When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end. All because of a stupid heart attack. While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he's transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters. Follow him as he builds roads and shops, hires heroes, develops alliances with neighboring villages...but also fights terrible foes.

A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over. For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters. Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end. He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape the war's devastating effects on the world.

Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed... The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System... or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion. Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.

It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

I guess trying to catch the bus with your laces undone isn’t such a smart decision after all… One fatal collision later, and I’m facing my judgment. As it turns out, I’ve been a lazy sob, and my short, uneventful life of playing games and getting up late wasn’t worth much. And so I don’t qualify to move on to the afterlife. I try to argue to the goddess in front of me that I do have skills, that it was hard work playing those simulation and management games. But she will not concede. In the end, I manage to get the benefit of the doubt, and a wager is made.

Unless you’re like me: a little too carefree, and take a nap that ends up lasting a few thousand years. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up to find that the face of Liora had changed entirely. Gone was the dominion of elves over the world. I had landed right into a period of intense land grab, where Champions were fighting to stake their claim. For any regular chump, this might have seemed like the worst time to resurface, but I’ve lived a long life, and where others see peril, I see opportunity.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body. Arrogant Masters? Heavenly Tribulations? All that violence and bloodshed? Yeah, no thanks. I’m getting out of here. Farm life sounds pretty great. Tilling a field by hand is fun when you’ve got the strength of ten men—though maybe I shouldn’t have fed those Spirit Herbs to my pet rooster.

Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

Every year, the empire administers the rite of passage into adulthood. That rite serves to identify those blessed by Aether to become magi. The new magi are shipped to the academy to learn the arts of magic. The academy is a dangerous place; the tournaments held twice each year can cripple or kill the students, and the clans of the empire will go to great lengths to recruit the students they want. Gregory had one dream: to become a magi like the legends of old. Though he was ridiculed by the residents of the village and his unsupportive father, he never wavered from his dream.

Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that? When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange magical card system that gives them magical powers.

Arthur lives with his father, a fallen but proud former noble, in Border Village #49, along with the other good folks condemned to toil in service to the Baron. But Arthur has an edge: a stolen heart card that secretly fell into his possession, thanks to a dragon. It’s a priceless source of power for the Baron and the tyrant will kill to get it back. Invaluable, too, to a young man of spellcasting ambitions.

After dying and being reborn into a world that's built like a video game, Jim has found himself stuck in a very old-world style new-player zone for low-level adventurers. Unfortunately, the zone fell out of use centuries ago, and no one told the monsters they were supposed to take it easy on the Noobs. Even worse, the only new player around is Jim. Jim has been given an opportunity, and he'll do his best to take advantage of it.

Just yesterday, Ben was a petty criminal getting by on fleecing New York’s one-percenters. Today, he's got a new face, a new name, and a new world to navigate. And Ben’s thinking maybe this time around, he’ll use his skills at disarming and deceiving to help out people other than himself. Maybe. Watching a medieval City Guard fight off a 20-foot-tall ooze that crawled up from the sewers will make you think twice about life decisions.

Ryker only has one goal in his life right now: Turn a certain adventuring guild into a flaming wreck while dancing merrily through the smoldering ruins. All for the chance to get back at a handful of people. It isn’t as if they didn’t deserve it either. They had driven him from his home. Chased him physically from the very guild house itself. Simply because he wasn’t as strong as they expected him to be. As strong as he’d expected himself to be. He’d returned the next day and left with something he’d hidden away and told no one about when he found it in one of his few Dungeon Dives.

The Unincorporated Man is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed.

With her phenomenal Mage Winds trilogy, bestselling author Mercedes Lackey captivated fans across the country. Now in the first volume of the series sequel, she continues the same storyline, returning readers to a war-torn Valdemar in preparation to confront an ancient Eastern Empire - ruled by a monarch whose magical tactics by be beyond any sorcery known to the western kingdoms.

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles - and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief.

Welcome to the world of the Instrumentalities of the Night, where imps, demons, and dark gods rule in the spaces surrounding upstart humanity. At the edges of the world stand walls of ice which push slowly forward to reclaim the land for the night. And at the world's center, in the Holy Land where two great religions were born, are the Wells of Ihrain, the source of the greatest magics.

New York Times best-selling author Eric Flint has received glowing critical praise for his Ring of Fire alternate history series. In this first installment, a West Virginia town is transported from the year 2000 to 1631 Germany at the height of the Thirty Years’ War. Thrust into conflict, the town residents must also contend with moral issues such as who should be considered a citizen.

