Three men who would be king threaten to sunder a kingdom, provoking a war that will drown its lands in blood.

Amid the backdrop of a new Cygnaran civil war, the fate of the kingdom depends on the outcome of a covert struggle between two powerful warcasters—the gun mage Allister Caine and the mercenary warlord Asheth Magnus. Caine faces a moral quandary as he seeks to kill the bastard son of Cygnar’s former king, knowing he must end an innocent life to preserve the peace. But Magnus is equally determined to see the bastard crowned as king—and is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. Regardless of who emerges the victor, the blood of kings must be spilled to end an otherwise interminable war.

To Protect the Protectorate…

Tristan Durant, once a refugee from Llael and now a priest and warcaster of the Protectorate of Menoth, struggles with his faith and his role. When a dark vision of the future warns of a rising threat to the theocracy, he returns with Hierarch Severius to the homeland for an epic confrontation against the godless enemy, the skorne. And when the Protectorate is thrown into turmoil by internal political machinations, Tristan Durant must choose a side to prevent the skorne from enslaving the faithful, and his choice will determine his fate—or have it determined for him.

Back in Black!

In the Undercity of Corvis, where mercenaries and criminals blur the lines between them, a ruthless crime lord has made a bold move to establish a stranglehold on Corvis’ underworld and make it his own.

When Canice Gormleigh becomes the target of a brutal foreign crime syndicate called the Black Dogs, Colbie Sterling and the rest of the Black River Irregulars are prepared to defend her. Yet what begins as a simple bodyguard assignment turns personal when the syndicate, led by the vengeful underboss Ivan Varnek and a strange mother-son duo, marks the Black River Irregulars as the sole remaining obstacle keeping the Black Dogs from taking over the Undercity…and then the city of Corvis itself. Where other underworld gangs have negotiated, surrendered, or fled from the Black Dogs, the Black River Irregulars will stand and die instead…

WF201705 May 2017 Wordfire Press Books

Prospero Regained

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

Living Dead Girl

by Susan Sizemore

Unnatural Acts

by Kevin J. Anderson

Phule Me Twice

by Robert Asprin and Peter J. Heck

In the Unnatural Quarter, golems slave away in sweatshops, necromancers sell black-market trinkets to tourists, and the dead rise up — to work the night shift. But zombie detective Dan Shamble is no ordinary working stiff. When a local senator and his goons picket a ghostly production of Shakespeare in the Dark — condemning the troupe’s “unnatural” lifestyles — Dan smells something rotten. And if something smells rotten to a zombie, you’re in serious trouble… Before his way of life, er, death, is destroyed, Dan wants answers. Along the way he needs to provide security for a mummified madame, defend a mixed-race couple (he’s a vampire, she’s a werewolf) from housing discrimination, and save his favorite watering hole, the Goblin Tavern, from drying up. Throw in a hairy hitman, a necro-maniac, and a bank robber who walks through walls, and Dan Shamble’s plate is full. Maybe this time, the zombie detective has bitten off more than he can chew…

Miranda must battle her way through Hell if she wishes to regather her family and save her father.

When the planet Zenobia is invaded, Captain Willard Phule is made their military advisor. The first priority for Phule’s Company: staying out from underfoot of the peaceful, dinosaurlike Zenobians …

But, unbeknownst to the Zenobians, they’re getting two Phules for the price of one. A robot double of Phule appears out of nowhere. And only the real Phule knows who the real Phule is …

In the beginning, great power is only great potential . . .

Renowned for both martial and arcane skills, the mighty warcasters of the Iron Kingdoms possess the unique gift of bonding with and commanding mighty warjacks on the field of battle. Yet despite their inborn abilities, these powerful soldier-sorcerers began as novices, forced to harness their talents in rigorously structured military training programs or through the brutal crucible of battle.

Rites of Passage tells the tales of six novice warcasters, some from the great military powers of the Iron Kingdoms and others destined for a more independent path.

Journey to the Cygnaran front lines with Lieutenant Allison Jakes as she learns the difficult lessons of what it means to be a battlefield commander in “The Price of a Gift” by Matthew D. Wilson.

Balance faith with arcane might alongside Initiate Tristan Durant of the Protectorate of Menoth in “Mercy and Wrath” by William Shick.

