After years of service in the Imperial Expeditionary Force, Jol Rivers has found a tentative home in Littlereach, where he makes a living as a blacksmith. One day, however, a beautiful mage arrives and tells him that he has a mysterious magical power hidden within the items he forges, one that could defeat the malignant forces threatening the Second Empire. She invites him to the Lyceum, an institute for mages where he can develop this power.

I used to be the greatest Earth Mage in my world. The head of the entire Order of Architects. But the older you get, the more you come to realize that at some point, you need to retire, so that you can have the chance to enjoy a peaceful life and to cede your place to the young, some of whom have already turned two thousand years old . . .So that's what I did. But I failed to account for one thing: during the course of my long life, I'd accumulated too many enemies, and they had decided to spoil my retirement. So they died along with me. And I hope their deaths were final. But mine was not!

Otto Shenk is the youngest son of a minor baron. He's also a wizard. Abused by his family and considered less than human by his kingdom, Otto does his best to survive. But everything changes when Otto stumbles across a tower hidden deep in a dark part of the forest near his home. A tower that was once the home of an Arcane Lord, the immortal wizards that long ago ruled the world. Otto’s life will be changed forever. And so will the world.

I was a Hunter, and I honored the Code. For my services to humanity and for leading a "proper" life, I was to be rewarded. A new life after death, and a new world to give me some well-deserved rest. But something went wrong. Once again, I must fight. The Monsters that face me here are far more terrifying than those of my past life. They are cleverer, crueler, more unpredictable. And their name is.

I had lain down in my crypt to rest for a few decades, but when I awoke, centuries had passed. My castle is in ruins, my clan is gone, and necromancers are considered just a fairy tale for children. They take me for a healer. That's because the world is sick. And it's time for strong medicine.

Freddy Stern, a twenty-one-year-old cashier, has lived a plain, albeit harsh life. Having been orphaned—twice—he's spent the last ten years working and staying out of trouble. His only aspiration is to save enough money to become an archhuman. His dream gets the jump on him when he barely survives a near-death encounter and finds himself in possession of 1% Lifesteal, a bizarre talent with numerous contradictions and just as many uses.

Daisuke Kugo was born to a family of skilled fire magic users. As the eldest son, he was to become the next clan head. Then came his thirteenth birthday and his spirit awakening ceremony. He failed, getting badly burned in the process. Rejected by the spirits, Daisuke is quickly banished to a Swiss boarding school. After graduation, Daisuke wonders Europe, collecting magical items and knowledge. Though the fire spirits rejected him, he is highly skilled in other forms of magic.

The stronger his opponent, the harder he hits. Saving an innocent from a drug-crazed superhuman should've left Nil broken. Instead, it wins him the Nexus' attention. Nil is done feeling small and watching his family scrape by. He now has the opportunity to make a difference. Apocalypse Arena holds the key; where the multiverse's champions battle and keep the Scourge at bay. Pain, death, and heartbreak await all who run the gauntlets, but Nil has what it takes to grapple his way to the top.

I was the most powerful healer in my world—the best, having devoted my entire life to mastering the art of healing. And yet, for whatever reason, my brother feared that I sought to claim his throne, and he marshaled his forces against me.

Danny Youngblood's destiny was fire magic, just like every man in his family. But fate had other plans. When he enters the prestigious Imperial Mage Academy, his powers manifest as something far more rare and dangerous. Monster Summoning! Now, Danny's a walking dungeon core, able to absorb creatures and unleash them as powerful allies.

It’s Drop Night, the one night every decade when the gods hand out cards to a lucky few. If you get a deck, you’re a deckbearer capable of wondrous feats within the Great Game system. You can control powerful monsters and summon mantles that let you fight alongside your beasts. Ethan Wolfe, top enforcer for the Grimm family mob, has already been overlooked on two previous Drop Nights. People of his ilk seldom receive cards, as the gods tend to favor people who follow their divine mandates, but that doesn’t mean Wolfe can’t hope.

So you died a horrific death in your own world? No problem! Maybe you are exactly what an dying old mage needs to resurrect the princely line of the Morozov family. An old maniac sliced a couple of people to bits right before your eyes? Relax! Now he's your teacher, and he's going to guide you along through life. What? You've actually seen real demons? Huge, ten-foot-tall monsters wielding axes? Take a chill pill! They appear pretty frequently in unexpected places all over the world and wreak destruction.

The heroes Terry Fairway once idolized have turned against him, hunting him down at every turn. His grandfather, the ruthless S-ranked necromancer who rules the city, watches from his throne as the people starve and suffer. Vampires stalk the streets unchecked, feeding on the innocent without fear of reprisal. Terry always believed his family were the good guys, but Wichita isn't a city of heroes or villains—it's a city of power. And if power is all that matters, then power is what Terry will seize.

I guess you could call my latest job interview a success. I got hired, and it's way beyond my wildest dreams. The pay isn't great. And the hours are pretty much 24/7. But there's magic. And a portal to a fantasy world. Those kind of outweigh the negatives. At first, I thought I was just testing the latest VR survival RPG, but I'm starting to think this might not be a game after all. The monsters are definitely life-like and capable of carving me apart on their worst days. But on their best days, I make them mine.

Hatched from an egg along with their many brethren, a singular arachnid is driven by a survival instinct to hunt and feed. Unlike their siblings, they remain cautious and observant, aware of the dangers that lurk in the dungeon they call home. They watch as larger and more powerful beasts prey on other reckless, foolish spiders, developing a sense of self-preservation and a cunning intelligence they alone seem to possess.

