Fantasy stories. In Will Shetterly's Splatter, killers decide to show a novelist how it's really done, Karen Haber's A Bone Dry Place is set in a suicide-prevention clinic, and in John Ford's Chain Home, Low a sleeping virus strikes a group of wartime pilots.

A wizard enters the underground domain of Arha, high priestess of the Powers of the Earth, in an attempt to steal her palace's greatest treasure.

When the prince of Enlad declares the wizards have forgotten their spells, Ged sets out to test the ancient prophecies of Earthsea.

Tavi, the First Lord of Alera, must lead his army back to the Calderon Valley, but it will not be a happy homecoming as he must make his stand against the vord, a dreaded enemy that uses fear to turn the Alerans against one another.

A young boy heads out one night on his bike and comes across a mysterious cave where a giant, deadly worm has trapped the librarian.

"Spanning Gaiman's career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a ... collection from one of the world's most beloved writers, chosen by those who know his work best: his devoted readers. A ... representation of Gaiman's ... imaginative fiction, this ... volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults--Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane--and nearly fifty of his short...

The Page Turners, two powerful books from the Library of Doom have fallen into the hands of an evil magician who turns them into tornadoes in order to destroy the librarian.

A young man, transformed into the Word Eater after getting a sliver from a strange silver book, sets out in search of words to eat--with only the Librarian to stop him.

In the Vampire Stratocracy of Cain, human blood is scarce. For centuries, councils have enslaved and bred humans, turning them into profitable supply units. Wavorly is bound to serve her blood willingly to her master for the rest of her life, but as one of only a few humans not bred in Cain, she knows freedom and is determined to escape.

Includes "The Silmarillion," and four short works: "Ainulindalë," "Valaquenta," "Akallabeth," and "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age."