Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Science Fiction & Fantasy

There exists a secret and highly illegal trade in mythological creatures and their artifacts. Certain individuals pay fortunes for a sliver of a satyr's hoof, a gryphon's claw, a basilisk's scale, or an angel's wing. Embroiled in the hidden world of the Relics, creatures known as the Kin, Angela Gough is now on the run in the United States. Forty years ago the town of Longford was the site of a deadly disease outbreak that wiped out the entire population. Now the town is revealed again. The Kin have an interest in the ruins.

Jack Gee, hiking the New Zealand mountains, is blissfully unaware of the Hemorrhage virus sweeping the world. A desperate message from his wife, Dee, alerts him, and he must return to Hamilton. On the way, he is captured by flesh-eating Variants and taken to their meat locker. To escape, he will need to draw on all his experience as an outdoorsman, but first, he must find the will to survive. Surrounded by Variants, Dee is trapped in her Hamilton basement with a group of survivors. With Jack missing, and dwindling food supplies, she must leave the basement, her only defense a katana.

In Ben Bova’s novel Jupiter, physicist Grant Archer led an expedition into Jupiter’s planet-wide ocean, attempting to study the unusual and massive creatures that call the planet their home. Unprepared for the hostile environment and crushing pressures, Grant’s team faced certain death as their ship malfunctioned and slowly sank to the planet’s depths. However, one of Jupiter’s native creatures—a city-sized leviathan—saved the doomed ship.

With an introduction by J. J. Pierce, this volume features the 12 most important stories by Cordwainer Smith, a unique writer who has fused wonder and poetry into imaginative tales that transcend both science and fiction.

The war is tearing our world apart. Instead of big armies with tanks in the field, the Vampire War is fought in the streets, neighbor against neighbor, family against family. Anyone can turn at any time. The blood hunger can suddenly appear in the middle of a kiss. The person who sleeps next to you every night could wake up in the dead of night... hungry. So hungry.

It's been one year since a virus triggered junk DNA and people all over the world started changing, becoming something else, craving blood. It's been 10 months since the word vampire stopped being something from old monster stories and Hollywood movies. It's been six months since our world and theirs erupted into war, two since an uneasy peace was signed, and one hour since that peace was shattered. The war is here again - the vampire war.

Marlee Peters is tired of putting her dreams on hold. So when her friends can't continue on a long-anticipated hike through Yellowstone National Park, she goes on without them. But Marlee isn't alone in the woods: She is being hunted by a pack of frighteningly intelligent wolves. When a fight for survival takes an impossible turn, Marlee realizes that the enigmatic stranger who saves her might be her dream come true - or her waking nightmare.

Podkayne Fries, a smart and determined maid of Mars, has just one goal in life: to become the first female starship pilot and rise through the ranks to command deep-space explorations. So when she is offered a chance to join her diplomatic uncle on an interstellar journey to distant Earth via Venus, it's a dream come true - even if her only experience with diplomacy is handling her brilliant but pesky younger brother, Clark.

Jamie Waterman has made an important discovery on Mars. A cliff dwelling reveals the fact that an intelligent race lived on the red planet 65 million years ago, only to be driven into extinction by the crash of a giant meteor. But now the exploration of Mars is itself under threat of extinction, as the ultraconservative New Morality movement gains control of the U.S. government and cuts off all funding for the Mars program.

Dark dreams disturb Lord Valentine's sleep, a forewarning of the danger that threatens the peace of Majipoor. The Shapeshifters have set in motion a terrifying plan to regain their stolen world and their allies, the ancient gods rising from their eons-long slumber beneath the oceans of the great planet. Suddenly, Valentine faces the greatest crisis of his reign.

Lina's trendy bakery in Tulsa is proving to be less than lucrative, and she must come up with a plan. When she stumbles upon an Italian goddess cookbook, Lina can't help but think she's found the answer to her problem - even if it means invoking a goddess to save her business. Soon enough Lina finds herself face-to-face with Demeter, who has a plan of her own. She proposes that Lina exchange souls with Persephone, the goddess of spring, who will breathe new life into the bakery. In return Lina must set order to the Underworld.

Serial killers come in all shapes and sizes, but this one is particularly puzzling. There's no pattern to the mutilated bodies that have been showing up in Albuquerque: The victims have been both sexes and all races, ages, and ethnic groups. There is no evidence of rape or ritual. Only one thing connects the victims: They were the victims of a natural disaster - one of the most unnatural natural disasters imaginable - leading to a most painful, most certain, and most hideous death.

One of seven daughters in a line of extraordinary women, stunning Hannah Drake has been the elusive object of affection for Sheriff Jonas Harrington for as long as he can remember. If only she was driven by a passion other than her career. But Jonas isn't the only one with desires for Hannah. From the shadows has emerged a vengeful figure who stalks the beauty, intending to destroy her. Can her sisters’ special powers keep her from harm, and will Jonas catch the elusive assailant?

The world of the Runelords has been combined by magic with another one parallel it, the beginning of a process that may unify all worlds into the one true world. This story picks up after the events of The Wyrmling Horde and follows two of Farland’s well-known heroes, Borenson and Myrrima, on a quest to save their devastated land and the people of the new world from certain destruction. But the land is not the only thing that has been altered forever: In the change, Borenson has merged with a mighty and monstrous creature from the other world, Aaath Ulber.

Wizardborn continues the story of the struggle of Gaborn, now the Earth King, who has lost his powers but continues to lead his people. He must contend with the threat of the huge, inhuman Reavers, whose myriads Gaborn and his forces must now pursue across the nation. It has become Gaborn's fate to follow, even into the depths. Raj Ahten, the great warlord endowed with the strength and qualities of thousands of men, once the primary threat to Gaborn, now struggles to retain his own empire.

Ivy thought that she and Adrian had conquered their fates. Yet with thousands of innocents still trapped in the demon realms, she's determined to locate the final hallowed weapon and harness its unparalleled power to free them. But the last relic nearly put Ivy in the grave - there's probably no coming back from this one. Adrian's dark lineage has made him the most powerful of his kind, yet even his incredible abilities might not be enough now. Instead, the treacherous fate he has fought so hard to escape might be the only way he can save Ivy.

Kidnapped from Earth as they were about to die in battle, Rick Galloway and his band of mercenaries, like the other human slaves on the planet Tran, will not be missed. Subjects of the Shalnuksi slave masters, they are forced to harvest the priceless drug surinomaz. Now, even as slaves, Earth's transplanted warriors are locked in battle - against one another. But an epoch is ending. As the Demon Star sweeps toward its devastating apex, the slave masters flee the planet to await its annihilation in safety. Soon all life on the planet will cease, leaving it ripe for repopulation.

On the eve of extinction all seems to be lost, but there is still one final hope.... Operation Liberty has failed. Humans are losing the war. With no other option, General Kennor decides to pull back the troops and give science a second chance.

Often described as an alchemical allegory, John Crowley instead decided this is "the first science fiction novel". After all, "it's fiction; it's about the possibilities of a science; and it's a novel". No matter what else it might be, it's definitely one of the great outlandish stories in Western literature.

Pea Chamberlain needs a makeover - shoes, hair, clothes, make-up, everything - especially if she wants to attract sexy fireman Griffin DeAngelo at the fireman's masked ball. And there's no one better suited to coax Pea out of her pod than the Goddess of Love, whom she invokes in a moment of desperation. After eons of helping others find love, Venus has no problem working her magic on Pea. But when the goddess herself starts falling head over heels for Griffin, it will take an act of divine intervention to set this love triangle to rights.