The Book of Atrus


Rand Miller - 1995
    Based on the best-selling CD-ROM game, a fantasy novel fills out the lives of the game's characters, tracing the strange apprenticeship of Atrus to his father, Gehn, who wields the power to create worlds.

Thraxas


Martin Scott - 1999
    Thraxas is pitted against the ruthless killer Sarin the Merciless, who seems to be a lot more deadly than she used to be. Worse, she's in league with Horm the Dead, mad half-Orc sorcerer from the Kingdom of Yal. Meanwhile the city is riven by internal strife as Senators Cicerius and Rittius fight it out for the post of Deputy Consul, and the criminal gangs The Society of Friends and The Brotherhood struggle for control of the dwa trade. Makri is busy studying at the Guild College but needs no encouragement to pick up her sword and enthusiastically join in with the fighting. Thraxas's investigation leads him from the sewers of Turai right up to the Imperial Palace, where he finds himself face to face with the King's new dragon.

Phule's Company


Robert Lynn Asprin - 1990
    than most people do all day. Threatened by an alien enemy, Earth's military sends Phule and his soldiers to a distant planet. But now, the aliens have chosen a new target of war . . . Phule's Company.

The Dark Shore


A.A. Attanasio - 1996
    Upon the Bright Shore lie the dominions of Irth; above, the Abiding Star emanates magical Charm; below, in the Gulf, exist the cold, heavy, Charmless worlds of the Dark Shore. Irth's entire socioeconomic system, from wizardry to healing, depends on Charm. Once, the wizarduke of the ruling Council was challenged by the rebellious Bold Ones; their chief, Wrat, seized Drev's magic sword, slew Drev's sister, and attempted to conquer Irth. Drew cast them bodily into the Gulf. While upon the Dark Shore Wrat nursed his rage, acquired a black magic more powerful than Charm, and formed an unholy alliance with a gremlin. Now, seeking a frightful revenge, mad Wrat has returned to Irth as the Dark Lord, accompanied, courtesy of the gremlin, by hordes of dreadful cacodemons; these, being creatures of the Dark Shore, are invulnerable to Charm. So Drev hides in the desert while seeking his soulmate, the waif Tywi, whose protectors are the thief Dogbrick and his mysterious, capable companion, Ripcat. Two aristocratic children (few others have survived Wrat's onslaught), Jyoti and Poch, while trying to locate their aged weapons master, Caval, learn how to kill cacodemons without using Charm. Finally, Caval recollects his own sojourn on the Dark Shore, and his companion, the magus Reece, who returned with him to Irth--as Ripcat.

Song for the Basilisk


Patricia A. McKillip - 1998
    Of his past he knew nothing -- except faint memories of fire and death that he'd do anything to forget. But nightmares, and a new threat to the island that had become his own, would not let him escape the dreaded fate of his true family. Haunted by the music of the bards, he left the only home he knew to wander the land of the power-hungry basilisk who had destroyed his family. And perhaps, finally, to find a future in the fulfillment of his forgotten destiny.(

Fortress in the Eye of Time


C.J. Cherryh - 1995
    His purpose -- to create out of the insubstance of the air, from a shimmering of light and a fluttering of shadows. that most wonderous of spells, a Shaping. A Shaping in the form of a, young man who will be sent east on the road the old was to old to travel. To right the wrongs of a long-forgotten wizard war, and call new wars into being. Here is the long-awaited major new novel from one of the brightest stars in the fantasy and science fiction firmament.C.J.Cherryh's haunting story of the wizard Mauryl, kingmaker for a thousand years of Men, and Tristen, fated to sow distrust between a prince and his father being. A tale as deep as legend and a intimate as love, it tells of a battle beyond Time, in which all Destiny turns on the wheel of an old man's ambition, a young man's innocence, and the unkept promised of a king to come.

The Book of Jhereg


Steven Brust - 1983
    From his rookie assassin days to his selfless feats of heroism, the dauntless Vlad will hold readers spellbound and The Book of Jhereg will take its place among the classic compilations in fantasy.

