Thomas the Rhymer, legendary twelfth-century figure of traditional Scottish balladry, as you've never seen him before.

Rhymer brings to life Thomas the Rhymer, legendary twelfth-century figure of traditional Scottish balladry, as a champion who must battle the diabolical Yvag—an alien race thought to be elves and faeries—hell-bent on conquering our world. This saga pits Thomas against the near-immortal elves, first with only his wits, then with powers of his own that enable him to take on these evil creatures throughout the centuries. He’s known by many names over time—Tam Lin, Robin Hood, and numerous other incarnations reaching into the present—but at his heart he is still True Thomas, one man doing all he can to save us all from a powerful foe.

When his brother is snatched right before his eyes, Thomas hunts for justice and discovers that not only do these “elves” steal people, but they also are skinwalkers who occupy humans in positions of power. Their goal: to obliterate humanity and take over our world. When Thomas is dragged into their alien realm, he’s imprisoned and barely escapes alive, but in the process he gains near-immortality and the ability to transform himself. Will it be enough to protect his loved ones and defeat the enemies of humankind?

Jethri Gobelyn has risen far: from despised youngest on a Terran family Loop ship to second trader on premier Liaden tradeship Elthoria under the guidance of his unlikely foster-mother Norn ven’Deelin Clan Ixin. Master Trader ven’Deelin has taught Jethri much, and she expects great things from him. Indeed, one might say she demands them.

Jethri has inherited a mission from his father, a plan that will allow family Loop ships like the one he grew up on to survive the encroachment of Rostov’s Dust. In this, he’s backed by several prominent Looper families who are scheduled to meet and plan at the South Axis Trade Fair.

In what seems to be a fortunate pairing of missions, Master Trader ven’Deelin sees Jethri become lead trader on his own small ship, which is scheduled to arrive at the South Axis Fair.

Unfortunately, that “fortunate coincidence” may instead be a test of Jethri’s loyalties, as he’s thrust into a tangle of gray-trading, mistaken identity, misinformation, and galactic politics . . .

John Abbott is all in.

He’s up to his eyeballs in debt to pay for school, and he’s just moved his small family forty light-years from Earth for a plum job with the wealthy interstellar corporation, The Sarovar Company. John’s first assignment is to discreetly investigate possible corruption at the remote Arrowhawk Station, where Company traders buy the famous Sarovari Weave from the three-sided, crablike Weavers.

John finds evidence of theft and worse, but when the guilty parties realize he’s getting close, they come after him and his family. Can John catch the thieves and end their corrupt trade? Can he head off a war between the Company and the Weavers? Can he make a life for his family in this remote wilderness without corrupting himself?

With no way back to Earth, the only direction for John Abbott and his family to go is forward—into danger.

NEW AND CLASSIC STORIES OF TIME TRAVEL MILITARY SF

BATTLEZONE: ETERNITY

Once, military actions were entirely two dimensional, confined to the surface of land and sea, but then submarines and aircraft added a third dimension, vastly extended by spaceflight. Now, consider that if time travel is possible, the fourth dimension of time opens up new possibilities for combat, necessitating new defenses, new strategies and tactics. A battle that was once decisively won might be refought, or a narrow victory might be subtly tilted to the other side. Never mind the history books, they’re only works in progress. There might be even more than four dimensions involved, if parallel universes and alternate realities exist and can be accessed. Imagine a universe where Rome never fell and its troops want to do something about our universe, where it did fall. Or another where more recent wars turned out very differently. Battle is a recurrent motif in the Earth of this universe, and would alternate realities be different or all too similar, with the tune the same, but different lyrics. Supplying the lyrics for spacetime combat in these pages is an all-star general staff including Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, John C. Wright, H. Beam Piper and more. It’s zero hour, in whatever time stream, so grab your time-appropriate weapon, be it sword or ray blaster, buckle on your general issue timeporter belt, and follow the Time Troopers into action across strange aeons!

THEY WANT TO RESCUE DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. THEY HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS.

The continuing adventures of Indrajit and Fix.

WELCOME TO KISH

Indrajit and Fix are the founding partners of the Protagonists, a jobber company in Kish. Since the seven great families of Kish farm out all tasks they and the city need doing, a jobber might one day unblock a well; the next, man a tollgate for the fair; and on the third, hunt down a murderer on the loose, all in a corrupt old city that isn’t so much governed as kept barely in bounds.

