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Detective John Calvino comes away from interviewing 14-year-old sadistic killer Billy Lucas with a terrible sense of dread — and a feeling that somehow the boy has come home with him. That haunted feeling grows in the weeks that follow. When another killing spree begins, Calvino becomes convinced his own family will be the next victims. Billy might be safely locked up — but something is stalking the night.

Rob didn't think of himself as anyone special, but when a pitch-black portal tried to wrap his best friend in chains, he stepped up without thinking and found himself ensnared instead. His moment of heroism results in being torn away from everyone he knew and loved, kidnapped by an unknown force that leaves him with a note: "Good luck." Thrown into the wilderness of Elatra, a hostile fantasy world ruled by levels, stats, and bizarre video game logic, he finds himself entirely out of his depth. Overcoming the wilds is just the first step — Elatran society is incredibly hostile to humans, having just come off a devastating war that left over half the population dead, and getting the locals to trust the last human in existence is a struggle in and of itself. Between being powerless in a world that hates him and suffering under a System that is altering his mind in unwanted ways, Rob quickly finds that monsters aren't nearly the biggest thing to worry about.

The saying goes that when a man is born, the Fates weave his destiny and swaddle him in it. When he dies, that swaddle becomes his shroud. Heaven moves on. To question the Fates is audacity. To transgress the line of divinity, scale Olympus Mons, and defy the threads of destiny is hubris — a mark every philosopher bears plainly on their soul.

The Founders were the first Marked — and they built kingdoms on those powers, then made it their business to ensure no one else could join their ranks. Hal is lost in a world of Levels, stats, and monsters, wanted dead by its rulers. Ingenuity and courage won't be enough. To survive and carve out freedom for himself and those who follow him, he must embrace the beast within — fighting the monsters around him while guarding against becoming one himself.

When Mark Castle died at the hands of a cult, he was reincarnated and forced to become a dungeon core — making his domain a lonely cabin in the woods. With newfound powers, he begins his revenge on the people who murdered him, drawing on the tropes and monster manuals of his favorite horror films. His rule is simple: lure unwitting victims into the cabin, kill them off one by one, and feed his core with their souls. Anyone lucky enough to survive until dawn earns treasure — and their lives. But as Mark feeds and grows, those who hunger for his unique power begin to take notice, and the danger he faces becomes far greater than he imagined.

Emily is a teenage girl pulled from our world into a world of magic and mystery by a necromancer who intends to sacrifice her to the dark gods. Rescued by an enigmatic sorcerer, she discovers she possesses magical powers and must attend Whitehall School to master them. There, the locals believe she is a "Child of Destiny" — someone whose choices might save or damn their world. A title that earns her both friends and enemies. The necromancer is still hunting her, and if Emily can't stop him, he might bring about the end of days.

At twenty-two, Bibi Blair's doctors tell her she is dying. Two days later, she is impossibly cured. Fierce and dauntless, she becomes obsessed with the idea that she was spared to save someone else — someone named Ashley Bell. Searching for Ashley Bell through a southern California landscape that proves strange and malevolent, Bibi is plunged into a world of crime and conspiracy, following a trail of mysteries that grow more sinister and tangled with every twisting turn.

Before World War Two could reach its conclusion, a catastrophic experiment turned the center of the United States — from the Sierra Nevada to the Mississippi — into "The Waste," a land overrun by orcs, ogres, trolls, elves, harpies, and every manner of mythological monster, all of whom despise humankind. Vince is a Ranger, a profession built around surviving in the Waste and taking missions from the Ranger Guild. A single escort mission changes everything — and sets him on a path from lone survivor to ruler of a growing city-state, fighting to carve out a permanent home in a hostile world.

Despite his youth, Declan Idrys knows the evils of the world — the brigands plaguing the King's lands, the monsters lurking in the wooded depths. Together with his companion Ryn, a horse of peculiar talent, he has spent a decade beneath the bloody banners of mercenary guilds hunting precisely such wickedness. When a troubling contract goes sideways, Declan and Ryn are thrust into a war thought legend and long-ended — one so old it is synonymous with a time when dragons still ruled the western skies. As dead men rise from their graves and terrible beasts descend from the north, Declan must choose: flee an ancient rising horror, or face it and learn to wield an ageless power all his own. Centuries pass, but the Blood of Kings does not fade.

Richard "Dodge" Forthrast founded a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. One day, during a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong — Dodge is pronounced brain dead. Long ago, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company, and so his family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud. In the coming years, technology allows Dodge's brain to be turned back on. An eternal afterlife — the Bitworld — is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. But this brave new immortal world is not the utopia it might first seem.