Navigate the treacherous politics of the Druzhina, Khador’s military training academy, with Kovnik Andrei Malakov in “Advanced Tactics” by Oren Ashkenazi.

Take to the bloody high seas aboard a Cryxian ship with the ruthless pirate raider Aiakos in “On a Black Tide” by Aeryn Rudel.

Follow the trials of the assassin initiate Elara as she struggles to accept her changed destiny as a warcaster within the Retribution of Scyrah in “A Tyro's Crucible” by Douglas Seacat.

Finally, prowl the war-torn streets of occupied Llael with the gutter rat Gastone Crosse as he becomes the most wanted man in Merywyn in “Gypsy's Luck” by Darla Kennerud.

Jason Thanou has fought for the continued existence of humanity across the centuries. As a special operations officer of the Temporal Regulatory Authority, he’s traveled though time to thwart the Transhumanists—genetically and mechanically enhanced beings that seek to destroy humanity—and their alien allies, the Teloi.

But for all his work, the Transhumanist Underground has never been defeated. In possession of the same time travel technology as the Temporal Regulatory Authority, the Transhumanists have been busy planting “time bombs” throughout recorded history. Time bombs that are set to go off on The Day, when the secret history the Transhumanists have planted will be revealed, resulting in the overthrow of humanity.

Now, Jason Thanou, along with fellow TRA agents Alexandre Mondrago and Father Julian Casinde, must travel through Earth’s bloody history to ensure the survival of the human race. They’ll find themselves in Italy, two days before the death of Pope John Paul I. Father Casinde has reason to believe that something much more sinister than a simple heart attack is behind the death of the Holy Father.

Racing against—and through—time, Jason and his fellow officers must defeat the Transhumanists and their Teloi allies. Meanwhile, back in Jason’s home time of the 24th century, The Day grows ever closer!

The Malcontents are back in action! Into the Wild, the new novel from acclaimed author Larry Correia, picks up the story begun in Correia’s first entry in the series, Into the Storm.

Now under the leadership of the reluctant Lieutenant Kelvan Cleasby, the Sixth Platoon of Storm Knights has been ordered to accompany an archeological expedition from the Royal Cygnaran University deep into the Wyrmwall Mountains. There, the scholarly team from the university will investigate an ancient site of potentially great historical value while the Malcontents stand around playing bodyguards and wishing for just a little excitement.

But what seems a simple enough assignment rapidly turns into a test of the platoon’s survival skills—a seemingly abandoned fort, the lone survivor of a horrifying attack, and a ferociously territorial tribe may be more than even the Malcontents can handle. And even once they know the monsters they face, escape may well be impossible—it’s never as easy to get out as it is to get into the wild.

A knight of Cygnar follows a strict moral code. His integrity is beyond reproach. He holds himself to the highest standards whether dealing with friend or foe. And he values honor above all.

The year is 606 AR, and Cygnar is sorely pressed by its enemies both at home and abroad. The Cygnaran military is desperate for soldiers with the skill, strength, and bravery to take up the devastating galvanic weaponry of the new Storm Division. Every soldier is valuable, even those fallen from the honor expected of a Storm Knight. A group of such men—thieves, drunkards, and worse—comprise the Sixth Platoon. All they need is someone to lead them.

Lieutenant Hugh Madigan, a peerless warrior knighted during the reign of the deposed king, has spent years in obscurity, punished for his loyalty to the former monarch. Now he has been ordered back to the front and given command of the Sixth, his task to turn a platoon of miscreants into elite soldiers fit to be called Storm Knights.

Time is short, and war is coming. One way or another, Lieutenant Madigan must lead his men into the storm.

With new content by Ryk E. Spoor!

It was supposed to be a simple test flight, one that pilot Ariane Austin was on only as a last-ditch backup; intelligent, superhumanly fast automation would handle the test activation and flight of humanity's first faster-than-light vessel. But when the Sandrisson Drive activated, every automated system crashed, the nuclear reactor itself shut down, and only the reflexes and training of a racing pilot saved the test vessel Holy Grail from crashing into the impossible wall that had appeared before them, a wall which is just part of a monstrous enclosure surrounding a space twenty thousand kilometers across. With all artificial intelligences inert and their reactor dead, they had to find some other source of power to reactivate the Sandrisson Drive and—hopefully—take them home.

