Dark Fantasy

Alex is dead.

Dead, and apparently with a one way ticket to a place that only the worst of the worst go.

All for a simple choice he made about a product his company owned.

Damned for all time.

Luckily for him, he’s about to be given a chance.

Another choice to make.

He can instead, return to the land of the living, though his soul would belong to another. Except the world he’s being sent to, isn’t the same one he came from. It’s not even a similar period in time, but from something long past in history.

The dark ages.

And part of the deal to live again, is to make pacts with others. Pacts that would bind others in secrecy. That they could never speak of what they'd done.

Deals for anything, and everything. From things as simple as a meal, to their very lives. How much would you give of yourself to live on in the world is an easy question.

The better question, is how much would you take from others?

If Alex wants to keep living, to keep his soul from being sent to the darkest corner of hell, he’ll have to ask himself that question.

Daily.

Warning: This novel explores dark subjects, and what people will give up of themselves, and each other, to get what they want. The main character is written as a real person in a tough situation, and will not make choices that line up with societal and cultural norms.

Steve doesn’t know who he is.

Or who he was.

He doesn’t know anything, actually.

Not even where he is.

Other than a vast open field of dirt.

All Steve knows is that he’s apparently supposed to build a farm. At least that’s his only workable assumption. Given the number of farm-tools left to him. That and the massive number of sacks full of seeds.

Unfortunately, this isn’t even the strangest part of this new life.

Hidden inside the farm tools, Steve finds messages. Messages that appear in floating windows in front of him.

Messages from his past self, telling him that he’d already failed once.

But he has no idea what he actually failed at. Or how he can succeed this time.

Beyond all this, and unfortunately for Steve, the world just underwent a radical change. A change that’s going to have Steve fighting the undead, bandits, nature, and even himself. All while the world falls down around him.

And the only weapon he has is an axe.

After untold centuries of absence, the evil Ancients have returned. Their magic appears unstoppable and their hunger for conquest is insatiable. To protect the country of Nia, Duchess Nadea and Scholar Paug make a desperate journey to find a human legend: a man known to have destroyed these Ancient foes with a powerful army.

But legends can lie.

When Paug and Nadea revive their hero from sleep, his virtue is far from clear.

Is he really their savior or their destroyer?

Not all heroes go to heaven.

Terrence Mack was born poor, grew up tough, and died hard. Waking up in a sea cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a new bullet scar was enough to convince him that wherever his death had brought him, it wasn't paradise.

His new world quickly proves to be a place of danger, magic, monsters, and - for Terry at least - women.

Known on Celestine as a template, Terry's genes are key to the survival of the eldritch races. But the fiercely competitive eldritch don't typically leave their lovers alive long, and aren't accustomed to taking 'no' for an answer.

The average life expectancy of a template on Celestine? Three days.

A city boy with no survival skills to speak of, Terry sets out in a desperate bid to gather allies. With the help of a lonely dryad, a mixed-up minotress, and a misguided party of dungeon delvers, he must be brave, cunning, and good with the ladies to have any hope of living through the month.

All the while an ancient evil bent on the destruction of Celestine exists in the north, and templates are the key to its southern expansion ...

From the dark depths of the past, comes the tale of the first wizard of Illeniel. Daniel Tennick lived simply, a young shepherd with few troubles and little to occupy his mind, until the warden appeared. Daniel’s power awakens, and he finds himself hunted by the servants of the cruel and uncaring forest gods. Trapped by his gift, Daniel will uncover the secrets of the deep woods and those who live there, a civilization created from the grave of an older one. What he discovers will light a vengeful flame within him, consuming everything he touches.

When I got the call that my estranged grandfather had passed away and left me his trailer and a plot of land, I was just excited to own a little property and save some money by not having to pay rent.

Then I found a strange cave in my backyard. It wasn’t a sinkhole, or a bunker, or a mineshaft…

It was a dungeon. Full of crazy caverns, unbelievable monsters, and sexy, fantastical women in distress.

Oh, and loot. Lots and lots of loot that was just ripe for the taking.

So, what am I going to do with it all?

And how do I keep everyone else from finding out about it?

The surface world is a strange place for a young man who grew up in Hell.