What do you do when you find yourself the sole survivor of the complete destruction of Earth? Nikola winds up in that position — disembodied in a half-built asteroid outpost, the last remnant and only hope of the human race. Nikola exists now only in digital form, controlling drones and cameras to interact with the world. But memories are fractured, and there are endless obstacles between awakening as a glorified computer program and saving the species. Is Nikola even human anymore? Is it even possible to resurrect humanity?

A thousand-year-old succubus, tired of devouring men, invents a new spell to grow more powerful in a less distasteful manner — by kidnapping twenty students and forcing them to level up in the Underworld. Elorion is just an average high school student when he wakes to find himself and nineteen others captured and given the ability to use magic and gain levels. If he doesn't fight the monsters of the Underworld, he will die. But if he does fight, will he survive?

Liadain, a girl born terminally ill, has only ever wanted to live — forever, if at all possible. Instead, shortly after her thirteenth birthday, she is consigned to spend her last months in hospice care. Until the night she encounters a monster more terrifying than death, and her savior offers her a chance at her impossible dream. A chance to become a Keeper — one of the chosen children whose magic serves as humanity's sole defense against Harbingers, living nightmares that devour dreams, passions, and souls. Those who consume enough Harbingers grow into something more than human, able to change themselves in nearly any way they wish. So Liadain throws herself into this new life, hoping against hope to save herself. But magic is foremost an expression of the soul. Shaped by her cold bitterness, her power grants dominion over sickness, death, and ill-fate — forcing her to wield the very things she hates most as weapons. And as she delves deeper into the minds of Harbingers, she can't help but wonder if their hunger is really so different from her own.

To be summoned to another world, given the class of [Hero], and tasked with defeating the demon king — some people might call that the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to master the sword, grow more powerful than anyone on Earth could dream, and fulfill your destiny. Or not. It turns out that people summoned from another world are easily charmed by the title of "Hero." And they really should not be.

Given his first weapon as a child, Edward Lee lived a life full of violence in a nation torn by war. Tormented by the demons of his past, he believed death would free him. Through the schemes of beings beyond his understanding, his death instead becomes the starting point of a new life — as a young teenager in a strange world of magic and monsters. Beyond simply surviving his new existence, Edward will soon realize there is still a price to pay for the actions of his past.

As the perfect sacrifice, it is only natural that Nix be sacrificed to the ancient gods lurking in the depths of the black hole. But she didn't die. Finding herself seven years in the past — to the day of her first cursed mutation — Nix is determined to correct her regrets, enact vengeance on her murderers, and simply live the life she never got to. But even with this second chance, freedom from the cults remains a pipe dream. To achieve everything she never could in her previous life, there is only one path before her. Nix will twist the curses that once bound her into the very source of her strength. The cults will regret sacrificing her — without ever knowing they already succeeded.

"Return to Periapt" was an internet rumor — a creepypasta about a cursed computer game hidden on an old CD-ROM that could appear in the strangest places. The game followed explorers on a wild continent of magic beasts, wagon trains, and deadly trails. Those who played long enough said it felt real. They said that if you played long enough, it actually became real. Hollis Hood knew it was no rumor. He knew why people called it cursed, and he knew about the oath that let you leave your world behind — because he had played the game as a kid, and when it offered him an escape, he said no. A choice that haunted him for fifteen years. This time, he arrived prepared: trained, planned, shaped by fifteen years of purpose. But the starting town was abandoned, plagued by a fog that consumes all caught in its wake. The adventure hadn't waited for him.

Post-apocalyptic Oregon Trail. Mazelton comes from a clan of radiation wizards who harvest the cores of living beings to power their magics — but he has no enthusiasm for the family trade. That hardly matters when entire armies are sent to exterminate his clan. He has to run: from mobs, cannibals, soldiers, sailors, cholera, cattle, thieving sales-monks, starvation, mechanical horrors, vengeful spirits, forced marriages, and poison of every sort. Fortunately, his not-terribly-nice family has trained him to survive apocalypses. A world still recovering from the last one should be easy.

A succession crisis consumed the Kingdom of Dovhain following the death of Edgar the Great. Princess Isabella endured every indignity, overcame countless injustices, and fought the most vicious of enemies — first for survival, then for hope of a better future. She became queen, only to be betrayed by those she trusted most. Somehow, Isabella woke up eight years in the past, one week after her father's death. The experience and knowledge she gained in the struggle for the throne give her a fighting chance — but the question she must answer is a hard one. Should she pursue her own happiness, or attempt to better the realm? Perhaps, if she dares, she can reach for both.

Gus found a comfortable tedium working as a detective in the Paranormal Investigations Department — it gave him somewhere to hide what he truly is. He's a Boogieman: an apex predator that makes the whole paranormal world fear him, a species hunted on sight by governments and citizens alike. But a case is about to land on his desk that will kick over his carefully maintained non-life, whether he likes it or not.