Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they’re forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon. Races. Get from point A to point B, and don’t come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple.

A floating fortress occupied by warrior gnomes. A castle made of sand. A derelict submarine guarded by malfunctioning machines. A haunted crypt surrounded by lethal traps. It was supposed to be easy. One bubble. Four castles. Fifteen days. Capture each one, and the stairwell is unlocked.

A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered along the way. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. An inconvenient tiara upon the head of a friend.

The ninth floor. Nine armies, each led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy. Each team has one objective: to capture and hold the castle at the very center of the battlefield. Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, and, of course, betrayal ... It all makes for great fun and even greater television. After all, none of these powerful aliens really die when they’re playing war. Except this time. This time, winner takes all. Those who fall, stay in the ground.

Dan just wanted to run a shop. Now he’s knee-deep in holiday hellscapes, corporate hydras, and powers that definitely violate the Geneva Conventions. The Flayed Monarch is on the move, spreading his corrupt influence through the lower levels of the Backrooms. To stop him, Dan and his crew must take out one of the Monarch’s key allies—the Franchisor, a multi-headed marketing monstrosity who rules the 99th Floor. But Dan, Croc, and the rest of his ragtag band of misfits might be in for more than they bargained for.

The ratings and views are off the chart. The fans just can't get enough. The dungeon gets more dangerous each day. But in a grinder designed to chew up and spit out crawlers by the millions, Carl and Princess Donut need to work harder than ever just to survive. They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered prostitutes rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose.

A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed “The Butcher’s Masquerade”. The sixth floor. The Hunting Grounds. As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, a new, terrible threat looms. Outside, tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are here and ready to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.

Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar have made a pact. As they process the events of the spring, they will keep things platonic until the solstice. But can they resist when the crackling tension between them is enough to set the whole of Crescent City aflame? And they are not out of danger yet. Dragged into a rebel movement they want no part of, Bryce, Hunt and their friends find themselves pitted against the terrifying Asteri - whose notice they must avoid at all costs. But as they learn more about the rebel cause, they face a choice: stay silent while others are oppressed or fight.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive, and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am. But with all that has happened—with what I fear is coming—I am not sure it matters anymore. I am no longer one. I won the Iudicium and lost everything—and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives.

Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. Every night is a party and Bryce is going to savour all the pleasures Lunathion - also known as Crescent City - has to offer. But then a brutal murder shakes the very foundations of the city, and brings Bryce's world crashing down. Two years later, Bryce still haunts the city's most notorious nightclubs - but seeking only oblivion now. Then the murderer attacks again. And when an infamous Fallen angel, Hunt Athalar, is assigned to watch her every footstep, Bryce knows she can't forget any longer.

The top 10 list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. The first three floors were nothing compared to what Carl and Donut now face. The Iron Tangle. An impossibly complicated subway system built out of the world's subterranean railway systems, all combined and then tied together into a knot. Up is down.

Aelin has risked everything to save her people - but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. Aware that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, though her resolve begins to unravel with each passing day....With Aelin captured, Aedion and Lysandra remain the last line of defense to protect Terrasen from utter destruction. Yet they soon realize that the many allies they've gathered to battle Erawan's hordes might not be enough to save them.

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

Forty years ago, the Gather family—James, his daughter Beau, and his son Billy—vanished during a whitewater rafting trip and were presumed dead. Five years later, Billy reappeared on the far side of the world, telling an impossible tale of a primordial valley populated by dinosaurs, aliens, Neanderthals, and androids. Little Billy became the punchline of so very many jokes, until he finally faded from the public eye. Now, a group of graduate astronomy students follow their professor, Noah Barnes, up a mountain for what they believe is a simple stargazing trip.

A Signature Performance: Tim Curry, the source of our inspiration, returns – this time, he captures the quirky enthusiasm of this goofily visionary adventure.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.