Vlad Taltos, a mobster and assassin in the magical metropolis of Adrilankha, is given the largest contract of his career, but the job is even more complicated than he expects.

Two hundred years after Adron’s Disaster, in which Dragaera City was accidentally reduced to an ocean of chaos by an experiment in wizardry gone wrong, the Empire isn’t what it used to be. Deprived at a single blow of their Emperor, of the Orb that is the focus of the Empire’s power, of their capital city with its Impe-rial bureaucracy, and of a great many of their late fellow citizens, the surviving Dragaerans have been limping through a long Interregnum, bereft even of the simple magic and sorcery they were accustomed to use in everyday life.

A classic series for a new generation of fantasy adventure fans, Thieves' World® paved the way for the shared-world anthology tradition with epic worldbuilding, unforgettable characters, and nonstop action thanks to the legendary authors who contribute to it.

War looms over Sanctuary in the fifth Thieves' World® anthology compiled by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Phule's Company series. The invasion by the Beysibs, an amphibious humanoid race, brings unusual prosperity to the city of Sanctuary. But underneath the glittering façade lies a ticking time bomb, for the nefarious residents of Sanctuary don't take kindly to an invasion—well-meaning or otherwise.

Donovan was shot by a cop. Four of the nine shots were lethal or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved. When Marci was 15, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn't like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too. “Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she's as powerful as Donovan and Marci now.

The year is 1940, and Great Britain's forces struggle against the Nazi war machine. France has fallen to Adolf Hitler's army, and England is next. A British secret agent pays the ultimate price to deliver early warning to harness the power of the occult to conquer Great Britain by launching a supernatural assault that no defending military force could possibly deflect.

The Incrementalists - a secret society of 200 people with an unbroken lineage reaching back 40,000 years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations, races, and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, just a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about how to do this is older than most of their individual memories. Phil, whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else’s, has loved Celeste - and argued with her - for most of the last 400 years.

Amri was a Rabbit, one of a tribe of survivors scratching out an existence in the blasted landscape of a shattered, poisoned world. The Seagull fight, the Pigeon trade and the Cockroach scavenge, but the Rabbit had one rule: If you want to see tomorrow, you run. But they didn't run fast enough when a weapon fell from the sky and consumed their home, and now Amri is alone, in the company of a fallen god named Guy Vesten. A god who promises revenge against the three gods who turned against him, and who killed her tribe.

You can't militarize space. This one rule has led to decades of peaceful development of space programs worldwide. However, increasing resource scarcity and a changing climate on Earth's surface is causing some interested parties - namely India, the North American Union, and the Sinese Federation - to militarize. The discovery of a strange artifact by Dr. Alayna Wong precipitates a crisis. What appears to be a hitherto undiscovered comet is soon revealed to be an alien structure on a cometary trajectory toward the sun.

The chronicles of the magical island of Recluce continue as young Dorrin, fascinated by forbidden science, goes into exile in the lands of Chaos, where he unwillingly invents devices of war to save his land from the evil Chaos wizards.

Khaavren of the House of Tiassa is a son of landless nobility, possessor of a good sword and “tolerably well-acquainted with its use.” Along with three loyal friends, he enthusiastically seeks out danger and excitement. But in a realm renowned for repartee and betrayals, where power is as mutable as magic, a young man like Khaavren, newly come from the countryside, had best be wary. His life depends on it. And so does the future of Draegara.

Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. But in Recluce a change in circumstances means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or braving the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce, with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses the dangergeld.

Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping. Larry Niven's novel, Ringworld, is the winner of the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.

The vendetta in space had started centuries before "Mouse" Storm was born, with his grandfather's raid on the planet Prefactlas, the bloodbath that freed the human slaves from their Sangaree masters. But one Sangaree survived--the young Norborn heir, the man who swore vengeance on the Storm family and their soldiers,in a carefully mapped plot that would take generations to fulfill. Now Mouse's father, Gneaus, must fight for an El Dorado of wealth on the burning half of the planet Blackworld.

The time is the beginning. The place is heaven. The story is the revolt of the angels - a war of magic, corruption, and intrigue that could destroy the universe. To Reign in Hell was Stephen Brust's second novel, and it's a thrilling retelling of the revolt of the angels, through the lens of epic fantasy.

Vlad Taltos, a mobster and assassin in the magical metropolis of Adrilankha, is given the largest contract of his career, but the job is even more complicated than he expects.

