These are the stories of a century in a place called Val Hall.

Not Valhalla. Not Odin's gathering place for gods and immortals.

Val Hall, home and last sanctuary for retired Superheroes, Third Class.

Val Hall, raised by the vision and devotion of of one man for others of his kind... in the wreckage of the world left behind in the ashes of the conflagration of what they called the Great War.

Men and women in whom an extraordinary moment released one singular extraordinary power, gathered under the definition of Superheroes (Third Class), could gather here in the twilight of their lives in search of security, contentment, care, and peace - they could come here to find, and take shelter with,others of their kind.

From those who could know the unknowable, release gifts trapped in other minds, free ancient memories with a single touch, lead their kin back to the...]]> Fri, 03 Feb 2023 07:55:36 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729131-twice_promised.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729131-twice_promised.html

What happens when two very different witches are promised the same first-born child in payment for services rendered...? And then fall in love?

There is a story behind every word.
There is a word behind every story.
Some concepts require a single word in other languages but paragraphs to explain in English.

There are times when it is impossible to have a direct translation of something, to understand an idea at once simple to one mind and unutterably impenetrable to another—except through the bridge of story, through a literal journey into another language, another culture, another mind.
The 14 stories in this book are bridges made of words—crossing into language landscapes of Japan, of Sweden, of France, of Portugal, of Tierra del Fuego—glimpses into the worldview and the mindset of cultures different enough from our own to produce a single word that encompasses a world of concepts.
Translating the untranslatable.
"I love Alma Alexander's writing. Reading one of her stories is like having a beautiful and intense conversation that you walk away from realizing that you've...]]> Tue, 13 Feb 2018 11:30:43 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728915-gift_of_the_unmage.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728915-gift_of_the_unmage.html

Who knew you'd be a true weaver?

Great things have been expected of Thea, the seventh child of two seventh children. Now, with Cheveyo, a mage, Thea has begun to weave herself a new magical identity, infused with elements of the original worlds. But back home, Thea keeps her abilities hidden and attends the Wandless Academy, the one school on Earth for those who have no apparent magical talent. It is there that Thea realizes that her enemies are hungrier and more dangerous than she knew. What's more, her greatest strength may be the powerlessness she has resisted for so long.]]> Fri, 09 Feb 2007 20:20:53 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729132-weight_of_worlds.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729132-weight_of_worlds.html

Alma Alexander released a series of "Triads", themed collections of three short stories apiece, over the course of several years. This book, "Weight of Worlds", is a gathering of some of the best of the Triads, a substantial collection of short stories from an accoplished storyteller.

On the eve of the end of the world, 20 December 2012, five friends meet in Spanish Gardens, the cafe where they had celebrated their college graduation twenty years before. Over Irish coffees, they reminisce—and reveal long-held and disturbing secrets.

Each friend in turn is given a curious set of instructions by an enigmatic bartender named Ariel:

"Your life is filled with crossroads and you are free to choose one road or another at any time. Stepping through this door takes away all choices except two—the choice to live a different life, or return to this one...."

Each in turn passes through the portal and are faced with new lives and challenges. Their decisions show a new life—or something far worse. At the end of the world, it's a chance for redemption, or a chance to learn something about themselves.

International bestselling author, Alma Alexander, mixes a world or possibilities and paths. What if you could change the...]]> Fri, 09 Feb 2018 20:20:55 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729134-wings_of_fire.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729134-wings_of_fire.html

Sabrina had no idea that her life was so deeply rooted in the mystical and the legendary—not until she found herself in the middle of a war between Heaven and Earth, in the company of a handful of creatures whom she had not believed possible before that moment...and not sure on whose side she was on.]]> Mon, 13 Feb 2017 11:30:44 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728914-dawn_of_magic.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728914-dawn_of_magic.html

Back to the Beginning

With Thea Winthrop finally taking her rightful place in her society - even if she is the youngest student at the prestigious Amford University and feeling very out of her depth - something once again needs her unique talents to be set right. It begins with small things, easily dismissed, but it quickly becomes apparent that it is the biggest imaginable calamity of all.