Indrajit is a poet of a dying race, looking for his successor. Fix is a failed monk, pining for his lost love. They’re swordsmen and thinkers, heroes in their hearts and in their deeds. They also recover stolen documents, unravel financial fraud, escort shipwrecked diplomats, and hunt in the ruins beneath the city for missing academics. Meanwhile, the criminals they investigate, rival jobbers, sorcerers, spies, assassins, and other mysterious parties get more and more reason to want the Protagonists dead.

Welcome to Kish.

Beginning a New Series by a New York Times Best-Selling Author.
Will the People of Earth Bow Down to
Alien Overlords—or Will They Live Free or Die?

First Contact Was Friendly

When aliens trundled a gate to other worlds into the solar system, the world reacted with awe, hope and fear. But the first aliens to come through, the Glatun, were peaceful traders and the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Who Controls the Orbitals, Controls the World

When the Horvath came through, they announced their ownership by dropping rocks on three cities and gutting them. Since then, they've held Terra as their own personal fiefdom. With their control of the orbitals, there's no way to win and Earth's governments have accepted the status quo.

Live Free or Die

To free the world from the grip of the Horvath is going to take an unlikely hero. A hero unwilling to back down to alien or human governments, unwilling to live in slavery and with enough hubris, if not stature, to think he can win. Fortunately, there's Tyler Vernon. And he has bigger plans than just getting rid of the Horvath.

The Troy Rising series is a story in three parts—Live Free or Die being the first part—detailing the freeing of Earth from alien conquerors, the first steps into space using off-world technologies and the creation of Troy, a thousand-trillion-ton battlestation designed to secure the Solar System.

There wasn’t much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. And thanks to his Kadolian partner Selene’s ultrasensitive sense of smell, they occasionally discovered a medically promising seed or spore they could sell under the table. It was a quiet life, uneventful and mostly legal.

Until Roarke was approached by two men with a proposal: track down a mysterious woman named Tera and, through her, locate a secret project called Icarus.

The challenge was intriguing. The unlimited budget was tempting. But Roarke had a more personal reason to accept the job.

The chance for long-delayed payback.

A search for a missing woman exposes a conspiracy that could threaten an entire planet.

Cassandra Blake, an employee for the Ascension Planetary Holdings Group—the largest and most powerful corporation in Nova Columbia—has gone missing. And her sister wants to know why. When questions need answering on Nova Columbia, Detective Ezekiel “Easy” Novak is the man folks turn to. But what begins as a routine missing person case quickly turns into something much bigger and more sinister, with implications that could affect the entire planet. It seems Cassandra wasn’t just investigating her employer. She had uncovered a secret effort to excavate and exploit an ancient alien artifact known only as The Seraph. Soon, Easy finds himself trying to unravel a conspiracy that may implicate not only Ascension but the highest echelons of the Terran Confederation itself.

Robosoldiers. They take many forms, from disembodied AI to humanlike androids and more. But at their cores beat the cybernetic hearts of warriors! In these stories of hard military SF you will journey to the battlefields of tomorrow with the veterans who have been there and the researchers developing the next phase of battle and get a glimpse into the future of warfare.

New stories from David Drake, Richard Fox, Weston Ochse, Martin L. Shoemaker, T.C. McCarthy, Brad R. Torgersen, and more!

A VAST EMPIRE'S GREATEST FOE. A CONQUERED PEOPLE'S LAST HOPE. HIS NAME IS HANUVAR, AND HE WILL SET HIS PEOPLE FREE!

The Dervan Empire has at last triumphed over Volanus, putting the great city to the torch, its treasures looted, temples defiled, and fields sown with salt. What little remains of Volanus is scattered across the empire, its wealth plundered and its survivors sold into slavery. It is an absolute victory for the Dervans in every way but one.

Hanuvar, last and greatest general of Volanus, still lives. He now travels the length of the Dervan Empire that conquered his homeland, driven by a singular purpose—to find what remains of his people who were carried into slavery across the empire, and free them from subjugation by any means necessary.

