In a far-flung corner of the worlds-spanning Empire, Ser Kellan tor Iaestus is a Highwayman, sworn to keep the peace in the rugged Outlands. Armed with a revolver from a forgotten war and a hidden Talent to see truth, he is an agent of justice and peace in a wild land . . . so long as he keeps his talent hidden, lest he be pressed into the service of the Empire.
When Prospero, an Imperial Magus, arrives in the Outlands hunting for a magical truth-teller, Kellan is assigned as his guide. Certain he can keep his Talent concealed and maintain his freedom, Kellan escorts the magus on his journey. All goes well until a string of seemingly unrelated murders exposes demons, dark powers, and a warlock weaving cruel designs in the shadows. As Kellan and Prospero investigate, they follow a thread that leads from the Outlands to the city of Victar de Reya, links whores and politicians, and takes them from fine restaurants to piratical celebrations.
Saddled with a suspicious young seer and facing demons clawing at them from the Unreal, the two must work together to unravel the warlock’s conspiracy before he kills again. But can Kellan locate the killer without exposing his own power, and surrendering the independence he’s fought so hard to protect?
Duty demands truth. Survival demands secrecy. Kellan can’t have it both ways . . . and time is running out.
About Sam Robb
Sam Robb
Sam Robb grew up in Pittsburgh, preferring books to football — a choice that, in hindsight, explains a lot. He attended Carnegie Mellon on a Navy ROTC scholarship, married the most amazing woman in the world, and promptly shipped out to the Pacific Fleet. After helping decommission the USS Wabash, he returned to Pittsburgh, decided people were overrated, and retreated into software development.
Then he ran for President as a Libertarian. He describes this period as “instructive.”
These days, Sam channels his restless curiosity into SF/F, prowling Pittsburgh’s back alleys with a camera and an overactive imagination. His writing proves that graffiti, old buildings, and questionable life choices make excellent creative fuel.
He lives with his wife, three daughters, and several quadrupeds who remain unimpressed by his publishing credits.
A conversation with New York Times-bestselling author Caitlin Rozakis about her new standalone novel in the Everyday Enchantments fantasy series, Startup Hell.
A hilarious contemporary fantasy about a junior sales witch stuck in corporate hell, who has to evade devilish pacts and her kickass, world-saving, demon-slaying mum to save a (surprisingly hot) demon, and work out how to hit her quarterly target.
Morgan Blackwater’s mother is a kickass, world-saving, demon-slaying Shadow Council wizard. As for Morgan? Morgan’s a junior salesperson at a tech startup that can’t even decide what its product is. But with magic dyslexia and a disinclination to kick ass, Morgan is doing her best to carve out a niche for herself in the mundane world.
Leaving work late one night, she discovers her boss dead from the effort of summoning a demon to trade his soul in order to make his quarterly target. The disturbingly attractive demon, Lucareoth (Luke for short), is trapped here until he finds someone to sell their soul. While trying to sneak Luke out of the building, Morgan runs into her infamous mother. Apparently, someone has been summoning demons, and she’s here to get to the bottom of it.
Trying to protect Luke from her mother, Morgan gets sucked into the Infernal Plane and discovers hell really is a corporate nightmare. She only gets back home with a promise to deliver a human soul of her own. While her coworkers are really annoying, she’s not willing to sacrifice their souls. The company’s tech bro CEO, though, is another story.
With Caitlin Rozakis’s signature wit, Startup Hell is a contemporary fantasy that exposes the demonic nature of the corporate world.
New York Times best-selling author Caitlin Rozakis writes fantasy with a satirical twist and a cozy heart. Her debut novel Dreadful turned out not to be dreadful at all. Her Everyday Enchantments series include standalones The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association and Startup Hell (Titan Books).
She also writes romance under the name Catherine Beck; her novella “Leah’s Perfect Christmas” was adapted into the Hallmark Channel Original Movie Leah’s Perfect Gift.
Short stories have appeared under the name R. Rozakis in Cast of Wonders, Aurealis, Daily Science Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Weirdbook, as well as the anthologies Substitution Cipher, Clockwork Chaos,Baker Street Irregulars II, and Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2022.
