Tales of Capes and Cowls


Book Description

"Look, up in the sky, it's Ultragod!" Superheroes have conquered movies, television, video games, and (of course) the comic book. However, there's still a dearth of fantastic superhero literature out there. Tales of Capes of Cowls is a wonderful collection of nine short stories, novelettes, and a novella about the text-based adventures of superheroes. Inside, you'll find stories about a supervillain recruited to kill Hitler before he wins WW2 using magic, a street level hero out to stop an insane AI, a group of young heroes befriending a powerful wizard, a daring jailbreak, and a 1960s romp with that era's modest heroes! Works by C.T. Phipps (Supervillainy Saga), David Niall Wilson (Hoods), Keith R.E. DeCandido (Super City Cops), Richard Roberts (Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain), and more!




The Canterbury Nightmares


Book Description

The Canterbury Nightmares is a collection of stories from the edge of the abyss. Combining the essence of Chaucer’s pilgrims on their journey to a shrine, with what appeared to be the end of a global pandemic, these tales were born in a time when personal connections were few, breathing the air in a grocery store felt unsafe, and the country was dissolving into seemingly irreparable divisions. Eleven travelers heading out to visit The Grand Canyon. All of them have their reasons. All of them have their losses, and their pain. All of them are dark. From an old man taking a promised journey with his wife, to a congregation that has lost its way, from different backgrounds and cultures, to different ways of dealing with grief, loss, and isolation, this book will take you places you do not expect. Contents: The Old Man's Tale – Steve Rasnic Tem The Liberation of Brother Buffalo – Michael Boatman Think of the Family – Ai Jiang To See Her in Sepia – Scott J. Moses The Preditor's Tale – Terence Taylor The Wife of Wrath's Tale – John B. Rosenman The Secret Place: A Knight’s Tale – Stephen Mark Rainey The Sacred Clarion – S. A. Cosby The Tour Guide's Tale – Anna Tambour Every Form of Person – J. A. W. McCarthy Vending Machine Girl – Eric LaRocca




The Complete Red Room Saga


Book Description

Now available in a single volume, the complete Red Room saga: ESOTERRORISM There are no good guys in the world of shadows … but maybe some bad men are better than others. Derek Hawthorne was born to be an agent of the Red Room. Literally. Raised in a conspiracy which has protected the world from the supernatural for centuries, he's never been anything other than a servant of their agenda. Times are changing, though, and it may not be long before their existence is exposed. When a routine mission uncovers the latest plan of the magical terrorist, the Wazir, Derek finds himself saddled with a new partner. Who is the mysterious but deadly Shannon O'Reilly? What is her agenda? Couple this with the discovery the Red Room has a mole seeking to frame Derek for treason and you have a plot which might bring down a millennium-old organization. Can he stop the Wazir's mission to expose the supernatural? And should he? ELDRITCH OPS Derek Hawthorne has ascended to become a member of the all-powerful Committee, which rules the world through the nebulous House. The House, officially, exists to protect humanity from the vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness that imperil humanity. Unofficially, it exists to protect its own power. When his old partner, Christopher Hang, turns up as one of the undead—Derek is nonplussed to say the least. Christopher also has a message that troubles the tiny remains of Derek's conscience: the House is running a secret project to not only control supernaturals but eliminate them. Now, Derek has to figure out if he's to side with the supernatural or humanity or neither. Oh and did we mention Dracula, pirates, and werewolves were involved too? THE FALL OF THE HOUSE Derek Hawthorne has slain Dracula and stopped the malevolent plan of his own employers, the sinister House. However, he has discovered that his ex-partner and lover Ashley Morgan has been kidnapped while a new conspiracy moves to expose the supernatural to the world. The House has overplayed its hand and all of its enemies are coming to bring it down. Derek will have to travel dimensions, fight monsters, and call in every favor he's accumulated just to survive. The Fall of the House is the exciting conclusion of the Red Room trilogy, tying the series to the greater United States of Monsters universe (Bright Falls Mysteries, Straight Outta Fangton, and Brightblade).




The Supervillainy Saga, Volume One


Book Description

THE BEST-SELLING SUPERHERO SERIES IS NOW AVAILABLE AS A COLLECTION. Gary Karkofsky has always wanted to be a supervillain. Ever since his infamous brother was killed an antihero, he's secretly yearned to gain powers and take over the world. Gary gets his chance when the magical cloak of recently deceased superhero, the Nightwalker, is delivered right to his doorstep. But is he evil enough to be a supervillain? What will his wife think? Follow Gary as he becomes Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM. Gary will finds himself bouncing from one insane situation to another. Whether its recruiting his ex-girlfriend and a washed up mastermind as henchmen, fighting against villains like the Ice Scream Man, escaping from moon prisons, dealing with zombie apocalypses, or working against the insane President of the United States—Gary is always just barely keeping his head above water. But maybe the world's worst supervillain can be its best hero. Or at least a passable one.