Against the might of a vast empire, he had only an aging sword arm, a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, and the greatest military mind in the world, set upon a single goal. No matter what the empire musters against him, no matter what man or monster stands in his way, from the empire’s festering capital to its furthest outposts, Hanuvar would find his people, every last one of them.

And he would set them free.

SOMEONE IS KILLING THE TWELVE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. AT LOCH NESS.

Ishmael Jones travels to the Scottish Highlands on a mysterious dual mission in this intriguing, genre-blending mystery.

The Organisation has despatched Ishmael and his partner Penny to Coronach House on the shores of Loch Ness where the secretive but highly influential Baphamet Group are holding their annual meeting. The Organisation believes an imposter has infiltrated the Group and they have instructed Ishmael to root him—or her—out. It’s not Ishmael’s only mission. The first agent sent by the Organisation has been found dead in her room, murdered in a horribly gruesome manner. Ishmael must also discover who killed his fellow agent, Jennifer Rifkin—and why.

Dismissive of rumours that the legendary “Coronach Creature” is behind Jennifer’s death, Ishmael sets out to expose the human killer in their midst. But he must act fast—before any more Very Important People are killed.

Behind enemy lines and displaced in time!

Before the Battle of Trenton, George Washington reputedly threw a coin across the river. What if that coin was a bicentennial quarter?

When a squad of ROTC cadets training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in November 2008 find themselves transported to December 1776 in the days before the Battle of Trenton, they find a Continental Army in disarray and General George Washington contemplating the potential of a bleak future. To make matters worse, they’ve lost a modern M-16 rifle to a roving Hessian patrol. Understanding the ramifications of such a discovery, the cadets have no choice but to report to General Washington. Without ammunition or their own meager supplies, can Cadet Sergeant Jameel Mason and his friends steel Washington’s courage and set the infancy of the United States of America back on track?

A Russian ICBM site is attacked just north of the Ukraine border. The nuclear warheads are missing! A Special Operations and Intelligence Community Task Force is rapidly put together to respond, but where it should deploy is unclear. A fire ravages a cosmonaut training facility in which five spacesuits disappear. And the Task Force finds a cache of detailed schematics of highly complex rocketry systems. The Task Force reaches out to Dr. Amy Sue Harrington of the Missiles and Space Intelligence Center in Huntsville, Alabama. To Dr. Harrington, it all adds up to the unthinkable: someone—someone extremely well funded—is taking aim at the International Space Station.

But Colonel Vladimir Lytokov and his team of mercenaries aren’t planning to bring the ISS crashing to Earth. They’re taking the fight to orbit, boarding the station and hijacking it. As the ISS traces its path across the heavens, Lytokov rains down destruction from above, effectively holding the entire globe hostage.

The fate of Russia hangs in the balance as up-timers and down-timers battle for freedom!

The United Sovereign States of Russia struggles to set in place the traditions and legal precedents that will let it turn into a constitutional monarchy with freedom and opportunity for all its citizens.

At the same time, they’re trying to balance the power of the states and the federal government. And the USSR is fighting a civil war with Muscovite Russia, defending the new state of Kazakh from invasion by the Zunghars, building a tech base and an economy that will allow its money to be accepted in western Europe, establishing a more solid claim to Siberia, and, in general, keeping the wheels of civilization from coming off and dumping Russia back into the Time of Troubles. Or, possibly even worse, reinstalling the sort of repressive oligarchy that they just got rid of.

Now with a new afterword by David Weber!

IN HARDCOVER FOR THE FIRST TIME, FIRST ENTRY IN THE WORLDS OF HONOR ANTHOLOGY SERIES, BY THREE GIANTS OF MILITARY SF. HONORVERSE SHORT NOVELS BY WEBER, DAVID DRAKE, AND S.M. STIRLING

The first entry in the Worlds of Honor anthology series, featuring stories set in David Weber’s New York Times best-selling Honorverse. Featuring “A Grand Tour” by master of military SF David Drake; “A Whiff of Grapeshot” by best-selling author S.M. Stirling: and “A Beautiful Friendship” by David Weber, the novella that would later become the first entry in Weber’s Star Kingdom series. Also includes Honor Harrington series essay “The Universe of Honor Harrington” by Weber.

In hardcover for the first time!

