fantasy

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Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: Sometimes, life is completely unfair. Spoiled teenager Jenny Halpen's parents were against her going on a cruise, but her doting uncle didn't see it that way. He thought it a fine graduation gift for his favorite (and only) niece. Unfortunately, before Jenny has a chance to enjoy the voyage, the Cassandra collides with a meteor shower, and her escape pod is separated from the others. Landing on an uninhabited world might not be so bad if Jenny's pod-mates were human, but they're not. They're poodles...all three of them...and not just your garden-variety poodles, either. They're the telepathic Royal Family of Canaris, and they're of the opinion that Jenny's now their servant, existing only to protect and serve them. Robinson Crusoe had it easy!

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Summary: Jadiera lives a simple life as a courier between the islands of the kingdom she calls home. Hauling small wares isn't exciting--but it keeps a ship under her feet. Until the day she is mistaken for someone so dangerous, people only speak of her in hushed tones. And a bunch of mythological faeries fly into her life. Having a calm and steady life becomes nothing but a wish for Jadiera as she and her new faery companions fight off pirates and evil gnomes. Life will never be the same. This is a standalone novella that ties into The Lost Ancients extended series. It can be read without having read the other The Lost Ancients books.

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Summary: More enemies, more tricks, more explosions! Once again, Taryn has her hands full—but sometimes her hands have talons… Relic hunter Taryn St. Giles spent years with her head down in the dirt, unearthing the secrets of ancient artifacts. Now she is the one being hunted for the secrets of her own past. And if she’s not clever, strong, and very, very lucky, she’ll be the next relic buried. Monsters, magic, and mayhem have haunted her through secret caverns, forgotten elven cities, and some really mediocre taverns. With her beloved Alric and dear friends kidnapped, she’s heading to the southern continent with her remaining stalwart companions where more mayhem awaits—along with stranger monsters and a deadly magic that twists her very flesh and bones. Old mysteries almost destroyed her world once—and Taryn was right there. As long-lost deities and hidden realms return with lethal consequences, she has another chance to discover her destiny and reclaim her power. But if she fails, more than her friends will be lost forever. Join the continuing adventures from the extended Lost Ancients series!

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Summary: An act of desperation by young magician Brandon accidentally snatches Scott Hathaway from our world. Struggling to adapt to his new life, Scott becomes ensnared in dark local politics. He realizes he can use the knowledge he brought from his world to save his new friends, but at what cost? The first in a series. A story about an engineer who gets accidentally transported to a medieval type world where magic is real. But all is not as it seems!

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Summary: William was a soldier until an IED severely wounded and scarred his body. Now he lives a quiet life in a small village in the Black Forest and is the caretaker of the church and caregiver to the local priest. He’s grown fond of the two stone gargoyles on the bell tower and often speaks to them, reminding himself of Quasimodo. But on his thirty-seventh birthday he learns a stunning secret—the gargoyles aren’t what they seem.

Word Count: Click here to reveal115000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: A group of strangers meets at Ragazzi, an Italian restaurant, for a cooking lesson that will change them all. They quickly become intertwined in each other's lives, and a bit of magic touches each of them. Meet Dave, the consultant who lost his partner; Matteo and Diego, the couple who run the restaurant; recently-widowed Carmelina; Marcos, a web designer getting too old for hook-ups; Ben, a trans author writing the Great American Novel; teenager Marissa, kicked out for being bi; and Sam and Brad, a May-September couple who would never have gotten together without a little magic of their own. Everyone in the River City has a secret, and sooner or later secrets always come out. Narrated by Michael Lysan.

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Summary: Once upon a time, it was a tough world for a young princess. What happens to the world when the princess decides to get even? Aeryn Stonebreaker is the Princess of Shadows, second in line to the throne of the Light, Shadows, and Dark. The singsong her nursemaids give her is, “Gimlé is wide and bleak, Aeryn is small and weak.” It’s a hard life on Gimlé, a strange world with a red sun that does not move in the sky. Generations before, Aeryn’s warrior-king ancestor, Arthur the Hammer, unified the land and established a detailed Code of governance and behavior. But while Aeryn is a child, obedience to Arthur’s Code is fraying and the kingdom is ripped apart by rebellion and war. She grows up amid the ebb and flow of fighting and the losses it causes. What is the fate of a young girl in a patriarchal world where a princess is nothing more than a token on the game boards of powerful men? However, this is a princess who stops playing by the rules and picks up her own weapons. What happens then?

