The After-Hero, the guy that's always in the heroes' shadow, twisted by existential woes and sexual perversions, wishing to be a protagonist himself... alas no one writes about him.If you're looking for selfless heroes, true love, adventures on the high seas and heroic sacrifices you should go back to reading the Bible. If you're looking for a neurotic protagonist in a trench coat who is willing to become a villain to defeat the villain (and just for fun), if you want to read about a man who compensates for his shortcomings with a short-barreled shotgun and gratuitous violence, if you want to LOL, then this is the story for you. Would you like to see what's under the trench coat, little girl? Views: 550
My name is Haven, and for as long as I can remember, I've had the ability to cause madness with just a simple touch. I've spent my entire life being fear by others and believing I was the only one of my kind. Turn out, I was wrong.After an incident with my powers, I'm sent away to Monster Academy for the Magical, a school where monsters with magical powers are trained.But even at an academy filled with monsters, I'm still feared. And some will do almost anything to get rid of me.Episode 1 in the Monster Academy for the Magical Series. Views: 550
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ravens of Avalon follows the journey of Boudica, a Celtic princess, and Lhiannon, a priestess who is Boudica's mentor on the Druids' Isle. When the Romans conquer Britain, Lhiannon fights them while Boudica marries a king who has surrendered. Theirs is a great love story, but when he dies, the Romans brutalize Boudica and her daughters. In rage, Boudica rouses the tribes in a quest to drive the Romans from Britain - and the results will seal both her own and Lhiannon's place in history. Views: 550
Free short sci-fi dystopian story first published in The Talking Stick about a group of people about to executed because, though they've done nothing wrong, they are carriers of a fatal flu.It's more than just a cold draft, a simple shadow out the corner of the eye; the sound of movement when no one's there.Olivia Strange just moved into her new apartment with her cat Lexington and already strange things are happening! But can Olivia figure out what's going on or will she be the next person to disappear?Excerpt:A scurry across the floor jerked her head to the side where she saw nothing. She couldn't see the floor well at all from where she was sitting so she eased forward, still holding onto her blanket, to check. She wanted to be sure there wasn't a rat running across her floor. Just as she leaned her body over the edge of the bed is when she felt a shift in the bed around her. It seemed to depress. Her hair stood on end and her arms became riddled with goose bumps, than the light snapped off with a metallic sound.She jumped turning to look at the lamp which was still semi visible in the dark thanks to both the moon light from the open curtains of the windows and her clock. She reached out to turn the lamp back on but nothing. The bulb had blown. A second sound of movement slid across the floor.“It’s okay. Get a hold of yourself.” She mumbled in the darkness letting out another hot breath between her trembling teeth. Her eyes strained to see before she remembered her flashlight tucked away.She reached down to the floor and eased her hand under the bed. Her fingers reaching out for the flashlight she knew should have been within reach, but now, when she needed it most she struggled to find the darn thing. Views: 549
In the final installment of The Tale of Lunarmorte, Caia is caught between the most powerful beings in her world, and they are all desperate to use her for their own means. While Caia struggles to find her purpose, tragedy strikes close to home, and time runs out. Now she must decide if she will join the extremists she was trying to destroy. . . or bring them all down on her own terms. . . Views: 549
Zera is a Heartless – the immortal, unageing soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.
Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a Prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum; if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy her heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.
Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him – every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him – until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The Prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.
So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.
Winner takes the loser’s heart.
Literally. Views: 549
“Hunter De La Croix made only one promise she couldn’t keep—and it was a damn good thing, too.” Rick Kincaid
Everything in Rick Kincaid’s life made sense before he knew there were immortals roaming the Earth, kicking ass and taking numbers. It was enough to give a man a complex, if he worried about such things. Kincaid didn’t. He was too worried about one gorgeous witch and how he’d cure her of all her problems so he could score some fun between the sheets. Only her troubles were enormous, like betraying her friends to Satan—literally. To get what he wanted—Hunter—he’d have to clear her name, find his men and find the answer to the changeling dilemma. Only then could he earn his way to into her arms.
Hunter didn’t know what was worse, waking up to her face half scarred and her left eye damaged or finding out no one but one smart-mouthed mortal would work with her. Partnering up with Kincaid was difficult, even more so because the sexy ex-military didn’t seem to mind that her face was horrifying or that she’d done terrible things. And the longer she worked with him, the harder it was to ignore the fire burning between them. Not even the devil on her trail, a crazy she-wolf or insane, red-eyed monsters chasing them seemed to deter him from his goal—her.
Maybe, for him, she could take a chance and trust him to keep his promise. Views: 549
Three novels of adventure among the stars from the Science Fiction Grand Master and author of Across a Billion Years.
In The Chalice of Death, Hallam Navarre is tasked by his alien master to seek out a fabled weapon on the homeworld of a once-mighty, but long-fallen, empire that is all but forgotten: a planet called Earth. In Starhaven, Johnny Mantell is a fugitive who finds sanctuary on an artificial world run by criminals, only to discover that every haven has its price. And in Shadow on the Stars, Baird Ewing travels to distant Earth on a desperate mission to save his colony from rapacious aliens, but becomes swept up in a bigger war—a war in time as well as space.
As a young man, Robert Silverberg was a science fiction prodigy, turning out top-flight stories in the blink of an eye. Even in those early years, his prose showed evidence of the literary and imaginative qualities that would make him a giant in the field who would go on to win multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards—as this trio of space adventures attests. Views: 549
For fans of fast-paced adventure and compelling characters, the military science fiction of Nebula Award—winning author Elizabeth Moon is the perfect choice.
The brilliantly unorthodox Kylara Vatta, black-sheep scion of Vatta Transport Ltd., one of the galaxy’s wealthiest merchant houses, is a heroine like no other, blessed with a killer instinct for business and for battle. Now, in the aftermath of cold-blooded assassinations that have left her parents dead and the Vatta shipping empire shattered, Kylara faces her greatest challenge yet.
There is a time for grief and a time for revenge. This is decidedly the latter. Placing her cousin Stella in command of the trading vessel Gary Tobai, Ky embarks aboard the captured pirate ship Fair Kaleen on a twofold mission: to salvage the family business and to punish those responsible for the killings . . . before they strike again.
Since the network providing instantaneous communication between star systems has been sabotaged, news is hard to come by and available information impossible to trust. But as she travels from system to system, with Stella a step behind, Ky pieces together the clues and discovers a conspiracy of terrifying scope, breathtaking audacity, and utter ruthlessness.
The only hope the independent systems and merchants have against this powerful enemy is to band together. Unfortunately, because she commands a ship known to belong to a notorious pirate–her own relative Osman Vatta, whom she killed for his part in her parents’ deaths–Ky is met with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Rumors swirl about her intent, her very identity. Soon even Stella begins to question her cousin’s decisions and her authority to make them.
Meanwhile, the conspiracy Ky hunts is hunting her in turn, with agents insinuated into every space station, every planetary government, every arm of the military, and every merchant house–including her own. Before she can take the fight to the enemy, Kylara must survive a deadly minefield of deception and betrayal.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 549