NEW ENTRY IN JANE LINDSKOLD’S OVER WHERE PORTAL FANTASY SERIES

Beware the Book Wraith!

No one is at all sure what a book wraith might be, but whatever it is definitely has the battered tomes in the Library of the Sapphire Wind very worried indeed.

Figuring out what a book wraith could be is hardly the least of the challenges that the newly formed House of Rough Diamonds will face as the motley assortment of members—including three women who are literally “out of this world”—attempt to secure ownership of the Library.

Enemies old and new, both within and without the contested property, will strain the Rough Diamonds ingenuity and resources, forcing the small group to recruit new and possibly dangerous allies.

Swords flash and spells fly, as secrets are concealed and revealed, in this latest installment of the series of which Publishers Weekly said, “This vivid, magical tale is sure to please” and Fantasy and Science Fiction recommended for its “fascinating cast of characters moving through an inventive and wondrous world.”

At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

“Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn’t a game for knights.” —Raymond Chandler

In a world of criminals, thugs, con artists, cheats, and swindlers, there must be a man to stand against the powers of darkness and corruption. A man not afraid to walk the mean streets—whether they be those of 1930s Los Angeles, an ancient fantasy realm, or some far-flung planet of a future star empire. He is a man who knows that a “good man” is not always a “nice guy.” But when the chips are down, he understands that a hero does the right thing, even if it means losing everything.

He is Sam Spade. He is Philip Marlowe. He is Rick Deckard. He is Harry Dresden.

He is all these men and more.

Now, join Larry Correia and Kacey Ezell as they present all-new stories of fantasy and science fiction with a hardboiled detective bent by today’s top authors.

Grab the bottle of Scotch from your bottom desk drawer. Light a cigarette. Tilt your fedora back on your head. But don’t forget to watch your back. This is No Game for Knights.

Stories by: Laurell K. Hamilton, Larry Correia, Christopher Ruocchio, Michael Haspil, D.J. Butler, Kacey Ezell, Griffin Barber, Robert Buettner, Sharon Shinn, Craig Martelle, Chris Kennedy, S.A. Bailey, G. Scott Huggins, Nicole Givens Kurtz, and Rob Howell.

A COMING-OF-AGE STORY LIKE NO OTHER: CHAIM CAAN, AN OBSERVANT JEW, FINDS HE MUST MAKE SENSE OF HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD WHEN HE DISCOVERS HE HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A VAMPIRE

Chaim Caan was just out for a night of fun, blowing off some steam the way a young man will. After the better part of a year spent in COVID lockdowns, he was ready to let his hair down at a night club. But the fascinating young woman he encountered that night left him with something to remember her by: she turned Chaim into a vampire.

Soon, Chaim finds himself thrust into a weird underground world of mysticism and enchantment as he navigates life as the newly undead, trying to reconcile his beliefs as an observant Jew with the new reality that has been thrust upon him.

He is forced to deal with a lot of change: to his body, to his mind, to his perceptions, to his relationships, and even to his world. He finds himself in parts of the world he had never dreamed of being in, and he finds himself doing things that he had never envisioned being a part of his life.

And if he can come to terms with these changes, this mild-mannered young man might just find himself a hero.

A BIOTECH RACE AGAINST TIME TO DEVELOP MILITARY-GRADE DRAGONS

Genetic engineer Noah Parker has at last landed the job he’s long coveted: director of dragon design for the Build-A-Dragon Company. With a combination of genetic engineering and a cryptic device known as the Redwood Codex, he and his team can produce living, breathing dragons made-to-order. But sales of dragons have plummeted, and the Build-A-Dragon Company will have to find new revenue streams if it hopes to stay in business. A contract to develop dragons for the U.S. military promises a much-needed lifeline. Yet the specs are more challenging than anything Noah has ever designed. Worse, he learns that a shadow company headed by former CEO Robert Greaves has stolen the dragon-making technology to make a competing bid. Noah’s dragons will face off against those of his old adversary. It’s a head-to-head design competition, with the ethical future of domesticated dragons hanging in the balance.

THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR CONTINUE—SWORD AND SORCERY HEROICS ABOUND!

Gladiators, legionnaires, scheming sorcerers, and dark gods had battered Hanuvar but not stopped him. The great Volani general now returns to the land of his enemies!