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Summary: When an airship is hijacked by pirates, a young man with a secret loses his mentor ... and his future. After twice thwarting the pirates' plans, he must finally come to terms with the pirate captain and decide whether to ally himself with him ... or to confront a hostile future alone.

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Summary: The Fantastical Romances You’ve Been Craving Hugo Finalist Janice L. Newman presents a touching trio of romances in a speculative vein. From the edge of space, to the shadows of the paranormal, to the marvels of the mystic: At First Contact: A germaphobe and an android are assigned a mission to survey a planet together. Will they discover new life or a new love? Ghosted: Leo is searching for the soul that used to haunt his grandmother’s house. Did Will ghost him? A Touch of Magic: What if love could alter the fabric of existence? A fraught romance between two teachers just might be helped along by a touch of magic.

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Summary: Bad things happen for a reason. Adam Neive’s expiration date is closer than he would like, and it’s only a matter of time before he loses his position as a Ganymede counter-boy. When a friend helps him secure a part-time job at a whiskey bar, his only thought is to escape the looming shadow of the brothels. He never expected another run-in with the witch Sebastian. Fourteen months after being booted from his coven, Sebastian has become convinced his brother’s death is connected to the wolves of The Whiskey Den. He just needs Adam’s help to discover how. But things are not always as they seem, and justice is more elusive than expected. When an announcement from the House of Witches changes everything, Adam will need to choose between life within the safety of the king's Monastery and the uncertainty of the city. While Sebastian will have to decide if his family's honor and the life he thought he had lost forever is worth more than the life he's only begun to realize he wants.

Word Count: Click here to reveal110000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Courage. Honor. Loyalty. All fine things, but they’ve led John Ringo to kill a man. He was raised right and he knows he’s not a murderer, but otherwise he’s a mystery even to himself. Doc Holliday claims to have some insights, but Doc is too devoted to Wyatt Earp to spare much attention for the man who’s already lost his soul. Which leaves Johnny Ringo prey to the distractions of a demon. Imaginary or not, if this creature abandons him, too, then surely his sanity is forfeit – and what will his life be worth then? This Queer Weird West novel follows these three along the complex trails that lead into and out of Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.

Word Count: Click here to reveal37000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: He'll get by with a little help from his mate. When Paul's long-buried past reaches out for him, having Simon at his back should make all the difference. The shy, studious teen who ditched his hometown is now a grown man with a good life, an honorable profession, and a werewolf boyfriend. So why is still so hard to go home? A new 37,000 word novella in the same time frame as book 6 in the Hidden Wolves series brings challenges, pain, love, and their HEA for our favorite guys. Content warning for assisted suicide.

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Summary: Charlie’s life force is fading. His only hope is an aged martial arts master in the remote reaches of China who, as far as Cappa can tell, doesn’t like him very much. While Charlie and Cappa are away from Z-Tech, William has been raising an empire of his own — one determined to crush any who interfere with his plans for world domination. Worse, he’s sided with the only other organization who had almost succeeded in erasing Z-Tech from the global market, pitting Anne and her friends in a desperate struggle for survival. The enemy has the advantage of numbers, but Z-Tech has Zima — a one-person army in her own right. Only time will tell if she’s enough to offset the overwhelming forces set against Z-Tech, and if San Francisco will survive their battle.

