"In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire in Scott Moore's Battle of the Linguist Mages. Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes" - unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception...

It's 1993, and Jay and Colin are small-town geeks. Senior year is nearly over, and they're still as unpopular as ever. Everything changes when they discover a disk containing a computer program called The Build, a pixel-perfect replica of their hometown. As the boys tweak its code, they discover they can bend the laws of reality. With godlike power, they react as any teenager would: hacking high school to make it more awesome. But someone--or something--is...

"Lin 'The Silent One' Vu is a gangster in Chinese-occupied Hanoi, living in the steaming, paranoid alleyways of the 36 streets. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, everywhere she is an outsider. Through grit and courage, Lin has carved a place for herself in the Hanoi underworld under the tutelage of Bao Nguyen, who is training her to fight and survive. Because on the streets there are no second chances. Meanwhile the people of Hanoi are succumbingj...

"The Weltall Tournament's professional VR games were supposed to be a symbol of cooperation between SysGov and its militaristic neighbor, the Admin. But that was before star Admin player Elly Sako received a death threat, written in blood next to a copy of her own severed head. The Admin's Department of Temporal Investigation swiftly seizes control of the crime scene, and the tournament transforms into a flashpoint of charged politics and conflicting...