The Powder Mage Novella Collection #1

Enter a war-torn world where gunpowder and magic collide. The nation of Fatrasta is a haven for criminals, rebels, adventurers and sorcerers seeking relics of the past. As insurrection grows, only the iron will of the Lady Chancellor holds the capital city of Landfall together. Yet an ancient power as old as time is rising, and the fate of this young nation now rests in the hands of a spy, a disgraced war hero and a mercenary general with a past as turbulent as Landfall's present.

Field Marshal Tamas' coup against his king sends corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brings bread to the starving. But it also provokes war in the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics and greedy scrambling for money and power by Tamas' supposed allies: the Church, workers' unions, and mercenary forces. Stretched to his limit, Tamas relies heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be Tamas' estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty will be tested to its limit.

Five stories from the Powder Mage Universe, including the never-before-published "Green-Eyed Vipers".

In the colonial cities and towns of Fatrasta, peace has never been easy. Immigrants fight amongst themselves or turn on the native population, while the governing power of the Kez Army steps in only to enforce the will of apathetic local governors assigned by a distant crown. Young war hero Ben Styke commands a colonial garrison in a sleepy frontier suburb.

Jackal is proud to be a Grey Bastard, member of a sworn brotherhood of half-orcs. Unloved and unwanted in civilized society, the Bastards eke out a hard life in the desolate no-man's-land called the Lots, protecting frail and noble human civilization from invading bands of vicious full-blooded orcs. But as Jackal is soon to learn, his pride may be misplaced. Because a dark secret lies at the heart of the Bastards' existence - one that reveals a horrifying truth behind humanity's tenuous peace with the orcs, and exposes a grave danger on the horizon.

In The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley, the emperor of Annur is dead, slain by enemies unknown. His daughter and two sons, scattered across the world, do what they must to stay alive and unmask the assassins. But each of them also has a life-path on which their father set them, destinies entangled with both ancient enemies and inscrutable gods.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes 10 years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder - guilty of worse.

The republic faces annihilation, despite the vigilance of Galharrow's Blackwings. When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow and a mysterious noblewoman must investigate a long-dead sorcerer's legacy. But there is a conspiracy within the citadel: traitors, flesh eaters and the ghosts of the wastelands seek to destroy them, but if they cannot solve the ancient wizard's paradox, the Deep Kings will walk the earth again, and all will be lost.

Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best - the meanest, dirtiest, most feared and admired crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld. But their glory days are long past; the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk - or a combination of the three. Then a former bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help: his daughter Rose is trapped in a city besieged by an enemy horde 100,000 strong and hungry for blood.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most significant fantasists to enter the field in a good many years. His ambitious, multi-volume epics and his stellar continuation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series have earned both critical acclaim and a substantial popular following. In Legion, a distinctly contemporary novella filled with suspense, humor, and an endless flow of invention, Sanderson reveals a startling new facet of his singular narrative talent.

The Greatcoats - legendary heroes, arbiters of justice...or notorious traitors? The Greatcoats are travelling magistrates bringing justice to all...or at least they were, before they watched the Dukes impale their King's head on a spike. Now the land's heroes are reviled as traitors, their Greatcoats in tatters. Facio, Kest and Brasti have been reduced to working as mercenaries, but when they find their employer dead - and are forced to watch as the killer plants evidence framing them for the murder - they realise things are about to get even worse.

The new star of British fantasy returns with The Waking Fire, book one of the Draconis Memoria series, a thrilling new epic fantasy of exploration and adventure, spies and assassins, explosive magic and the battle for empire. For decades the lands of the Ironship Syndicate have been defended by the 'blood blessed' - men and women able to channel the powers contained in the potent blood of wild drakes. Elite spies and assassins, their loyalty has established the Syndicate's position as the greatest power in the known world. Yet now a crisis looms.

Defeated, crushed, and driven almost to extinction, the remnants of the human race is trapped on a planet that is constantly attacked by mysterious alien starfighters. Spensa, a teenage girl living among them, longs to be a pilot. When she discovers the wreckage of an ancient ship, she realizes this dream might be possible - assuming she can repair the ship, navigate flight school, and (perhaps most importantly) persuade the strange machine to help her. Because this ship, uniquely, appears to have a soul.

Minalan the spellmonger faces the boredom of house arrest after being confined to his lands by Prince Tavard for his defiance with the Wilderlands refugees. The Alka Alon have returned to their seclusion, dealing with their own crisis, the dead god is being quiet within the Umbra, and Min’s plans toward reestablishing a functional Duchy of Alshar are progressing. Min sees his punishment as a unique opportunity to indulge in thaumaturgical research. 

When Soren is plucked from the streets and given a place at the prestigious academy of swordsmanship, he thinks his dream of being a great swordsman has become a possibility. However, with great intrigues unfolding all around him, Soren discovers that he is little more than a pawn to the ambitions of others.