Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk - or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help. His daughter Rose is trapped in a city besieged by an enemy one hundred thousand strong and hungry for blood. Rescuing Rose is the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.It's time to get the band back together for one last tour across the Wyld.

    But when Allie meets her new next door neighbor, Mark Duval, he opens her eyes to the hidden world of alchemy.When a recruiter for the Alchemist's Academy comes calling, Allie is more than thrilled to answer. With Mark in tow, she braves this strange new world, hidden by magic and secrets.It doesn't take long to figure out nothing is as it is supposed to be. The art of Alchemy is not taught, but thrown at the students with force and cruelty. Students are pitted against one another in a battle of houses. They fight for dominance, while fear and hatred for each other are used to facilitate their alchemist creations. If you can't cut it, the President of the Academy, Verity, will announce your retirement.Allie and Mark must find a way through the mysteries of alchemy and the academy before they too are retired.

    An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes. Suddenly Frey isn't just a nuisance anymore - he's public enemy number one, with the Coalition Navy on his tail and contractors hired to take him down. But Frey knows something they don't. That freighter was rigged to blow, and Frey has been framed to take the fall. If he wants to prove it, he's going to have to catch the real culprit. He must face liars and lovers, dogfights and gunfights, Dukes and daemons. It's going to take all his criminal talents to prove he's not the criminal they think he is ...

     In modern times, they are known as the Gældorcræft Forces. They do everything that needs to be done, from disaster relief to keeping giant cities afloat – like Los Angeles. Investigating explosions at Air Force Research Labs are outside of the norm, but this explosion doesn’t follow the rules either. It happens nearly right on top of a leyline and the damage it causes is considerable. Noriko is new to California, new to the GF, and has a brand new partner to boot. She wanted to have an easy first week of work, just to adjust to things, but instead she’s thrown head first into a case that is snowballing in complexity. Time is definitely ticking because if they don’t figure it out, then all of California is going to wind up in the ocean.

    Corner vending machines provide any weapon you might need. The most popular weapons are Scud disposable assassins: Robot hitmen that self-destruct when they kill their target. This volume follows Scud 1373, assigned to take out a hideous female man-eater named Jeff. While fighting the indestructible Jeff, Scud discovers his infamous warning panel in a bathroom mirror. Realizing that to kill Jeff is to kill himself, Scud blows off her arms and legs and hospitalizes her. Her life support bills will have to be paid, and Scud will have to find more work to stay alive.

    Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

    He is forced to go on a journey to prove himself, and soon discovers that his beliefs don't fit into the wider world.This is a light fantasy that is heavy on the humor with some romance and action as well. It has mature themes and language and is aimed at an adult audience.It is filled with everything a fantasy reader would want; dark magic, betrayal, zombies, vampires, a journey of discovery, secret plots, beautiful big breasted women, and murderous flesh eating rabbits.Just kidding about the rabbits.I'm saving them for the sequel.

     Before the sun went down, the livery stable was torched, an outlaw gang robbed the bank, two men were killed, and young newlywed Ellie Taine was raped. One of the dead was the man who planned the robbery - the son of dying, legendary Texas Ranger Jonathan Crossland - the other was Ellie's husband, an innocent bystander. The dead don't know fear. Ellie is dead inside. She takes a gun and rides out after the desperadoes, cold-blooded and fearless, determined to kill the men who ruined her life. She's joined by Jonathan Crossland, who only has days left to live... but would rather die in his saddle making amends for his son than rot in his bed. Together, Ellie and Jonathan set out on a mission of vengeance and justice, one that neither of them expects nor hopes to survive. "In the hands of Bill Crider, noir seems as atmospheric and doomful as ever," Publisher's Weekly "Bill Crider is one of the most unpretentious and versatile pure entertainers in the mystery field." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

    He’s the toughest private eye in Los Angeles, and he’ll handle anything – if you’re human. If you’re a Toon, that’s another story.Eddie doesn’t like Toons – those cartoon characters who live side-by-side with humans. Not the way they look, and especially not the way they talk: word-filled balloons come out of their mouths and then disintegrate, leaving dust all over his rug.Eddie will work for a Toon if his cash supply is low enough. So he reluctantly agrees when Roger Rabbit, a Toon who plays straight man (or should that be straight rabbit) in the Baby Herman cartoon series, asks him to find out who’s been trying – unsuccessfully – to buy his contract from the DeGreasy Brothers syndicate.Then Rocco DeGreasy is murdered – and Roger is the prime suspect! The rabbit is also, as Eddie soon discovers, very, very dead.Who censored Roger Rabbit? And who shot Rocco DeGreasy? Was it Roger, or was it Rocco’s hot-cha-cha girlfriend, Jessica Rabbit? Why had Jessica – a pretty steamy number for a Toon – ever married a dopey bunny in the first place? And why does everybody want Roger’s battered old teakettle?As Eddie combs L.A. from the executive suites of the DeGreasy Brothers to Sid Sleaze’s porno comic studio, he uncovers art thefts, blackmail plots... and the cagiest killer he’s ever faced.In Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, author Gary K. Wolf has created a wonderfully skewed – and totally believable – world compounded of equal parts Raymond Chandler, Lewis Carroll, and Warner Brothers. This riotously surreal spoof of the hard-boiled detective novel is packed with action and laughs. From first page to last, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is shear delight.Celebrated author Gary K. Wolf’s cult classic and highly praised novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is the basis for the blockbuster Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg Academy Award winning film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

