For the promise of paradise, the last civilization will surrender to the apocalypse. Elysium was a world without without pain or suffering, hunger or disease, poverty or crime. So naturally, it was a world that was already dead. Gehenna was a dead world, poisoned by the Great Catastrophe that had driven their ancestors into the underground vault. Few knew or cared what lay beyond the ancient airlocks. The bleak and windowless tunnels of Gehenna held nothing to the shared simulation of Elysium. Gehenna still had a Watchman who searched diligently for the promised land. But would the people of Elysium give up their truth in order to have a future? Or is cultural suicide a price worth paying for paradisiacal bliss?

As Brandon Sanderson’s #1 bestselling Skyward series celebrates its third volume, Cytonic, travel back in time to the origin of Cytonics in the novella Defending Elysium. Centuries before Spensa looked skyward from the planet Detritus—back on Old Earth before it was lost—Jason Write faced a crucial question: was humanity ready to join galactic society? When faster-than-light communications were discovered by a small telephone company in 2071, alien species such as the Tenasi and Varvax overheard them and came to visit Earth. Because the Phone Company controls all communications with the aliens, their operatives like Jason operate above the law. Now, on the space platform Evensong, one of the Phone Company’s scientists has gone missing before surfacing in a hospital with amnesia, and Jason is sent to investigate. Right as he arrives, the body of a murdered Varvax ambassador is discovered, sure to cause a galactic incident. Coln Abrams of the United Intelligence Bureau seizes the opportunity to investigate Jason as he deals with the crisis. This could be the UIB’s chance to discover the Phone Company’s secrets—how does FTL communication work, and what is Jason hiding? Winner of Spain’s UPC Award for Science Fiction in 2007.

A lush, dazzlingly original young adult fantasy about an epic clash of witches, gods, and demons. Elysium, Oklahoma, is a town like any other. Respectable. God-fearing. Praying for an end to the Dust Bowl. Until the day the people of Elysium are chosen by two sisters: Life and Death. And the Sisters like to gamble against each other with things like time, and space, and human lives. Elysium is to become the gameboard in a ruthless competition between the goddesses. The Dust Soldiers will return in ten years' time, and if the people of Elysium have not proved themselves worthy, all will be slain. Nearly ten years later, seventeen-year-old Sal Wilkinson is called upon to lead Elysium as it prepares for the end of the game. But then an outsider named Asa arrives at Elysium's gates with nothing more than a sharp smile and a bag of magic tricks, and they trigger a terrible accident that gets both Sal and Asa exiled into the brutal Desert of Dust and Steel. There Sal and Asa stumble upon a gang of girls headed by another exile: a young witch everyone in Elysium believes to be dead. As the apocalypse looms, they must do more than simply tip the scales in Elysium's favor—only by reinventing the rules can they beat Life and Death at their own game in this exciting fantasy debut.

A computer program etched into the atmosphere has a story to tell, the story of two people, of a city lost to chaos, of survival and love. The program's data, however, has been corrupted. As the novel's characters struggle to survive apocalypse, they are sustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered world both haunted and dangerous.

Video games are a global phenomenon, international in their scope and democratic in their appeal. This is the first volume dedicated to the subject of apocalyptic video games. Its two dozen papers engage the subject comprehensively, from game design to player experience, and from the perspectives of content, theme, sound, ludic textures, and social function. The volume offers scholars, students, and general readers a thorough overview of this unique expression of the apocalyptic imagination in popular culture, and novel insights into an important facet of contemporary digital society.

Evie and Gavin return to the isolated, dangerous underwater city that they fought so hard to escape from, in this conclusion to J.A. Souders' thrilling, twist-filled Elysium Chronicles series.

A tale of intrigue, a murdered god, and the business of necromancy: an urban fantasy set in an alternate reality