A. Salvatore creates an astonishing new world for readers to explore--and an intrepid hero to lead the way: Elbryan Wynden, who must confront the dark tides of destiny in his epic search for justice and peace . . .A great evil has awakened in the land of Corona, a terrible demon determined to spread death and misery. His goblin armies and fearsome giants ravage the settlements of the frontier, and in the small village of Dundallis their merciless attack leaves behind two shattered orphans: Pony and her lifelong friend, the youth Elbryan. Taken in by elves, Elbryan is raised to become a formidable ranger--a fateful role that will lead him into harrowing confrontation.Meanwhile, on a far-off island, a shower of gemstones will fall onto the black sand shores. These heaven-sent stones carry within them an incredible power--the key to all that is good in the world and all that is evil, and it is up to one young monk to liberate them from the corrupt monastery that harvests them. Pray that they don't fall into the wrong, clawed hands . . .

    His present is marred by the outbreak of the Great War, and it is further stained by the death of his friend, Timothy Bodgley, in circumstances that leave Edward in hospital, implicated as Bodgley's murderer. Strange chains of history and causality tighten on Edward's life: He is the unwilling key figure in an otherworldly prediction of salvation and/or disaster, bound to break the prophecy or fulfill it.

    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.

    She haunts the back taverns of the realm, careful to appear neither rich nor poor, neither tall nor short . . . neither man nor woman. Obscurity is her protection, thievery her livelihood, and gambling her weakness.Alas, some bets are hard to resist. Particularly when they offer a chance to board a ship for Hadrumal, the fabled city of the Archmage. So Livak follows a minor wizard, Shiv, in an attempt to turn a rune or two, never dreaming that the stolen tankard she wants to sell contains the secrets of an ancient magic far more powerful, and infinitely darker, than any mortal mage's spells.

    Now they are together again, though each holds secrets from the others in his heart. They speak of a world shadowed with rumors of war. They speak of tales of strange monsters, creatures of myth, creatures of legend. They do not speak of their secrets. Not then. Not until a chance encounter with a beautiful, sorrowful woman, who bears a magical crystal staff, draws the companions deeper into the shadows, forever changing their lives and shaping the fate of the world.No one expected them to be heroes.Least of all, them.

    Her only hope is two offbeat government agents: Liz Mayfield, special agent for the British Office of Occult & Paranormal Sightings Investigation, and her FBI counterpart, Beauray Boo-Boo Boudreau.

    Play begins in grand and gloriously violent fashion as Swords are gathered and used to control chance, enhance fortune, and change destiny. The holder of a Sword wields power undreamed... power to change the world and the holder.To add to the enjoyment, foolish mortals are invited to join, risking their puny lives. Demons and elementals need no invitation. But something had gone wrong in the forging, and the Game...

    Now in the first volume of the series sequel, she continues the same storyline, returning readers to a war-torn Valdemar in preparation to confront an ancient Eastern Empire--ruled by a monarch whose magical tactics by be beyond any sorcery known to the western kingdoms.

    In later legends, he was to become a figure of mystery, known as both the defender of humanity and the patron saint of dark magic. But now he sought only retirement on his family estates.His dream of justice and amicable relations between the races had turned to ashes in his mind. The medieval kingdom of Gwynedd groaned under the tyranny of Imre and his sister and mistress, Ariella. Normal humans were savagely persecuted by the king, whose Deryni ancestors had seized the throne from the rightful human Haldane line a century before. Camber could not even save his own son from the murderous treachery of Imre.When Camber learned that Cinhil Haldane, a descendant of the previous kings, still lived, he realized that the only hope for the kingdom lay in overthrowing Imre and restoring Cinhil to the throne. But Cinhil was a cloistered monk, hidden under his religious name in one of many monasteries, unaware of his heritage, untrained in politics. Could he be persuaded to leave the only life he knew and take on the leadership of a rebellion? And lacking the Deryni powers, could he hope to overcome the magic of the king? Grimly, Camber set out to locate Cinhil and spirit him from the cloister into a struggle that seemed doomed from the start.And behind came the minions of the king—for Imre was already aware of the plot and bent on destroying all involved in it.

    He has been a slave for sixteen years, almost half his life, and has lost everything of meaning to him: his dignity, the people and homeland he loves, and the Warden's power he used to defend an unsuspecting world from the ravages of demons. Seyonne has made peace with his fate. With strict self-discipline he forces himself to exist only in the present moment and to avoid the pain of hope or caring about anyone. But from the moment he is sold to the arrogant, careless Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Derzhi Empire, Seyonne's uneasy peace begins to crumble. And when he discovers a demon lurking in the Derzhi court, he must find hope and strength in a most unlikely place...

    Defeated by the Lady and cast from this world, all that was left of him was a foul trace of lingering evil. But the graveyard that was once the Barrowland contains more secrets than dead. All who would possess the power of the Dominator are drawn to the spike. A foolhardy band of thieves is the first to reach it, and a rapacious and malign spirit is unleashed on an unwary world. The forces gather, sides are drawn, and mortal men can only die as the Dark Lords battle for domination.

    In her latest novel, The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly has written a complex tale of dark magic, mystery and deadly danger involving a woman computer programmer who struggles to help a condemned wizard save--or perhaps destroy?--two worlds...

    the Black Company ... Majipoor. For years, these have been some of the names that have captured the hearts of generations of readers and embodied the sword and sorcery genre. And now some of the most beloved and bestselling fantasy writers working today deliver stunning all-new sword and sorcery stories in an anthology of small stakes but high action, grim humor mixed with gritty violence, fierce monsters and fabulous treasures, and, of course, swordplay. Don't miss the adventure of the decade!Contents:- Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door by Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan- Goats of Glory by Steven Erikson- Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company by Glen Cook- Bloodsport by Gene Wolfe- The Singing Spear by James Enge- A Wizard in Wiscezan by C.J. Cherryh- A Rich Full Week by K.J. Parker- A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet by Garth Nix- Red Pearls: An Elric Story by Michael Moorcock- The Deification of Dal Bamore: A Tale from Echo City by Tim Lebbon- Dark Times at the Midnight Market by Robert Silverberg- The Undefiled by Greg Keyes- Hew the Tintmaster by Michael Shea- In the Stacks by Scott Lynch- Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe by Tanith Lee- The Sea Troll's Daughter by Caitlín R. Kiernan- Thieves of Daring by Bill Willingham- The Fool Jobs by Joe Abercrombie

    The Heart of Myrial is set in a particularly artificial-seeming fantasyland, which proves to be not a world but a technomagical construct, divided into isolated regions by sorcerous barriers of force. Thanks to the machinations of a bad guy who may have good motives, these "curtain walls" are now failing--the first symptoms being clashes between the enclaves' different environments, leading to prolonged descriptions of truly lousy weather. In theory the barriers are guarded by and can be penetrated only by Loremasters of the Shadowleague, a secret inner circle of representatives from this patchwork world's various species: humans, dragons, centaurs, wind-sprites, insectile aliens, and more. In practice the Shadowleague is almost impotent. Against this complex background, various characters struggle across the landscape through terrible weather. A woman Loremaster and her irrepressibly feisty firedrake companion play leading parts in the large cast (many of whom suffer death or worse). After tortuous regroupings and plot twists centered on a particular city that houses a key magical shrine, the book concludes with a gory invasion of nasties through the holed curtain wall. It reads well enough, and of course there's more to come. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

    All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother, who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards.These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.