Compiled by intrepid journalist Neve Pride, this archive of recordings spans the months after dragons emerged on earth, chronicling the communities that sprang up amid the destruction, the scientists, military leaders, and experts searching for a defense, and those steadfastly seeking the missing. Neve and her young daughter Bex travel among the wreckage speaking to those left behind and surviving, against all odds. Neve records everything for history, and in the hopes of locating a clue as to where the dragons came from and how one might stop them.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Otto Shenk is the youngest son of a minor baron. He's also a wizard. Abused by his family and considered less than human by his kingdom, Otto does his best to survive. But everything changes when Otto stumbles across a tower hidden deep in a dark part of the forest near his home. A tower that was once the home of an Arcane Lord, the immortal wizards that long ago ruled the world. Otto’s life will be changed forever. And so will the world.

I've traveled back twenty-two years to rewrite the future and stop the nightmare threatening Earth. An apocalypse looms, promising total annihilation. No one will be spared. Now the weight of the world rests on my shoulders; I'm the one tasked with changing everything. I have come back to the past, and in five days, on the twenty-sixth of April, the day of reckoning will arrive. The event that will happen will be known as the Eclipse in the future. It will divide the history of the Solar System into a before and after.

The galaxy is much larger than the crew of the Junkyard could've anticipated. Their little corner is now being set upon by the savage, elf-like race known only as the Valtukta. Soon they are captured and experimented on in an attempt to create the ultimate weapon for their Valtukta front lines. What the Valtukta weren't counting on are the skills Dax has spent his entire professional career developing. Using these skills Dax is able to mount a prison break freeing his crew and the others held against their will.

In a world where family secrets unravel and identities shatter, Troy’s life takes an unexpected turn. His home is no longer a sanctuary, and his family’s truths are nothing but a web of lies. Cast adrift with only a battered ship, a cryptic name, and a distant destination, Troy embarks on a perilous journey to unravel the mysteries of his past.

To gain an advantage over the Soviets, the CIA uses genetic testing to identify children who are more than human and place them in the Greenhouse, a covert school to turn them into weapons in the war against the Soviets. Lynna Harrison, who is half-human and half-sea dragon, is among the first of these children.1983Lynna and her teammates are using their powers to aid in the Agency's black ops, an advantage the Soviets have yet to discover. That's until Lynna goes on a mission in East Berlin and learns someone in the unit is planning to trade their secrets.

Eric Grayson was just a welder by day and fantasy junky by night. His free days were spent camping in the woods and reading. When he falls through a crack in the foundation of reality his life is going to get a lot more interesting. Making his way through the sea of chaos, he finds himself, with a little help from a Goddess, in a new universe, on a new planet. Eric must discover the answer to a question. How to change the mind of an empire?

It is 1659 and Mary Newbury, theyoung granddaughter of a witch, sees her wise and beloved grandmother tortured and hanged as a servant of the Devil. Then a stranger with hauntingly familiar eyes approaches her with an opportunity - safe passage to America. But the difficult ocean voyage only leads her to a community of inflexible, fearful grownups who try to decide for her who and what she will be. Mary must disguise herself as a pious Puritan girl, hiding her true nature, or else face terrible danger once again.

When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye. Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner...and the dead man.

A candid exploration of the state of outrage in our culture and how we can channel it back into the fights that matter, from presenter and DJ Ashley 'Dotty' Charles. Ours is a society where many exploit the outrage of others in order to gain power - and we all too quickly take the bait. But by shouting about everything, we are in fact creating a world where outrage is without consequence. There is still much to be outraged by in our final frontier, but in order to enact change and become more effective online, we must learn to channel our responses.

In How to Get Over a Boy, Chidera Eggerue will show you, once and for all, how to reframe the stale goal of finding a man. She will equip you with tangible and applicable solutions for every part of your dating life, helping you recognise that men hold as much power in our romantic lives as we grant them. In the past, dating books tend to lean more into the territory of 'how to make him find you hot!', 'how to make him jealous!', 'how to get him to propose!'. But these how-tos are placing men on a pedestal of being 'the prize'. Men are never the prize. You are.

Greg walked into a bar hoping to wash away the sour taste of a bad day at work. What he got instead was a bartender offering him the opportunity of his dreams—with a catch. A ticket to purchase a class that could make him the strongest being alive. If he can afford the asking price. Thrust into a world he knows nothing about, Greg will need power on another level entirely. To get ahead, he'll need the kind of power only deities possess.

Azetla has served the Maurowan Army for thirteen years. There are seven left to pay. A pariah and a debt soldier, he is a commander with no rank, a soldier without citizenship, and wears a sword that it is unlawful for him to either own or use. He has learned to hold his tongue or risk losing everything. When Azetla’s battalion is sent into the desert to catch a Sahr devil—one of the famously brutal inhabitants of the region—his tenuous position is threatened. He discovers that there is far more to this mission than catching a fiend.

Eric was as shocked as everyone else when the apocalypse struck, but unlike his mother's movie, there were no chosen heroes destined to fight the beast hordes now overrunning the planet. Just people trying desperately to survive. Yet there was a glimmer of hope that humanity could hold on to. A chosen few really could level up in this brave new world, and embrace magic, adventure, and the potential for limitless power!

Conquer what may destroy you, though resilience can only get you so far. After one fateful night, Blake's destiny comes into view, and she finds that her life is not of this realm. Asgard is her true home, and she must stop Ragnarök from coming. Will she be able to conquer the darkness within or will it consume her?

Egor, a fresh college grad from Russia, takes his classmate's advice and joins a popular VR game, hoping to earn some cash. With a tight budget that won't cover a full account or a fancy VR immersion capsule, he opts for a free trial account and fires up his ancient gaming console. Egor's plan is simple: mine ore in the sandbox and slaughter hordes of rabbits, all in the name of scoring some sweet loot. Little does he know, he's about to stumble upon an item that will make the game's elite players stop at nothing to take him down…