Search Worlds Without End

By all accounts, 16-year-old Maya Blair is a typical teen-age high school student. She hangs out with her best friend Lucy, has a turbulent relationship with her ex-boyfriend Stuart, and works at her family's diner - the main restaurant on the island of Coronado Bay.

But Maya has an extraordinary secret - she can see, hear, and talk to ghosts. And when spirits are near her they revert back to solid form. She is what her deceased grandmother Elsa calls a Seer.

For years, Elsa was the only ghost Maya knew. But that changes when the century-old wreckage of the Black Lady, a ship that capsized in Coronado Bay's waters, is raised from the ocean floor and placed on display in the local museum. During a school tour of the Black Lady exhibit, Maya meets Blake Hennessy, a young, fair-skinned boy to whom she is instantly attracted. Shortly thereafter, a sensual, gothic young man named Gavin Hamlin crosses her path, and she is equally smitten. Her feelings bloom before she realizes they are both ghosts - Blake, the kind-hearted spirit who cares for Maya's well being, and Gavin, the dark wizard who thirsts to finish the evil task he longed to complete 100 years before.

To accomplish his nefarious plan, Gavin has to be human again. And for that, he needs the blood of a virgin witch. In his mind, Maya is the perfect candidate. Now it's up to Maya, Lucy, and Blake to save Coronado Bay and the world from destruction. But time is running out, people are dying, and Gavin's powers are growing.

Things were so much simpler when all she had to worry about was a date for the dance.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Future Is Japanese (2012), edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection (2013), edited by Gardner Dozois.

The Towers of Toron

The Lord of the Flames was loose on Earth once more--this deadly alien entity had nearly destroyed the Empire of Toromon with its first attack. Its return now would mean a new era of chaos and conflict for the remnants of humanity. Somehow mankind must defeat this strangest of all enemies--an enemy that could be anywhere or anyone, an enemy that would reduce the human race to primitive savagery...

The Lunar Eye

Beware: Spies from space!

The power of the Second Alliance has coalesced and terrorism institutionalized. New concentration camps bring the horrors of "Ethnic Cleansing" to a terrifying intensity. The SA stands poised to conquer the ruins of Europe with brutality. Media manipulation has become mind control--and mind control, an art. Secret treaties have been made in back rooms, on the Internet, and in hidden laboratories. Your only hope is the New Resistance. People like Dance Torrence and his fellow urban warriors on Earth; Claire Rimpler on the L5 colony, FirStep; Smoke, the damaged visionary; and Alouette, a precocious cyber-jacked little girl on the cutting edge on a strange new frontier of human collective-consciousness, the Entelechy. Ordinary people bound together by the truth and a single purpose: to keep the secret darkness from becoming humankind's Total Eclipse--or die trying.

Laos, 1976: Dr Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor, has been unwillingly appointed the national coroner of newly-socialist Laos. Though his lab is underfunded, his boss is incompetent, and his support staff is quirky to say the least, Siri's sense of humor gets him through his often frustrating days.

When the body of the wife of a prominent politician comes through his morgue, Siri has reason to suspect the woman has been murdered. To get to the truth, Siri and his team face government secrets, spying neighbors, victim hauntings, Hmong shamans, botched romances, and other deadly dangers. Somehow, Siri must figure out a way to balance the will of the party and the will of the dead.

An exciting series especially for readers new to the Forgotten Realms!

Thazienne Uskevren, the only legitimate daughter of the wealthy Uskevren family, has suffered blow after blow to her body and spirit. Even as she struggles to mend her fractured soul, Tazi finds herself on a journey that will take her far from the safety of Selgaunt and into the deadly heart of the Calim Desert. There the shifting sands hide an old foe, who holds the key to Tazi's salvation--or the doom of Sembia.

Aurelia Kim Murray is a California girl who wishes there were more to life. And there is. For Kim is part of a royal family from a tiny eastern European country, and soon finds herself swept up in the romance and mystery she always wanted-and more, because there's something very different about her bloodline and the magical nature of her ancestral country.

Oron the Nevgan walked among his fallen comrades, mercifully slashing throats and breaking open brains. He was a young man, this Oron, a young warrior, but his mien was that of a slayer of men. His young man's face was scarred and hardened with lines, his full beard was matted and coarse. The knotted hands that held so well the rough steel were stained and calloused; his eyes under somber brows were shadowed with a hundred crimson conflicts....

