From the farthest reaches of our galaxy to the cozy-yet-mysterious spaces under beds and behind sofa cushions, from mystical realms of fantasy to the here-and-now and the very near future, the nineteen authors in this fourth collection of science fiction and fantasy by authors featured on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers offer readers a kaleidoscope of fantastical adventures in the company of unforgettable characters.The editor of a tyrannical bestselling author thinks she's finally escaped their hellish relationship when the author dies . . . but she couldn't be more wrong. A retired ghost-hunter's life takes an unexpected turn when an immensely valuable magical vase from the nineteenth century is brought to her attention. At the end of a millennia-long journey to the edge of the galaxy, a man who has lived a hundred lifetimes is reunited with his first true love in the midst of a battle for survival. Scarecrows that appear overnight on a lonely man's...

From outer space to inner space, from realms of magic to the here-and-now, from the distant past to the far future, the twenty-one stories and poems in this third collection of science fiction and fantasy by authors featured on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers will take you on incredible adventures in the company of unforgettable characters. A pampered, overweight cat from the present saves the world from alien invasion in Ancient Egypt. A musician whose special horn helped bring down the walls of Jericho is fated to bring down walls again and again throughout history. A house ghost is troubled by a new owner who proves unhauntable. Robots programmed to love humanity take the only action they can to save us from ourselves. A CDC agent is prepared to do whatever it takes to prevent a novel pathogen from spreading . . . Shapers of Worlds Volume IIIfeatures new fiction from Griffin Barber, Gerald Brandt, Miles Cameron, Sebastien de Castell,...

From an Aurora Award-winning author comes the second book in a gripping portal fantasy series in which one woman's powers open the way to a labyrinth of new dimensions.Shawna Keys has fled the world she only recently discovered she Shaped, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Adversary who seized control of it...and losing her only guide, Karl Yatsar, in the process.Now she finds herself alone in some other Shaper's world, where, in her first two hours, she's rescued from a disintegrating island by an improbable flying machine she recognizes from Jules Verne's Robur the Conqueror, then seized from it by raiders flying tiny personal helicopters, and finally taken to a submarine that bears a strong resemblance to Captain Nemo's Nautilus. Oh, and accused of being both a spy and a witch.Shawna expects—hopes!—Karl Yatsar will eventually follow her into this new steampunky realm, but exactly where and when he'll show up, she hasn't a...

The third book in the Worldshaper portal fantasy series by an Aurora Award-winning author, in which one woman's powers open the way to a labyrinth of new dimensions.Fresh from their adventures in a world inspired by Jules Verne, Shawna Keys and Karl Yatsar find themselves in a world that mirrors much darker tales. Beneath a full moon that hangs motionless in the sky, they're forced to flee terrifying creatures that can only be vampires...only to run straight into a pack of werewolves. As the lycanthropes and undead battle, Karl is spirited away to the castle of the vampire queen. Meanwhile, Shawna finds short-lived refuge in a fortified village, where she learns that something has gone horribly wrong with the world in which she finds herself. Once, werewolves, vampires, and humans lived there harmoniously. Now every group is set against every other, and entire villages are being mysteriously emptied of people. Somehow, Karl and Shawna must reunite,...

This new novel from an Aurora Award-winning author presents a sci-fi caper of high-stakes interstellar travel.More than a century ago, the network of MASTTs, the space-time tunnels that made interstellar travel possible, violently collapsed, the backlash destroying a lot of the solar system’s space-based infrastructure. Cooper “Coop” Douglas, a thief and conman, is in serious debt to outer-system crime-lord Eric Galioto. While trying to salvage a valuable chunk of a space station destroyed by the backlash, Coop makes a startling discovery: MASTT Primus, the tunnel that used to lead to New Earth, is open again. That raises an intriguing possibility: Coop could flee the solar system and his debt to Galioto and make a new life—and possibly fortune—around another star.Accompanied by his first mate, the wisecracking, AI-uplifted, genetically modified cat Thibauld, Coop sets out to “liberate” the solar system’s only...

Explore twenty-four imaginative tales crafted by some of today's best writers of science fiction and fantasy, all guests on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers during its second year, and including several international bestsellers and winners of every major award in the field, as well as newer authors just beginning what promise to be stellar careers. A woman seeking the power to see the evil hiding within others regrets receiving it. Letters written by a wizard in the past threaten a queen's reign in the present. Competing for Earth, a human wrestler faces an alien shapeshifter in an interstellar tournament. A guide in Tibet must weigh the good of his people when asked to lead a westerner to the fabled realm of Shangri. An activist imprisoned for illegal genetic modification works with the materials at hand and the threads of the multiverse to make the world—a world, at least—a better place. A demonic agent sent to help a human turns the...

