Obstinate Pride

Earth was invaded. Earth was conquered. And humanity was summarily subjugated, as 400,000,000 people were culled. The terrifying part was this only took the Peacekeepers a second. There wasn't even a chance for us to fight back. In the blink of an eye, questions like whether or not we're alone in the universe or at the top of the food chain were answered. We were not. Not by a long shot. Despite the mass murder, the Peacekeepers promise they're benevolent. They don't want to rule Earth. They don't want to control humanity. They just want us to stop playing around with AI and genetics.

Matt's just an ordinary guy, but when he's beaten, robbed, and left for dead, bleeding out at the bottom of a gully, it all has to change as he grasps frantically at his only chance for survival, coming as it does in the form of a glowing, dangerously pulsing light. With his reality forever altered, Matt must quickly find a suitable place to deploy the Dungeon Core, fighting his way through the hundreds of people between him and safety, because if he doesn't do it soon, a Core Detonation will solve all of his problems for him....permanently.

As an engineer on the arkship Pilgrim-9, bound for the Tau Ceti solar system, Morgan Hall thought his life would revolve around maintaining and repairing the ship and supporting the needs of the five thousand colonists aboard. But when he’s roused early from a 240-year stasis, he’s confronted with chaos. Along with his shipmates, Morgan is brought down to a planet teeming with peril. Forced to fight for their survival without any of their tech to hand, they must adapt quickly to overcome countless threats in a world where magic is as real as science.

When Calamity lit up the sky, the Epics were born. David's fate has been tied to their villainy ever since that historic night. Steelheart killed his father. Firefight stole his heart. And now Regalia has turned his closest ally into a dangerous enemy. David knew Prof's secret and kept it even when Prof struggled to control the effects of his Epic powers. But facing Obliteration in Babilar was too much. Once the Reckoners' leader, Prof has now embraced his Epic destiny.

Gorm Ingerson knows the king is a fink. With the land’s insidious ruler hell-bent on his destruction, the axe-wielding Dwarf berserker is desperate to beat him to the punch. But when he discovers the rotten regent’s claim of a town razed by the world’s richest dragon is false, the gruff adventurer fears there’s more than a personal grudge at stake.

Brian Fieldings just buried his dad and lost the only job he's ever had. Waking up in an unfamiliar, pitch-black room the next morning feels a lot like the rotten cherry on a particularly awful sundae. Especially given the inhuman howling coming from the other side of the door. He's only been conscious for a minute or so, but Brian already has questions. Where is he and how did he get here? What is making those terrible noises? And why does the room he's in have an altar?

There are whole anthologies of stories out there about what humankind does when a game enters their world. But what about when they're living in one where a game arrived thousands of years before? What if they're the survivors of a bloody struggle, having fought for and earned their place on the planet? Tailyn Vlashich was a young nobody far away from all those grander issues. All he cared about was one thing: making his way through a harsh world where the emperor, evil foes, and an impartial god held sway.

Enemies emerge everywhere. Stagnation starts seeming standard. Results require Ruthlessness. Joe has been moving deeper into his study of ritual magic and further away from his combat team. He's learning more and more, but more often than not needs to choose between his research and squad leadership. Improving the town is a huge help to the guild, and they have been pushing to increase their power. Their rapid increases have not gone unnoticed. The guild receives an ultimatum, delivered by assassins and signed with blood.

The decision to start a new life is never an easy one, but for Joe the transition was far from figurative. Becoming a permanent addition to a game world, it doesn't take long to learn that people with his abilities are actively hunted. In fact, if the wrong people gained knowledge of what he was capable of, assassins would appear in droves.

The theft of the Best Idea in the Universe from Thresia's Intergalactic Bank of Ideas plunges the Discovered Universe into chaos. With a robotic partner who’s not the machine he fell in love with and a mind as cool and measured as a forest fire, Isaac must unravel a cosmic conspiracy that stretches further than the reaches of even his depraved imagination. Earth and Thresia teeter on the brink of war as the race to recover the Best Idea intensifies. Yet in this bizarre Universe, truth proves stranger - and far more perilous - than fiction.