Caitlin Rozakis is the pen name of Rebecca Rozakis. After graduating from Princeton, she has had too many career changes, including mechanical engineering (cut short after the murderous robot incident), finance (amortizing tequila receivables is not as fun as drinking tequila), and the American Museum of Natural History (who knew emus had birth certificates?), and a number of marketing positions, some at companies you may have even heard of. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and son.
She was afraid of the truth. She was afraid of the lies. But mostly afraid she couldn’t tell the difference between the two anymore.
After escaping from the holy Sanctum, Ehla yearns for safety. In a realm where High Priests maintain absolute power through violence and manipulation, Ehla finds herself at the center of a rebellion she wants no part of.
And the more she learns about the One God, the Serpent, and the magical power of Song, the more she questions everything she thought she knew.
With the Sanctum’s shadow growing deeper, Ehla must make choices that will change her – and the realm – forever.
Packed with religious oppression, revolution, and self-discovery, this fast-paced, thought-provoking fantasy novel is perfect for fans of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series, and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.
About Dan Desai Martin
Dan Desai Martin
Dan Desai Martin is a fantasy author and communications consultant. After receiving a degree in Religious Studies from Berry College, Dan spent most of his career at nonprofit organizations trying to make the world a little better.
He is active with the Maryland Writers’ Association, and was an editor of the 2024 and 2025 editions of Emerging Voices: Poetry and Prose by Maryland Teens. When not reading, writing, or working, he enjoys traveling and spending time with his amazing wife, Rachana [pronounced RUTCH-na]. They live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
A chat with award-winning novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and media entrepreneur Roger L. Simon about Emet, the first book in a thrilling new series.
A rabbi who doubts. A city on edge. A truth older than memory rising from the earth.
When Nashville is shaken by the brutal murder of a young woman visiting from New York, Rabbi Benjamin “Ben” Golub—a reluctant spiritual leader whose faith has long wavered—finds himself drawn into a crisis far larger than grief and consolation. The crime unmoors his congregants, ignites simmering fears, and pulls the rabbi into the orbit of two people connected to the victim: Ed, a Serbian-born sculptor with a past marked by war, and Tamara, a sharp-witted New York publicist fleeing her own heartbreak.
But when a freak tornado hits the city, exposing strange phenomena in the rabbi’s own backyard, Ben confronts something he never expected: evidence that an ancient Jewish legend may be more than myth. What begins as a whispered joke—a lump of mud shaped like a man—soon reveals a terrifying capacity for action.
As violence escalates, anti-Jewish hatred rises worldwide, and the rabbi’s private doubts collide with what he witnesses, Ben must decide what he truly believes—and what he is willing to unleash. Because the line between protector and monster is thinner than anyone imagined. And truth—emet—has consequences.
Emet is a gripping, unsettling novel about faith, fear, justice, and the supernatural forces that emerge when an ordinary man is pushed past the limits of reason.
Advance praise for Emet
“A thriller that’s as fast and furious as it is thoughtful and smart.” – New York Times bestselling novelist Andrew Klavan
“A thrilling page-turner with a satisfying ending.”- Glenn Reynolds, American legal scholar and founder of Instapundit
“A tour de force full of . . . wit and wisdom and positivity amid peril.” – Kurt Schlichter, novelist and Townhall columnist
“(Emet) doubles as a political and religious commentary, making it even more captivating and enlightening . . . (it) screams for sequels and an equally riveting television streaming series.” – David Limbaugh
About Roger L. Simon
Roger L. Simon
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and media entrepreneur whose career spans more than five decades across literature, film, and cultural commentary. He first gained prominence with his bestselling Moses Wine detective series, beginning with the 1970s breakout hit The Big Fix, which became a cultural touchstone and later a Hollywood film starring Richard Dreyfus. Simon wrote the screenplay, beginning a career in Hollywood that also saw him write, among many others, Bustin’ Loose (with Richard Pryor), Scenes from a Mall (with Bette Midler and Woody Allen), and the Paul Mazursky-directed Enemies, A Love Story, for which Simon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. A Better Life, for which Simon wrote the story, was released in 2011; its lead actor, Damien Bichir, was also nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award. Simon also directed the independent feature Prague Duet, starring Gina Gershon and based on a screenplay he wrote with his wife, Sheryl Longin.
Simon has taught screenwriting at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and at the American Film Institute. He is a former president of the PEN Center USA West, former vice-president of the International Association of Crime Writers, and a former member of the board of the Writers Guild of America.