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Summary: Does the need for knowledge balance its burden? Donovan would prefer to die in his bed, but circumstances might force him to do otherwise. When Donovan is tasked with Retrieving a young child thought to be a magus — the most powerful magic user in any generation — he is thrown headfirst into a world of intrigue and deception where any move he makes could be the one that shifts his people into a position of bloodshed and failure. There is a war brewing, centuries old. The Hunters, blood mages and child-snatchers fight the born mages, people of the Order, the school of magic and scholarly pursuit. Donovan must learn who and what to trust and how to endure suffering as he finds more and more about the nature of this endless war and what he can do to stop it.

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Summary: Summoned by an aunt he didn’t know he had, Edison Jones heads to a small Welsh village. He’s met by Gavril, the local blacksmith, and the men quickly become good friends. Gavril takes him to Mam Eira. Their kinship is real; she only asks for his presence and help. Encouraged to work in the local copper mine, Edison meets Bleddyn, the man of his dreams. However, it isn’t long before he’s drawn into a web of mystery and magic where people are not always what they seem. Bleddyn is The Guardian of the mine, set there to watch over an ancient, and deadly, adversary. When evil is unleashed, Bleddyn is taken prisoner and Edison must face an age-old evil and rescue the man he loves.

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Summary: You’ll tell me the truth in this trial of blood. After suffering a horrific loss, Midnight Fury is looking to settle the score, and she’s determined to do it alone. A vendetta against vampires doesn’t mix with music or touring, but Midnight’s never been afraid of a challenge. The Furies are fragmented and Midnight’s bond with Lottie is tenuous at best. Erebus is her clean slate, the perfect distraction from the broken pieces she’s left behind. But Midnight isn’t the only one with a secret. Danger is closing in. The past is threatening to catch up to them. When a member of her new band is targeted by a vampire, Midnight has no choice but to confront everything she’s been running from. It’s time to go on the offensive. Will Midnight measure up to her own expectations? Or will she lose part of herself to vengeance?

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Summary: Home, a place where we belong and are safe and loved. Home, the house in which we grew up, a neighborhood, a culture, even a country. Home is a state of mind, it is a place of the heart, and in the heart. Finding home, coming home, and bringing home the one we love is a journey, a journey that can be a dangerous adventure. For the lovers in these stories, adventures can include quests and fighting dragons and demons, past and present, physical as well as mental and emotional. Rocket launchers need to be dodged, the Wild Hunt needs to be outrun. For some of the lovers here, home has been lost, or they have been forced to leave, as is too common for LGBT+ youth. In this collection queer positive speculative fiction stories, explore the idea of what and where home is in the lives of these lovers. Will they survive their quests, defeat their monsters? Will they find a place to call home?  

Word Count: Click here to reveal4576 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Sometimes, we get second chances -- at love, to make things right, to say good-bye the way it should have been said. Darian promised his dying husband Randy he would go through with the plan to teach summer school in Bath, England. Randy insisted; it was always Darian’s dream to live in England, go, do it. But once there, in Tintagel, on a street in Coverack, a small Cornish seaside village, Darian sees Randy. Grief can make us see things, right? So Darian tells himself, until the man whom he buried, whose ashes he carried with him to England, sits down beside him on a bench in front of Bath Abbey, with screaming seagulls nearby. It seems the dead can come back. But why and how? Has Randy come to take Darian with him? Or is something else going?

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Summary: Two people find themselves in a quandary: Aderri, a powerful dragon shifter with some light defensive magic, and Ellys, a half-elven swordswoman for hire, one of the best across the six nations. When Aderri gets news that she must come home for the naming ceremony of a new hatchling, she's forced to hire Ellys and her telepathic steed, Roccotári, to see her safely there. Of course, things are never as simple as they seem. Not only do they have to traverse the land between two kingdoms on the brink of war, but Aderri's Clan expects her to return with a romantic interest. So, for the added promise of triple Ellys's normal fee, the half-elf agrees to pretend to be Aderri's suitor. Ellys and Aderri have to convince a Clan full of magical mixed-shifters for a week that creatures of differing elements can burn with the flames of love, without actually lying. A situation made even more difficult by a matchmaking mare, steamy baths, and an innkeeper with mischief on the mind. Caught between the weight of the past and expectations of the future, they must find their true destiny within the heat of fire.