Alternate World Fantasy

World War II started two months ago. And then fizzled out like a wet fuse, at least in Europe. An otherworldly army has invaded Earth. The Axis and the Allies must work together if they are to stop it. Ernst Haufmann, Director of Ahnenerbe, the German Reich's research into the occult, thinks he knows a way to stop the invasion forces so that Germany can once again resume its own plans for world domination. The powers behind the invasion from Aerth believe so as well. They'll do anything to find the ancient artifact Ernst seeks before Ernst does.

Alternating between nineteenth-century Europe and present-day New England, this tale follows the great British painter J. M. W. Turner - and his scene of artists, intellectuals, and lovers - and Henry, a middle-aged family man whose otherwise mundane existence is disrupted by the discovery of The Center of the World, Turner’s controversial painting of Helen of Troy that had been thought lost forever.

Three teams of warriors are on Aerth - two human, one Dwarven. All three want the Gate over Rotterdam closed, and all three are working separately to accomplish their goals. At the same time, the situation on Earth is detiorating. Germany is once again at war, this time with the Swiss. The unstable situation in Germany's leadership only gets worse as Hagirr's mate and powerful sorceress does her job of keeping humanity off balance. Fascist Germany is her tool. Or is it?

After months of mystery, the true power of the blue men has finally been revealed, plunging the fate of both new and old worlds into question. Working together with their new dragon allies, Britain and the United States must find some way to survive in a cosmos at war.... But when a new blue man threat is discovered, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and all the heroes of the new world, must rally for a dangerous mission - one that offers them only a slim chance of survival. The time has come for humanity to truly face the Empire....

The eight masterly stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From nostalgic memories of youth, meditations on music and an ardent love of baseball to dreamlike scenarios, an encounter with a talking monkey and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Murakami himself is present. Is it memoir or fiction? The listener decides.

Set during the Gold Rush, in a re-imagined American West, Lucy and Sam, 12 and 11, are newly orphaned siblings. With their father's body on their backs, they roam an unforgiving landscape dotted with buffalo bones and tiger paw prints, searching for a place to give him a proper burial. The siblings must battle with their own memories, the illusion of the American Dream and each other.

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, the king’s new wife. But Anne has failed to give the king an heir, and Cromwell watches as Henry falls for plain Jane Seymour. Cromwell must find a solution that will satisfy Henry, safeguard the nation and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge unscathed from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

In the foreboding halls of Worthington Manor, eighteen-year-old Briar has always known she was different. Raised by a stern housekeeper and a reclusive uncle after her parents' mysterious disappearance, her sheltered life is shattered when she discovers a chilling secret: her mother and father didn't abandon her—they were forced into hiding to protect her from those who coveted her innate abilities. When a mysterious murder near Worthington Manor bears the hallmarks of ritual sacrifice, Briar follows a trail of cryptic clues to London. There, in her mother's ancestral home of Rosemere ...

If war is hell, there is no word to describe what Private Jones has been through. Forced into a conflict with an unknowable enemy, he awakes to find himself in a strange land and is soon joined by a young woman, Morana, who tends to his wounds and tells him of the battles played out in this impossible place. She tells him of an Iron Beast that will end the Great War, and even as he vows to help her find it, enemy combatants seek them, intent on their utter annihilation.

Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be "the other", this groundbreaking anthology contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, Iraq + 100 is also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future.

Three hundred million years ago, the galactic community was taken by surprise. A catastrophic war with a hostile entity threatened to destroy all life until the fight was postponed by a calamitous event known as the Great Conflation. With the majority of pre-Conflation empires in ruins and the Ascended Biologicals wiped out, the hastily formed Wanderer Enclave tasked its fleet with unearthing answers and continuing the fight. One lone ship has found something: an innocuous world it had marked for routine decontamination that may hold vital answers.