Simon has become a leading voice in political and social journalism, co-founding PJ Media, one of the earliest and most influential digital platforms in the online commentary landscape. His work has appered in major publications worldwide, and he is known for his sharp intellect, fearless critique, and his ability to fuse narrative craft with cultural insight.
Emet launches a provocative new series that confronts the spiritual and geopolitical dangers facing Christians and Jews in the modern world. Simon, 82, calls this creative resurgence “remarkably optimistic” and feels this is arguably some of his most ambitious work to date.
Every year, hunters ride into the cursed woods of Magnolia Manor chasing fortune.
Most never ride out.
September Zamfir isn’t after treasure. He’s running from a past that hunts him harder than any monster, and walking straight into the one legend no blade has ever ended.
But the beast is no mindless killer. Behind silver fur and porcupine spines is Verity: a young woman chained to an ancient curse, guarding the only family she has left.
When Sept offers the one thing no hunter ever has—help—she has to decide whether to trust the young man who sees through her claws . . . or condemn them both to the darkness that made her.
About TC Ross
TC Ross
TC Ross is an illustrator and urban fantasy author who also dabbles in related historical fantasy, romantic comedy, gaslamp, horror, and short stories.
She resides in Texas with her family, feeding the Fae and watching out for shifters. Hopefully, they never find her.
A conversation with Annmarie SanSevero about her new science fiction/fantasy short story collection, The Butterfly’s Stroke and Other Stories, just released by Stark Publishing.
An intricate and harmonious dance between humanity and technology
Dive into Annmarie SanSevero’s gripping collection of speculative fiction, where suspense, mystery, and the supernatural collide with the frontiers of science.
Each story pulses with themes of hope, resilience, and the ethical complexities of technological advancements. A testament to the human spirit, these tales weave suspense, mystery, and supernatural elements into a tapestry of speculative fiction that resonates with contemporary societal issues.
Don’t miss your chance to experience these unforgettable narratives and embark on a journey that both challenges and inspires.
About Jonathan Handel
Annmarie SanSeverol
Annmarie SanSevero grew up in New York City but was transplanted to the south in high school. She writes stories about hope, courage, and resilience in fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, and mystery. She loves exploring the human experience and wants readers to feel like they can do more than survive.
When she’s not writing, Annmarie enjoys learning just about everything, playing violin, and singing. She can occasionally be found tap dancing or playing D&D. One day, she wants to go LARPing.
A conversation with Dave Freer, Prometheus Award-winning author of numerous science fiction novels for readers of all ages, about his latest book for young readers, Storm-Dragon.
On the treacherous Vann’s World, Skut battles a savage wind and deadly hamerkops to rescue a mysterious, telepathic creature. Fleeing a rising tide and a menacing Loor-beast, he forms an unexpected bond with the tiny, electric-charged being that sees him as its protector. As Skut navigates the perilous tidal tiers, his impulsive escape from Highpoint Station unravels into a fight for survival—both for himself and his newfound companion.
Podge is the new kid in town, trying to keep his head down. Meeting Skut is about the only bright spot in his introduction to this strange new world. The boys bond over Skut’s creature, and trying to avoid the class bullies. This is only the beginning; soon Skut finds his new friends do not ease the growing concerns of the adults around him while the town is coming under a mysterious threat. What can two boys and a tiny storm-dragon do?
About Dave Freer
Dave Freer
Dave Freer is a former Marine Biologist who specialized in fish (an Ichthyologist), proving that you can end up as an academic even if you did win a sports bursary (for rock-climbing) to take you through college. At seventeen was a conscripted Medic during the Angolan/South African conflict. Politically from an old fashioned ‘liberal’ (you know, believing in equality of all people before the law, equality of opportunity, that sort of thing) anti-apartheid family this was quite an experience. He lived through it and came out as a 45 year old in a nineteen year old body, which may explain his frequent confusion. He is still deciding just what do when he grows up.
His first postgraduate job was as Chief Scientific Officer for the Western Cape Commercial Shark fishery. As a biologist he’s spent a lot of time working in water no sane person would go near, having encounters (both in small boats and in the water) with sharks, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, electric rays and a number of other toxic/lethal creatures. He has worked as a salvage diver, run two major fish farms (he’s a very good plumber), as well as doing some steeplejack work. Additionally he has worked as the relief chef for a group of exclusive luxury game/ ecotourism/ whitewater-rafting lodges.