And that was only the beginning. As Ariane, Dr. Simon Sandrisson, darkly enigmatic power engineer Marc C. DuQuesne, and the rest of the Holy Grail's crew explore the immense artifact, they discover that they are not alone; they have entered a place the alien inhabitants call "The Arena," and there is no way out without joining one of the alien factions . . . or winning recognition as a faction in their own right, playing by the Arena's rules—and by the Arena's rules, one failed challenge could mean death or worse—perhaps for the entire human race. Surrounded by alien factions, each with its own secret plans and motivations, some wielding powers so strange as to be magical, Ariane sets out to beat the Arena at its own game. With DuQuesne's strategies, Sandrisson's genius, and her own unyielding determination, she's going to bring the Holy Grail home—even if she has to beat every faction in the Arena to do it!

Destruction is in Jame Knorth’s nature. Literally. She is the avatar of a god known as That-Which-Destroys, the god of chaos and ruin. Yet Jame is also a noblewoman within an ancient race, and the designated heir of her twin brother Torisen Knorth, High Lord of the Kencyrath. Jame’s people are fleeing, world by world, from a terrible enemy that has pursued them through a multitude of universes. Its name is Perimal Darkling.

Obeying instructions from her brother, Jame sets out with a force of Southron warriors to reestablish the long-fallen castle keep of Tagmeth. By Jame’s side is Lyra, a devious Kencyrath noble girl who is determined not to be forced into a marriage with a man she despises. Jame’s old friends Mark and Brier Iron-thorn stand with her, as well: Marc, steward and organizer of Jame’s household and Brier, the only captain under her command wholly sworn to support Jame no matter the cost. Jame finds more allies in the forest surrounding the ancient keep where the wild people of the woodlands, the Merikit, hold court. And Jame’s adopted mother, Gran Cyd, matriarch and queen of the Merikit, may once again provide the voice of calm that Jame requires to survive her own tempestuous nature.

Jame sets about establishing Tagmeth as an outpost against the gathering power of Perimal Darkling. But Tagmeth hides a secret, a gateway to a mystery that may save this world from eternal darkness—or plunge it to destruction and ruin all the sooner. It is up to Jame to find her way through Perimal Darkling’s traps, and to come to terms with the god of pandemonium and destruction within her who grows stronger every day. If she succeeds it may be that Perimal Darkling can finally be defeated after eons of fear and flight. And if she fails, yet another world will fall to darkness forever.

Twice before, mysterious cosmic catastrophes have sent portions of the Earth across space and back in time—first, with the Grantville Disaster in West Virginia, and then again with a maximum security prison in southern Illinois.

Now, the planet is struck with yet another such cataclysm, whose direct impact falls upon the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When the convulsions subside, the crew and passengers of the ship discover that they have arrived in a new and frightening world.

They are in the Mediterranean now, not the Caribbean. Still worse, they discover that the disaster has sent them more than two thousand years back in time. Following the advice of an historian among the passengers, Marie Easley, they sail to Egypt—or, at least, where they hope Egypt will be.

Sure enough, Egypt is there—ruled over by Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and one of Alexander the Great’s chief generals.

Alexander the Great, it turns out, died just two years ago. The western world has just entered what would become known as the Hellenistic Period of history, during which time Greek civilization would spread around the Mediterranean and beyond. But the first fifty years of the Hellenistic Period was the Age of Diadochi—the Time of the Successors—when Alexander’s empire would collapse into chaos. By the time the Successors finished their strife, every single member of Alexander’s dynasty would be murdered and only three of the generals who began that civil war would still be alive.

That is the new world in which the Queen of the Sea finds itself. Can Marie Easley and Captain Lars Flodden guide the crew and passengers through this cataclysm? Fortunately, they have some help: a young Norwegian ship’s officer who forms an attachment to Alexander’s widow; a French officer who is a champion pistol marksman; a canny Congressman from Utah—and, most of all, many people of the time who are drawn to a vision of the better world of the future.

TRAINED TO HEAL ... AND TO KILL

All his life Greg McPartlin wanted to be a Marine corpsman, a medic skilled at saving lives. Three months of bagging-and-tagging bodies during Vietnam s Tet Offensive took the luster off of being a Marine but not off McPartlin’s desire to serve his country.

