Fantasy Short Stories

Earth is dying, and humanity is scrambling to set up colonies in other star systems. But the search process for habitable planets is not perfect, as the crew of the Ouroboros discover on arrival at their new home.

Everyone knows about guardian angels — and Nezeq knows he should never have been made one. He’s a demon, after all. So instead of protecting the human Joshua, Nezeq tries to kill him. And fails. That’s his first mistake. His second mistake is in coming back to finish the job. There’s not...

Nadine is the only witch of her kind. With unique powerful abilities, she's a prime contender to sit on the witch's council, yet she's anything but welcome. A haunting family curse threatens to force her out of her magical college, and revealing her greatest secret may lead to the destruction of her people. Lucas is the only warlock of his generation destined to ferry the souls of the dead. Accepting his dark gift is as brutal as investigating the coven's mysteries. He's prepared to fight the darkness alone, until he receives a warning beyond the grave from Nadine's mother.

Experience the bundle of the first three volumes from the series Rise of the Weakest Summoner in one go! Jump straight into the vast world of Kraedorion and multiple other realms to explore them alongside Asterios and his adventuring party as they discover more about him and his life!

Royce Melborn, a cynical ex-assassin, and Hadrian Blackwater, an idealistic ex-mercenary, are a pair of rogues-for-hire known as Riyria (its elvish for two). This duo makes a living taking nefarious jobs for conspiring nobles. Doing so usually involves stealing something, but when a young heiress asks them to steal her . . . well, that is a first for the pair.

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption. One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A thief, a candlemaker, an ex-mercenary, and a pig farmer walk into a trap…and what happens is no joke. When Riyria is hired to retrieve a jester’s treasure, Royce and Hadrian must match wits with a dwarf who proves to be anything but a fool. Difficult choices will need to be made, and in the end those who laugh last do so because they are the only ones to survive.

A collection of 98 enthralling and pulse-quickening stories, spanning five decades, venerates the remarkable imagination of J. G. Ballard. With a body of work unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, J. G. Ballard is recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic writers in the world. With the much-hailed release of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, readers now have a means to celebrate the unmatched range and mesmerizing cadences of a literary genius.

Whodunit? The answer is absolutely spellbinding. In this genre-blending collection of short stories, seven award-winning and bestselling fantasy authors work their signature magic on the puzzle-box plot. Whether unfolding in realities far-flung or deceptively familiar, these mysteries leave an irresistible trail of clues. Curated by John Joseph Adams, New York Times bestselling anthologist.

Carl Ramsey has a heist to run and the crew to pull it off. All he’s missing is a specialized computer and the tech to run it. But when an unrelated robbery loses him both, the prospects for a successful job look grim. Unfortunately the one who hired them won’t take excuses, and the owners of the computer come looking for their stolen gear. Caught between a local crime lord and thugs from a galaxy-spanning syndicate, Carl needs to come up with a plan that doesn’t get them all killed.

He went searching for a fresh start. He didn’t expect to find unusual friends, fierce enemies, and primal powers. Jason thought that it was the end of his life after being hunted and attacked by a band of ruthless thugs. Instead, he tapped into the source of creation and emerged from his death experience with magical powers. As a new mage, Jason finds himself part of a wonderful - and dangerous - new supernatural world.

Dragonrider Academy is a secret society I’m not even supposed to know exists. It has knights with talking swords, professors who breathe fire, and a hot guy named Killian who seriously gets on my nerves. It’s his fault I’m stuck here in the first place. He wants me to be his partner and face all the challenges Dragonrider Academy has to offer. He says we’re fated to be together, that I was the one who called him! Crazy talk. Or is it?

Forty-eight of H.P. Lovecraft’s most important stories are brought together in this collection–available only from Audible–selected and with introductions by the award-winning, best-selling Lovecraft editor Leslie S. Klinger. Howard Philips Lovecraft was the early 20th-century genius who, almost singlehandedly, pioneered horror and scientific fiction, only to die in near-obscurity. Rediscovered by critics and scholars in the 1970s, Lovecraft’s work has influenced—by their own admission—every major horror or science-fiction writer of today.

Everyone deserves to get away for a bit. Even the miscreants at St Mary's. Astonishingly, Dr. Bairstow has declared a holiday. Even more astonishingly - he's paying for it. Needless to say, there are strings attached. They have to record the 1601 performance of Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself in the role of the Ghost. It doesn't go well, of course.

Meet Jenella, a reluctant, flawed incoming queen. In book one, The Dragon Problem, she experiences freedom for the first time and discovers a coup. In book two, Bug Magic, Jenella and her friend discover a strange magic, and she makes a tough decision. In book three, Crowns and Curses, things are looking up. Until everyone she cares about starts acting strange.

The Grand Hotel is a horror novel by esteemed best-selling author Scott Kenemore ( Zombie, Ohio) that takes the reader on a thrilling ride through an interconnected series of stories narrated by the desk clerk and the residents of the hotel itself. And while it is not known whether or not the desk clerk is actually the devil incarnate, it is strange that so many visitors who come for a tour of the hotel have a way of never leaving.

Waes Hael! Drinc Hael! It's Twelfth Night. The time of the Lord of Misrule. Of Trickster Gods, long shadows and paganism. The time when the Dark Ages were more than just a colourful description coined by historians who really should know better. And speaking of historians who should really know...

Double, double, Team Weird's in trouble. It's Halloween, and something wicked this way comes... The Time Police don't do Halloween. They like to make that clear. So, it's just an ordinary day when Luke, Jane and Matthew are despatched on a minor mission to apprehend some insignificant but...

Oram's journey from average Joe to hero begins when he's transported into his favorite game. Lucky for him, he still has access to his Early Backer class, the Phylomancer, a mage class that learns spells and abilities by binding others to him. To become a master of the fantasy world of Aerda, Oram will need to embrace his role as a Phylomancer. Along the way, he will forge powerful bonds with his companions, a beautiful Elven Ranger, a fierce Priestess of the icy North, and a deadly and seductive Demon Assassin.

As the crew of the Starship Interchange has now learned, when the AI you've been mistreating for centuries turns out to be something else entirely, it can lead to some tense interactions in the mess. With Earth wiped out, and half her crew gone, the Interchange limps toward Sirius—the Dog Star, which aliens call the Beacon. There, Captain Seemey, Sergeant Morgan, and the remnants of their crew are pulled into what promises to be the war to end all wars. A dark force has all but taken over, and galactic powers are fighting over what's left.