Khaavren of the House of Tiassa is a son of landless nobility, possessor of a good sword and “tolerably well-acquainted with its use.” Along with three loyal friends, he enthusiastically seeks out danger and excitement. But in a realm renowned for repartee and betrayals, where power is as mutable as magic, a young man like Khaavren, newly come from the countryside, had best be wary. His life depends on it. And so does the future of Draegara.

A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, and wizards.

You can't militarize space. This one rule has led to decades of peaceful development of space programs worldwide. However, increasing resource scarcity and a changing climate on Earth's surface is causing some interested parties - namely India, the North American Union, and the Sinese Federation - to militarize. The discovery of a strange artifact by Dr. Alayna Wong precipitates a crisis. What appears to be a hitherto undiscovered comet is soon revealed to be an alien structure on a cometary trajectory toward the sun.

In this strange, new world deep among the shadows under a triple-canopy jungle and plagued by dangers real and imagined, soldiers strive to fulfill a mission they don’t understand and are ill-equipped to carry out. And high above them, the heavy rush of wings slashing through the humid air herald a coming wave of death and destruction, and just possibly, salvation.

Destined from birth to serve as protector of the princess Zariya, Khai is trained in the arts of killing and stealth by a warrior sect in the deep desert; yet there is one profound truth that has been withheld from him. In the court of the Sun-Blessed, Khai must learn to navigate deadly intrigue and his own conflicted identity…but in the far reaches of the western seas, the dark god Miasmus is rising, intent on nothing less than wholesale destruction.

Gods are not meant to die. They're supposed to be immortal, too powerful to be struck down or wither to dust like the people of Golarion. It has been more than a century since Aroden, god of humanity, met his mysterious doom, and his death ushered in a new era of uncertain prophecy and turmoil—the Age of Lost Omens. Now another god has died, his death broadcast across the skies in a metaphysical projection of his murder reverberating over any world on which he was worshipped. And from his rent corpse falls the Godsrain, a torrent of the god's blood and divine essence.

Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. But in Recluce a change in circumstances means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or braving the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce, with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses the dangergeld.

Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch—learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy. When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind.

Two hundred years after Adron’s Disaster, in which Dragaera City was accidentally reduced to an ocean of chaos by an experiment in wizardry gone wrong, the Empire isn’t what it used to be. Deprived at a single blow of their Emperor, of the Orb that is the focus of the Empire’s power, of their capital city with its Impe-rial bureaucracy, and of a great many of their late fellow citizens, the surviving Dragaerans have been limping through a long Interregnum, bereft even of the simple magic and sorcery they were accustomed to use in everyday life.

Sergeant Adriene Valero wants to die. She can't. After enduring a traumatic resurrection for the ninety-sixth time, Valero is reassigned to a special forces unit and outfitted with a cutting-edge virtual intelligence aid. They could turn the tide in the war against intelligent machines dedicated to the assimilation, or destruction, of humanity. When her VI suddenly achieves sentience, Valero is drawn into the machinations of an enigmatic major who’s hell-bent on ending the war—by any means necessary.

Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives and they are determined that she know only contentment. But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift - by staying silent.

Nothing in this world is more dangerous than a witch. The epitome of fear and terror, they can summon floods on a whim, conjure balls of fire out of the air, or even destroy entire countries overnight. Incur their wrath, and no one is safe. At least, that's what everyone thinks, and it's the very reason they all want Siasha dead. After yet another violent battle for her life, she teams up with Zig, a mercenary, and they depart for unknown lands to find somewhere she can live in peace. But is the pair any match for the lost magic and vicious monstrosities that lie ahead?

To catch evil, it takes evil. Enter Devyl Bane—an ancient dark warlord returned to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the New World. A man of many secrets, Bane makes a pact with Thorn—an immortal charged with securing the worst creations the ancient gods ever released into our world. Those powers have been imprisoned for eons behind enchanted gates . . . gates that are beginning to buckle. At Thorn’s behest, Bane takes command of a crew of Deadmen and, together, they are humanity’s last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their hell realms.

As a witch in the walled city of Chernograd, Kosara has plenty of practice treating lycanthrope bites, bargaining with kikimoras, and slaying bloodsucking upirs. There’s only one monster she can’t defeat: her ex, the Zmey, known as the Tsar of Monsters. She’s defied him one too many times and now he’s hunting her. Betrayed by someone close to her, Kosara’s only choice is to trade her shadow—the source of her powers—for a quick escape.