Hanuvar had pledged to find the remnants of his people, scattered into slavery across the whole of the peninsula. This time he had no army to help him. His would be a stealthy war of liberation, buying the freedom of some and arranging for the escape of others, aided only by a young playwright, the daughter of a hated political rival, the tattered remnants of his old spy network, and the unlikeliest ally of all, the general who had once defeated him.

Arrayed against them were the mighty legions, the sorcerous revenants, and the wily Metellus of the Praetorian guard, ever alert to seize advantage. To add to their troubles, someone was drawing unwanted attention to the helpless Volani slaves by murdering influential Dervans and leaving the sign of the sacred Eltyr corps beside their bodies. Someone who might well be Hanuvar’s lost daughter, who’d fought her way from captivity and was even now being hunted through the countryside.

Worst of all, a magical attack had left Hanuvar with a lingering curse that might change him forever . . . or lead him to an early grave.

HARD-HITTING MILITARY ACTION AND POLITICAL DRAMA FOR READERS OF DUNE AND DORSAI!

They said ten-year-old street urchin Inga was perfect for their purpose, taken from the squalor of Port City to the asteroid enclave, Hawksgaard, where she underwent the training and augmentation that transformed her. Maturing to full lethality even as war erupts among the Myriad Worlds, Inga is assigned to protect Family scion, Captain Saef Sinclair-Maru as he leads the fight against humanity's merciless enemy.

The vessel: IMS Hightower

The mission: Rescue a trapped Legion force from the surface of Delta Three.

The crisis: Nothing is as it appears.

With Marines plummeting into surface combat, an orbital space battle raging, and assassins swarming within Hightower, the stakes could scarcely be greater, but in the midst of this tumult, treacherous revelations continue to unfold. A mysterious enemy emplacement, a vanished civilian population, the inexplicable powers suddenly unleashed: Each new facet of discovery creates a deadly path leading from Delta Three to the heart of the Imperium and the emperor himself. To seize any chance for victory—or even survival—Inga must accept the irrevocable course leading from the remnants of her own humanity to the fullness of the Silent Hand.

THE FATES OF UNIVERSES AREN’T THE ONLY THINGS TIME TRAVEL CAN IMPACT

It was supposed to be a routine trip for the members of the Gordian Division, both human and AI: fly out to Saturn, inspect the construction of their latest time machines, then fly back.

But when the division’s top scientist and chief engineer are killed in the same freak accident, suspicions of foul play run deep. Detective Isaac Cho is sent in to investigate, but he has more on his mind than just a new case. His superiors have saddled him with an exchange officer from the neighboring Admin—Special Agent Susan Cantrell—whose notion of proper “law enforcement” involves blowing up criminals first and skipping questions entirely.

Despite his objections, Cho is stuck with an untested partner on a case that increasingly reeks of murder and conspiracy. The unlikely pair must work together to unravel this mystery, and soon they discover their unique combination of skills might just provide the edge they need.

But nothing is ever simple where the Gordian Division is involved.

Not even time itself.

A NEW KENCYRATH NOVEL!

Jamethiel Knorth, Priest’s Bane and Dream-Weaver, has returned victorious from Tai-tastigon, but trouble dogs the Kencyrath.

There is intrigue among the Highborn. The Randir and his allies want the larger houses to decide for all nine, which would strip the Highlordship from the Knorth. At Omiroth, a senile king struggles against his venal son-in-law—but if neither of these can rule, the next in line is a mother-dominated child. Kindrie Soul-Walker is captured and thrown in a secret dungeon, a political prisoner. And a Kendar administrator, dissatisfied with the use that Jame is making of the gates, schemes against her, and then against her house and her brother, Torisen Black Lord, Highlord of the Kencyrath.

ONCE A DEFECTOR, NOW A LEADER, JARED CLEMENT MUST RISE TO THE OCCASION OR BE RESPONSIBLE FOR GENOCIDE

Jared Clement has returned to Trinity not as a mere ship captain, but as a 5 Suns Fleet Admiral. With his promotion comes increased responsibility that weighs heavy on his shoulders. Thirty thousand settlers are leaving the dying planets of the Rim, his home, and resettling next to the natives of the planet Bellus.