After assisting in the sea recovery of Apollo 11 the first ship to bring men to the moon the twenty-year-old McPartlin was redeployed to Vietnam as an elite Navy SEAL. Barred as a medic from the make-or-break training of BUD/S considered vital to service as a Navy SEAL, McPartlin had to show he had what it took.

But McPartlin had been in country before. In a war where you partied with your buddies in Saigon one day and crawled through an enemy-infested jungle hell the next, he proved that he was not only an outstanding medic but a real Navy SEAL the toughest of the tough.

Combat Corpsman is McPartlin’s often humorous—and sometimes heartbreaking—account of his year of combat in what had been a Viet Cong stronghold until the SEALs took control and Charlie placed bounties on the men with green faces. It is the first inside story of a Navy SEAL medic, a man who wanted to heal, not to kill, but did both to save lives.

This edition is heavily illustrated with 80 historical and personal photographs from Greg McPartlin’s tour of duty in Vietnam.

WF201704 April 2017 Wordfire Press Books

The Dustpan Cometh

by Josh Vogt

Club Anyone

by Lou Agresta

The Road to Hell

Rock Band Fights Evil Volume Two
by D.J. Butler

She Murdered Me With Science

by David Boop

Heaven doesn’t want them; do they stand a chance in Hell?

Jim is Satan’s son, who keeps a vow of silence and wants to be left alone. Eddie sold his soul but was cheated, and became the world’s greatest tambourine player for his trouble. Adrian is a powerful wizard...when the narcolepsy doesn’t knock him out. Twitch is an outcast, shape-shifting fairy. Mike is a drunk, haunted by the ghost of the brother he accidentally killed.

Follow the dogged band of damned rock and rollers as they struggle to save themselves. Can they get the fragment of Azazel’s hoof, their bargaining chip? Once they get it, can they keep it? And who else might have designs on the hoof... or on the members of the band?

This volume collects the installments 4–6 of Rock Band Fights Evil: Devil Sent the Rain, This World Is Not My Home, and The Good Son.

And don’t miss Band on the Run, the first omnibus volume.

In an age of augmented reality, love is found in the most dangerous places. Stranded on Mars, megacorp programmer Derek Tobbit drowns his sorrows in augmented reality sex, only to have his drug-fueled midlife crisis hijacked by a conspiracy that threatens the solar system. It will take all his hacker skill, the friendship of a rogue AI, and the redemptive power of an impossible love to save them.

STAY ALIVE ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON

What happens when you get the one thing you wanted most in life? Lonely 16-year-old farm girl Barbara Winton has been following one reality show for years. Then in an instant she goes from fangirl to participant when the call comes from Dr. Keegan Bright: She’s been selected out of a horde of applicants to join him on the Moon.

She’ll be one of his Bright Sparks, six students with expertise in STEM and plenty of their own ingenuity chosen to work with Dr. Bright and given big responsibilities to undertake new projects important to the growth of the colony. Her first task? Build a radar telescope using an entire crater on the far side of the Moon.

But Barbara soon learns that life on a burgeoning frontier outpost like the Moon is a far cry from safe, civilized Earth. The loner from farm country must find a way to weld a functional team out of fiercely independent thinkers. Not only are they a bit trickier to work with than farm robots, not only is the working environment incredibly dangerous—she also has to perform this miracle in front of millions of fans. . . .

Lexile Score: 770

WULF’S SAGA CONTINUES

Lord Wulf von Dunstig is in deep trouble. He is surrounded by invading enemies and kingdoms fallen into chaos. Along with dealing with the problems of a realm he never expected to rule, Wulf is in love with the elf maiden Saeunn Amberstone. Saeunn once saved his land. Now she has lost her star-soul and is dying.

Ursel Keiler wishes she could control her errant heart as easily as she can guide the flight of an arrow to a target. She tries to escapes into the woodlands she adores, only to be pulled back by a band of desperate and brave warriors who need her help. But aiding them will lead Ursel straight to Wulf von Dunstig, and to the heartache she is fleeing.

Yet evil cares nothing for human feelings. Now Wulf, Ursel and their friends must find a way to unite the land of Shenandoah against a powerful Roman inquisitor. He not only controls an Imperial Legion, he is also toying with magic that threatens the foundations of existence itself. Yet there is hope even in the deepest and darkest places of the world, and all may depend upon Wulf and Ursel forging a powerful weapon drawn from the heart of a dragon.

THE AMBER ARROW