Dramatized Science Fiction

The Krakau came to Earth to invite humanity into a growing alliance of sentient species. However, they happened to arrive after a mutated plague wiped out half the planet, turned the rest into shambling, near-unstoppable animals, and basically destroyed human civilization. You know - your standard apocalypse. The Krakau’s first impulse was to turn around and go home. (After all, it’s hard to have diplomatic relations with mindless savages who eat your diplomats.) Their second impulse was to try to fix us.

War has come to Melengar. To save her kingdom, Princess Arista runs a desperate gamble when she defies her brother and hires Royce and Hadrian for a dangerous mission. As the power of the Nyphron Empire grows, so does Royce's suspicion that the wizard Esrahaddon is using the thieves as pawns in his own game. To find the truth, he must unravel the secret of Hadrian's past - what he discovers may end their friendship and break Riyria in two.  

London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast. Gideon Smith dreams of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, told in Gideon’s favorite “penny dreadful.” When Gideon’s father is lost at sea in highly mysterious circumstances Gideon is convinced that supernatural forces are at work. Deciding only Captain Lucian Trigger himself can aid him, Gideon sets off for London. On the way he rescues the mysterious mechanical girl Maria from a tumbledown house of shadows and iniquities. 

Warlock Holmes may have demons in his head, but now Dr. John Watson has a mummy in his bloodstream. Specifically that of the sorcerer Xantharaxes, who when shredded and dissolved in an 8 percent solution, results in some extremely odd but useful prophetic dreams. There's also the small matter of Watson falling for yet another damsel-du-jour, and Warlock deciding that his companion needs some domestic bliss....

After his son gives him a pair of "X-ray" glasses as a gift, Martin Blackstone tries them on just for the hell of it - and all they do is give him a headache...until he sees things he can’t possibly be seeing. Glimpses of things on the other side of a wall or beneath someone’s clothing. He wants to believe it’s just his overactive imagination, but the “X-ray” specs actually work.

Andrew Dare is a werewolf. He’s the enforcer for the Roanoke pack, and responsible for capturing or killing any Were intruders in Roanoke’s territory. But the lone Were he’s tracking doesn’t smell or act like anyone he’s ever encountered. And when he catches her, it doesn’t get any better. She’s beautiful, she’s crazy, and someone has tortured her by injecting silver into her veins. She says her name is Silver, and that she’s lost her wild self and can’t shift any more.

Coel ap Math and Snorri Yaroslav serve on the Frontier with Debts of Commission they can never hope to pay. When an enemy no one believes exists wipes out their detachment, the two warriors find themselves disgraced, destitute, and dishonorably discharged. They are soldiers without a cause, and must pay off their commissions or face a lifetime of indentured servitude or a rope. When an Eastern sorcerer makes them an offer they cannot afford to refuse, they join a disparate band of associates. Each has their own tale of woe. Each has their own reasons for serving the sorcerer.

Apropos is a rogue, a rascal, a scoundrel, a cheat...and those are his good points. Lame of leg but fast of wit, the only reason Apropos doesn't consider chivalry dead is because he's not yet through with it. An orphan with a chip on his shoulder, Apropos, travels to the court of the good King Runcible, with three goals in mind: to find his father, seek retribution for the death of his mother, and to line his own pockets. However, Apropos carries the most troublesome burden a would-be harbinger of chaos can bear: He may well be a hero foretold, a young man of destiny.

More than 1,500 years after his disappearance into the mists of Avalon, King Arthur has returned. This time, he's prepared to rule the Camelot of a new millennium: New York City. Handsome, charismatic Arthur Penn is running for mayor on a platform of common sense, humor, and knightly virtues. His advisors include a gifted 10-year-old named Merlin; Percival, an immortal accountant; and Gwen, a lovely young woman with no end of problems. 