He has an obsession with food, recreating traditional fare, something he uses in his books. He’s a top mountaineer and rock-climber, opening many of his country’s best rock routes. He’s a fanatical spiny-lobster diver and flyfisherman and the author of a number of articles on both. If it is dangerous and a little crazy — he’s done it. Besides writing some amazingly boring but fundamental papers on shark age and growth and reproductive biology, he has authored or co-authored about twenty novels, most of which are sf/fantasy. He’s also written a lot of shorter fiction, appearing in various collections.
He lives on a wonderful remote Island off the coast of Tasmania, Australia, a ten hour ferry trip to anywhere, with three dogs to do his thinking, three cats to be waited on, two sons to lead him astray, and a wonderful wife to be patient with him and them, although it is a task that would tax a saint. Sometimes he wonders why he does this. Other times he just wonders.
A chat with editor Robert Runté, Ph.D., about the last two novels by the late, great Dave Duncan’s, The Traitor’s Son and Corridor to Nightmare, which he edited and which were just released by Shadowpaw Press.
“They know the world is dying, but they hope not in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, they’re top dogs and will do anything to stay that way.”
Doig Gray is fifteen when his father is killed in a mining accident, which Doig comes to realizes was no accident. Torn from his mother and sister, Doig is sent off to college, his every movement monitored in case he has inherited his dissident father’s unacceptable attitudes . . . or passwords. Doig has nothing but his own sense that there’s something desperately wrong with the world—and a last name that evokes the assumption that he’s destined to be the next traitor-hero.
The Traitor’s Son is a science fiction novel about a colony world where everything that could go wrong already has. Stuck on the wrong world at the wrong site, with the wrong leaders, the colony is doomed to extinction unless immediate steps are taken to correct—everything. But 500 years of hiding from the reality of their situation has created an unchallengeable status quo—and the Accident Squad, determined to ensure it remains that way.
The Traitor’s Son is a fast-paced SF adventure in the best tradition of Duncan’s Hero, West of January, and Eocene Station.
About Corridor to Nightmare
The never-before-published final novel by the late Dave Duncan, one of Canada’s most beloved authors of fantasy and science fiction
When one life ends, another begins.
After forty years as the village school teacher in the idyllic valley of Greenbottom, Agatha is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Instead, an enigmatic stranger arrives to drag her through a long-closed portal to another world.
Confronted with a completely foreign culture steeped in magic and violence, Agatha finds herself a crucial pawn being played between rival factions. The only way forward through the rigid traditions and convoluted politics of the Archons of Otopia is to remain true to herself and her Greenbottom ideals.
But will it be enough to save, not only herself, but the man to whom she is now magically bound in love?
Praise for Dave Duncan
“Dave Duncan writes rollicking adventure novels filled with subtle characterization and made bitter-sweet by an underlying darkness. Without striving for grand effects or momentous meetings between genres, he has produced one excellent book after another.” – Locus Magazine
“Duncan is an exceedingly finished stylist and a master of world building and characterization.” – Booklist
“Dave Duncan has long been one of the great unsung figures of Canadian fantasy and science fiction, graced with a fertile imagination, a prolific output, and keen writerly skills.” – Quill & Quire
“When you’re looking for a good adventure, Dave Duncan is a sure thing . . . [with] his sly and fast-paced plotting, his ability to construct intriguingly different worlds, and his knack for quick and entertaining characterization and dialogue.” – Eclectic Ruckus
About Dr. Robert Runté
Dr. Robert Runté
Robert Runté, Ph.D., is Senior Academic Editor with EssentialEdits.ca and freelances at SFeditor.ca. He was, for nearly a decade, senior editor at Five Rivers Publishing, where he acquired and edited more than thirty books, primarily speculative fiction.
A retired professor, he has won three Aurora Awards (Canadian SF&F) for his literary criticism, wrote the Canadian speculative fiction entry for the Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, published the NCF Guide to Canadian SF, and has given more than a hundred presentations and workshops at writers’ conferences. He currently reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books .
