How To Defeat A Demon King In Ten Easy Steps

For thousands of years, there has been a cycle: a Demon King rises and conquers, and a Hero is reborn a hundred years later to defeat him. Each time, civilizations are ground to dust beneath the Demon King's hordes, but humanity has remained secure in the belief that a Hero of legend will always save them. There's just one slight problem. It's only been 23 years since the Demon King's latest rise, and this time, he's already conquered more than half the world. If humanity simply waits for the Hero's return, there may be no world left for him to save.And so, Yui Shaw sets out with an ambitious plan. A 10-step plan.She'll find a way to obtain the Hero's legendary sword. She'll earn obscure classes, gain levels, and increase her skills. She'll travel to the meticulously-crafted dungeons that seem designed for one specific Hero to complete. And, if she's truly (un)fortunate, she might even find a fairy.She might not be a Hero-but if she can fake it long enough, she might still be able to save the world.***This book is an affectionate parody of classic Japanese games like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest. It's also a work in the LitRPG/GameLit subgenres. Game mechanics exist in the world of the story and characters are aware of their existence.

Zorian Kazinski has all the time in the world to get stronger, and he plans on taking full advantage of it. A teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, Zorian is attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. A driven and quiet young man, he is consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, resenting the Kazinskis for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, Zorian has no time for pointless distractions, much less other people's problems. As it happens, though, time is something he is about to get plenty of. On the eve of Cyoria's annual summer festival, Zorian is murdered, then abruptly brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take the train to school. Finding himself trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, he will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery set before him. He does have to unravel it, too, because the loop clearly wasn’t made for his sake, and in a world of magic even a time traveler isn't safe from those who wish him ill. Fortunately for Zorian, repetition is the mother of learning…

The Questing Stones have come to Nowherested, and Evelia Greene is finally ready to receive her life's quest. Perhaps she'll be a great warrior, or a wealthy merchant, or a brilliant mage. Perhaps her quest is simply to live a quiet life, constantly honing a craft to the heights of perfection.Or perhaps the Questing Stones will grant her the Legendary mission of popping over to the next village to pick up a loaf of bread.Wouldn't that be ridiculous?Eve can't even begin to guess how or why she's come by such an absurd life goal, nor how a level 1 Messenger Girl is supposed to complete anything labeled as Legendary, but at least she can be sure of one thing. No matter how many wolves or goblins attack, no matter how many speeding tickets she racks up, no matter how many bakeries spontaneously combust as she steps into town, one way or another, Eve is going to get that gods-damned bread.There just might be a few Side Quests along the way.

The Silent Patient by way of Stephen King: Parker, a young, overconfident psychiatrist new to his job at a mental asylum, miscalculates catastrophically when he undertakes curing a mysterious and profoundly dangerous patient. In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient. We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility's most difficult, profoundly dangerous case--a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat him has been driven to madness or suicide. Desperate and fearful, the hospital's directors keep him strictly confined and allow minimal contact with staff for their own safety, convinced that releasing him would unleash catastrophe on the outside world. Parker, brilliant and overconfident, takes it upon himself to discover what ails this mystery patient and finally cure him. But from his first encounter with the mystery patient, things spiral out of control, and, facing a possibility beyond his wildest imaginings, Parker is forced to question everything he thought he knew. Fans of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes and Paul Tremblay's The Cabin at the End of the World will be riveted by Jasper DeWitt's astonishing debut.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

After concluding their first year at Lorian Heights, Corin and his friends catch a train from their native Valia to the distant country of Caelford. For most, this would be a simple vacation. Corin has other plans.-Meet Anabelle Farren, the eccentric owner of Farren Labs, and learn about artificial attunements.-Seek out Warren Constantine, a previous Arbiter, for training and a potential alliance.-Find the visage Ferras herself to seek a cure for Sera's condition.Of course, Corin is Corin, and there's absolutely no chance he's going to be able to stick to a list....And even if Corin miraculously developed a sense of focus, he isn't the only one with plans.The Blackstone Bandit.Everyone's favorite mysterious book entity.The aforementioned Farren.A vacationing professor.The mirror of a figure from Keras' past.When their plots intersect, Corin and his friends are, predictably, stuck at the center.It's going to be a long vacation.

Some say that in the city of Orlyn, godhood is on sale to the highest bidder. Thousands flock to the city each year, hoping for a chance at immortality.Lydia Hastings is a knowledge sorcerer, capable of extracting information from anything she touches. When she travels to Orlyn to validate the claims of the local faith, she discovers a conspiracy that could lead to a war between the world's three greatest powers. At the focal point is a prisoner who bears a striking resemblance to the long-missing leader of the pantheon she worships. Rescuing the prisoner would require risking her carefully cultivated cover - but his execution could mean the end of everything Lydia holds dear.

Meet Nigel: digger of latrines, shoveler of poop, and the single greatest threat to all the humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings of Esteria. Desperate to escape from military school and return to his carefree life as the village no-goodnik, Nigel sees the king's declaration of war on the gorks as the perfect opportunity to flee, since he's pretty sure his latrine-digging skills aren't going to do much good on the front line. But his escape efforts have a habit of backfiring, and by the time he and his arch-frenemy are banished from the kingdom and sent on an impossible quest for a (probably bogus) magical artifact, the humans of Amerigorn find themselves longing for the good old days when they were merely being annihilated by Lord Smoron. The Dragon Squisher is a fantasy novel for teens that spoofs the tropes of the genre and will appeal to teens, young adults, and adults who love the humor of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. If this is the kind of book you've been searching for--and who hasn't?--look no further than Book One of the Nigel Chronicles: The Dragon Squisher. Funnier than Lord of the Rings! Shorter than Harry Potter! This coming of age fantasy novel is an epic fantasy treat for all fans of humorous fantasy.