In the climactic fifth book of The Shards of Excalibur series, Ariane, Wally, Flish and Rex Major are on a collision course, converging on the resting place of the final piece of the sword: the hilt, long ago removed from its original hiding place by the descendants of King Arthur. When Wally uncovers its surprising location, far closer to hand than they'd ever guessed, it seems all Ariane and Wally have to do is claim it and reforge the sword to defeat Merlin forever.Except...how, exactly, do you reforge a magical sword? Especially, how do you do it when the richest man in the world is on your trail and pouring all of his enormous resources into stopping you?When the pieces of the sword are at last reunited, the results aren't at all what Ariane and Wally imagined. With Excalibur whole again, the long-closed door into Faerie swings open wide. Who — and what — emerges from it may destroy everything and everyone Wally and Ariane have fought so hard to save —...

Ariana's life is already pretty difficult when she starts to hear the singing – her mother suddenly disappeared, she's trying to get used to living with her aunt after bouncing around a series of foster homes, and she's taking a lot of grief from the clique of "in" girls at school. But she's also dealing with these sudden premonitions about the future, things seem to get weird whenever she touches water, and now someone, somewhere is singing to her. Soon, she's met the famed Lady of the Lake – who turns out to be an ancestor – UNDER Wascana Lake, has acquired a nerdy sidekick, and is sent on a dangerous mission that pits her against otherworldly forces. Can she figure out what it all means, much less survive the challange?

The Cityborn is a standalone science fiction novel from Edward Willett.The metal City towers at the center of the mountain-ringed Heartland, standing astride the deep chasm of the Canyon like a malevolent giant, ruled with an iron fist by the First Officer and his Provosts in the name of the semi-mythical Captain. Within its corroding walls lies a stratified society, where the Officers dwell in luxury on the Twelfth Tier while the poor struggle to survive on the First and Second, and outcasts scrabble and fight for whatever they can find in the Middens, the City's rubbish heap, filling the Canyon beneath its dripping underbelly. Alania, ward of an Officer, lives on Twelfth. Raised among the privileged class, Alania feels as though she is some sort of pampered prisoner, never permitted to explore the many levels of the City. And certainly not allowed to leave the confines of the City for any reason. She has everything a young woman could want except a loving...

In the third instalment of this modern take on Arthurian legends, Ariane – descendant of none other than the Lady of the Lake herself – is on the run and on her own. Using her powers to keep avoiding Rex Major's agents makes her too weak to detect the next Shard of the broken sword she must reunite. And her erstwhile best friend and sidekick Wally has switched allegiance and is living a pampered life at Rex Major's right hand. Perhaps worst of all, the powerful Rex (aka Merlin) has the biggest network in the world, and has used it to find Ariane's Aunt Phyllis –her mother's sister, and the person she's closest to. With her aunt under threat, Ariane has no choice but to walk straight into Rex Major's trap. No longer using her powers to stay ahead of his spies, she can sense the third Shard. Now all she has to do is win back Wally's friendship, protect her aunt's life, figure out Major's next move – oh, and get to New Zealand and safely back with the...

Seeking to recover the shards of King Arthur's sword Excalibur before Rex Major (the ancient sorcerer Merlin in a modern-day guise), Ariane and Wally have traveled around the world, and their quest is not yet over.Ariane's magical powers as heir to the Lady of the Lake, combined with Wally's clever thinking, have enabled them to hang on to two of the three shards they've located so far – but Rex Major still has one shard of his own, and will stop at nothing to claim all the pieces for himself, and use its power to rule Earth and invade the magical realm of Faerie. And now Major has his eyes on a big prize: Ariane's mother, who went missing after she refused the power of the Lady of the Lake.Thanks to Wally, Ariane knows her mother is alive – and that Rex Major is trying to find her. If he succeeds, Ariane fears she'll have no choice but to surrender the two shards she and Wally possess, because she'll do anything – and give up everything – to have her...

Kathryn and Jarrikk-she a human translator and he is a S'sinn translator-had every reason to hate one another. Yet only by working together do they stand any chance of averting interstellar war.

From an Aurora Award-winning author comes the first book in a new fantasy series in which one woman's powers open the way to a labyrinth of new dimensions.For Shawna Keys, the world is almost perfect. She's just opened a pottery studio in a beautiful city. She's in love with a wonderful man. She has good friends.But one shattering moment of violence changes everything. Mysterious attackers kill her best friend. They're about to kill Shawna. She can't believe it's happening—and just like that, it isn't. It hasn't. No one else remembers the attack, or her friend. To everyone else, Shawna's friend never existed...Everyone, that is, except the mysterious stranger who shows up in Shawna's shop. He claims her world has been perfect because she Shaped it to be perfect; that it is only one of uncounted Shaped worlds in a great Labyrinth; and that all those worlds are under threat from the Adversary who has now invaded hers. She cannot save her world, he says, but...

Having saved the first Shard of the sword Excalibur from internet mogul Rex Major (aka Merlin), Ariane and Wally are on the lookout for the second. Wally's worried that the power of the first Shard is already changing Ariane, giving her the strength to do both good and evil...and when she seriously hurts his bullying sister Flish, it seems he might be right.