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The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

Sometimes it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Siberia in April isn't in any tourist guidebook. But that is where Trapp finds himself. It's cold, dark, and the vodka tastes like gasoline. After brawling with half a dozen corrupt Russian cops, he's taken to the infamous penal colony marked on maps as IK-29, but known to inmates as the Black Eagle. The guards are brutes, their prisoners little better than animals. It's hell on earth.

Opposites attack! When the Magelord Minalan the Spellmonger’s two apprentices, Tyndal and Rondal, were knighted after the battle of Timberwatch, they were dubbed Knights Magi: A new class of nobility for distinguished High Magi. Designed to combine the pursuit of arcane knowledge with the noble aspirations of chivalry, it elevated them above common warmage...in theory. The problem was they had no idea how to be a Knight Mage...because no one had ever been one before.

With the south in full rebellion, the goblins stirring on the northern frontier, and the summer capital being run by a corrupt baron and a gang of thugs, things could be better. But those aren’t the worst of her problems: Pentandra is learning how to live with her new husband, Arborn, while the town is driven to distraction by an incarnate sex goddess who is organizing all of the whores, a mopey spellmonger, a nun addicted to gambling, a prude sent by the queen, undead skulking through the shadows, and a mysterious blind girl shows up in her office claiming to be her new apprentice.

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different---and rigidly enforced---level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue.

After defending his fledgling realm against the undead lord Gaja Katar all winter long, Count Minalan of the Magelaw faces a new threat in the spring: the Nemovort Shakathet, favored of Korbal, leading the mighty hordes out of the Penumbra. This time, Minalan faces a real strategist; one who drives his armies with purpose and efficiency. The road to war leads through Megelin Castle and the vulnerable lands to the south of Vanado. Old enemies will become allies, and old friends will become valuable assets.

Minalan the Spellmonger has come a long way since he woke up to a goblin invasion almost a decade ago. Since then, he has built cities and mighty armies, invented new enchantments, and pioneered entirely new fields of magic. Now that the Witch Queen of Darkfaller has taken over one of the most powerful castles in the center of the kingdom, he has to marshal all his resources—political, military, and arcane—to try to drive her from the strategic and symbolically important stronghold.

It is 1780, and 17-year-old Alan Lewrie is a brash, rebellious young libertine. So much so that his callous father believes a bit of naval discipline will turn the boy around. Fresh aboard the tall-masted Ariadne, Midshipman Lewrie heads for the war-torn Americas, finding - rather unexpectedly - that he is a born sailor, equally at home with the randy pleasures of the port and the raging battles on the high seas. But in a hail of cannonballs comes a bawdy surprise.

From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Grant Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero - why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are... and what we may yet become.

This collection includes Just A Little Hookup, Just A Little Secret, Just A Little Promise, and Just A Little Chase.

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way. But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

Absalom Scryne, the greatest wizard of his generation, has been murdered. There's no other explanation for why his consciousness now resides in his well-worn but perfectly pointed hat. Well, he isn't going to take that lying down . . . or hanging from a branch, as the case may be.

Turkey's greatest living novelist guides us through the monuments and lost paradises, dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets, and waterways of Istanbul - the city of his birth and the home of his imagination.

A celebration of 25 years of Provençal living - of lessons learned and changes observed - with his final book, Peter Mayle has crafted a lasting love letter to his adopted home, marked by his signature warmth, wit, and humor.

"Lilastien is missing." That's how Master Minalan the Spellmonger, the greatest wizard of the age, began the mission for his two former apprentices, Tyndal and Rondal. Both were men of means now, recently married and enjoying high positions as a reward for their past service in the war. But service does not end with an armistice; now that the war is over, the Spellmonger recruits them to track down the missing Alka Alon sorceress, Lilastien, whose knowledge of Callidore's ancient past has proven invaluable in recovering the crafts of the Ancients.

Ancient evil forces remain in control of the Four Lands. To restore the Kepp of the Druid Allanon, Walker Boh sets out on a journey to find the black Elfstone. After narrowly escaping death, he learns that the Elfstone lies in the hands of the Stone King. Now Walker Boh must venture into perilous, unknown lands with a strange band of fellow travelers that includes Morgan Leah, whose once-magic sword has been broken; Quickening, the daughter of the ancient King; and Pe Ell, an assassin who hatches his own dark, sinister plot.

Goll quickly realizes he may have killed one opponent too many when he confronts the wrath of a dead gladiator’s stable in a slew of blood matches. Outside the Pit, Brozz fights for his life and Borchus finds refuge with an old friend. Struggling to recover from his wounds and seeking a purpose, Halm of Zhiberia discovers that giving up a pit fighter’s life isn’t as easy as it seems . . . nor is it his decision alone. And in the west, a monstrous enemy makes itself known—and positions itself to strike at both the games and Sunja’s heart.

Fresh from war in the Americas, young navy veteran Alan Lewrie finds London pure pleasure. Then, at Plymouth he boards the trading ship Telesto, to find out why merchantmen are disappearing in the East Indies. Between the pungent shores of Calcutta and teaming Canton, Lewrie--reunited with his scoundrel father--discovers a young French captain, backed by an armada of Mindanaon pirates, on a plundering rampage.

In the long-anticipated and thrilling conclusion of the Born of Ash series, Keira is thrust into a desperate battle for survival when the full power of the ancient precursor technology awakens beneath the war-torn surface of Asherho. Hunted by relentless enemies, and haunted by the rising forces of darkness, Keira must use her unique connection to the machine to outmaneuver the Disunity—a ruthless foe determined to seize control of the galaxy.

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....