Contemporary Science Fiction

One corpse. Several bizarre looking attackers. Some very strange magical powers. And a severe bout of amnesia. Madrona is not having a great week. It's going to be okay, though. All she has to do is find out who she really is, protect a soap star from being attacked by a stalker, and work out why so many people seem so afraid of her. Because surely she's a good person. Right?

Her job description is the "tracking and apprehension of mentally-fractured killers". What this really means in FBI profiler Jace Valchek's brave new world - one in which only one percent of the population is human - is that a woman's work is never done. And real is getting stranger every day. Jace has been ripped from her reality by David Cassius, the vampire head of the NSA. He knows that she's the best there is in the business, and David needs her help in solving a series of gruesome murders of vampires and werewolves.

Max Trader is a luthier, a maker of guitars. Johnny Devlin is chronically unemployed. Max is solitary, quiet, responsible. Johnny is a lady-killer, a drunk, a charming loser. When they inexplicably wake up in each other’s bodies, Johnny gleefully moves into Max’s comfortable and stable existence, leaving Max to pick up the pieces of a life he had no part in breaking. Penniless, friendless, homeless, Max begins a journey that will take him beyond the streets of the city to an otherworld of dreams and spirits, where he must confront both Johnny and his own deepest fears.

Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.

As an Agent of Death, Madeline Black is responsible for escorting the souls of the dearly departed to the afterlife. It's a 24/7 job with a lousy benefits package. Maddy's position may come with magical powers and an impressive wingspan, but it doesn't pay the bills. And then there are her infuriating boss, tenant woes, and a cranky, popcorn-loving gargoyle to contend with. Things start looking up, though, when tall, dark, and handsome Gabriel Angeloscuro agrees to rent the empty apartment in Maddy's building

Gabriel Tauhou, the leader of the silver dragons, can't take his eyes of May Northcott - not even when May, who has the unique talent of being able to hide in the shadows, has slipped from everyone else's sights. May, however, has little time for Gabriel - not when she's hiding from the Otherworld law, hunting down a blackmailer, and trying to avoid a demon lord's demands.

As a wealthy few gather to bid on a predator capable of destroying all life on earth, the sorcerers of the Twenty Palace Society mobilize to stop them. Caught up in the scramble is Ray Lilly, the lowest of the low in the society - an ex-car thief and the expendable assistant of a powerful sorcerer. Ray possesses exactly one spell to his name, along with a strong left hook. But when he arrives in the small town in the North Cascades where the bidding is to take place, the predator has escaped and the society's most powerful enemies are desperate to recapture it.

Something weird is happening to the Los Angeles freeways - phantom cars, lanes from nowhere, and sometimes unmarked off-ramps that give glimpses of a desolate desert highway - and Sebastian Vickery, disgraced ex-Secret Service agent, is a driver for a covert supernatural-evasion car service. But another government agency is using and perhaps causing the freeway anomalies, and their chief is determined to have Vickery killed because of something he learned years ago at a halted Presidential motorcade. Reluctantly aided by Ingrid Castine, a member of that agency, and a homeless Mexican boy....

Rose Marshall died when she was 16 years old and on her way to her high school prom. She hasn't been resting easy since then - Bobby Cross, the man who killed her, got away clean after running her off the road, and she's not the kind of girl who can let something like that slide. She's been looking for a way to stop him since before they put her body in the ground.

Constance Verity has been saving the world since she was seven, and she's sick of it. She sets off on one last adventure to reset her destiny and become the one thing she's never been: ordinary. Ever since she was granted a wish at birth by her fairy godmother, Constance Verity has become the world's great adventurer. She is a master of martial arts and a keen detective and possesses a collection of strange artifacts. Constance has spent the past 28 years saving the world, and she's tired of it.

Dr. Veronica Reid is a world-renowned archeologist whose Druid abilities help her to unearth ancient magical items. The arrival of the all-too-attractive and charismatic Arran MacCarrick puts her on the defensive when he begins to question how she really finds her artifacts...until an unknown foe attacks and Ronnie discovers that Arran has a secret as great as her own. Together they unleash an all-consuming passion that won't be denied.

Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in love. But Anouk can never have those things, because she is not really human. Enchanted from animal to human girl and forbidden to venture beyond her familiar Parisian prison, Anouk is a Beastie: destined for a life surrounded by dust bunnies and cinders serving Mada Vittora, the evil witch who spelled her into existence. That is, until one day she finds her mistress murdered in a pool of blood - and Anouk is accused of the crime.

Science Fiction Stories 3 is a mesmerizing anthology of science fiction short stories that transport readers to extraordinary realms, exploring dystopian futures, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and thrilling adventures in space. Discover the Unexpected Delve into the surreal with "You'll Haunt My Dreams," where dreamscapes and reality blur for Shelton and Tevis. Navigate a treacherous political landscape in "Recount," as characters face mysterious census takers with ulterior motives. Unravel the enigma of "Recipe For Death," a story that blends culinary arts with lethal consequences. Confront...

The God Wars destroyed the city of Alikand. Now, a century and a half and a great many construction contracts later, Agdel Lex rises in its place. Dead deities litter the surrounding desert, streets shift when people aren't looking, a squidlike tower dominates the skyline, and the foreign Iskari Rectification Authority keeps strict order in this once-independent city - while treasure seekers, criminals, combat librarians, nightmare artists, angels, demons, dispossessed knights, grad students, and other fools gather in its ever-changing alleys, hungry for the next big score.

Madeline Black is an Agent of Death, meaning she escorts the souls of people who have died to the afterlife. Of course, not everyone is happy to see her... If obstinate dead people were all that Maddy had to worry about, life would be much easier.

The Alaskan wilderness is a harsh landscape in the best of conditions, but with a pack of rogue werewolves on the loose, it's downright deadly. Elena Michaels, the Pack's chief enforcer, knows all too well the havoc "mutts" can wreak. When they hear of a series of gruesome maulings and murders outside Anchorage, she and her husband, Clay, journey to Alaska in the dead of winter in order to hunt down the dangerous werewolves.

In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace---until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He's kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants---the living and the undead.

Death had only ever been a small misunderstanding for the high mage. After his seventh reincarnation, he'd begun thinking of it differently, viewing it as nothing more than a slight hiccup in his plans. But he'd forgotten one thing: When those plans get in the way of those higher up the ladder, punishment is soon to follow. And one more death brought faint consolation.

Every facet of Ivy Pierce's life is meticulously planned out. Cynical and jaded by 16, Ivy's only hope is to escape the legacy she was born into. She has a plan, a carefully thought out escape plan. She just has to play by the rules until everything falls into place. Unfortunately, as predictable as her life can be, she never sees Ryder Sutton coming. He tumbles into her life, unimpressed and untouched by her and the rules she's forced to live by. He's an enigma to her. A gorgeous, frustrating, sincere mystery in the ugly prison of her life.

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.