Born and raised in Scotland, Dave Duncan moved to Calgary, Alberta, after graduating from university to take up his thirty-year career as a geologist. As the oil boom faltered in the 1980s, he sold his first novel and switched careers to become one of the most prolific and popular Canadian authors of science fiction and fantasy, with more than sixty-five traditionally published novels. Early in his career, he was producing books so fast his publisher could not keep up, so he wrote a fantasy trilogy under the name Ken Hood for a different house and a historical novel about the fall of Troy as Sarah B. Franklin.
Duncan won the Aurora Award for Best Novel in 1990 and again in 2007, and was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in 2015. Duncan had just finished Corridor to Nightmare and was awaiting final edits on The Traitor’s Son when he died, on October 29, 2018.
Robert Runtés memorial speech outlining Dave Duncan’s contribution to Canadian SF can be watched here.
The Lord of the Rings meets Call of Duty in this delirious mashup pitting confused soldiers against legendary monsters. This riotous campaign of a novel could only have sprung from the nerdy minds of a science fiction award-winner and an extreme amateur landscaper.
No one could have been prepared for the day when orcs, trolls, and dragons fell from portals in the sky. But now a very tough but not-quite-prepared platoon of Marines is trapped on the wrong side. The enchanting world looks like Middle Earth, but to the dismay of even the geekiest soldiers, is nothing like it.
While the Marines fend off dangerous, improbable, and very rude assailants, their mission is to escort a Very Important Princess who could broker a crucial strategic alliance between worlds. What could possibly go wrong?
Praise for Runes of Engagement
[STARRED REVIEW] “Will be catnip to readers who love this combination of military SF, alternate history, and fantasy. ”—Library Journal
“Fun, action-packed, occasionally gritty, and full of jokes for geeks and Marines alike.” —Jim C. Hines, author of Terminal Alliance
About Tobias S. Buckell & Dave Klecha
Tobias S. Buckell
Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times bestselling writer and World Fantasy Award winner. He was born in the Caribbean, grew up in Grenada, and has lived in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. He is the author of the popular Xenowealth series (Crystal Rain), along with other standalone novels and almost one hundred stories. His latest novel is A Stranger in the Citadel. Buckell lives in Bluffton, Ohio.
Dave Klecha
Dave Klecha was born in Detroit and studied Russian and history in college. He then joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. In addition to writing, Dave engages in a number of other creative pursuits, including acting, set-building, scriptwriting, and extreme amateur landscaping. His fiction has appeared in the Subterranean Press Magazine, Clarkesworld, and various anthologies. Klecha lives in Rochester, Michigan.
Jemma Avalon, an unconventional mage-in-training, longs to return to Everland Bay, her ancestral homeland, and find a way to join the renowned magical research institute there, like the women in her family before her.
Daughter of a gentle part elf-fae mother and a father with fiery dragon blood, an unusual combination even in the magical world, ten years after her mother’s sudden death, she is working at a major museum in DC, where magic is all but outlawed. Her father wants her to assimilate and live without magic, but Jemma is determined to fully embrace her heritage.
When an ordinary day at the museum takes an extraordinary turn, Jemma is rocketed to an Everland Bay Institute under violent siege, where dark-arts mages threaten everything important to her. Once there, she joins forces with her companions and works feverishly to save Everland Bay from crumbling under enemy attack. In so doing, she finds a path to her own strength and mastery, and her heart’s true home.
Praise for Journey to Everland Bay
“A beautifully engaging fantasy teeming with dragons, fae, magic and the importance of family and friendship. A joy to read from beginning to end. I found myself rooting for our main heroine, Jemma, as she grew into a wonderful and powerful young woman. I am already looking forward to the next work in this thrilling series!” – Julie Boglisch, author of The Elifer Chronicles and The Requiem of Stones series and standalone Ghost of a Memory
About Lynne Shaner
Lynne Shaner
Lynne Shaner has been captivated by fantasy, myth, and fairy tales since childhood, when her mother first read Charlotte’s Web and The Wind in the Willows to her.
She lives in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, close enough to Lake Michigan to walk to the shoreline every day. Shelves overflowing with books line her home, and there is always a knitting project on her needles. Lynne lives with her husband and Merlin, her small, adorable pup. When not writing, she can be found reading and knitting in her garden, where she grows herbs, flowers and story ideas.
Her work has appeared in various literary magazines. She holds a master’s degree in creative writing/fiction from Johns Hopkins.
