Dramatized Science

It's become the fastest - and surest - way to get from here to eternity. Somebody is playing the railroads like a giant train set, causing high-speed derailments that strew the rails with headless victims from coast to coast. And could the repeated sightings of a ghostly samurai swordsman be fact or mass hysteria? As the carnage continues unchecked and the body count mounts, Dr. Harold Smith suspects the train terror is merely a decoy for the real target.

In the days leading up to Christmas, struggling actress Esther Diamond is working as a singing-and-dancing elf at Fenster & Co, a major Manhattan department store. As if dealing with hordes of holiday shoppers isn't bad enough, Esther's ex-almost-boyfriend, Detective Connor Lopez, is on the scene investigating a series of mob-related truck hijackings of Fenster's merchandise. Semi-retired hitman Lucky Battistuzzi is also nosing around, since the mob resents being implicated in thefts they didn't commit.

As peace talks proceed between the Low Kingdoms and the country of Outremer, Hawk and Fisher are assigned to work with the Guard's SWAT (Special Wizardry And Tactics) team to stop a riot in Haven's largest prison. The riot turns out to be a cover for something much more elaborate and dangerous, involving a renegade sorcerer, a terrorist who will stop at nothing to undermine the peace negotiations and an ancient magical secret.

Her feet are barely on Indian soil when archaeologist Annja Creed finds herself swept up in Hyderabad's modern prosperity. But something about the recent spate of killings seems unusual and Annja begins to dig deep for answers. Instead, she finds herself taken prisoner and held in a maze of ancient caves. She's being held captive by a cult of thieves who are under the thrall of a charismatic leader.

The war of Honce drags on, and the roads and seas are littered with bodies. To everyone's stunned disbelief, Yeslnik the Fool has tipped the war's scales in his favor. The reign of the newly self-appointed King Yeslnik is already distinguished as the most bloody and merciless in Honce history. Trapped, Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan concoct a desperate plot to join forces with Laird Ethelbert, the lesser of two vicious evils. But Ethelbert's paid assassins slew Jameston Sequin and nearly did the same to Bransen.

The Krakau came to Earth in the year 2104. By 2105, humanity had been reduced to shambling, feral monsters. In the Krakau’s defense, it was an accident, and a century later, they did come back and try to fix us. Sort of. It’s been four months since Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos learned the truth of that accident. Four months since she and her team of hygiene and sanitation specialists stole the EMCS Pufferfish and stopped a bioterrorism attack against the Krakau homeworld. Four months since she set out to find proof of what really happened on Earth all those years ago.

In the year 2060, Zach Johnson, the world's only freelance private investigator, tackles his strangest case yet - solving the murders of two elves at the North Pole. Santana Clausa, the micro-mini-skirt-clad bombshell and frost-haired mutant who runs the Pole, hires Zach to stop the killer or killers before they strike again, destroying the holiday for billions. If the media gets whiff of the murders at the "happiest, safest place on Earth", mass panic is sure to ensue - and that's never a good thing.

Ryan Cawdor has been narrowly rescued from a harrowing, uncontrolled plummet through the maelstrom of time, only to find himself stranded in a place outside of the reality he knows, his savior not quite the man he appears to be. At the Cawdor family home of Front Royal, the companions meet Ryan’s long-lost son, who is no longer who he once was. They learn Front Royal has fallen to invaders, forces under the command of a longtime bitter enemy and constant nemesis.

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began to develop terrifying powers - summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Overnight the rules changed...but not for everyone. Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an army bureaucrat whose worst war wound is a paper cut. But after he develops magical powers, he is torn from everything he knows and thrown onto the front lines.

Former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has a price on his head and a mark on his soul. After his goddess was murdered, Aral found refuge in the shadow jack business, fixing problems for those on the fringes of Tien’s underworld. It’s a long step down from working for the Goddess of Justice, but it gives Aral and Triss - the living shadow who is his secret partner - a reason to get up in the morning.

Three years ago, an archaeological expedition led by Vatican scholar Juan Vargas discovered something unusual on the shores of the Dead Sea. Early the next morning, Father Vargas, and the artifact he uncovered, disappeared without a trace. Until now. An injured and badly dehydrated Father Vargas wanders out of the New Mexican desert, telling a wild story about a secret research installation and bloodthirsty demons hunting men through its halls.

After Tyvian Reldamar gets double-crossed by his business partner, he is affixed with an iron ring that prevents the wearer from any evildoing. Not one to be deterred by this setback, he quickly puts into motion a plan for revenge - one that will use every dirty trick in the book. But things are never simple for mastermind Tyvian, especially not after he uncovers a sinister plot: evil wizard Banric Sahand is planning to decimate the city of Freegate.

In the aftermath of the cold-blooded assassinations that killed her parents and shattered the Vatta intersteller shipping empire, Kylara Vatta sets out to avenge the killings and salvage the family business. Ky soon discovers a conspiracy of terrifying scope, breathtaking audacity, and utter ruthlessness. The only hope against such powerful evil is for all the space merchants to band together.

Kane and his fellow Outlanders are thrown into a world where the nuclear war never happened but a clandestine war rages on against the sinister forces that still rule humanity. Here, this deadly spectre has openly revealed itself - as mankind's great benefactors. As Kane and his band meld with their doubles in this new reality, their quest to change history is confronted by ultimate evil.

Figrin Da'n and the Modal Nodes - bopping Bithians and members in good standing of the Intergalactic Federation of Musicians - were under exclusive contract to Jabba's Palace. They were hoofing it up when Jabba's arch rival sent E522, a recycled assassin droid, to make them an offer they couldn't refuse.

The mysterious prophecy that has shaped the life of Kelvin Knight Hackleberry and his family seems nearly to have run its course. The Two Kingdoms that were joined by Kelvin to form Kelvinia have now been united with three others, to make a great confederation under the rule of the young twin kings, Kildom and Kildee. Kelvin has earned some time to rest with his family. Charles and Merlain are now 20 years old, and so is Dragon Horace, their brother who is the Great King of all the land.

Steeped in beauty and mysticism, the canyons of Mesa Verde, Colorado, survived the blast that altered the American west. Hired to track a group of missing children, Ryan Cawdor and his band follow the trail to a legendary city carved in stone, older and stronger than the nukecaust. The inhabitants of the palaces of light are more than warriors and survivors; they are masters of mind games that prey on illusion. And true believers in a metaphysical end game poised to push the companions over the edge of reality…into certain death.

The world's last freelance detective, Zach Johnson, must find the assassin who murdered Sexy Sprocket and two other members of the World Council. His investigation leads him to the moon - and to a tall, sensuous, blue-haired beauty named Lea who possesses psychic powers and powerful ambitions....

The losers of World War II and their descendants have carved out their own little slice of heaven in the mountains of Argentina. In this staging area to the Fourth Reich, the promise of the dream reborn dawned as bright as a new German mark. But when the Destroyer's brain was downloaded onto disks, he took the whole matter very personally. That put an end to the whole affair - almost.

Fish are mysteriously disappearing from the coastal waters of the United States and it's anybody's guess what the problem is. Red tide, pollution? But soon angry fingers point north, to Canada and the two countries trade threats and insults, all signs of neighborliness gone. Forced to consider losing this vast resource, America is in shock. Fish devotees may see it become a coveted delicacy of the past, but the situation is much graver for Remo and Chiun. Possibly they'll have to eat nothing but rice and duck for the rest of their lives.