What do you get when you ask 34 of today's top indie authors to each submit a story and then ask a team of judges to scour that ore and pick out the gems? You get All These Shiny Worlds:A world of today, divided, black from white, good from evil, and held apart by the taste of a cookie.A world of griffons and glimmer bunnies, wise old mothers, sassy llamas, and the magic of beer.A world of contemplation and serenity, of service and devotion, ruled...

They're lazy. They're unskilled. And now the fate of the Kingdom is in their hands.Tam, Kern, and Merrik are all failing at life: a homeless thief, a disgraced baker's apprentice, and an incompetent smith. But witnessing a strange ritual in the middle of the night sets them on a collision course with destiny—and with each other. Accused of crimes they did not commit, the boys must band together to clear their names. And in the process, they just might have...

In a world that has known only peace, a Warrior-King has arisen. His Gnome army swarms unhindered through the Forest. Refugees scatter. And the Three Avatars of the Dragon have chosen sides in their contest to restore the peace … or to shatter it for all time.In the midst of this chaos stands Tayna, a runaway orphan from the streets of our world, who must make an impossible choice: find the parents she had thought were long dead……or embrace her destiny and save the freaking...

Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, THE ROOKIE is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of "Any Given Sunday" with the space opera style of "Star Wars" and the criminal underworld of "The Godfather." Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and r...

Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, THE ROOKIE is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of "Any Given Sunday" with the space opera style of "Star Wars" and the criminal underworld of "The Godfather." Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and r...

Who is the 13th Advocate?Karsten was once a violent man at the end of a violent career with no greater ambition than a quiet retirement and maybe a woman to keep him warm. But a gamble over a bottle of beer cost him that dream and sealed him to a bewildering fate: as a reluctant and curmudgeonly champion of the people.Irritable, argumentative, and with powers beyond imagining (though he's still not sure how to use them) Karsten now travels the back roads of ...

Unlovable. That's what they called her. To the Sisters of Good Salvation, girls like Tayna—the ones with minds of their own and the will to stand up—were too unruly to ever be loved. So they were taken out of circulation and put to work, leaving only the more cooperative girls to be shown to the wanna-dads and mommy-bes who could offer them a loving home. And a way out.But that all changes one winter's night when a strange little man shows up asking uncomfortable questions, and Tay...

In this stand-alone episode:Karsten and Babette are on the run with magebreakers closing in, but their luck appears to change when they encounter a mysterious crossroads and the unexpected choice it offers: In one direction, the meandering old road. Safe, familiar, and slow. Take it and they'll keep their lead but gain no ground. In the other, the new road. Unproven, unmarked, but with the tantalizing possibility of escape. The only catch? It leads straight into the...

What really goes on in the seedy world of super villains? And where do they get all those henchmen, anyway? Get a look into this secret industry when long-time disposal man Sid DeAngelo breaks in a new recruit for Corpus Corp. You'll never look at Big Evil the same way again.

Each year we hand-pick 50 of today's top indie authors and ask them to submit a story. Then we ask a team of ruthless judges to scour that ore and pick out the gems. The result is All These Shiny Worlds II:* a world of today where cosplay and stagecraft are bright lights hiding dark shadows* a world of tomorrow, where kitchen appliances fend for themselves and take solace in each other's arms, refugees from indifferent owners* a world of little cogs in big ma...

When Congress outlaws drive-thru dining across the US, a small Canadian border town is caught like a deer in the headlights of the slavering hordes who are coming north, all looking for a burger and fries, to go.

July, 1939. Mark "Mose" Mosely is an enforcer for the Cleveland mob. The Cleveland families have been operating under an uneasy truce since the end of prohibition and the "sugar wars" that prohibition spawned but now everything is in flux. Eliot Ness has moved east from Chicago to clean up Cleveland the way he did the Windy City and the families are on edge. The city is sweltering through a record heat wave when the bodies start to pile up. The first hit goes down outside a safe house Mose...