fantasy

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Summary: Eclectic, imaginative, and unexpected, Community of Magic Pens features forty genre-spanning flash and short stories--including fantasy, humor, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, satire, and mystery--bringing together a rich group of diverse voices from a wide range of backgrounds and intersections. Fountain pens, markers and ink, charcoals, spy pens, a braille writer, a printing press, virtual reality, and a supernatural pizza: whether revealing unspoken truths, fighting injustice, or finding friendship and love, our pens have power. Join us as a recent graduate of superhero school struggles to understand her gift, a disabled android interviews for a job, a queen’s conscripted artist must pull reality from illustrations on parchment, and a grandmother’s secret room is…better kept a secret. Tales of struggle and triumph, compassion and hope: Community of Magic Pens is a celebration of our shared story.

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Summary: For six lifelong friends, it was supposed to just be a simple game night. But when they break out a new, classic high-fantasy style game—half tabletop RPG, half dungeon-crawling board game, simultaneously familiar and unexplored—for a test run, they find themselves transported into the game’s setting, living the lives of their made-up characters, where the dangers, and the monsters, are deadly serious. Left with little choice but to jump headlong into their roles, Cordelia, Morgan, Jack, Eriko, Tamsin, and Tobias will have to become the heroes they were just pretending to be to stop a nightmare creature’s reign of terror… or find out if life and death in this fictional setting is as real as it seems. Ranger and cleric, barbarian and thief, bard and magician: they'll have to combine all of their new-found abilities to stop a creeping evil and to survive in this strange new world.

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Summary: After a few weeks trapped inside a cursed tabletop role-playing game, the players--Eriko the rogue, Morgan the cleric, Tamsin the mage, Cordelia the barbarian, Jack the ranger, and Tobias the bard--have become fixtures in the fictional town of Moderate Expectations, doing things adventures do. Whether it's slaying ogres or saving children from actual bogeymen, the adventurers are learning their roles and becoming weirdly comfortable with the concept of being heroes locked in a game world. But when a terrifying threat bubbles up out of a broken mine shaft and threatens their starting zone and adopted home, the gang will need to go on a real dungeon crawl into the subterranean world below, where they'll learn just how dangerous this imaginary world is to them and how high the stakes can be for the people who live here. It's time for the Dungeon Crawlers to level up, face down their greatest challenge yet, and find out just how big the world they've found themselves trapped in really is... and how long it's been holding players like them prisoners. So grab your gear, check your spell list, and make sure you've got plenty of torches--it's time to go spelunking, RPG-style.

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Summary: The first rule of adventuring: don't split the party. The Dungeon Crawlers should know better. While they've only been trapped in the cursed role playing game they now call home for a short time, most of the party are well-versed in tabletop gaming. Whether in the real world or trapped in a fantasy one, you just don't split the party. Which is why, when Eriko, the group's rogue, decides to let curiosity get the better of her and run off on her own, everyone knows nothing good will come of it. And "no good will come of it" means a pack of feral cannibalistic undead, led by an ancient evil, who takes a special interest in the group's talented, if ridiculous, bard, Tobias. Joined by a shadowy creature whose goals coincide with their own, the rest of the group--Morgan the cleric, Jack the ranger, Cordelia the barbarian, and Tamsin the mage--find that to survive, and rescue their friends, they're going to have to split the party even further. Are they clever enough to get away from a pack of ravenous ghouls alive, or will this be the Total Party Kill they've dreaded since they first arrived in this game world? The Ghoul Slayer's Guide is the third novella in the The Dungeon Crawlers series. Find their earlier adventures in the Players Guide to Dungeon Crawling and the Dungeoneer's Bestiary.

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Summary: The Dungeon Crawlers have done the unthinkable: they’ve split the party. After defeating another adventuring party from the “real” world—fellow players long trapped in the game world who treat Revery as their own private hunting ground to be conquered and abused—the Dungeon Crawlers emerged victorious but broken, with one of their number fallen and lost in battle. Some want to seek out revenge for their lost friend, while others believe somewhere in Revery there is magic to bring someone back from the dead, and want to find it. Both quests for revenge and resurrection will reveal new enemies, new allies, and dark secrets about the nature of Revery itself. They will learn how it draws players into a world where an RPG has become real, and whether or not anyone can ever go home again. But to do so, they need to break the party in two. Can they survive apart, or will the oldest rule in RPGs prove to be true in a world where games are deadly real?

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Summary: Question your typical perception. See beyond the normal you know. Step into divergent realms. Let this anthology of new and original short stories show you the fantastic and futuristic through a new lens. A struggling father discovers why his autistic daughter becomes consumed with a virtual reality simulator in the wake of her mother’s death. An android who can’t stop ruminating about her consciousness being trapped inside a machine for all eternity confronts her worst fear to stop a sentient AI. Authorities deny a man with a distractible mind a position navigating a chaotic place outside space and time that provides access to other universes, only to realize he’s their only hope to recover their lost agents. Divergent Realms showcases the wide spectrum of neurodiversity through the open worlds of speculative fiction. Written and edited by the neurodiverse themselves, these stories express a new side of ADHD, Autism, OCD, and more. Experience an atypical reality and deepen your understanding of the world around you today!

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Summary: Surviving in the Mantelrealm is treacherous enough, but Jayce is also tasked with leading the younger boys captured by the wicked witch during the epic battle of their realm. Although they are fairies, their prison is too hot to fly in, so the boys tuck their wings into their backs and use hand-made inventions to navigate the mine. Forced to mine fairy dust under the guard of mercenary dragons and mystical Oddizens, they secretly prepare to escape. They've been told a story of a girl that is prophecised to free them, when she comes of age. It's been so long that no one believes that anymore. Their sole hope is Tashuhunka - the one boy that escaped the clutches of the witch and helps them by sneaking in supplies. But past attempts for freedom have failed, and soon, the witch will have enough dust for her plan. They are running out of time.

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Summary: He was hidden to live. Now he must choose to lead. PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING A Dual-Realm YA Fantasy of Hidden Identity, Betrayal & Redemption When his father was murdered, Peter, the son of the lord of all dark creatures and queen of the light fairies was hidden away in an elite boarding school in the human realm and disguised for his protection. Now, in college, he is betrayed by his friend, then threatened with capture by the entity that may have killed his father-the powerful successor to his father's throne, an uncle that covets powers Peter doesn't know he has and definitely cannot control. A secret warning reconnects him to the mystical realm and he escapes on a journey leading to self-discovery, challenges and a chance to save the world... if he survives. Why you’ll love it Human-realm (Europe) intrigue tied to a larger fae war Hidden identity, betrayal, redemption—and the cost of power Directly connected to the prophecy and consequences of The Lost Shadow Boys Fast pace, portal stakes, and character-first tension (romance-friendly, YA-appropriate) Some destinies are hidden in plain sight...but to control our destiny, we must be awakened.