The rain beat at the hardened gore and mud. It ran in rivulets down stilled swords thrust in the earth, filling up the sockets of the open and eyes and mouths of the dead and dying warriors; scattered or contorted, singly or in heaps, they lay everywhere, men fallen on the field of battle, death the only reward for their bravery.

There was a time long past when he fought not for wealth or women, just for the pleasure of being Oron the warrior. But now he was civilized and wielded his sword for gold. Now he was in the employ of the one they called Amrik THE BULL MAN.

Akram, the wanderer, battles an ageless curse. He must slay the immortal sorceress, Nidyis, or be destroyed by her love.

He was Akram, The Wanderer

He spoke with a gutteural accent. He was tall, strongly built, rough-hewn-not a civilized man. His naked chest and dark face were grown thick with swarming balck hair; his teely black eyes burned with a sombre glare. His mouth was a hard line, matching his brow. His large hands were bruised and calloused-the hands of a fighter, a swordsman. His tattered breeches were of touch northern make, but his sword was noticeably the finist of the Neriam metal-smiths. He was a wanderer-nomore Neriam than he was Khomi.

She was Nidyis, The Sorceress

And she was beautiful. Her long and foamy hair letloose about her in teeming curls and glossy waves, down her round shoulders and long back, glistening darkly in the torchlight and starlight. Her lustrous dark eyes were shaded with kohl, and her full lips stained a shimmering wet crimson. About her naked throat was loosely draped a golden chain with ruby pendents. She wore a skirt of gossamor, falling languidly aorund her ripe hips. her voice was as husky and soft as a voice betraying whispered secrets.

Their Love Was Timeless --- Their Destinies to Destory Each Other...

YOU HAVE AN ENEMY, MOSUTHA!

Intrigued, the magus commanded the voice of the smoke "Tell me further, Spirit of Hell, who is this enemy?"

"He is the Blood of the Sword. He is a hero, born of the line of the First Hero. He is a wolf in the skin of a man; he is a god wrapped in human flesh."

"Tell me his name."

The smoke demon began to dissolve, then the barbaric sorcerer hurled more blood on the grate. "He is the son of the Aksakin, and he is called Oron!"

"It cannot be!" Mosutha went cold to his bowels. "Where is he now? How will I know of him?"

"You will know him when you face his sword, sorcerer. He hunts you, magician. But he can die. He will die!"

"Then I shall slay him. I shall use mysorcery and I shall slay this Wolf. I shall slay ORON."

Oron faces the Barbaric Chieftain Ogrum.

Heads Roll When Oron Hefts His Mighty Sword!

Contents:

The Fate of Diaru - Oron rescues a young woman involved in an arranged marriage against her will.

The Jewel for the Sorcerer's Daughter - Oron happens upon a couple battling over a mystical jewel that could save their daughter's life.

Red Tears - Oron's travels take him through a bandit ravaged village where the only survivors are women who fear for their lives.

The Seven-Pointed Star - Oron unwillingly battles alongside a group of sorcerer's set upon bringing death to a traitor of their ranks.

Death In Asakad - Oron is caught in the besieged city of Asakad and must decide which warring faction to ally with.

An awesome, sentient force of protostars - Corona - has taken control of a stranded team of Vulcan scientists. The USS Enterprise has come on a rescue mission, with a female reporter and a new computer that can override Kirk's command. Suddenly, the rescuers must save themselves and the entire Universe - before Corona unleashes a Big Bang!

It is a time of great turmoil. The oppressive Empire is close to seizing complete control of the galaxy. The ragtag guerrilla army of the Rebel Alliance fights on, striking wherever it can, but now something has come to light that could spell certain doom. Hidden in the Jedi ruins of Dantooine is a Holocron containing a list of high-level Rebel sympathizers. If that list were to fall into the hands of Darth Vader, the Rebel Alliance would lose its most valued support--and possibly the war itself.

As an Imperial bio-engineer who frequently visits other worlds, Dusque Mistflier is the perfect cover for a Rebel who needs to travel far and wide without arousing suspicion. And so she agrees to help Rebel spy Finn Darktrin in his quest to recover the crucial Holocron. Despite help from Han, Luke, and Leia, the mission is fraught with peril. And as their journey takes them into the fiery belly of the beast that is galactic civil war, Dusque and Finn will learn that the hardest part of all is figuring out whose side you're on--and how far you're willing to go to win....