Fiction Sagas

Hugh Howey is known for crafting riveting and immersive tales of boundless imagination. Now comes Machine Learning, an impressive collection of Howey's science fiction and fantasy short fiction, including three stories set in the world of Wool, two never-before-published tales written exclusively for this volume, and 15 additional stories collected here for the first time. These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author's note.

After the fall of the great Vandarian fortress of Dragon's Bane, Elyon Daecar gathers his army in the Lakelands to the north. They have suffered a great defeat. Heroes and friends have fallen. Yet, with the Windblade in his grasp, Elyon will not yield. From east to west and north to south, he will take the fight to the enemy and soar.

Armed with lancers, breech-loading rifles, steamships, and galleys, General Belisarius, accompanied by his own ally from the future, ventures into the Malwa Empire, a sixth-century kingdom ruled by Link, a horrifying and evil entity from the future.

Shane Bradford has to make a decision. It won't be easy since there are plenty of consequences either way. He has to gauge the risk, the reward. He also has to act fast—second nature to him as a New England lobsterman. The clock is ticking. Every minute counts. So as the golden beach grasses sway, as Long Island Sound's lazy waves roll in, as the gulls call, as the tides turn, he decides. But at what cost?

This alternate-history steampunk western contains action, adventure, magic, and a mystery that will change the Western Native Lands forever.

In a world where 80% of the population is wiped out, survival comes at a price. Governments crumble. Freedom slips away. What would you sacrifice to survive? Meet Arora and Blaze, twin sisters genetically engineered to control electricity. Raised by Keane Corp., a ruthless conglomerate that now rules in the aftermath of global devastation, they’ve been molded into weapons. But when fate rips them apart, they’re thrust into opposing sides of the battle for what’s left of humanity. Separated and alone, they must navigate a shattered world, forging new alliances—and learning who they ...

A full-cast production of the science fiction classic featuring original recordings of Orson Scott Card

The quiet 1960s midwestern life of the Land family is upended when son Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy (a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others) escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory even more extraordinary than the Badlands, where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer.

When Kate Bowman temporarily moves to her grandmother’s Missouri farm with her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who's become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her grandmother’s heart.

Celebrated actress Lavinia Hargraves performs her most challenging role offstage. Although born in 1872 to Daniel Taylor, a white man and wealthy landowner in Southern California, Lavinia's mother, Lori, is a Negro and former slave. Lavinia, who appears white, is desperate to hide her Negro ancestry as well as pursue her dream of becoming the world's greatest actress.

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

A freelance reporter struggling to get into the "big time".... A rookie officer starting her career in public safety.... A cargo ship captain trying to outlive a terminal illness that has no cure.... A bounty hunter returning a long-hunted fugitive to Earth.... A terrible plague that threatens to destroy the human race.... The 25th century is not starting off very well.

London, 1938: Lizzie Larch is a 20-year-old hat maker in London's east end. She is happy and popular, but she carries a secret. Seven years ago she was viciously attacked and recovered in a private sanatorium where she miscarried a child. Lizzie has no memory of the night of the attack, but secrets cannot stay secret for too long. When she starts courting her boss' nephew, a shocking revelation surfaces; threatening to destroy their new-found happiness.

1850. When Opal Sharp finds herself and her younger siblings suddenly orphaned and destitute, she thinks things can get no worse. But soon three of them - including Opal - are struck down with the illness that took their father from them, and her brother Charlie is forced to make an impossible decision. Unable to afford a doctor, he knows the younger children will not survive. So, unbeknownst to Opal, Charlie takes their younger siblings to the workhouse, where he knows they will at least be fed and have a roof over their heads. Opal is heartbroken and struggles to forgive him.

The saga begins in tribal, pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and mighty High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers whose travails cleverly echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From that stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the listener on a powerfully imagined journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a memorable cast of characters we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.

Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado - the Centennial State - is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; and the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe.

Antor Trellig, head of a ruthless interstellar syndicate, has seized a supercomputer with godlike powers that could make him omnipotent. The Council offers master criminal Mavra Chang any reward she desires if she can stop Trellig - and horrible, lingering death if she fails. But neither Trellig nor Mavra has taken the Well World into consideration. Built by the ancient Markovians, the Well World controls the design of the cosmos. When the opponents are drawn across space to the mysterious planet, they find themselves in new, alien bodies and in the middle of a battle where strange races fight desperately.

Searching for his long-lost father, Bransen Garibond is tricked into journeying across the Gulf of Corona to the wild lands of Vanguard, where he is pressed into service in a desperate war against the brutal Samhaist, Ancient Badden. On an Alpinadoran lake, just below Ancient Badden's magical ice castle, several societies, caught in the web of their own conflicts, are oblivious to Ancient Badden's devastating plans to destroy them.

Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.

Some bonds are unbreakable...Chris Andersen had spent years throwing himself into one project then another...one painting and then the next one...all in an effort to bury the profound grief he had never completely faced... Enduring is the seventeenth novella in the ongoing story of the Andersen family. Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been months since her death and her children and grandchildren she leaves behind continue to grapple with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. Chris Andersen is searching ...