Clement is responsible for those lives and the lives of the natives, Trinity’s children, and for building a better future for them all. But when his migrant fleet arrives in the Trinity system, they are faced with enemies both old and new. Former Fleet Admiral Elara DeVore has escaped her exile on the planet Alphus and has vanished into parts unknown. Soon, however, Clement discovers she has a new fleet and a new ally, the Solar League from Earth. The Solar League has arrived with a massive fleet and plans on taking Trinity for itself, then forcing the 5 Suns to surrender. With just a small military fleet to accompany the migrants, Clement is faced with the almost impossible task of defending both his people and the natives from becoming slaves of the Solar League.

A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME—BACK TO BOSTON!

1462: an alien who feasts on the suffering of sentient beings dines off the agonies of Vlad the Impaler’s twenty-thousand victims near Targoviste, Romania.

1688: a woman is framed for witchcraft and hanged by the neck in Boston.

1965: a toy store that never seems to run out of special toys is suspected of being the location of a temporal portal, the same one used by the agony-feeding alien.

2022: a grandfather, showing his young grandchildren what remains of the Boston of his youth, is shown that portal by his granddaughters.

And they’re off! Off through the gate that grants wishes, off to deal with time travel, off to break and enter, off to endure the pain of seeing afresh loved ones long since departed in their own time. They’re off to deal with hardened, murderous criminals and with equally murderous aliens.

And all of that is set around the time of Christmas joy, in old, fine hotels, with presents, fresh loves, Handel’s Messiah, a department store’s enchanted village, old delicacies, modern weapons, lasers . . . and a very special calico cat.

A TIME TRAVEL POLICE PROCEDURAL

NEW GORDIAN DIVISION NOVEL: When a top engineer on Mercury commits suicide, Detective Isaac Cho and Special Agent Susan Cantrell of the Gordian Division are called in to review the case. But what seems like an open-and-shut case spirals into the strange. And if Cho and Cantrell don't solve the mystery soon, they may be the next ones to wind up dead.

The Atlas Corporation was all set to tear apart the planet Mercury—converting its resources into a swarm of solar-collecting megastructures—when Esteban Velasco, lead Atlas engineer, is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Detective Isaac Cho and Special Agent Susan Cantrell, both eager to return to active duty despite close calls on their last case, are sent in to assess the situation. Their superiors expect a simple declaration of suicide, but Velasco’s death proves anything but typical.

The detectives soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery far more complex—and strange—than anyone expected, leading them to a church for Mercury-loving weirdos, a “nudist” colony open to Saturn’s unbreathable atmosphere, an exclusive park for hunting dinosaurs, and a ghost town where forgotten machines wage war over condo floorplans.

What was meant to be an easy return to duty for the detectives takes a sudden dark turn when ruthless mind-hackers ambush and nearly kill them, making one fact crystal clear:

If they don’t solve this case soon, it’ll be their corpses that turn up next.

THIS NEW NOVEL IN ERIC FLINT’S LANDMARK RING OF FIRE SERIES CONTINUES THE EASTERN EUROPE STORYLINE EXPLORED IN 1637: THE POLISH MAELSTROM

Up-timer Morris Roth and his Grand Army of the Sunrise stand at a crossroads. Military success against the Polish-Lithuanian magnates has all but guaranteed a continued push east into Ruthenian lands. There, Roth hopes to further his Anaconda Project so that tens of thousands of Jews are not slaughtered in what’s to become known as the Chmielnicki Pogrom of 1648.

An envoy from Transylvania arrives with a promising offer from its prince, who wishes to form an alliance with Bohemia, but the land shrouded in the fog of the Carpathian mountains and known only to most up-timers as the playground of Count Dracula is a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. Such an alliance would surely draw the ire of Sultan Murad IV.

The United States of Europe agrees to assist the Bohemian forces, and sends in the Silesian Guard, under the command of Brigadier Jeff Higgins. They also send in Gretchen Richter to organize and lead the political struggle.

Transylvania is thrown into political, social, and religious turmoil as battle lines are drawn. Whatever happens and whoever wins the fight, one thing is certain: the history of Eastern Europe will change radically. In fact, it already has.

THREE PENRIC AND DESDEMONA NOVELLAS IN THE WORLD OF THE FIVE GODS BY GRANDMASTER LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD

Penric and Desdemona are back in three novellas from Grand Master Lois McMaster Bujold.

