Showing results by narrator "Emily Rankin" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

As Prime magic users, Catalina Baylor and her sisters have extraordinary powers - powers their ruthless grandmother would love to control. Catalina can earn her family some protection working as deputy to the Warden of Texas, overseeing breaches of magic law in the state, but that has risks as well. When House Baylor is under attack and monsters haunt her every step, Catalina is forced to rely on handsome, dangerous Alessandro Sagredo, the Prime who crushed her heart.

Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly 2,000 years, or at least the first to survive and claim his power, for families of Westil in exile on Earth have a treaty that requires the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the families had been terrible until at last they realized it was their own survival in question.

In this dark and gritty collection - featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman - nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil.... Unfortunately, that's exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.

Catalina Baylor is looking forward to wearing her maid of honor dress and watching her older sister walk down the aisle. Then the wedding planner gets escorted off the premises, the bride’s priceless tiara disappears, and Rogan's extensive family overruns his mother’s home. Someone is cheating, someone is lying, and someone is plotting murder. To make this wedding happen, Catalina will have to do the thing she fears most: use her magic. But she’s a Baylor, and there’s nothing she wouldn't do for her sister's happiness. 

Cent has a secret. She lives in isolation, with her parents, hiding from the people who took her father captive and tortured him to gain control over his ability to teleport, and from the government agencies who want to use his talent. Cent has seen the world, but only from the safety of her parents' arms. She's teleported more than anyone on Earth, except for her mother and father, but she's never been able to do it herself. Her life has never been in danger. Until the day when she went snowboarding without permission and triggered an avalanche. When the snow and ice thundered down on her, she suddenly found herself in her own bedroom.

Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen outselves of 13 centuries of gatemages. The Families still want to kill him if they can’t control him - and they can’t control him; he is far too powerful. On Westil, Wad is now nearly powerless - he lost everything to Danny in their struggle. Even if he can survive the revenge of his enemies, he must still somehow make peace with the Gatemage Daniel North, for when Danny took that power from Loki, he also took responsibility for the Great Gates.

The witch who doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Amber is under orders to spend a relaxing Christmas with her house and family in Denver. No chance. A fleeing Athanate House with rebel Adepts and a dying human kin throw themselves at Amber's mercy and her decisions unleash a terrifying journey into the world of the most secretive of paranormal races - the Adepts. Amber has to unmask her enemies, persuade uncertain allies to support her, and risk her own soul in a battle to protect the power of the dragon and the outcome of emergence.

Cent can teleport. So can her parents, but they are the only people in the world who can. This is not as great as you might think it would be - sure, you can go shopping in Japan and then have tea in London, but it's hard to keep a secret like that. And there are people, dangerous people, who work for governments and have guns, who want to make you do just this one thing for them. And when you're a teenage girl things get even more complicated. High school. Boys. Global climate change, refugees, and genocide. Orbital mechanics.

George R. R. Martin and science fiction's top authors delve into the adventurous superhero universe Wild Cards in the sixth book of this fan-favorite series. Since a strange alien virus created the superhuman beings known as Aces and Jokers four decades ago, they have struggled for respect and recognition. Now they are key players in a presidential convention torn by hatred and dissent.

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the end of the world. In science fiction the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

When Juneau's clan disappeared, she lost more than her friends and family; she lost her entire world. She discovered her life was a lie - her people weren't living in the wilderness because they were the sole survivors of a nuclear war. They were in hiding, hoping no one would find them and learn their secret: They never get sick, they hardly age, and they have the power to communicate with nature.

In this fascinating and fantastic collection, Daniel H. Wilson explores complex emotional and intellectual landscapes at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human life. In "All Kinds of Proof", a down-and-out drunk makes the unlikeliest of friends when he is hired to train a mail-carrying robot; in "Blood Memory", a mother confronts the dangerous reality that her daughter will never assimilate in this world after she was the first child born through a teleportation device.

Ray Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science-fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

On the Ark, a colonyship bound outward across the stars, not everyone is a volunteer - or even human. Lovelock is a capuchin monkey engineered from conception to be the perfect servant: intelligent, agile, and devoted to his owner. He is a "witness", privileged to spend his days and nights recording the life of one of Earth’s most brilliant scientists via digital devices implanted behind his eyes. But Lovelock is something special among witnesses. He’s a little smarter than most humans: smart enough to break through some of his conditioning, smart enough to feel the bonds of slavery - and want freedom.

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

Now the struggle between the Andro-Francine Order of the Named Lands and the Y’Zirite Empire has reached a terrible turning point. Believing that his son is dead, Rudolfo has pretended to join with the triumphant Y’zirite forces—but his plan is to destroy them all with a poison that is targeted only to the enemy.

The second volume of the best stories from legendary hard science fiction writer Ben Bova, the creator of the New York Times best-selling Grand Tour science fiction series, a six-time Hugo award winner, and past president of the National Space Society. The stories included in this volume span the five decades of Bova's incandescent career at the center of science fiction and space advocacy. Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama.

Raisa was just a child when she was sold into slavery in the kingdom of Qilara. Before she was taken away, her father had been adamant that she learn to read and write. But where she now lives, literacy is a capital offense for all but the nobility. The written language is closely protected, and only the king, prince, tutor, and tutor-in-training are allowed to learn its very highest form.

According to prophecy, Brianna Drake was born to save the world. The trouble is, she doesn't have the slightest idea how. Her visions should have given her the answer, but they’re beginning to shift, making the danger too unpredictable, even for a prophet. If she can just help her sister restore their hidden powers, she might be able to stop what’s coming. But an old enemy returns, and he’s got plans for Brianna and her visions.

Thirty original stories - each inspired by a Janis Ian song - from some of the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy, including: Tad Williams, Harry Turtledove, Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman, John Varley, Mercedes Lackey, Judith Tarr, Janis Ian, and others.