Darren was just a boy when he and his mother were betrayed by paladins and chased beneath the earth. There, with only his paladin’s sigil and his quests to guide him, Darren grew from boy to man. Born in fire and blood, Hell itself sculpted the perfect paladin.

Years later, after a lifetime of fighting demons and battling a world full of nightmares, Darren finally returned to the surface. But the world above ground has just as many trials to face as Hell itself, and not all of Darren's enemies are demons.

Darren’s foes lurk in wait, and he will need all his strength to make new friends and build a life atop the ashes of his mysterious past.

A village full of gorgeous elves desperate to be loved? There had to be a catch.

Sebastian Frost’s most recent memory was waking up in a field naked, in a body that wasn’t his own, in a world that definitely wasn’t his own, and three stunning pointy-eared women staring right at him. He also remembered hair as white as starlight, eyes like amethysts, and the name Shalia.

Fortunately, it was the right name to know.

Shalia was the elves’ goddess and that made him her herald. If that wasn’t enough of a blessing, he was in a game world, he was high level, he had hundreds of ability points to spend, and the elves were practically throwing themselves at him.

Of course, there was a catch.

Shalia, her followers, and now Frost himself were viewed by the world as bringers of misfortune and everybody hated them. Although, to be fair, Frost was going to rain misfortune on anybody who attempted to harm his lovable new followers.

Before the demons invaded, Nathan had everything he ever wanted. Women, power, magical talent, wealth, a fortress full of loyal soldiers.

Now, a beautiful demonic general offers him a choice: die; or start a new life with her in the past and rewrite history. Nathan accepts and is sent back in time to before the end of the world began.

Everything Nathan earned in his original life is gone. But he still has his years of knowledge and experience. Even better, he knows what will happen in the future. He doesn’t know why the demons sent him back, but he refuses to waste this opportunity.

Nathan will take back everything he once had. But first, he must stop a demonic invasion from ending the world.

When he was nine, he watched as his mother and brother were killed before him. By the time he was thirteen, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king...

It’s time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what’s rightfully his. Since the day he hung pinned on the thorns of a briar patch and watched Count Renar’s men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him—and he has nothing left to lose.

But treachery awaits him in his father’s castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce his will, can one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?

For all her reign the Red Queen has fought the long war, contested in secret, against the powers that stand behind nations, for higher stakes than land or gold. Her greatest weapon is The Silent Sister—unseen by most and unspoken of by all.

The Red Queen’s grandson, Prince Jalan Kendeth—drinker, gambler, seducer of women—is one who can see The Silent Sister. Content with his role as a minor royal, Jal pretends that the hideous crone is not there. But war with the undead is coming, and the Red Queen has called on her family to defend the realm. Jal thinks that nothing that will affect him. He's wrong...

After escaping a death trap set by the Silent Sister, Jal finds his fate magically intertwined with a fierce Norse warrior. As the two undertake a journey to undo the spell, encountering grave dangers, willing women, and an upstart prince named Jorg Ancrath along the way, Jalan gradually catches a glimmer of the truth: he and the Norseman are but pieces in a game—and the Red Queen controls the board.

A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations, Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.

Bakker’s Eärwa is a world scarred by an apocalyptic past, evoking a time both two thousand years past and two thousand years into the future. As untold thousands gather for a crusade, two men and two women are ensnared by a mysterious traveler, Anasûrimbor Kellhus—part warrior, part philosopher, part sorcerous, charismatic presence—from lands long thought dead. The Darkness That Comes Before is a history of this great holy war, and like all histories, the survivors write its conclusion.

As darkness falls after sunset, the corelings rise—demons who possess supernatural powers and burn with a consuming hatred of humanity.

For hundreds of years the demons have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human herd that shelters behind magical wards—symbols of power whose origins are lost in myth and whose protection is terrifyingly fragile. It was not always this way. Once, men and women battled the corelings on equal terms, but those days are gone. Night by night the demons grow stronger, while human numbers dwindle under their relentless assault. Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors of vicious demon attacks will dare the impossible, stepping beyond the crumbling safety of the wards to risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. Together, they will stand against the night.

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art -- and he is the city's most accomplished artist. 

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly -- and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics -- and cultivate a flair for death.