The world called out for a hero to purge it of a great evil. It received Broccoli Bunch: explorer, expert cleaner, occasional ghost-buster, and full-time Cinnamon Bun.

Catherine "Cat" Leblanc is an orphan that is about as far from super-rich as one can be. When the Incursion alarms start blaring and the sky starts raining hungry xenos, it's just another blemish on an already piss-poor afternoon.

The Worldwalkers of legend are beings touched by Fate and transported from another realm, tasked with a grand destiny. Traditionally, they prevent great cataclysms or the fall of empires. Whatever their undertaking, their appearance brings about momentous change. It’s been some two hundred years since the last Great Game, but the time has come again. Seven are chosen, and the game begins once more . . .

To enter Five Peaks Magical Academy, you must have a familiar. Abigail hoped for a bird - maybe an owl, like that of her best friend - or a cuddly cat, or perhaps a loyal hound. She even would have been happy with a particularly smart toad. Instead, she got you.

It's a hard life for a young mortal girl, living on the streets. After Lee Jia narrowly escapes a fate worse than death, her last ditch effort to flee her pursuers and survive the winter finds her accidentally enrolled in a brand-new academy for immortals. Now faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Lee Jia will have to survive a violent roommate, arrogant young masters, and—worst of all—social hierarchies in order to carve out a place for herself in the world of magic, martial arts, and cultivation.

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.

There is no weapon more powerful than the [Psychokinetic] mind. Astrid, a mischievous noble teen, long dreamed of exploring the ancient cities preserved beneath the waves, left behind from a time before the ocean swallowed the world. She's been training all her life to become a magic swordsman capable of doing just that. But when an ancient monster long thought dead assaults humanity's last bastion–a floating ship-city–she awakens her System early.

A soul from Earth awakens as Seventh Princess Adelheid of the Vuldar Empire. With a weak body but a monstrous reservoir of mana that threatens her very life, Adelheid engraves an oath into her very soul. She shall seize the throne at all costs, but with ambitious cousins and discontent nobles, her father and brother are far from her only rivals. Experience Adelheid's journey through victory and loss to achieve her deepest desires.

Dorky, socially awkward entomology student Evelyn wakes up one morning to find herself as some sort of alien-human hybrid trapped on an unknown planet. Once the initial panic winds down, she quickly learns she's capable of producing more of herself: additional bodies all sharing one mind. Being well-versed in sci-fi tropes, she quickly resolves to not devour the planet and turn into an unflinching biological armada, and instead uses her new powers to try and help as many people as possible. Unfortunately, it turns out that helping people is often very, very difficult.

Hannah has a routine. Wake up, take a shower, go to school, go to work, come home, and pass out. It's a perfectly normal routine for a perfectly normal girl who does not have to remember how her limbs work every morning because of haunting nightmares of being a very different creature in a very different world. That's all she thinks they are—nightmares—until one night, they're all too lucid, and her body on Earth starts to change. Slowly, Hannah's humanity starts to slip away... but surely she can continue just sticking to the routine, right? It'll be fine. It has to be.

Ten years ago, Amelia woke up alone and lost in a broken world where she had to fight for her survival. Now, after reaching the pinnacle of power, defeating the Void itself, and escaping the abyss, she has finally found her way back into the real world. But instead of returning to Earth, she arrives in the land of Vacuos. A fantasy world with magic, monsters, Classes, and Levels. A world that is governed by a System like it were a video game.

Alana wasn’t always a child of the Kingdom of Bergond. In fact, she hails from an entirely different world. But an accident on Earth left her dead, and she was reincarnated as the daughter of a farmer and his wife in the hamlet of Orsken. Now, she’s learning how to live in a land vastly unlike that which she came from—and how to wield the new powers she possesses. For, even by the rules of her strange new home, Alana is special: a young bard capable of mending wounds, counteracting poisons, and healing the sick, all through the use of mana and her own mind.

When Alice Verianna went to sleep, she was just another teen from the Denver suburbs. She definitely didn't expect to be transported to a magical alternate dimension, inhabited by monsters and presided over by a mysterious System. Here, people resemble RPG characters and everyone has access to their own status screens. Grappling with the mechanics of the elusive System isn't the only challenge Alice faces. It seems an underground organization known as the Society of Starry Eyes has taken a particular interest in other dimensions.

