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.

Casting necromancy without ever learning how to isn't supposed to be possible. A starving orphan girl named Vita is somehow managing it anyway, and she's not sure if this is going to be the solution to her life's problems or a horrifying, spiraling mess of problems she can hardly conceive.

Accidentally murdered by a cleric in another universe during a botched resurrection, Arnold, a semi-pro gamer, wakes upon an altar to find himself incarnated into the overweight body of a farmer who could have been his fatter twin. He’s not the hero. He’s not the villain. He’s certainly not the chosen one who is there to save the world. He’s a clerical error. It could be a bad joke, but apparently, it happens so often that they have a standard procedure for returning you.

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.

Eddie Marr never planned to be a supervillain, but it seemed like a surefire way to become rich and famous. All he had to do was come up with a flashy costume, a signature gimmick, and commit a couple of high profile (yet nonviolent) crimes. Eddie figured he'd eventually get caught and spend a year or two in a minimum security prison. Then he'd write a tell-all book, do the talk show circuit, and parlay that into a regular TV hosting gig.

Ryan "Quicksave" Romano is an eccentric adventurer with a strange power: he can create a save-point in time and redo his life whenever he dies. Arriving in New Rome, the glitzy capital of sin of a rebuilding Europe, he finds the city torn between mega-corporations, sponsored heroes, super-powered criminals, and true monsters. It's a time of chaos, where potions can grant the power to rule the world and dangers lurk everywhere.

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.

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.

What happens when the haggling is done and the shops are closed? When the quest has been given, the steeds saddled, and the adventurers are off to their next encounter? They keep the world running, the food cooked, and the horses shoed, yet what adventurer has ever spared a thought or concern for the Non-Player Characters? In the town of Maplebark, four such NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Milton Frederick never had the chance to live out his life as a professional gamer on Earth, mainly because he was abducted by aliens. Unfortunately, he wasn’t returned home after the typical probing associated with such things to tell an unbelievable story to his friends. Instead, he was summarily killed, and his consciousness was inserted into a Station Core, a giant metal egg-shaped object that could use technology to create traps, Combat Units, and other defenses to protect not just himself, but those he cared about.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

Parties attempting to claim the treasures of the Tortoise Spire of Dalenos are usually composed of six professional climbers. But following a near-disastrous climb, Team Guiding Star Legacy finds itself two challengers short. With Nieve as the frontline fighter, Sage as the strategist, Lani as the healer, and Emiko as the spellcaster, they need a couple powerful allies to round out the squad.

Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written 16 years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich - the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country, but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors.

On a planet where violence and vengeance rule, in a galaxy where some are favored by fate, everyone develops a current gift, a unique power meant to shape the future. While most benefit from their current gifts, Akos and Cyra do not - their gifts make them vulnerable to others' control. Can they reclaim their gifts, their fates, and their lives and reset the balance of power in this world?

On the morning before her 67th death, it is business as usual for Agent Jesse Sullivan: Meet with the mortician, counsel soon-to-be-dead clients, and have coffee while reading the latest in regeneration theory. Jesse dies for a living, literally. Because of a neurological disorder, she is one of the rare people who can serve as a death surrogate, dying so others don't have to. But when Jesse is murdered and becomes the sole suspect in a federal investigation, more than her freedom and sanity are at stake. She must catch the killer herself - or die trying.

Forced to move into the palace, Jessa begins training as a Color Alchemist under the direction of the kingdom's most eligible bachelor, Prince Lucas. As an alchemist, Jessa must capture and harness the color of living things. Every color has a unique purpose except red. Red is the untapped magic no one can access - until Jessa.

Eli knows corruption runs deep within the compound. It's a reality he's forced to confront every year on Bid Day. But when your job is to go out into the radiation-soaked Fringe so that others can live in peace, you don't ask too many questions. For Harper, the bid system works just fine. She's the best developer in her year, and she's confident she'll find a place among the wealthy, respected Systems workers. But when an upset in the bidding changes the course of Harper's future, she'll be forced to rely on an unlikely ally.

For generations, girls known as Spinsters have been called by Arras' Manipulation Services to work the looms and control what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die. Gifted with the unusual ability to weave time with matter, 16-year-old Adelice Lewys is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. But Adelice isn’t interested.

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the 16-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage - alive - is making headlines across the globe. Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn't on the passenger manifest.

Zoey Daniels has been tossed from foster home to foster home, where she grows up fast and tough. When she is placed in her "last chance" home, she finds a reason to stay and turn her life around: her foster sister, Lexie, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. After high school, Zoey is hired by a special government agency, the Department of Molecular Genetics (DMG), where she meets the other reason to remain: Daniel, her coworker. The man she loves. But there is something unique about Zoey.

Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit and see something new. She never intended to fall in love with a boy at space camp. And she certainly never intended to stumble into a frightening plot that just might destroy everything and everyone she cares about. But now there's no going back - Maisie's the only thing standing between danger and annihilation. She must become the hero the world needs before she loses her heart... and her life.

Solara Brooks needs a fresh start, someplace where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. The outer realm may be lawless, but it's not like the law has ever been on her side. Still, off-world travel doesn't come cheap; Solara is left with no choice but to indenture herself in exchange for passage to the outer realm.

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!

In a desperate attempt to escape destruction decades earlier, humankind was forced underground into the depths of the Earth, creating a new society called the Tri-Realms. After her parents and sister are abducted by the Enforcers, 17-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason.

Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than 24 hours. But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape - barely - but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats. On the run, Nax and his fellow failures plan to pull off a dangerous heist to spread the truth.

Rune Saint John, the last child of the fallen Sun Court, is hired to search for Lady Judgment's missing son, Addam, on New Atlantis, the island city where the Atlanteans moved after ordinary humans destroyed their original home. With his companion and bodyguard, Brand, he questions Addam's relatives and business contacts through the highest ranks of the nobles of New Atlantis. But as they investigate, they uncover more than a missing man: a legendary creature connected to the secret of the massacre of Rune's Court.

Seattle, 1913. Dorothy spent her life learning the art of the con. But after meeting a stranger and stowing away on his peculiar aircraft, she wakes up in a chilling version of the world she left behind - and for the first time in her life, realizes she’s in way over her head. New Seattle, 2077. If there was ever a girl who was trouble, it was one who snuck on board Ash’s time machine wearing a wedding gown - and the last thing he needs is trouble if he wants to prevent his terrifying visions of the future from coming true.

The Earth is under siege - and no one knows about it because the invaders erase those whom they consume. A handful of men and women stand on the border between the mundane and the magical. They have a special spark of soul - not quite enough to be naturally gifted in spellcraft but greater than the average person, a tiny flame that can ignite incredible potential. They possess the ability to fight back against the Vorid: the ability to become a Contractor.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.