Dramatized Fantasy

Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night, Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world.

Police Chief Delaney Reed can handle the Valkyries, werewolves, gill-men and other paranormal creatures who call the small beach town of Ordinary, Oregon their home. It’s the vacationing gods who keep her up at night. With the famous rhubarb festival right around the corner, small-town tensions, tempers, and godly tantrums are at an all-time high. The last thing Delaney needs is her ex-boyfriend reappearing just when she's finally caught the attention of Ryder Bailey, the one man she should never love.

Mankind has ceded the night to the corelings, demons that rise up out of the ground each day at dusk, killing and destroying at will until dawn, when the sun banishes them back to the Core. As darkness falls, the world’s few surviving humans hide behind magical wards, praying the magic can see them through another night. As years pass, the distances between each tiny village seem longer and longer. It seems nothing can harm the corelings, or bring humanity back together.

It is 1944. A message from Paris warns Allied Intelligence of something big in the works - something which might have serious implications for D-Day. The only way to get more information from the agent in Paris - now closely watched by the Gestapo - is to send in a personal courier. Russian émigré Michael Gallatin is picked for the job. In retirement as a secret agent since a grisly episode in North Africa, Gallatin is parachuted into occupied France, on a mission which will take him to the festering heart of the Third Reich on the scent of doomsday.

After discovering just how filled with magic, intrigue, and adventure the parahuman world of being an Undead American can be, Fredrick Frankford Fletcher did exactly what was expected - he became a certified parahuman accountant. Myths and legends, as it turns out, are not so great at taking appropriate deductions and keeping their receipts, and Fred is more than happy to return to a life others view as woefully dull, expanding his accounting business to cater to various monsters and their respective financial needs.

After several years as a vampire, starting a business, founding his own clan, and proposing to his girlfriend, Fred is finally beginning to settle into life as an undead accountant. Unfortunately, not everyone is happy about his continued survival, or the dangerous friends he's made along the way. The Blood Council has dispatched a representative to determine if Fred is fit for the position he currently fills as head of a clan, and the stakes for failure are deathly serious. Worse, Fred will have to muddle through without the help of Krystal, who is off on a mysterious task of her own.

She calls herself Calexa Rose Dunhill. She has been living - hiding out - in Dunhill Cemetery ever since someone left her there to die. She has no idea who wants her dead or why, but she isn't about to wait around for her would-be killer to finish the job. Despite her self-imposed isolation, Calexa’s ability to see spirits - and the memories she receives from them - guarantees she’ll never be alone, even among the deceased.

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....

After questing through the sidhe realms with her ex-hellhound lover, Nathan, Kai Tallman Michalski has finally returned home. But she knows Nathan will eventually be called back to serve his queen - and Kai will have to decide whether to enter her majesty’s service as well. Sure, the job comes with great bennies, but there’s one big downside: She would have to swear absolute fealty to the Queen of Winter.

In the realm of Imphallion, there once was a nightmare - a living nightmare known only as the Terror of the East. Nigh invulnerable in his magical black armor and aided by unholy minions, he laid waste to all in his path on his all-consuming quest to bring order to the land. His order. Then, at what should have been his moment of triumph, his will failed. And his army fell. Taking a young noblewoman as hostage, he escaped, vanishing into darkest memory.

She calls herself Calexa Rose Dunhill - names taken from the grim surroundings where she awoke, bruised and bloody, with no memory of who she is, how she got there, or who left her for dead. She has made the cemetery her home, living in a crypt and avoiding human contact. But Calexa can’t hide from the dead - and because she can see spirits, they can’t hide from her. Then one night, Calexa spies a group of teenagers vandalizing a grave - and watches in horror as they commit murder.

Alcatraz Smedry is up against a whole army of Evil Librarians with only his friend Bastille, a few pairs of glasses, and an unlimited supply of exploding teddy bears to help him. This time, even Alcatraz's extraordinary talent for breaking things may not be enough to defeat the army of Evil Librarians and their giant librarian robots.

When her police contact asks her to look into a "suicide", she suddenly finds herself in a labyrinth of deception, drugs, murder - and all-too-human corruption. The cops are her allies, except for the ones who want her dead. The hellbreed are her targets, except for the ones who might know what's going on. Her city is in danger, time is running out, and each lead only draws her deeper. How far will a hunter go when her city - and her friends - are on the line? Just far enough.

"Work Sets You Free" by David Barnett is an original short story featuring the protagonist of the forthcoming novel Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl. Gideon is a young fisherman in Yorkshire, England, in an alternate 1890, who embarks on a journey to find Captain Lucian Trigger, the famed Hero of the Empire, to deal with a mystery plaguing his home village.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap out of the audio, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse.

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.

Caim makes his living on the edge of a blade, but when a routine job goes south, he is thrust into the middle of an insidious plot. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers, and sorcery from the Other Side, his only allies are Josephine, the socialite daughter of his last victim, and Kit, a guardian spirit no one else can see. But in this fight for his life, Caim only trusts his knives and his instincts, but they won't be enough when his quest for justice leads him from Othir's hazardous back alleys to its shining corridors of power.

Captain Cade Williams and the newly formed Echo Team are sent to the city of Boston to investigate reports of a mysterious blood cult and the disappearance of several members of the Templar Order. What they find will have repercussions that echo well into the future....This story introduces the character of Cade Williams, a former Boston SWAT officer who developed certain unusual powers in the wake of an encounter with a supernatural entity known as the Adversary.

Deathlands is a living hell, but there is someplace worse: a parallel Earth where the atomic mega-cull never happened. Now this Otherworld Earth is in its final death throes. Yet for an elite few, the reality portal offers a new frontier of raw energy, expendable slaves — a bastion of power for Dredda Otis Trask. Her invasion force of genetically engineered warrior women has turned the ruins of Salt Lake City into the deadly mining grounds of a grotesque new order — one that lies in wait for Ryan and his companions.

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.