Epic Classics

Having spent ten years fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus embarks on his journey back to Ithica. To get there he must deceive a giant Cyclops, face Poseidon’s wrath, escape cannibalism, defeat the witch-goddess Circe, skirt the land of the Sirens, sail between a six-headed monster and a raging whirlpool, and escape captivity on the island of Calypso. But perhaps his biggest threat is his prolonged absence from home, as 108 suitors are vying for his wife’s hand in marriage.

The Iliad, set 9 years into the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he wearily travels home from the war. The two epics provide the basis of Greek education and culture in the classical age. They have long remained among the most significant poems of European tradition. Produced here in full cast arrangement and narrated by Rob Goll, one can experience these age-old stories in a brand new way.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war, beauty, and so on) is as changeable as the beings that inhabit its chapters. The sustained thread is power and how it transforms us, both those of us who have it and those of us who do not.

Captain Tamas is an ambitious young officer in the Adran army. As a commoner, he is one of very few without noble blood to hold a rank. When he challenges the son of a duke over an insult, the subsequent duel lands him in hot water with the nobility and the royal cabal of Privileged sorcerers. Tamas is soon drawn into a conflict that goes to the very highest office in the land, and his only ally is the most unlikely of people; a young noblewoman named Erika, who needs Tamas to teach her how to wield her powers as a powder mage.

Kaylin wasn’t sent to the West March to start a war. Her mission to bring back nine Barrani might do just that, though. She traveled with a Dragon, and her presence is perceived as an act of aggression in the extremely hostile world of Barrani-Dragon politics. Internal Barrani politics are no less deadly, and Kaylin has managed - barely - to help the rescued Barrani evade both death and captivity at the hands of the Consort.

After 700 years of being ruled by man, the Parliament of Erl is ready to be ruled by a magical lord. Obeying the immemorial custom, the lord of Erl sends his son Alveric to fetch the King of Elfland’s daughter, Lirazel, to be his bride. Alveric makes his way to Elfland, where time passes at a rate far slower than the real world, wins her hand, and they return to Erl together. Alveric and Lirazel marry and have a son, but marriage between a mortal and a fairy princess is never simple. Lirazel struggles to adapt to the customs of humans.

A sweeping tale of clashing cultures, warring gods, and forbidden love: In AD 1000, a young Inuit shaman and a Viking warrior become unwilling allies as war breaks out between their peoples and their gods - one that will determine the fate of them all.

Drew Michalik was working in a top-secret facility in Washington, DC, when the Advent began. As all electronics in the world simply ceased to work, blue screens filled with information appeared before him. Drew was given access to a mana interface and a limited number of reality-altering crystals called Xatherite. Following the instructions on his vision-impairing screens, he "slotted" his Xatherite and changed his fate: He gained the ability to cast spells. Now alone in the dark, he must battle through the government bunker turned dungeon in a desperate bid for survival.

After a desperate escape from the Blue Stone Island, Skree and his faithful companion Zuka must find a new home for Priestess and the last of the Kobold race. Joining the fiery Captain Fenna Lis and her no-nonsense first mate Hawkins, Skree finds plenty of opportunities to grow in skill and strength. With few options available to him, Skree must provide a haven for his friends and the last survivors of the Kobold race. Luckily, Captain Fenna knows just the right guy to solve their problem, but it won't be easy. Or cheap.

Prospero, a tall, skinny misfit of a wizard, lives in the South Kingdom - a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all loosely loyal to one figurehead king. Along with his necromancer friend Roger Bacon, who has been on a quest to find a mysterious book, Prospero must flee his home to escape ominous pursuers. Thus begins an adventure that will lead him to a grove where his old rival, Melichus, is falsely rumored to be buried and to a less-than-hospitable inn in the town of Five Dials - and ultimately into a dangerous battle with origins in a magical glass paperweight.

Destined from birth to serve as protector of the princess Zariya, Khai is trained in the arts of killing and stealth by a warrior sect in the deep desert; yet there is one profound truth that has been withheld from him. In the court of the Sun-Blessed, Khai must learn to navigate deadly intrigue and his own conflicted identity…but in the far reaches of the western seas, the dark god Miasmus is rising, intent on nothing less than wholesale destruction.

The Kalevala is the signature work of traditional Finnish culture. In story after story, it explores the human and divine world as understood by the traditional runic singers of the north. It sings of how the universe came to be, how the natural world works, how divine and supernatural worlds relate to the world of humankind, how human beings relate to each other, how good and evil and life and death function in the world.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the finest tales of Ancient Greece, an epic journey of adventure and trial standing beside similar stories of Perseus, Theseus and the Labours of Heracles. The finest classic account comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet of the 3rd century BCE and librarian at Alexandria. Though less well-known than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and much shorter, it is an epic poem which is both exciting and moving, with remarkably vivid portraits of the main characters, Jason and Medea.

Out of the smoldering ruins of the war in heaven Archangels Raphael and Michael cannot believe the agreement made between God and his morning star, Lucifer. Unwilling to either destroy the fallen angel or leave him with a free hand upon the world, God sets in motion a struggle that will span the millennia from creation to present day. Two Sentinels are invested with the ability to bend the laws of creation to their will and each represents the primal forces of order and chaos.

Now that Drew has become even more powerful by stepping into the Foundation Realm, new challenges await him. He is quietly growing his school and sect, and allowing his students to recruit whoever they want so he can take it easy. Trouble looms as his old mistakes come back to haunt him. The entire planet is about to be sent down a savage and unforgiving path, and it might be his fault. Monsters are popping up everywhere, packs of deadly animals led by terrible mutants. The worst part? They seem to be steered by some higher power, some nefarious being that holds the reins of the planet.

The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life. But the net around her is closing. Geralt, the Witcher, has assembled a group of allies determined to rescue her. Both sides of the war have sent brutal mercenaries to hunt her down. Her crimes have made her famous. There is only one place left to run. The tower of the swallow is waiting.

Enter the fantastical world of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy, one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Novelist C.S. Lewis called Peake's books "actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience."

Would you - could you? - uphold the law at the cost of those you love? Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats, is on the brink of fulfilling his dead King's dream: Aline is about to take the throne and restore the rule of law once and for all. But for the Greatcoats, nothing is ever that simple.

“His multicultural viewpoint may yet give us the best SF novel of all time” — AnalogFor twenty thousand years, the godlike Inquestors have held sway over the one million worlds of the Dispersal of Man. S.P. Somtow’s limitless imagination has created a universe of breathtaking majesty, amazing beauty, and shattering cruelty. In games of makrugh played in elegant floating palaces, planets are destroyed or saved to preserve the balance of the galaxy. Exotic languages and customs, servocorpses, tachyon bubbles, childsolders with implanted laser-irises, people bins that hold populations ...

On Earth, Hari Michaelson was a superstar. But on Overworld, he was the assassin Caine. Real monarchs lived and died at his hands and entire governments were overthrown...all for the entertainment of millions back on Earth. But now Hari, stripped of his identity as Caine, must fight his greatest battle: against the powerful corporate masters of Earth and the faceless masses who are killing everything he loves.