Epic Classics

Sean was just waiting for his best friend to show up at the bar so they could play some pool. It came as a shock when the tall blonde man accosted Sean and demanded that he change seats. His refusal would change his life. When the fight ended, Sean found himself in the strangest meeting of his life. Odin, Archangel Michael, Lucifer, and Morrigan all vied for his soul, each offering different deals. Sean had to choose, so he chose to go with the goddess of Fate, Death, and Battle.

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the fall of man....

It can lay low a dragon or heal a wounded warrior. It is the most sought-after magical power in all Faern. And it is in the reluctant hands of Shandril of Highmoon, a young, orphaned kitchen-lass. Now she's on the run from half of the evil sorcerers in the land, not to mention their relentless minions. But with the help of a handsome young wizard, some rough-and-tumble Knights of Myth Drannor, and a certain old mage of Shadowdale, she just might manage to stay alive. At least until tomorrow.

As the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, Isabelle Copley discovered that she could paint images so vividly real they brought her wildest fantasies to life. Now, 20 years later, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams and bring the magic back to life.

For elven pathfinder Varian Jeggare and his devil-blooded assistant Radovan, things are rarely as they seem. Yet not even the notorious crime-solving duo is prepared for what they find when a search for a missing pathfinder takes them into the mist-shrouded mountains of gothic Ustalav.

The King of Elfland's Daughter is one of the most beloved fantasy novels of our time. Lord Dunsany, in his inventive, poetic style, tells the heartbreaking story of a marriage between a mortal man and an elf princess. This masterpiece has influenced some of our greatest contemporary fantasists, including Neil Gaiman, J.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Ursula K. Le Guin, and C.L. Moore, who stated: "No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who's ever read him has tried." Dunsany's "The Gods of Pegana" follows "The King of Elfland's Daughter."

Wallie Smith can feel the pain. He goes to the hospital, remembers the doctors and the commotion, but when he wakes up it all seems like a dream. However, if that was a dream how do you explain waking up in another body and in another world? Little Wallie finds himself in the physique of a barbarian swordsman, accompanied by both an eccentric priest babbling about the Goddess and a voluptuous slave girl. Is this a rude awakening or a dream come true?

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son was originally published in the 1953 edition of Essays and Studies. In December of that year, J.R.R. Tolkien took possession of a reel-to-reel tape recorder and, some time during the first few months of 1954, decided to record ‘the whole thing on tape’ as a way of ‘testing’ the performative quality of the dramatic dialogue between Tídwald and Torhthelm.

Ryker only has one goal in his life right now: Turn a certain adventuring guild into a flaming wreck while dancing merrily through the smoldering ruins. All for the chance to get back at a handful of people. It isn’t as if they didn’t deserve it either. They had driven him from his home. Chased him physically from the very guild house itself. Simply because he wasn’t as strong as they expected him to be. As strong as he’d expected himself to be. He’d returned the next day and left with something he’d hidden away and told no one about when he found it in one of his few Dungeon Dives.

Rosamund is an Earth Master in the Schwarzwald, the ancient Black Forest of Germany. Since the age of 10, she has lived with her teacher, the Hunt Master and Earth Magician of the Schwarzwald Foresters, a man she calls "Papa". Her adoptive Papa rescued her after her original Earth Master teacher, an old woman who lived alone in a small cottage in the forest, was brutally murdered by werewolves. Rosa herself barely escaped, and this terrifying incident molded the course of her future.

Concluding the story begun in The Hobbit, this is the final part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, available as a complete and unabridged audiobook. The armies of the Dark Lord Sauron are massing as his evil shadow spreads ever wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves and Ents unite forces to do battle against the Dark. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam struggle further into Mordor in their heroic quest to destroy the One Ring.

Prospero, a tall, skinny misfit of a wizard, lives in the South Kingdom - a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all loosely loyal to one figurehead king. Along with his necromancer friend Roger Bacon, who has been on a quest to find a mysterious book, Prospero must flee his home to escape ominous pursuers. Thus begins an adventure that will lead him to a grove where his old rival, Melichus, is falsely rumored to be buried and to a less-than-hospitable inn in the town of Five Dials - and ultimately into a dangerous battle with origins in a magical glass paperweight.

Josetta is a princess of one of the Five Families. But she is far from the throne, so she is free to spend her days working in the poorest sections of the city. Rafe Adova, an outcast since he was born, lives the life of a career gambler in those slums. He has no ambition other than cheating at the card tables - until the night he decides to help a girl named Corene, who looks like she's stumbled into the wrong bar.

Aranthur is a promising young mage. His talents compel him to attend University to develop his abilities further. But the world is not safe for a mage, and after a confrontation leaves him no choice but to display his skill with a blade, Aranthur is instructed to train under a renowned Master of Swords. During his intensive training he begins to question the bloody life he's chosen. And while studying under the Master, Aranthur is conscripted to the City Militia. Soon after, he finds himself thrown into the middle of a political revolt that will impact everyone he's come to know.

The hard-won battles fought in Imager's Battalion have earned Quaeryt a promotion to commander, as well as an assignment to convince the Pharsi High Council in the nation of Khel to submit to Lord Bhayar's rule, which is key to Bhayar's ambition to unite all of Solidar. Joined by his pregnant wife, Vaelora, who is also Bhayar's sister, Quaeryt leads an army and a handful of imagers deeper into the hostile lands once held by the tyrannical Rex Kharst.

The Argonautica, also known as Jason and the Golden Fleece or Jason and the Argonauts, is the only surviving epic poem from Hellenistic Greece. It is a masterpiece whose story was well known to the audiences of the time. Virgil and other later poets were greatly influenced by it. Its author, Apollonius, was a well-known third century BC scholar living in Alexandria during the great age of Ptolomaic scholarship, and his bold attempt at writing a Homeric epic about Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece faced a daunting audience of knowledgeable contemporaries.

Though he was later accused of every crime and sexual perversion in the galaxy, Hope Hubris began as an innocent. Because he defended his older sister against the violent lusts of a wealthy scion, Hope and his peasant family were forced to flee Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. Pursued by the bloodthirsty scions across the airless desert, they barely escaped with their lives. The illegal space bubble was overcrowded with refugees, all hoping to reach Jupiter for asylum.

Samuel Pickwick, founder and chairman of the Pickwick Club, engages three fellow members to accompany him on a journey. By coach they’ll travel to the outreaches of London to explore, observe, and report back on the quaint wonders of the English countryside. What transpires is a picaresque romp of misadventures, hair-raising challenges, and romantic follies entangling the fates of a riot of colorful characters - a passel of villains, spinsters, poets, and sportsmen - and the unworldly Pickwick himself, who has much to learn about life outside his gentleman’s club.

The adventure continues. Tim and the C and C gang face their most difficult challenges yet. Horses die. Eyeballs are eaten. People are urinated on. A god is born.

Farmer Giles of Ham did not look like a hero. He was fat and red-bearded and enjoyed a slow, comfortable life. Then one day a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blundered on to his land. More by luck than skill, Farmer Giles managed to scare him away. The people of the village cheered: Farmer Giles was a hero. His reputation spread far and wide across the kingdom. So it was natural that when the dragon Chrysophylax visited the area it was Farmer Giles who was expected to do battle with it!