God and Science


Book Description

The "director's cut" edition of the sprawling super-hero epic from Love and Rockets. Originally serialized in Love and Rockets New Stories, “Ti-Girls Adventures” managed to be both a rollickingly creative super-hero joyride (featuring three separate super-teams and over two dozen characters) that ranged from the other side of the universe to Maggie’s shabby apartment, and a genuinely dramatic fable about madness, grief, and motherhood as Penny Century’s decades-long quest to become a genuine super-heroine are finally, and tragically, fulfilled. In addition to introducing a plethora of wild new characters, God and Science brings in many older characters from Jaime’s universe, some from seemingly throwaway shorter strips and some from Maggie’s day-to-day world (including some real surprises). The main heroine of the story, forming a bridge between the “realistic” Maggie stories and the super-heroic extravaganza is “Angel,” Maggie’s sweet-tempered and athletic new roommate and best friend, and now herself an aspiring super-heroine.




Tales of Supervillainy


Book Description

Cindy Wakowski aka Red Riding Hood is the second-most feared villain in Falconcrest City. Unfortunately, she soon discovers that is only because she's considered Merciless: The Supervillainy without MercyTM's favorite henchwoman. Determined to prove herself every bit her boyfriend's equal, if not superior, Cindy assembles a team of other villains to go after the largest treasure trove in the world: the hoard of the Dragon King. Unfortunately, things start going sideways from the start. An ex-boyfriend of hers turned eldritch horror wants revenge, other villains don't want anything to do with her plan, and the Foundation for World Harmony has put out a death warrant on her head. Merciless has also decided to engage in a little friendly competition that Cindy wants nothing to do with. Can she steal slay the dragon and claim its treasure? Will she let her ego and impatience get in the way? Also, who is Red Sindi and what relationship does she have with our antiheroine? TALES OF SUPERVILLAINY: CINDY'S SEVEN is the eighth novel of the best-selling SUPERVILLAINY SAGA series and the first from the perspective of its most popular supporting character!




Caped


Book Description

"We save them! So they can save the day!" Think your boss is tough? Try working for a superhero! While your boss is out fighting crime, you get the pleasure of scheduling public appearances, getting the dry-cleaning done and keeping a tidy secret lair. Millions would kill to be a superhero's personal assistant like Jimmy Lohman. Unfortunately, he's not one of them. A story of capes, cowls and Blackberrys.




Tales of an Eldritch Wasteland


Book Description

There are a million tales of the Mythos. Here are some of mine.” - C.T. Phipps Author C.T. Phipps wrote the post-apocalypse meets H.P. Lovecraft novel Cthulhu Armageddon in 2015 but he had been a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos for far longer. Having written stories ranging from Assassins in Acre to detectives in the Dreamlands, he’s tackled every part of the sinister tentacle-filled world that has been influenced by authors ranging from authors Robert E. Howard and Brian Lumley to film directors George Miller and Stuart Gordon. TALES OF AN ELDRITCH WASTELAND collects over a dozen of his short stories, novelettes, and novellas set both before as well as after the Great Old Ones’ rising. Stories of action, horror, and everything in between. “I’m a sucker for anything C.T. Phipps. I can’t get enough of his style of writing.” - Brian’s Book Blog “Dark and sinister with a side order of action.” - The Bookwyrm Speaks “Phipps [...] should appeal to those who like full kitchen sink Cthulhu Mythos stories and the attendant sports of restructuring the Mythos.” - Marzaat.com




Maria de Zayas Tells Baroque Tales of Love and the Cruelty of Men


Book Description

María de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590–1650?) published two collections of novellas, Novelas amorosas y exemplares (1637) and Desengaños amorosos (1647), which were immensely popular in her day. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Victorian and bourgeois sensibilities exiled her “scandalous” works to the outer fringes of serious literature. Over the last two decades, however, she has gained an enthusiastic and ever-expanding readership, drawing intense critical attention and achieving canonical status as a major figure of the Spanish Golden Age. In this first comprehensive study of Zayas’s prose, Margaret R. Greer explores the relationship between narration and desire, analyzing both the “desire for readers” displayed by Zayas in her Prologue and the sexual desire that drives the telling within the novellas themselves. Greer examines Zayas’s narrative strategies through the twin lenses of feminist and psychoanalytic theory. She devotes close attention to the weight of Renaissance literary traditions and the role of Zayas’s own cultural context in shaping her work. She discusses Zayas’s biography and the reception of her publications; her advocacy of women’s rights; her conflictive loyalty to an aristocratic, patriarchal order; her crafting of feminine tales of desire; and her erasure of the frontiers between the natural and supernatural, indeed, between love and death itself. In so doing, Greer offers an expansive analysis of this recently rediscovered Golden Age writer.




Tales of mist and moonlight


Book Description

This is a collection of short stories within the romance and fantasy genre. Some of them are of an adult nature and therefore nor suitable for children. The first tells of a village with a huge problem and how it is solved, the next is about two warriors who finds a mystery when they are sent to investigate a seemingly simple case. The last five stories are adult in nature. The first is a story of an attempt to play matchmaker for a very lonesome ogre, and it includes a certain blue medicin and a dirty trick. The next tells of how a warrior saves a noble lady and how she rewards his effort in a rather intimate way. An abused girl forced to work as a prostitute prays for someone to save her, and her prayer is answered in a very unexpected way. A spell is cast upon the chief of an elven tribe and she has to face her fear and allow herself the pleasures and the love she has feared a long time. A woman living near a river goes for a bath but discovers that her pond has a very unexpected guest.