Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet.

Raised and trained in seclusion at a secret fortress on the edge of the northern wilds of the Kingdom of Ashai, a young warrior called Rezkin is unexpectedly thrust into the outworld when a terrible battle destroys all that he knows. With no understanding of his life’s purpose and armed with masterful weapons mysteriously bestowed upon him by a dead king, Rezkin must travel across Ashai to find the one man who may hold the clues to his very existence.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ‘dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told’. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.

When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the '60s into one enduring archetype.

Erika ja Leora is a powder mage in northern Kez, a place where that particular sorcery is punishable by death. She is only protected by her family name and her position as heir to a duchy. When she decides to help a young commoner-a powder mage marked for death, fugitive from the law-she puts her life and family reputation at risk and sets off to deliver her new ward to the safety of Adro while playing cat and mouse with the king's own mage hunters and their captain, Duke Nikslaus.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.   

An imperial family is found butchered. Officers of God are called to investigate. Evidence points to a rebel group trying to seed fear into the very heart of the empire itself. Inspector Khlid takes the case and begins a harrowing hunt for those responsible. But when a larger conspiracy comes to light, will Inspector Khlid be able to trust those working within her own precinct?

Druss, Captain of the Axe: the stories of his life were told everywhere. Instead of the wealth and fame he could have claimed, he had chosen a mountain lair, high in the lonely country bordering on the clouds. There the grizzled old warrior kept company with snow leopards and awaited his old enemy, death.

Years after a harrowing war experience, ex-mercenary Jespar tre Moreste has taken to drifting. It’s a lonely existence, but barring the occasional bout of melancholia, he has found the closest thing to peace a man like him deserves. Life is “all right.”

For three days battle has raged in the snow around the great city of Tar Valon. In the city, a foretelling of the future is uttered. On the slopes of Dragonmount, the immense mountain that looms over the city, a child is born, an infant prophesied to change the world. That child must be found before he can be killed by the forces of the Shadow.