Ordinary Wonders: A Fantasy Short Story Collection

Ordinary Wonders: A Fantasy Short Story Collection

Author: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Publisher: Solar Unicorn Publishing

Published: 2019-12-25

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 194443710X

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The God of Love is bound by a mortal’s curse. A baker’s daughter learns the value of illusion. A pet detective receives unexpected help to solve a supernatural crime. A plant magician attracts the wrong person when she grows the tallest rosebush in the country. These stories and more are included in Ordinary Wonders, a fantasy short story collection of reprints and new works by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan. These eleven stories include seven stories with unique settings and the four short stories from Young Seasons, tales of the four heroines from Almazan’s fantasy Season Avatars series. Put a little magic into an ordinary day with these stories!


Chindi

Chindi

Author: Jack McDevitt

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2003-10-28

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 1101190531

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On a routine survey mission studying a neutron star, an Academy starship receives a transmission in an unknown language. Before leaving the area, the starship launches a series of satellites to find the signal—and perhaps discover its origins. Five years later, a satellite finally encounters the signal—which is believed to be of extraterrestrial origin by the Contact Society, a wealthy group of enthusiasts who fund research into the existence of alien life. Providing a starship to the Academy to be piloted by Captain Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins, the Contact Society embarks on a mission to find the source of the transmission. Across a myriad of stars, from world to world, Hutch and her crew follow the signal, but find only puzzles and lethal surprises. Then, in a planetary system far beyond the bounds of previous exploration, they discover an object. It is immense, ominous, and mysterious. And it may hold the answer not only to the questions of the Contact Society, but to those of every person who has ever looked to the sky and wondered if we were alone...


Season's Beginnings

Season's Beginnings

Author: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Publisher: Solar Unicorn Publishing

Published: 2014-10-21

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13:

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Kron Evenhanded is an artificer, able to enchant any man-made object, but he finds people more difficult to work with. After many years studying at the Magic Institute, he leaves to return to his childhood home. When he visits the city of Vistichia, he encounters Sal-thaath, an extremely magical but dangerous child created by Salth, another magician Kron knew at the Magic Institute. Kron attempts to civilize Sal-thaath, but his efforts lead to tragedy. Salth, who has gained additional magic from the stars, vows revenge against Kron and his beloved Bella. Kron is forced to ally himself with a quartet of new deities and their human Avatars, including Bella. Kron must help the new Avatars defend Vistichia as Salth attempts to drain its life and magic. But Salth has Ascended halfway to godhood over Time. Will Kron’s artifacts be enough to protect the city and the Avatars, especially the woman he loves, or will Time separate them?


Balam, Spring

Balam, Spring

Author: Travis Riddle

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2018-02-10

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9781984949806

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Balam is a sleepy town on the eastern coast of Atlua, surrounded by forest and sea. It's a village where nothing happens and everybody knows each other. But now, people are dying. School is out for the spring, and schoolteacher Theodore Saen is ready to spend the next few months relaxing with his family. But when the town's resident white mage falls ill and several townspeople begin to show similar symptoms, they must call on a new mage. Aava has freshly graduated from the nearby mage academy when she is swiftly hired to deduce the cause of the unknown illness and craft a cure before the entire town is afflicted. Aiding her is an ex-mercenary named Ryckert who keeps to himself but has grown bored with retirement and is itching for a new investigation when a suspicious young man appears in the local pub the same night the sickness begins to spread. On top of it all, whatever is causing the sickness seems to be attracting strange insectoid creatures from the surrounding woods, desecrating the bodies of the victims and tearing through anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Theo, Aava, and Ryckert must come together to discover the cause of the illness and put a stop to it before there is nobody left alive in Balam.


Dealing with Dragons

Dealing with Dragons

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780152045661

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The first two volumes of Patricia C. Wrede's beloved, bestselling Enchanted Forest Chronicles!


Year's Best Fantasy 2

Year's Best Fantasy 2

Author: David G. Hartwell

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 0061757691

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Undreamed-Of Wonders From The Farthest Reaches Of Imagination In this second volume of the previous year's finest short fantastic fiction, acclaimed editor and anthologist David G. Hartwell showcases new works by stellar literary artists -- acknowledged masters of the genre and exceptionally talented newcomers alike. Astonishing worlds come alive in these pages -- realms of strange creatures and remarkable sorceries, as well as twisted shadow versions of our inhabited earthly plain. A bold and breathtaking compendium of tales -- including a new Earthsea story from the incomparable Ursula K. Le Guin -- Years's Best Fantasy 2 is the state-of-the-art of a unique and winning genre, offering unforgettable excursions into new realities wondrous, bizarre, enchanting...and terrifying.


The Best of R. A. Lafferty

The Best of R. A. Lafferty

Author: R.A. Lafferty

Publisher: Tor Books

Published: 2021-02-02

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1250778689

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Tor Essentials presents science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O’Connor, Flann O’Brien, and Gene Wolfe. The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat imagination, ranging from classics like “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” and “The Primary Education of the Cameroi” to his Hugo Award-winning “Eurema’s Dam.” Introduced by Neil Gaiman, the volume also contains story introductions and afterwords by, among many others, Michael Dirda, Samuel R. Delany, John Scalzi, Connie Willis, Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Robson, Harlan Ellison, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and Patton Oswalt. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


Hawksong

Hawksong

Author: Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Published: 2008-12-23

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0375891897

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DANICA SHARDAE IS an avian shapeshifter, and the golden hawk’s form in which she takes to the sky is as natural to her as the human one that graces her on land. The only thing more familiar to her is war: It has raged between her people and the serpiente for so long, no one can remember how the fighting began. As heir to the avian throne, she’ll do anything in her power to stop this war—even accept Zane Cobriana, the terrifying leader of her kind’s greatest enemy, as her pair bond and make the two royal families one. Trust. It is all Zane asks of Danica—and all they ask of their people—but it may be more than she can give. A School Library Journal Best Books of the Year A VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror List selection


Rhetorics of Fantasy

Rhetorics of Fantasy

Author: Farah Mendlesohn

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0819573914

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This sweeping study of fantasy literature offers “new and often surprising readings of works both familiar and obscure. A fine critical work” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts). Transcending arguments over the definition of fantasy literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy introduces a provocative new system of classification for the genre. Drawing on nearly two hundred examples of modern fantasy, author Farah Mendlesohn identifies four categories—portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal—that arise out of the relationship of the protagonist to the fantasy world. Using these sets, Mendlesohn argues that the author's stylistic decisions are then shaped by the inescapably political demands of the category in which they choose to write. Each chapter covers at least twenty books in detail, ranging from nineteenth-century fantasy and horror to some of the best works in the contemporary field. Mendlesohn discusses works by more than one hundred authors, including Lloyd Alexander, Peter Beagle, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Crowley, Stephen R. Donaldson, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis, Gregory Maguire, Robin McKinley, China Miéville, Suniti Namjoshi, Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Sheri S. Tepper, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tad Williams, and many others.