THE ALTERNATE WORLD OF KAINNAN IS ANYTHING BUT STABLE... The elusive Wilhelm is still alive and plotting multiple takeovers. Despite hunting him for months, Aaron the Priest seems no closer to uncovering his plans and is forced to seek assistance on earth to stop the tyrant. Following their life-threatening experiences on Kainnan, Noah and Katerina are looking forward to a normal life – if normal includes living in hiding. Along with Ryder and Summer, who are facing challenges of their own, Aaron must recruit them all if Kainnan is to be saved. With the truth and deception rings in play, ...

THE FATE OF TWO WORLDS IS HANGING IN THE BALANCE… Back on Earth after nearly losing their lives on the alternate world of Kainnan, Noah, Katerina, Summer and Ryder are desperate to catch and eliminate the tyrant Wilhelm once and for all. Yet just when they finally have a breakthrough, Wilhelm hunts them down. Within hours, one of them is kidnapped, one is poisoned and one set up for assassination. Even if they succeed in saving each other, Wilhelm is about to unleash a new and deadly weapon which threatens to decimate the people of both Kainnan and Earth. With two worlds in jeopardy, ...

HOLMES IS STILL MISSING BUT NOW HIS GOOD FRIENDS HAVE AN IDEA OF WHERE HE MIGHT BE. A DUPLICATE HOLMES APPEARED WHEN SHERLOCK VANISHED. HIS NAME IS STEAMPUNK HOLMES. WHILE STEAMPUNK HOLMES, A LONG GUN TOTING STEAMPUNK COWBOY DETECTIVE, MESSES WITH WATSON’S MIND IN A FORCED PARTNERSHIP, THE REAL HOLMES IS WAKING UP TO AN EMPIRE DRIVEN BY BRUTAL FORCES AND VIOLENCE.

Things are moving and shaking for Rachael as a new vampire hunter! Rachael was uprooted from her life as an author the day one of her characters knocked on her door and invited her to attend the very academy she invited in her books--Silverwood Academy. How could she pass up the request from the sexy leading man she'd created? Now that she's there, she's not only fighting bloodsuckers, she's trying to figure out how all of this happened. Could it be tied to some magical powers that are passed down through her family? If that's the case, what else can she do? Rachael is doing her best to ...

The terror of the coming of the Martians is all but a distant memory, a bad dream that has faded with time. All George wants is a quiet suburban life – but at breakfast one morning his newspaper reports the shocking discovery of a Martian cylinder, found intact and unopened, and carefully transported to London. Could it be from the first alien invasion and are Martians still alive inside after more than ten years?

In our universe, Ponce de Leon is remembered for his fruitless search for the mythical fountain of youth. But, in an alternate universe, his quest found something very different - and very dangerous. Eighty-five years later, Spain sent a fleet of ships against England. The English were confident that they could repel the threat - but England's fleet was annihilated by weapons shooting beams of fiery light, weapons which seemed to employ the blackest of sorcery, even if they were wielded by odd-looking beings in monk's garb.

Two more compelling mystery adventures in the magical town of London during the Victorian era. But on a different world parallel to our own. A world where magic and steampunk science co-exist. CASE OF THE BUTTERFLY PRINCESS The Baron treated her like a Princess, but when she vanished, the awful truth would soon be revealed by the clever work of Sherlock Holmes…if he and Watson can escape the same fate first. A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY Ghastly series of murders leads Holmes and Scotland Yard to the sewers deep beneath London. What they discover is that there are no mistakes with this ...

The war had taken everything from Lina Sucherin - her parents, sisters, a fledgling romance...even her faith in herself and her psychic abilities. All of it ripped away with the fall of the Third Reich and the brutal Soviet sack of Berlin. Three years later, amid the suspicion, paranoia, and fledgling brutality of communist East Germany, danger threatens the only people Lina cares about, forcing her to overcome her lingering self-doubt.

Known for his New York Times best-selling alternate history novels, Flint is equally a master of shorter forms, and this second large volume gathers more of Flint's shorter works. Including several stories and a short novel set in Flint's celebrated Ring of Fire alternate history series. A commemorative novelette set in Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos universe. A story with Dave Freer, set in his and Flint's popular Rats, Bats, and Vats series. Several humorous short stories addressing Biblical literalism. A long novella in a Martian steampunk setting.