Lucius is an average teenager dreaming of a career as a professional gamer. He is one of the lucky few selected to participate in Codename: Freedom, a new game that promises to push Virtual Reality to the ultimate level.Unbeknownst to him, the Game Developers were commissioned to design Freedom for the sole purpose of creating super soldiers in preparation for the coming war.With the pain dampeners turned off and an army of monsters waiting for him, will Lucius find a reason to push his body to the limit, or quit, giving up on his dream forever?
After surviving the onslaught of week one, Lucius has something to prove. He seeks to train under a living legend in hopes of being ready for the goblin siege.He isn't the only one looking to train. As his competition grows in strength, he must push himself harder than ever before.Then, he unexpected happens. Players start to unlock abilities?There is only one thing to do when facing impossible odds. Train harder!
Surviving Lord Darius's attack has put Elorion's level over the top. He must soon leave the Mistress's Labyrinth for the unknown dangers of the Underworld. There are three paths that stand before him. Should he absorb all the Blue Magic he can find, power leel his fellow captives, or take on the bone palace alond? The Underworld is waiting... - from back cover.
"Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous." —The Times (London) Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending. Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.
The Goblin Invasion Is On... ...and a wizard's work is never done! After facing a hopeless siege, an implacable foe and an impossible escape, you would think that Minalan the Spellmonger would be able to rest -- but the armies of the undead goblin shaman Sheruel (known as the Dead God to his human victims) are rolling over the western reaches of the rustic Duchy of Alshar and is headed toward the heart of the Duchy of Castal. Thousands are fleeing for their lives as hordes of goblins pour out of Boval Vale and devastate the rugged fiefs of the Alshari Wilderlands. And the super-charged shamans of the Dead God are making defending the realm almost impossible for the outnumbered Alshari country knights. While the two Dukes play feudal politics to further their own ends, the only people who seem to care about the invasion are Minalan and his outlaw warmagi friends -- and they're busy dodging agents of the sinister Royal Censorate of Magic. But if someone doesn't organize an army in northern Alshar soon, then there will be nothing to stop the armies of the divinely-powerful Dead God from conquering all five Duchies in his genocidal quest for vengeance. But things are just not that simple: he has to cope with a sexy young Shadowmage assassin who works for a mysterious spymaster, a cocky new manservant, a dysfunctional group of suddenly-powerful warmagi, the Censor General, and a bunch of whiny nobles before the Dukes will grant him the troops and money he will need -- and the Dukes have plans of their own. If Minalan the Spellmonger can't lobby the courts of Alshar and Castal to work together -- and quickly -- the hordes of the Dead God will sweep over the frontiers of both states. Worse, the mysterious Umbra veil he has erected around Boval Vale may come to imperil all Five Duchies. Minalan would rather just go home and let the Dukes handle it, but his conscience won't let him. Someone has to stop the Dead God . . . and that someone happens to be him. Beyond politics and plots, goblins and trolls, mercenaries and magic, the Soulless and the shamans, Censors and secret orders, for Minalan there is only the thought that his child is to be born in a world with such dangers, and that is something he cannot permit. It is time for the Spellmonger to pick up his mageblade, grab his witchstone, summon his allies, and go to war again . . . as a Warmage!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pierce Brown’s relentlessly entertaining debut channels the excitement of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. “Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field.”—USA Today ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness “I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.” “I live for you,” I say sadly. Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.” Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he toils willingly, trusting that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and lush wilds spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies . . . even if it means he has to become one of them to do so. Praise for Red Rising “[A] spectacular adventure . . . one heart-pounding ride . . . Pierce Brown’s dizzyingly good debut novel evokes The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender’s Game. . . . [Red Rising] has everything it needs to become meteoric.”—Entertainment Weekly “Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow.”—Scott Sigler “Red Rising is a sophisticated vision. . . . Brown will find a devoted audience.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga: RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE • LIGHT BRINGER
Grave witch Alex Craft is getting pulled back into deadly fae politics in the thrilling new novel in the USA Today bestselling series. Grave witch Alex Craft has forged an uneasy truce with the world of Faerie, but she's still been trying to maintain at least some semblance of a normal life in the human world. So it's safe to say that stepping up as the lead investigator for the Fae Investigation Bureau was not a career path she ever anticipated taking. When an explosion at the Eternal Bloom threatens to upend the fae who make their home in our world, Alex finds herself in charge of the most far-reaching investigation she's ever tackled. And it's only her first week on the job. With the threats mounting and cut off from half her allies, Alex can't wait on the sidelines and hope the fae's conflicts stay contained within their borders.
Peter Coogan's 'Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre' unravels the evolution of superheroes. Discover the history, powers, and hero-villain dynamics in this concise, engaging read for comic fans and scholars.
