conscience. Instead, he and Hrym live a high life as scoundrels, pulling cons and parting the weak from their gold. When a mysterious woman invites them along on a quest into the frozen north in pursuit of a legendary artifact, it seems like a prime opportunity to make some easy coin - especially if there's a chance for a double-cross.

Recent art school graduate Bekah thought she’d hit the jackpot: an unknown relative died, and she inherited a small fortune and a huge house in the mountains of North Carolina. Trey Howard, the lawyer who handled the estate, is a handsome man in his 20s and they hit it off right away - and soon become more than friends. Bekah expected a pleasant year to get her head together and have a romantic fling. Problem is, the house is full of junk...and siblings she didn’t know she had are willing to kill her for it.

Once a student of alchemy with the dark scholars of the Technic League, Alaeron fled their arcane order when his conscience got the better of him, taking with him a few strange devices of unknown function. Now in hiding in a distant city, he's happy to use his skills creating minor potions and wonders - at least until the back-alley rescue of an adventurer named Jaya lands him in trouble with a powerful crime lord.

The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew break it to her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars.

Rodrick is a con man, as charming as he is cunning. Hrym is a talking sword of magical ice, with the soul and spells of an ancient dragon. Together the two travel the world parting the gullible from their gold and freezing their enemies in their tracks. But when the two get summoned to the mysterious island of Jalmeray by a king with genies and elementals at his command, they'll need all their wits and charm if they're going to escape with the greatest prize of all - their lives.

When the leader of the ruthless Technic League calls in a favor, the mild-mannered alchemist Alaeron has no choice but to face a life he thought he'd left behind long ago. Accompanied by his only friend, a street-savvy thief named Skiver, Alaeron must head north into Numeria, a land where brilliant and evil arcanists rule over the local barbarian tribes with technology looted from a crashed spaceship.

 Captain Felix Duval and the crew of the Temerarious quietly patrol a remote Mentak Coalition colony system where nothing ever happens. But when they answer a distress call from a moon under attack, that peaceful existence is torn apart. They rescue a scientist, Thales, who's developing revolutionary technology to create new wormholes. He just needs a few things to make it fully operational...and now, ordered to aid the scientist, the Temerarious is targeted by two rival black-ops teams intent on reacquiring Thales.

The balance of power is shifting, with bold new alliances, unknown invaders, and the rumored return of the galaxy's ancient masters. When black-ops spy Amina Azad saves a Hacan ambassador from assassination, she draws him into her investigation of a vast conspiracy: unseen forces are destabilizing the whole galaxy, at the worst possible time. Pursued by agents from dozens of other factions, they can only make progress by allying with their apparent enemies. But even they might be compromised—duped into action by a secret puppet-master. 

 Bianca Xing has spent a lifetime on a provincial planet, dreaming of travelling the stars. When her planet is annexed by the Barony of Letnev, Bianca finds herself being taken into custody, told that she's special - the secret daughter of a brilliant scientist, hidden away on a remote planet for her own safety. But the truth about Bianca is stranger.

In his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, H.P. Lovecraft famously noted, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. Dark Hall Press is proud to present our Cosmic Horror Anthology, 10 tales of nameless terror from some of the most exciting voices in the field. From stories of subtle, invasive menace to tales of full-fledged cyclopean horrors; from alien worlds to the yawning holes in perception where strange forces lurk; where nature takes on a terrifying sentience and one is not safe even in dreams.

What would you do if you woke up and found yourself in a parallel universe under an alien sky? This is the question Zax Delatree must answer every time he closes his eyes. Every time Zax Delatree falls asleep, he travels to a new reality. He has no control over his destination and never knows what he will see when he opens his eyes. Sometimes he wakes up in technological utopias, and other times in the bombed-out ruins of collapsed civilizations.

Pirates and kraken, boats and submarines, deadly sirens, mermaids, and the women who face them all. These are our heroes. High seas adventure, fantasy, and magic weave together in this sapphic anthology focusing on the joy of the unbounded oceans.

Captain Felix Duval and the crew of the Temerarious quietly patrol a remote Mentak Coalition colony system where nothing ever happens. But when they answer a distress call from a moon under attack, that peaceful existence is torn apart. They rescue a scientist, Thales, who's developing revolutionary technology to create new wormholes. He just needs a few things to make it fully operational...and now, ordered to aid the scientist, the Temerarious is targeted by two rival black-ops teams intent on reacquiring Thales. 

For charming con man Rodrick and his talking sword, Hrym, life is all about taking what you can and getting away clean. But when the pair are arrested in the crusader nation of Lastwall, Rodrick faces immediate execution, with Hrym spending the rest of eternity trapped in an enchanted scabbard. Their only hope lies in a secret government program in which captured career criminals are teamed up and sent on suicide missions too sensitive for ordinary soldiers.

Zaltys is a girl like any other to grow up ranging thejungles of the Southern Lluirwood. She’s a crack shot with a bow and no stranger to the dangers that lurk beneath the deep forest canopy. On expedition with her family to harvest the forbidden terazul flower, a powerful drug that has gathered many a dreamer into its narcotic embrace, Zaltys is about to unearth a truth long buried by the feculent loam of deception.

The best writers of our generation retell the classics. Literature is filled with sexy, deadly, and downright twisted tales. In this collection, award-winning and best-selling authors reimagine their favorite classic stories, ones that have inspired, awed, and enraged them; ones that have become ingrained in modern culture; and ones that have been too long overlooked. They take these stories and boil them down to their bones, and then reassemble them for a new generation of listeners.

Turn on, tune in, and drop-dead! Whispers from the Abyss returns with this best-of audio collection, which brings together some of the best tales published in this long-running Lovecraft-inspired anthology series. Find out why Amazing Stories Magazine described Whispers from the Abyss as HP Lovecraft's "mutant bastard offspring, whose mission is to misbehave dreadfully and have a wonderful time doing so. 

Das Geheimnis zur Herrschaft über die Galaxie ist auf einem weit entfernten Planeten versteckt, und interplanetare Mächte würden alles tun, um es zu entschlüsseln. Der zweite Band, nach Zerbrochene Leere, der epischen Space Opera im Universum des beliebten Brettspiels Twilight Imperium. Bianca Xing hat ihr Leben auf einem Provinzplaneten damit verbracht, davon zu träumen, die Sterne zu bereisen.

Darrin's life has been going downhill ever since his girlfriend Bridget walked out on him without a word of explanation six months ago. Soon after losing her, he lost his job, and his car, and eventually his enthusiasm for life. He can't imagine things getting worse - until he sees Bridget again, for the first time since she walked out, just moments before she leaps to her death from a bridge. In his quest to find out why Bridget took her own life, he encounters a depressive (and possibly immortal) cult leader.