Orphans of Chaos


John C. Wright - 2005
    The sprawling estate, bordered by unknown territory on all four sides, is both orphanage, academy, and prison. The school has a large staff, but only five students, none of whom know what their real names are, or even how old they are.Precocious and rebellious, all five teenagers are more than just prodigies. Amelia can see in four dimensions. Victor can control the molecular arrangement of matter. Vanity can find secret passageways where none existed before. Colin is a psychic. Quentin is a warlock.And, as time goes by, they're starting to suspect that none of them are entirely human . . .John C. Wright previous fantasy novels, the Epic Chronicles of Everness, were lavishly praised by both readers and reviewers. Now he embarks on an ambitious new saga that explores the overlapping boundaries of science, mythology, and the imagination.

Thief's Magic


Trudi Canavan - 2014
    Once a young sorcerer-bookbinder, Vella was transformed into a useful tool by one of the greatest sorcerers of history. Since then she has been collecting information, including a vital clue to the disaster Tyen's world faces. Elsewhere, in an land ruled by the priests, Rielle the dyer's daughter has been taught that to use magic is to steal from the Angels. Yet she knows she has a talent for it, and that there is a corrupter in the city willing to teach her how to use it -- should she dare to risk the Angels' wrath.But not everything is as Tyen and Rielle have been raised to believe. Not the nature of magic, nor the laws of their lands... and not even the people they trust.

The Time of the Dark


Barbara Hambly - 1982
    But now, they have emerged to ravage the land. Reissue.

Snowfall


Mitchell Smith - 2002
    When bloodthirsty invaders slaughter most of the tribe, a small band of survivors heads south, led by a man few of them trust. Holding the remnants of her people together is their doctor, Catania Olsen, whose ugliness has left her unmarried but whose medical skill has earned her people's respect. The Trappers' hazardous trek takes them from their familiar frozen northland, where summer lasts two chilly weeks, through a burgeoning forest where people still know how to make paper, to a warm, bustling gulf coast trade mart where man-beasts created by unnatural science tread the dirt streets. Journeying into the warm lands will change Catania, mind, heart, and soul. She will gain and lose a love, see great wisdom and greater folly, and become a mother. Finally, she will have to choose between her people and her freedom.

Heroes Die


Matthew Woodring Stover - 1998
    He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does.At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures in Ankhana command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that he kills men on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet--and bound to keep his rage in check.But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds...

Crompton Divided


Robert Sheckley - 1978
    Separated at an early age from two conflicting personalities, Alistair Crompton has decided on a daring scheme to reintegrate himself. But installed in different bodies and despatched to different planets, his two other selves have developed lives of their own: Loomis, who is completely self-indulgent and amoral; and Stack, vicious and impulsive. Both are direct opposites to the original Alistair; and their eventual reunion seems unlikely and highly dangerous....

Wizard of the Grove


Tanya Huff - 1998
    IN THE AGE OF WIZARDS--the very earth was tortured by the power games of these immortal children of gods, till wizardry went too far, and the dragons flew to bring the wizards and the world down in flames. IN THE AGE OF MORTALS--the Elder Races have withdrawn almost completely from the world of humans. Gone, too, are the dreaded wizards. Or so the people of Ardhan believe, for unbeknownst to them, there is one wizard who still survives, a master of evil bent upon claiming lordship over the entire world. No mere mortal can stand against him, so the Elder Races have chosen to intervene one final time. Their gift to Ardhan is Crystal, the Child of the Grove, daughter of Power and the last-born wizard who will ever walk the world. And thus the battle lines are drawn, and the final war is about to begin...

Geomancer


Ian Irvine - 2001
    Despite the development of battle clankers and mastery of the crystals that power them, humanity is losing. Tiaan, a lonely crystal worker in a clanker manufactory, is experimenting with an entirely new kind of crystal when she begins to have extraordinary visions. The crystal has woken her latent talent for geomancy, the most powerful of all the Secret Arts - and the most perilous. Falsely accused of sabotage by her rival, Irisis, Tiaan flees for her life. Struggling to control her talent and hunted by the lyrinx, Tiaan follows her visions all the way to Tirthrax, greatest peak on all the Three Worlds, where a nightmare awaits her.