Dragons, catgirls, guns, and magic—oh, and the ability to stop time. What more could a modern gal want? Well... If my past would stay locked in a dark corner back on Earth, that'd be nice. Right, there was that one other thing: finding a way home before the world ends. But hey, that's what my mom would call the last step in your five-year plan. The first? Play with magic.

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

With an agoraphobic mother and a barely-there father, Sang abhors the isolation keeping her in the shadows. The only thing Sang craves is a fresh start and to be accepted as ordinary by her peers, because for her being different meant being cast out alone. When her family moves to a new school district, Sang infiltrates a group of boys nearly perfect in every way.

Ari had a game plan for life: shoot people. Get money. Hang out with fellow criminal friends. He saw absolutely no reason to change that plan until one dark night in Memphis, when a little girl reached out to him with pocket change and a desperate plea for him to help her. Adopting an abused little girl off the streets was, needless to say, not part of the plan. Ari had no idea what he was doing with an eight year old. He especially didn’t know how to juggle taking contracts and raising a little girl.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn’t usually hang with her own kind. She’s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist - even though Ian doesn’t want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files: documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn’t bargain for is a case that takes her from the frozen outskirts of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta.

Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be - sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. For fans of Silver Linings Playbook and Liar, this thought-provoking debut tells the story of Alex, a high school senior - and the ultimate unreliable narrator - unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. Alex fights a daily battle to figure out what is real and what is not.

From the author of the Chicagoland Vampires novels, a new series about a boarding school filled with something worse than homework. Lily's parents have sent her to a fancy boarding school in Chicago filled with the ultra-rich. If that wasn't bad enough, she's hearing and seeing bizarre things on St. Sophie's creepy campus. Her roommate, Scout, keeps her sane, but keeps disappearing at night. When one day Lily finds Scout running from real-life monsters, she learns the hard way that Scout is involved in a splinter group of rebel teens.They protect Chicago from demons, vamps, and dark magic users....

Charlie Wilde knew her life would change forever when her family moved from the city of Chicago to the suburbs of Arizona...and that was before she found the bracelet. After putting it on, she notices odd things start to happen. Suddenly Charlie seems to have the speed of a cheetah and the strength of an elephant - and that's just the beginning. She would be thrilled about her transformation if she had any idea how to use the device or control her amazing powers.

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been a victim of the system ever since her parents died. Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her computer-hacking skills to stay safely anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in an empty warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side. Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa's talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation called AMRF threatens his life in no uncertain terms.

Ollie Wit is the strongest Shadow Walker born in decades, but it’s a gift with a steep price. Walking in the Shadowlands can bring untold powers and spells, and even greater risks. Every step into that other world brings her closer to the monsters that have haunted her since a child, destroyed her family, and wreaked havoc all around her. Kane knows Ollie is the key to getting the spell he needs and he’s the answer to ending her torment. But it’s a bargain that brings her closer to her own destruction.

The riveting debut work from celebrated newcomer Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer drops a seemingly average boy into the adventure of a lifetime. Sam can’t complain about much, even if his job isn’t the most glamorous one around. But his world gets a whole lot more complicated when he crosses paths with Douglas, a necromancer who gets paid to raise the dead. Douglas thinks Sam might have the right touch for necromancing, and when this turns out to be all too true, Sam faces unimaginable dangers.

Katie Chandler had always heard that New York is a weird and wonderful place, but this small-town Texas gal had no idea how weird until she moved there. Everywhere she goes, she sees something worth gawking at and Katie is afraid she's a little too normal to make a splash in the big city. Working for an ogre of a boss doesn't help. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Katie gets a job offer from Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., a company that tricks of the trade to the magic community. For MSI, Katie's ordinariness is an asset.

It is an obsession that has haunted Nick Malick for seven years - to avenge the murder of his young son. In his gut Malick knows who did it. But the psychopath is in prison for another crime, scheduled to be released in a year. All Malick has to do is wait...and survive.