    That’s the mantra behind HR, Inc., an elite "placement agency" that doubles as a network of assassins-for-hire, taking down high-profile executives who wouldn't be able to remember an intern’s name if their lives depended on it.At the ripe old age of twenty-five, John Lago is already New York City’s most successful hit man. He’s also an intern at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, clocking eighty hours a week getting coffee, answering phones, and doing all the grunt work no one else wants to do. But he isn't trying to claw his way to the top of the corporate food chain. He was hired to assassinate one of the firm’s heavily guarded partners. His internship is the perfect cover, enabling him to gather intel and gain access in order to pull off a clean, untraceable hit.The Intern’s Handbook is John Lago's unofficial survival guide for new recruits at HR, Inc. (Rule #4: "Learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee: you make an exec the best coffee he’s ever had, and he will make sure you’re at his desk every morning for a repeat performance. That’s repetitive exposure, which begets access and trust. 44% of my kills came from my superior coffee-making abilities.")Part confessional, part how-to, the handbook chronicles John’s final assignment, a twisted thrill ride in which he is pitted against the toughest—and sexiest—adversary he’s ever faced: Alice, an FBI agent assigned to take down the same law partner he’s been assigned to kill.

    Killed in a car accident before it’s her time to go, Lily learns that the hereafter isn’t exactly what she hoped it might be. First, there’s AfterLife Enterprises, the company responsible for sorting out the recently dead and sending them on their way to the Kingdom, (aka happily ever after,) or to the Underground City, (not so happily ever after.) Learning that Lily’s death was indirectly their fault (her guardian angel, Bill, was MIA during her accident and was one of their employees,) Afterlife Enterprises offers Lily the chance to live again. But, as with most things involving the afterlife, beware the fine print. Most notably, Lily will have to become a soul retriever, venturing into the bowels of the Underground City to retrieve souls that were mistakenly sent there by Afterlife Enterprises during a Y2K computer glitch. Second, there’s angel Bill. As if risking her second life in the Underground City wasn’t enough, Lily’s guide to the Underground is none other than her incompetent, alcoholic, womanizing guardian angel, Bill, the antithesis of anything wholesome. With only Dante’s Inferno and Bill to help her in her quest, Lily’s future isn’t looking bright.Finally, there’s the legendary bladesmith, Tallis Black. As Scottish as his kilts and heavy brogue, Tallis Black is a centuries-old Celt who, for reasons only known to him, offers to train Lily and act as her escort into the depths of the Underground City. Dark, brooding and definitely dangerous, Lily knows she shouldn’t trust Tallis, but she also can’t deny her attraction to him. Between soul retrieving in hell, dealing with Bill and trying to figure out what’s in it for Tallis, Lily wonders if maybe she would’ve just been better off dead.

    The world is rent by strife. The gods have turned away from us. In times past, heroes of sword and sorcery have always risen to turn back the tide of darkness… But what will become of us all, now that swords are obsolete, sorcery is industrialized, and heroism itself is considered a relic of the past?The times are changing…Incorporating elements of a Western, a Victorian romance, hints of steampunk and inspiration from the early novels of H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle, all set in a world of classic sword and sorcery, The Gods are Bastards is a genre-blending fantasy epic.Set in a familiar high-fantasy universe of wizards, dragons and elves, the action takes place roughly fifteen hundred years after the medieval stasis in which most high fantasy is set, during an era much like Earth’s Industrial Revolution. Mass production of enchanted goods has revolutionized all aspects of life, energy weapons have made blades and armor all but obsolete, and the world is connected and illuminated by magical analogues of trains, telegraphs and electric lights. With progress has come social and political upheaval: the scattered feudal kingdoms of yore have been consolidated into a now-precarious Empire, the clerics of various gods have organized themselves into a mighty Universal Church, and the first stirrings of modern education and an Enlightenment ethos have taken root in a young University. On the other hand, dragons are nearly extinct, elves have been herded onto reservations, and the days when a person could make a living as a wandering adventurer are long since over.It’s a new world, and the people of the Empire must learn to live in it, or fall to ancient threats they have tried to forget…https://tiraas.wordpress.com/about/

    A naive stalker girl. The strongest man in Ikebukuro. A shut-in doctor with questionable credentials. A hedonistic informant...and the "headless rider" astride a pitch-black motorcycle!? As their paths cross, this eccentric cast weaves a twisted, cracked love story...

    I am the last private detective on Earth...not exactly one hundred percent true, but it sounds good. The year is 2057 and, after a handful of species-altering upheavals, earth-shattering cataclysms, history changing extra-terrestrial contacts, and pop-culture disasters, the world is now a pretty safe place...But every once in a while some crazy thing happens that threatens all of society, all of humanity, or the entire space-time continuum. And for some reason it always happens on my watch." So begins the first installment of this all-new, all-hilarious trilogy that pokes fun at the pulps, and skewers sci-fi, as a private dick of the future goes after the most dangerous prey of all...The Plutonium Blonde.

    Dick AwardSamuil Petrovitch is a survivor.He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone – the last city in England. He’s lived this long because he’s a man of rules and logic.For example, getting involved = a bad idea.But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he’s saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London.And clearly saving the girl = getting involved.Now, the equation of Petrovitch’s life is looking increasingly complex.Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch.But Petrovitch has a plan – he always has a plan – he’s just not sure it’s a good one.