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.

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...

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...

In this, the first volume of renowned author and historian Peter G. Tsouras’s alternative history trilogy, Great Britain’s support for the Confederacy takes it to the brink of war with the Union. The escape of a British-built Confederate ironclad finally ignites the heap of combustible animosities and national interests. When the US Navy seizes it in British waters, the ensuing battle spirals into all-out war. Napoleon III eagerly joins the British and declares war on the United States.

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.

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...."

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, its the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice.

Echo London never wanted to be the curator of the People’s Library, a digital collection of human consciousness. But when she’s assigned as its head librarian, Echo is entrusted with humanity’s greatest minds and historical figures, all of whom have been recreated through controversial consciousness-capturing technology that lets visitors interact with the dead. But an anti-tech rebellion is stirring. When a rebel attack results in tragedy, a mysterious woman wearing an ancient death mask leaves behind cryptic final words for Echo: It all begins with nothing.

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.

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.

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.

A massive boxed set of nine spellbinding tales of humor and adventure from bestselling authors Piers Anthony (Xanth) and J.R. Rain (Vampire for Hire), including the COMPLETE Aladdin Trilogy. What's inside: Aladdin Relighted (book #1): After stepping down as king to resume treasure hunting, Aladdin is hired to rescue a kidnapped noblewoman's son. The adventure takes a dark turn when a powerful wizard from Djinnland plots to seize Aladdin's kingdom, and the key to stopping him lies in an unexpected ally. Aladdin Sins Bad (book #2): Join Aladdin in a whirlwind of magic, mayhem, and flying ...

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 ...

“An epic reading experience.” —San Diego Union-Tribune Acclaimed, New York Times bestselling fantasist Raymond E. Feist gets his masterful Serpentwar Saga off to a spectacular start with Shadow of a Dark Queen. Feist’s classic epic fantasy adventure returns readers to ever-imperiled...

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...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies.”—Entertainment Weekly We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?)...

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.

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...

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...