“Masquerade in Lodi”
Bastard’s Eve is a night of celebration for most residents in the canal city of Lodi—but not for sorcerer Learned Penric and his Temple demon Desdemona, who find themselves caught up in the affairs of a shiplost madman, a dangerous ascendant demon, and a very unexpected saint of the fifth god.

“The Orphans of Raspay”
When the ship in which they are traveling is captured by Carpagamon island raiders, Temple sorcerer Penric and his resident demon Desdemona find their life complicated by two young orphans, Lencia and Seuka Corva, who are far from home and searching for their missing father. Pen and Des will need all their combined talents of mind and magic to unravel the mysteries of the sisters and escape from the pirate stronghold.

“The Physicians of Vilnoc”
When a mysterious plague breaks out in the army fort guarding Vilnoc, the port capital of the duchy of Orbas, Temple sorcerer Penric and his demon Desdemona are called upon by General Arisaydia to resurrect Penric’s medical skills and solve its lethal riddle. In the grueling days that follow, Pen will find that even his magic is not enough to meet the challenges without help from dedicated new colleagues—and the god of mischance.

Includes a new introduction, “outroduction,” and suggested reading order by Lois McMaster Bujold.

A RACE TO BUILD THE FIRST SPACE ELEVATOR IN AFRICA

New money, old tribes, and international megacorps race to build the first space elevator. With a little Dabare magic, it just might work!

The Sadous, an oil-rich West African family, are handed a plum contract as repayment for a decades-old favor that could make the next generation even richer if the family doesn’t tear itself apart first. Two engineer daughters of the Sadou family, Pascaline and Maurie, upon whom the burden of success rests, have troubles of their own. One wants nothing more than to leave and make her own name as an engineering prodigy, while the other is troubled by fever dreams and snakes. Ethan Schmidt-Li is an ambitious megacorp executive with eyes on a big promotion—only to get more than he bargained for when put in charge of the company’s make-or-break project. These are some of the people that Tchami “Chummy” Fabrice has brought together to an ambitious end—constructing the world’s first space elevator in Africa and ensuring the space industry that it catapults will enrich the continent and all involved. They have the carbon nanofiber, prime land around Kilimanjaro, and a captured rock in orbit for the tether. The hard part will be getting all these different people working together long enough to see it built.

A YOUNG HERO JOURNEYS BEYOND THE EDGE OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE IN A DESPERATE BID TO SAVE THE GALAXY FROM THE POWERS OF EVIL

ADVENTURE BEYOND THE STARS

David Artan is a dock rat on a poor fringe world where he takes every job he can and prize-fights to earn enough money to get off world. When he’s hired to guide a boat crewed by an interstellar mafia, he comes face to face with an ancient power—the Veil—that was pivotal to a civil war that ended decades ago.

David is “Attuned” to this power and was almost killed by agents of the dead and defeated Tyrant who nearly enslaved the galaxy. He’s rescued by an Adept of the Paragon order, warrior scholars that study the power and seek to keep any from upsetting the balance that keeps all life in order.

David is given the chance to journey beyond the Veil and into another dimension where he can claim a stone of immense power and return it to base reality and wield it as a weapon against the Tyrant. The world beyond the Veil is nothing like what David knows, and he’ll be opposed by insidious evil, self-doubt, and sabotage from the very people who are supposed to help him.

While beyond the Veil, David learns that a Conjunction is nigh, an event that could sunder the galaxy if evil forces succeed. David must claim a Veil stone deep in the other dimension before the Tyrant’s agents can beat him to the prize.

BEST-SELLING CAINE RIORDAN SERIES CONTINUES

Caine Riordan and his self-styled “Crewe” have survived their first months on the planet they call Bactradgaria. They’ve overcome floods, dust storms, tornadoes, searing heat, bitter cold, desperate battles, and attacks by various strange species. However, their most desperate struggles have been against the wildly ferocious x’qao, for whom the pursuit and genocide of other beings is as much a sport as it is a strategy.

Accordingly, Caine and his friends realize that if they are to endure, they must not merely survive but thrive. So far, they’ve done just that and made friends along the way. But a few scattered tribes and towns can't defeat the x’qao and their vassals. To do that, humans must claw higher up the food chain . . . before they tumble off into extinction.