Unaware of the forces marshaled against him, Captain Phinneus Shae and the crew of the Talion are headed into uncharted waters. With a doggedly determined killer from his past on his trail and cold-blooded pirates all around him, Shae’s contract to recover the treasure from a sunken ship seems destined to fail. But other, more nefarious individuals are after that same treasure, and whatever it is, it is destined to change the future of the Iron Kingdoms. Whether for good or ill all depends on who finds it first and who is buried at the bottom of the sea in the end....

GFL star Quentin Barnes is an orphan born into a culture that prizes family connections above all. He spent his youth struggling with poverty. When he signed his deal with the Ionath Krakens and became rich, one of the first things he did was hire a private detective to find out if his family is still alive. The Detective is the story of that search, as seen through the eyes of Frederico Esteban Guissepe Gonzaga — a.k.a. “Fred,” a master of disguise and a truly dangerous human. But Fred’s past is just as big a mystery as is the whereabouts of Quentin’s family.

Vampires don't exist, do they? That is a question Private Detective Tony Mandolin finds himself pondering as the evidence piles up in a case involving a string of dead redheads and the usual dose of weirdness San Francisco has to offer. To complicate things, Mandolin has to deal with the perception that he has become the latest golden boy of the fog city's crime boss. Then there's his cross-dressing friend Frankie.... Just another day in San Francisco.

Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. A banker's wife belongs to a secret order of assassins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fingers are in everyone's business, may know more about the town's true origins than he's letting on.

The ancient races, the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, are dying. By creating Mankind, the universe has condemned Earth to a pestilence of destruction and fear. Prince Corum is the last remaining Vadhagh. He sets out on a crusade of vengeance against the forces that slaughtered his family and his race, to challenge the unjust power of the puppet masters of Man: the Lords of Chaos. Along the way he will barter with his soul for the limbs of gods to repair his mutilated body and will encounter a member of the very race who caused the mutilation, the irresistible Rhalina....

Frustrated by her pathetically useless powers, Larkspur can only dream of being accepted by true elementals. And as the bastard daughter of the king, she lives under the constant wrath of his jealous wife. When she’s falsely accused of attacking the cruel woman, she must choose between military service or banishment...and both lead to certain death. Seizing her slim chance for survival, Lark embarks on training as a soldier for the unforgiving kingdom. But though she excels in her new role, it may not be enough to stay safe from a queen out for her blood.

Private first-class Wayson Harris was raised in a U.A. orphanage among thousands of clones born and bred as the ultimate soldiers. But Harris isn't like the other Marines: He has a mind of his own. He figures he's paying for that independent streak when his first assignment out of boot camp is the smallest Marine outpost in the whole U.A. When a rogue general surfaces, the remote desert world Harris thought was a dead-end posting becomes anything but. Fighting off the general's raid gains Harris a promotion. But it also brings him to the attention of some unfriendly U.A. leaders.

Xriah and Vylis, two avatars, both empowered with differing superhuman abilities, are repeatedly thrust into wildly varying worlds to do battle on behalf of their respective deities. Though the nature of their deities is shrouded in mystery, both avatars' faith in their purpose is strong and unwavering. On each successive world they seek one another out, and then it is a battle to the death, despite the fact that both the defeated and victor alike are reborn and plunged into yet another world, to begin the fight all over again.

A vengeful ghost trapped in a goblin's ear...a flaming spider who must help stop a goddess from conquering a science-fiction convention...a goblin nursery worker who finds herself trapped in the middle of a war. This collection features six humorous short stories that explore the fantasy realm from the perspective of the lowest of the low, the unlikeliest of unheroes: the goblins.

Michael is branded a traitor as a child because of the murder of the king’s nine-year-old son by his father, David Kingman. Ten years later on Michael lives a hardscrabble life, with his sister, Gwen, performing crimes with his friends against minor royals in a weak attempt at striking back at the world that rejects him and his family. In a world where memory is the coin that pays for magic, Michael knows something is there in the hot white emptiness of his mind. So when the opportunity arrives to get folded back into court, Michael takes it, desperate to find a way back to his past.

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.