In the parallel world first introduced in S. M. Stirling's The Sky People, aliens terraformed Mars (and Venus) two hundred million years ago, seeding them with life-forms from Earth. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is set in that same astonishing world. Humans didn't suspect this until the twentieth century, but when the first probes landed on our sister worlds, and found life—intelligent life, at that—things changed with a vengeance. By the year 2000, America, Russia, and the other great powers of Earth are all contending for influence and power amid the newly-discovered inhabitants of our sister planets. Venus is a primitive world. But on Mars, early hominids evolved civilization earlier than their earthly cousins, driven by the needs of a harsh world growing still harsher as the initial terraforming runs down. Without coal, oil, or uranium, their technology was forced into different paths, and the genetic wizardry of the Crimson Dynasty united a world for more than twenty thousand years. Now, in a new stand-alone adventure set in this world's 2000 AD, Jeremy Wainman is an archaeologist who has achieved a lifelong dream; to travel to Mars and explore the dead cities of the Deep Beyond, searching for the secrets of the Kings Beneath the Mountain and the fallen empire they ruled. Teyud Zha-Zhalt is the Martian mercenary the Terrans hire as guide and captain of the landship Intrepid Traveller. A secret links her to the deadly intrigues of Dvor il-Adazar, the City That Is A Mountain, where the last aging descendant of the Tollamune Emperors clings to the remnants of his power...and secrets that may trace their origin to the enigmatic Ancients, the Lords of Creation who reshaped the Solar System in the time of the dinosaurs. When these three meet, the foundations of reality will be shaken—from the lost city of Rema-Dza to the courts of the Crimson Kings. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960's, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life—even human life. At that point, the "Space Race" became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world. Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the US-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers. But there are flies in this ointment – and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus's life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc's Cajun charm. Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk's sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge... and AK47's. Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, little suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet's mysteries may lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth's vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribesfolk's blowguns. As if that weren't enough, there's an enemy agent on board the airship... Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Explores the possibilities of alternative history by changing the participants and the stakes in World War II

Rudi Mackenzie has won the battle that expelled the enemy from the new High Kingdom of Montival. Now he must free the people who live in the state once known as Idaho from occupation by the legions of the Church Universal and Triumphant and pursue them to their lair over the mountains. There he will finally confront the forces behind the Church—the Powers of the Void. Yet even a victory will not end the conflict forever. The Powers of the Void are malevolent and infinitely patient, and the struggle is one that involves the entire world. They threaten not only Rudi in the present, but also the future represented by his children, Órlaith and John. Rudi knows this. And as his heir Princess Órlaith grows up in the shadow of her famous father, she also realizes that the enemy will do anything to see that she does not live to fulfill her parents’ dream….

When the Viking lander on the planet Minerva was destroyed, sending back one last photo of a strange alien being, scientists on Earth were flabbergasted. And so a joint investigation was launched by the United States and the Soviet Union, the first long-distance manned space mission, and a symbol of the new peace between the two great rivals. Humankind's first close encounter with extraterrestrials would be history in the making, and the two teams were schooled in diplomacy as well as in science. But nothing prepared them for alien war—especially when the Americans and the Soviets found themselves on opposite sides. . . . Praise for A World of Difference “A master storyteller.”—Houston Chronicle “[Harry] Turtledove has proved he can divert his readers to astonishing places. he's developed a cult following over the years. . . . I know I'd follow his imagination almost anywhere.”—San Jose Mercury News “Turtledove never tires of exploring the paths not taken, bringing to his storytelling a prodigious knowledge of his subject and a profound understanding of human sensibilities and motivations.”—Library Journal

Full of romance, intrigue, magic, and passion, the first book of The Five Crowns of Okrith—the thrilling TikTok sensation from A.K. Mulford—The High Mountain Court begins the journey of the fugitive red witch Remy as she fights to reclaim her kingdom and discover what’s inside her heart. For thirteen years, nineteen-year-old Remy has known she is possibly the last red witch alive, and she is determined to stay that way. But the Northern Court King, who has slaughtered her family and placed a bounty on red witch heads, is intent on destroying her kind once and for all. When four fae warriors enter her tavern refuge, Remy tries to flee, but her magic isn’t strong enough to stop the determined—and handsome—Prince Hale of the Eastern Kingdom. He claims he wants to stop a war with the Northern Court before his kingdom succumbs to the same fate as Remy’s. In order to do that, he needs a red witch…and Remy may be the only person alive who can help him. Yet even as she’s drawn to him, can she really trust Prince Hale? Can her fallen court truly be rescued from the evil clutches of the Northern Court King? Does she even have a choice? For the chance to save herself, her people, and help rid the world of a murderous tyrant, Remy must put her faith in Hale and his companions on a dangerous quest to find lost relics…and discover if she is ready to secure her legacy.