A NEW START—OR AN OLD CALLING?

Talia Merritt, a former military sniper once known as Death’s Handmaiden, is a woman haunted by her past. Her cybernetic arm and her phantom—the implant that allows her to control it—serve as a constant reminder of what she’s lost. But Talia is hoping to leave her past and her reputation behind and start anew on the colony world of Goruden, a hardscrabble planet of frontier-minded people seeking a better life. And she’s finally earned enough to start to make that dream come true.

In the bucolic town of Tsuri, she interviews for a job as a marksmanship instructor for local bigwig Signore Ferran Contesti. But Contesi is not what he seems. A recent arrival on Goruden, he hopes to mold the colony world in his own image—an image at odds with the unencumbered life free of government and corporate meddling that Talia has come to find.

Soon, Talia finds herself thrust into the start of another conflict. Talia desperately wants to stay out of it, but she may not have that luxury.

With the fate of a planet and her own peace of mind hanging in the balance, Talia must decide whether or not to once again take up the mantle of Death’s Handmaiden. . . .

NEW ISHMAEL JONES NOVEL FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING URBAN FANTASY NOVELIST SIMON R. GREEN. The supernatural detective is back in this latest installment of Green’s popular series.

Ishmael Jones knows all there is to know about solving mysteries. Together with his love and partner in crimes, Penny Belcourt, he specializes in cases of the weird and uncanny.

Lucas Carr went to Glenbury Hall, an old country manor house turned hotel. He signed in at reception, took his key, and went upstairs to his room. But he never got there. Somehow he vanished along the way, with not a single clue to suggest what might have happened to him.

Lucas belonged to the same mysterious organization that employs Ishmael and Penny, so they are sent in to solve the mystery. But when they arrive at grim and isolated Glenbury Hall, they discover it has a reputation as one of the most haunted old houses in England. None of the usual headless monks or walled-up nuns—just stories of lost souls that dance with the statues in the grounds; doors that won’t stay shut and rooms that aren’t always there; and something that prowls the house in the early hours, endlessly searching. They say . . . it crawls.

Does Lucas’s disappearance have something to do with the organization or the Hall’s haunted past? Ishmael and Penny have to work their way through a series of mysterious clues and misleading suspects, uncovering secret after secret, before they finally arrive at a truth that no one suspected.

The problem with history is that it’s not always content to stay in the past.

SOMETIMES A DARK PAST CAN HAUNT YOU—OTHER TIMES IT JUST MAY BE THE ONLY THING KEEPING YOU ALIVE

Fresh out of college with his Ship Engineer 3rd-Class certificate, Dave Walker’s only thought is to try to find a berth on a corporate ship plying the trade routes between the many habs, orbitals, and moons in the Solar System. The problem for Dave, however, isn’t his straight C average; it’s that his stepfather, a powerful Earth senator he’s never met, now wants him dead.

Forced to take the first berth he can find, Dave ends up on the Iowa Hill, an old tramp freighter running with a minimal crew and nearing the end of its useful life, plying the routes that the corporations ignore and visiting the kinds of places that the folks on Earth pretend don’t exist.

Between the assassins, the criminals, and the pirates he needs to deal with, Dave is discovering that there are a lot of things out there that he still needs to learn.

But there’s one hard lesson he learned long ago that he’s being forced to remember: how to be ruthless.

ALL-NEW STORIES OF ANCIENT ALIEN ARTIFACTS FROM TOP NAMES IN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

The universe is older and more alien than we can ever understand.

We were not alone. The farther we push into the universe, the more obvious it becomes. The signs are everywhere: canals and pyramids on Mars, old roads on the moons of Jupiter, ruined cities on worlds about the nearer stars. The galaxy once teemed with life—or so it seems. Which begs the question: what happened to it all?

These stories explore the ruins of lost civilizations, solve ancient mysteries . . . and awaken horrors from beyond the dawn of time.

Featuring stories by Orson Scott Card, Griffin Barber, Adam Oyebanji, Jessica Maguire, and Patrick Chiles, and an all-new entry in the Sun Eater universe from editor Christopher Ruocchio. Join us for your next adventure to Worlds Long Lost!