The very core of human magic has been stolen... and it is up to Thea, the wizard Nikola Tesla, and Corey the Trickster to retrieve the heart and soul of human magic from those who have taken it... and answer many of the mysteries of Thea's life in the process.

The triumphant conclusion to the Worldweavers series.

Thea Winthrop, Double Seventh, has been a conundrum to her magical world—first she was the Girl Who Couldn't, unable to do any magic at all, and then she bewildered the ultimate authorities of her world, the Federal Bureau of Magic, with the apparently random nature of her gifts. Right until she came face to face with the legacy of Nikola Tesla, the Wizard of the West and the only quad-Elemental mage in human history, and heard him call her his equal...]]> Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:55:35 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729130-the_second_star.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/729130-the_second_star.html

The Parada had been lost for almost two hundred years before they recovered the ship, drifting in stygian interstellar darkness, and brought her home again.

But that was not the miracle.

The miracle was that the crew was still alive.

That was also the problem.
Six crew members went out on the Parada, Earth's first starship. All contact was lost, and the ship vanished for almost two centuries. When the Parada's successor found the drifting ship and somehow managed to bring it home, the six crew members were not only still alive but barely older, due to the time dilation effects of near-FTL travel. Their return was a miracle – but it could not be revealed to the waiting world. The problem was, six individuals went out to the stars. More than seventy fractured personalities came back.

Psychologist Stella Froud and Jesuit Father Philip Carter were recruited as part of the team assembled to investigate the mystery, and to try and help the Parada's...]]> Thu, 13 Feb 2020 11:30:39 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728916-out_of_this_world.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728916-out_of_this_world.html
Although the stars have always had a powerful hold on her imagination, Alma Alexander is not often found in the cold reaches of interstellar space so this collection of stories is something of a rarity.One of these stories is new to this collection.One of the two previously published stories was listed as a Notable Story in the Million Writers round-up in the year that it appeared in an online science fiction anthology inspired by the NASA-sponsored Launchpad astronomy workshop for writers, run out of Laramie by Professor Mike Brotherton.These are tales of starflight and of vision - but, as all Alexander stories, they are primarily about the people who live in these wondrous new worlds and how they experience their own universe. We are all, as Oscar WIlde once said, in the gutter - but these are the stories of those who have lifted their faces to the sky and are looking up at the stars.]]> Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:20:54 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728911-spellspam.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728911-spellspam.html

What do you get when ordinary e-mail spam becomes infused with magic? Spellspam—and it's not supposed to exist. As far as Thea and her friends know, computers are meant to be inert vehicles for storing magic spells, not magical processors themselves. But all that seems to have changed as students at Wandless Academy find themselves the victim of practical jokes—with magical consequences—simply by opening an e-mail.

Now the spellspams are getting worse, and it's possible there's someone behind them who is not just bent on stirring up trouble but has a much scarier and more wide-reaching agenda. Until now, Thea has been the only person she's ever met who can reach through the computer using magic. But someone else is out there, and even her friends can't help her track down the source of the spellspam before it gets much, much worse.

This sequel to Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage ups the ante on a fantasy world that is rich and...]]> Tue, 09 Feb 2016 20:20:48 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728912-fractured_fairy_tales.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728912-fractured_fairy_tales.html

Fairy tales—new-told, re-told, re-invented, rebuilt, new-visioned. Fairy tales are the building blocks not just of fantasy but of all fiction, the original Story, the thing we all grew up on. This is a return to those roots, and an entirely new vision of all that a fairy tale was, is, or can be.]]> Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:20:49 +0200 https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728913-ever_after.html https://readfrom.net/alma-alexander/728913-ever_after.html

What if all the princesses out of all the fairy tales of your childhood... were refugees? What if they didn't live lives of happily ever after but their true stories involve far greater strength, far greater loss, far greater courage than you ever knew? Here are four of those stories. Sometimes, the greatest fairy tales... are real.