Launch day. That was what they called it. The day when over four million people vanished in an instant from the island of Manhattan. The day earthquakes ravaged the east coast. The day a 101-kilometer tall tower rose from the wreckage of the now empty city. The day every screen, newspaper, and smart phone displayed a single message from an unknown source: The Great Emperor has issued his challenge.

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

Tasked with a new assignment, journalist Harriton is given explicit orders to write a series of articles on the Virtual Gaming World of Fayroll and its developers. Harriton grudgingly accepts the assignment but soon finds himself enthralled by the virtual fantasy world and its amazing quests, unpredictable challenges and nearly endless possibilities.

The first book in an action–packed new SF adventure series. Vulcan is a factory planet, centuries old, Company run, ugly as sin, and unfeeling as death. Vulcan breeds just two types of native: complacent or tough. Sten is tough. When his family is killed in a mysterious accident, Sten rebels, harassing the Company from the metal world’s endless maze-like warrens. He could end up just another burnt–out Delinquent. But people like Sten never give up.

Years have passed since the last of the Dark Gods was defeated, and Lothion has entered an age of peace and prosperity. Mordecai’s oldest children have already begun to make a place for themselves, and his youngest are on the cusp of adulthood. By every outward measure, his life has been a success; he has earned his reward. However, Tyrion, the first wizard and brutal liberator of mankind, has returned with an agenda of his own, and dark things continue to stir at the edges of civilization, threatening to undo Mordecai’s accomplishments.

All Doctor Dire wants to do is save the world. But those pesky heroes keep getting in the way, and it's all she can do to give them a good fight without killing them. Supervillainy is such an underappreciated job these days....

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: Humanity has conquered all those things and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life - and they are commanded to do so in order to keep the size of the population under control. Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe - a role that neither wants. These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

To save his people and the forbidden magic they're sworn to defend, Wardin Rath surrenders his birthright and his past. For seven years, he's held at the court of his deadliest enemy, oblivious to all he's lost. Until one day, the spell that stole his memories begins to crack. On the heels of a harrowing escape, Wardin's quest for answers leads him to the last magistery, where he studied magic as a boy. But he'll find no safe haven there - or anywhere.

Will Stark is a self-made multibillionaire, happily married, and a proud father. He arrives home to find his house destroyed and his family murdered and is himself rescued from certain death by a mysterious trio. His rescuers are part of a splinter faction of a centuries-old secret society that has developed incredible technological advances and unlocked the method to release humanity's innate potential. Will was mistakenly believed to be a key dissident and fugitive, on the run from the primary group, known as the Aliomenti.

When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end. All because of a stupid heart attack. While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he's transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters. Follow him as he builds roads and shops, hires heroes, develops alliances with neighboring villages...but also fights terrible foes.

The gods should have agreed to fight the giants and let Ragnarök run its course and bring about the end of time. For a new world could only rise from the ashes of the old. But because the gods prophesied to die refused to take part, Yggdrasil - the World Tree - was forced to act before the stalemate led to the annihilation of the nine worlds and its very existence. And so I was born. One of the many seeds dispersed by the mighty World Tree, I was teleported through different planes and universes to find a new home where to settle.

Maulkin didn't know dying would mean a new eternity of dungeon delving, monster slaying, and glory hunting. If he had, he wouldn't have been so worried about kicking the bucket on a date gone even more wrong than usual. Reborn in the wild world of Amaranth, Maulkin finds himself in a hulking demi-human body with a sword of a size to match. Marked as an Eternal, a fledging immortal of boundless potential, Maulkin soon discovers he's been given a mission by the elder pantheon of this new realm.

I guess trying to catch the bus with your laces undone isn’t such a smart decision after all… One fatal collision later, and I’m facing my judgment. As it turns out, I’ve been a lazy sob, and my short, uneventful life of playing games and getting up late wasn’t worth much. And so I don’t qualify to move on to the afterlife. I try to argue to the goddess in front of me that I do have skills, that it was hard work playing those simulation and management games. But she will not concede. In the end, I manage to get the benefit of the doubt, and a wager is made.

Unless you’re like me: a little too carefree, and take a nap that ends up lasting a few thousand years. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up to find that the face of Liora had changed entirely. Gone was the dominion of elves over the world. I had landed right into a period of intense land grab, where Champions were fighting to stake their claim. For any regular chump, this might have seemed like the worst time to resurface, but I’ve lived a long life, and where others see peril, I see opportunity.