While looking out the window with her grandma's binoculars, Sammy witnesses a crime across the street at the Heavenly Hotel. What's worse, the thief saw her spying! As Sammy attempts to find the burglar who has made several other hits in the neighborhood, she finds herself trying to keep him from uncovering her - or worse, the police discovering that she's living illegally with her grandmother in the seniors-only housing!

Sadie Hutchins loves her job at the Kentucky Tourism Commission. Not only could her co-workers double as the cast of Parks and Recreation, but she loves finding the unusual sites, hidden gems, and just-plain-odd tourist attractions of her home state. She’s a shoo-in for the director’s job when her boss retires at the end of the year…until hotshot Josh Vaughn shows up to challenge her for the position. Josh is all sophisticated polish while Sadie’s country comfort, and the two have very different ideas of what makes a good campaign.

Kate Connor is your average, everyday mom with two kids, a husband, and one very big secret...she used to be a Demon Hunter for a secret arm of the Vatican. Now retired, she's more interested in the domestic than the demonic. So when she catches sight of a demon in Walmart, she tells herself it's some other Hunter's problem. But when that demon attacks her in her kitchen, retirement is no longer an option.

The world called out for a hero to purge it of a great evil. It received Broccoli Bunch: explorer, expert cleaner, occasional ghost-buster, and full-time Cinnamon Bun.

Nature is dying. Perhaps before the world is turned into an industrious machine, nature itself can play one final trump card to save itself. Summoned to a new world, a mushroom-loving mycologist needs to grow up and grow stronger in order to accomplish the goal that brought them to this new place: to save nature from the system that the sentient races have created. Stats, levels, classes, and skills are all well and good, but when you're a Child of Poverty in the slums of City Nineteen, there's little you can do to change the world. Not unless you're willing to think outside the box!

To enter Five Peaks Magical Academy, you must have a familiar. Abigail hoped for a bird - maybe an owl, like that of her best friend - or a cuddly cat, or perhaps a loyal hound. She even would have been happy with a particularly smart toad. Instead, she got you.

Catherine "Cat" Leblanc is an orphan that is about as far from super-rich as one can be. When the Incursion alarms start blaring and the sky starts raining hungry xenos, it's just another blemish on an already piss-poor afternoon.

They asked Amber to become a magical girl three times. She refused. That only made her more interesting. The fourth time, she asked them.

In this world, where academic success could literally mean the difference between life and death, many students develop emotional baggage. Fortunately for Alexa, she does not suffer from the problems that plague most of her peers. Gifted with an intelligent mind to start, she realized early on that applying herself to both her academic and sports competitions was the number one way to succeed in this world. How can she do it? Shuffle studying, school work, and sports practice, all while being a teenager? The answer is simple: she has no emotions.

Ten years ago, Amelia woke up alone and lost in a broken world where she had to fight for her survival. Now, after reaching the pinnacle of power, defeating the Void itself, and escaping the abyss, she has finally found her way back into the real world. But instead of returning to Earth, she arrives in the land of Vacuos. A fantasy world with magic, monsters, Classes, and Levels. A world that is governed by a System like it were a video game.

The usual result of a human taking a runaway semitruck head-on is a very sudden, very fast track to the pearly gates. But for one newly noncorporeal man, there's another option: become a dungeon. Feeling sorry for the desperate angel assigned to him, the man relents. Heck, if it doesn't work out, he can always chat with Saint Peter about it later. Next thing you know, he's a dungeon. Admittedly, a small run-down, somewhat unimpressive dungeon (more of a house, actually), but you gotta start somewhere, right?

On a typical day, on an average train platform, two warring sister goddesses found their avatars. One avatar, the young Yoshi, was swept away to the world of Ephemera to be a great hero of honor, courage, and light. The other, the not-so-young Seiji, was swept away to become a dark lord out to kill or conquer all in his path. But Seiji is in absolutely no mood for that nonsense. It's bad enough that on Earth he was a closed-off, misanthropic grouch with zero patience for other people. Now he's supposed to muster enough of a give-a-damn to lead vile hordes?

In a world full of super powers, Felix has a pretty crappy one. He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything. Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game. Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities. With that in mind, Felix settled into a normal life. A normal job. His entire world changes when the city he lives in is taken over by a super villain. Becoming a country of one city. A city state.