Alternate World Fantasy

Alternate Worlds is a Magic: the Gathering memoir written by Brian Schneider, one of the game’s early R&D leads, about the fun and merit of growing up a gamer. Consider Alternate Worlds a love letter to Magic: the Gathering, to gamers, and to anyone who woke up one day and thought, “I miss my friends.” If I were to summarize why this book exists, I’d say that I got pretty fed up with the cloning culture in the gaming industry and just wanted to make something that felt like the opposite of that. I wanted to create something that felt loved, just to do it, and Alternate Worlds is that creation.

The iconic, “extraordinary” (The Washington Post) collaboration between bestselling authors Stephen King and Peter Straub—an epic #1 New York Times bestselling fantasy thriller about a young boy’s quest to save his mother’s life. Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most...

“An impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be Stephen King’s greatest literary achievement” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), The Gunslinger is the first volume in the epic Dark Tower Series. A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen...

He wanted a simpler life. He got a deadly forest, a fire-breathing lizard, and a goddess who won’t take no for an answer. Caleb Holt was just out for an evening run when the world split open and swallowed him whole. Now he’s lost in the Gloamwood—a brutal, enchanted wilderness where magic is alive, monsters hunt by moonlight, and the only law is survival. Worse? He’s bonded to a baby firedrake with attitude, and a primal goddess is whispering in his dreams. If Caleb wants to make it out alive—let alone get home—he’ll have to become something more than human. A Gloamwarden. Her...

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.

The forest devours the weak. The crown hunts the bold. Survival means choosing what to sacrifice. Caleb Holt never asked to be a hero. But bound to the Gloamwood as its newest Gloamwarden, he has no choice. The forest demands strength—and it will kill him if he falters. At his side is Snarla, a young firedrake still learning to fly, fierce and fragile all at once. To keep her alive, Caleb must grow stronger than the monsters stalking their path. Tasked with escorting Prince Alaric Fenwood through predator-filled woods, Caleb soon learns the worst threats aren’t claws or fangs—but the ...

Commander Tony Romella takes a small team on what is expected to be a routine one month trip to Casablanca, Morocco. Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting. An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.

Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature ‘quarter turn to the fantastic’ to tell a story of vengeance, power, and love. On a dark...

This book is considered a prophetical novel foretelling the advent of nuclear weapons. A constant theme in Wells’ work, such as his 1901 nonfiction book Anticipations, was the role of energy and technological advance as a determinant of human progress. The novel opens with this: "The story of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal...."

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind Healer Anja regularly drinks poison. Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those...

The world is burning—and the gods are watching. Caleb Holt has survived death, the void, and the failures of his divine patron. Reborn and unbound, he fights not for glory but for the fragile bonds that make him human: the firedrake Snarla who has become his equal, and Serida Vayne—the fallen Veilguard whose courage steadies his own. Together they stand against King Dorian Fenwood, whose obsession with godhood threatens to awaken the ancient serpent Thauron and unmake the world itself. Armies gather in the Rotmarsh, rebels rise from the ashes, and the Chorus Arcanum trembles as ...

In the new world, power reigns supreme. Those that evolve their class, their race, or even their attributes rule those below them. Being given a class is not a guarantee. For some, it takes years, and for others they never reach the Pylons. For Gabe, it was a path of lost patience. He has a dream. He needs to grow stronger. He'll fight, kill, and even sell himself out if it means reaching his goal. The day comes that he finally receives his class. Only the Multiverse has decided to give him the finger alongside nearly fifty thousand others. The only bright side is that he was given the ...

It is the 14th century, and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been - a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.

Mighty Greyboar, the world's greatest professional strangler, is dissatisfied with his lot in life. The work is steady and the pay is good, but what, he wonders, is the point of it all. But when he learns that there is a Supreme Philosophy of Life, Greyboar the Strangler is born again! Still, just how can a professional man in good standing pay the bills with all this philosophical exploration getting in the way.

The fae sow chaos among the alternates. An elite team of resurrected individuals hunts them down. The Walker and his recruits jump into any timeline on any alternate in search of their prey. From the Garden of Eden to the Flood to the far future, they search through corrupted realities sending fae to Judgment. But after centuries of hiding, the fae have found a way to fight back. They will strike the Walker’s headquarters outside of time and space. Now, the hunters have become the hunted. Grab all four books, the complete series, in one box set! An amazing urban fantasy adventure awaits. ...

Here in his first non-Shannara novel, Terry Brooks has written a gripping story of mystery, magic, and adventure—sure to delight fantasy readers everywhere. Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement has promised. But after he purchased it...

From boardrooms to befuddled aliens, what if the high-tech absurdities of modern life accelerated to warp speed? The stories in Neil Rackham's debut science fiction collection, Elliptical Billiard Balls, explore the worlds of business and tech - not to mention English-speaking dogs and aliens who communicate via smells - to create strange new futures.

In an alternate 1875 America, electricity is forbidden, Native Americans and Yankees are united, and eldritch evil lurks in the shadows. Young Archie Dent knows there really are monsters in the world. His parents are members of the Septemberist Society, whose job it is to protect humanity from hideous giants called the Mangleborn. Trapped in underground prisons for a thousand years, the giant monsters have been all but forgotten - but now they are rising again as the steam-driven America of 1875 rediscovers electricity, the lifeblood of the Mangleborn.

Temeraire * Book 2 When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo–an unhatched dragon’s egg–Capt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain’s Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon...