Science Fiction City

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

Seven years on the run from her abusive father, and with no hope of sanctuary among the dwindling pockets of human civilization, Lark is out of options. Her only leverage is a cursed power: she can thrust fear onto others, leaving all threats fleeing in terror. It’s a means of survival as she searches for a place to call home. If the campfire myths of her childhood are true, Lark’s sole chance for refuge could lie in Cagmar, the city of trolls—a brutal species and the sworn enemies of humanity.

When Gregor falls through a grate in the laundry room of his apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland, where spiders, rats, and cockroaches coexist uneasily with humans. This world is on the brink of war, and Gregor's arrival is no accident. A prophecy foretells that Gregor has a role to play in the Underland's uncertain future. Gregor wants no part of it, until he realizes it's the only way to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job. Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege.

Not everyone managed to survive the bloody battle. The strong, the brave, the courageous, and the good all fell with honor. The war spared few and took away many of the best.... Hadjar Darkhan was one of the few who survived and is now ready to continue his journey. The battle is over, and the dead have been sent on their last journey. The unknown and the perils of the imminent war are still waiting for Hadjar. He can sense that his life is about to be filled with the clang of weapons and armor and the beating of war drums.

Mrs. Moore knew that leaving the city was the best chance that she and her students had to survive the EMP, but when half of her charges refuse to leave she knows she has to stay and try and protect them. Fighting against time and the people in her group that refuse to face the reality of their situation will be a huge challenge. Even after finding a safe haven to wait out the destruction and chaos they are threatened and have to flee for their lives. With her group's numbers lessening at every turn she must lead them on the 1500-mile journey back to Canada.

The Mist Casino sits just above a kemana with an interior that would make a ghost feel right at home. Of course it does. After all, Magic City has to compete with nearby Vegas. Ruby is just back from University for the summer, catching up with an old friend, when everything changes with a bang! A series of small blasts are exploding all around her. Chips are flying through the air. Someone wanted to announce their arrival in town. But who? Ruby is about to get drawn into a battle for control of Magic City. They just made the fight personal. Is the Ebon Dragon Casino next?

Centuries ago, the skies turned black, and for 300 years, Londoners survived in the dank, underground tunnels of the city. Until one day, a stranger from a faraway land offered to save them. Though it wasn’t without cost...and he has come to collect. When Selene is taken to Master Blackburn’s infamous estate, she fears she and the orphans she’s sworn to protect will meet a gruesome end, like so many others before them. But the beastly landowner is not all there is to fear, and Selene soon learns nothing in Briarwood is as it seems.

Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse. What will be the spark that lights the conflagration? Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood–that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

The Twelve have been destroyed, and the 100-year reign of darkness that descended upon the world has ended. The survivors are stepping outside their walls, determined to build society anew - and daring to dream of a hopeful future.

Seventeen-year-old Fallon Bane was born with a curse: A single touch from another person will always cause her excruciating pain. Thus, she has accepted that she will die without ever being kissed, without even hugging her own father. But when her beloved father falls ill, she breaks into the magical Gilded City to find a healer fae who can save him. When handsome healer Ariyon Madden agrees to help, everything she knows about herself and her curse changes. Because during her father’s healing, Ariyon reaches out and touches her bare skin. She waits for the agony...but it never comes.

Mya's world is falling apart. After a series of earthquakes, deadly animals with glowing red eyes begin attacking people and start the spread of a zombie-like plague. Safety is just a memory as she tries to make her way home. When a different creature attacks the people helping her reach Oklahoma City, Mya is sure she'll never see the light of another day. Despite his eerie green eyes and very sharp teeth, the grey-skinned creature is more intelligent and humanlike than he first appears. He's determined to keep Mya by his side and protect her.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely considered the greatest of Russian science fiction masters, yet the novel they worked hardest on, the one that was their own favorite and that listeners worldwide have acclaimed their magnum opus, has never before been published in English. The Doomed City was so politically risky that the Strugatskys kept its existence a secret even from their closest friends for 16 years. It was only published in Russia during perestroika in the late 1980s, the last of their works to see publication.

The first in an all-new futuristic fantasy series from Keri Arthur - the New York Times best-selling author of the Souls of Fire novels. When the bombs that stopped the species war tore holes in the veil between this world and the next, they allowed entry to the Others - demons, wraiths, and death spirits who turned the shadows into their hunting grounds. Now, 100 years later, humans and shifters alike live in artificially lit cities designed to keep the darkness at bay....

Billy Chan and his friends have been transported 5,000 years into the future where the evil Dragon of Death has become ruler of Dragon City. Humans now live to serve the dragon population, and it's no different for Billy, Charlotte, Dylan, and Ling-Fei. After losing contact with their own dragons, they're determined to track them down in this new city, even if it means putting their own lives at risk. But one dragon has turned to the dark side and has no plans to return.

Year 2142: Earth is 30 years past a near-collision with the asteroid Sessho-seki. Akira Kimura, the scientist responsible for eliminating the threat, has reached heights of celebrity approaching deification. But now, Akira feels her safety is under threat, so after years without contact, she reaches out to her former head of security, who has since become a police detective.

The last time Matteo tried out for the Rangers, he lost an arm. In a world plagued by monstrous threats, Matteo is granted a second chance to join the elite Rangers—the monster hunters protecting the city atop a giant turtle. With the promise of wielding a powerful magical artifact, he vows to excel in boot camp and make this opportunity count. Yet, as he endures the grueling trials of the Ranger training, a dark revelation surfaces: their ranks are thinning at an alarming rate.

In Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the seeds of a deadly plant grant sorcerers immense power, but turn its users into inhuman killers. In the exclusive, long-awaited sequel Conan and the Living Plague, a Shemite wizard seeks to create a serum to use as a lethal weapon. Instead he unleashes a hideous monster on the city of Dulcine. Hired to loot the city of its treasures, Conan and his fellows in the mercenary troop find themselves trapped in the depths of the city’s keep. To escape, they must defeat the creature, its undead followers, then face Lovecraftian horrors beyond mortal comprehension.

Rudolf Sebestyen is missing, and Marianne Smalls is involved in an illicit affair with the shady Jonas Schmitt. Both cases converge when Dora Urban, Rudolf's beautiful and mysterious half-sister, and Lamont Smalls, Marianne's suspicious husband, hire Jack Mitchell, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking private investigator. Dora wants Jack to uncover what happened to her brother, while Lamont seeks proof of his wife's infidelity. But Dora is a vampire, in a city teeming with creatures of the night. As Jack dives deeper, he discovers that both cases are linked to vepratoga.