After a house party, James Ryan wakes to a truly different world, one where the dead walks, runs, rips and tears and where he and his friends are forced to become the heroes they’ve always read about. Within mere hours of fighting off a hangover James Ryan, college student, and hopeful teacher, finds himself rallying his friends, finding supplies and fleeing for safety in a world brought to ruin, but first, he has to convince them to go. Believing that his childhood home would promise safety for him and his friends he leads them to the small town of Astoria, OR, the famous end to the Oregon Trail. James arrives at an empty house, his family gone and beyond contact, even the family dogs are missing. Every bone in his body is crying out for him to yell, to scream, to grieve the loss of his family, but instead, he turns his anger towards fighting the undead and protecting the only family he has left, even if it kills him. Though he will deny it time and time again James quickly steps up to not only become a hero but to show his friends that heroes aren’t born, they’re forged in the fires of adversity.

The epic Chinese classic and phenomenon published in the US for the first time! Featured in iO9's 2019 Fall Preview. Set in ancient China, in a world where kung fu is magic, kingdoms vie for power and the battle to become the ultimate kung fu master unfolds, an unlikely hero is born... in the first book in the epic Legends of the Condor Heroes by the critically acclaimed master of the genre, Jin Yong. After his father—a devoted Song patriot—is murdered by the Jin empire, Guo Jing and his mother flee to the plains of Ghengis Khan and his people for refuge. For one day he must face his mortal enemy in battle in the Garden of the Drunken Immortals. Under the tutelage of Genghis Khan and The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing hones his kung fu skills. Humble, loyal and perhaps not always wise, Guo Jing faces a destiny both great and terrible. However, in a land divided—and a future largely unknown—Guo Jing must navigate love and war, honor and betrayal before he can face his own fate and become the hero he’s meant to be. Legends of the Condor Heroes A Hero Born A Bond Undone A Snake Lies Waiting A Heart Divided

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A decorated former Air Force pilot. A pregnant flight attendant. A dedicated TSA agent. The fates of these three, and many others, converge in Danielle Steel’s gripping new novel—a heart-stopping thriller that engages ordinary men and women in the fight of their lives during a flight from New York to San Francisco. On a beautiful May morning at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, two planes have just departed for San Francisco—one a 757, another a smaller Airbus A321. At a security checkpoint, TSA agent Bernice Adams finds a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge bearing an ambiguous—perhaps ominous—message. Her supervisor dismisses her concerns, but Bernice calls security and soon Ben Waterman arrives. A senior Homeland Security agent, still grappling with guilt after a disastrous operation in which hostages were killed, Ben too becomes suspicious. Who left the postcard behind, which flight is that person on, and what exactly does the message mean? As Ben scans the passenger manifests, his focus turns to the A321, with Helen Smith as its senior pilot. Helen’s military service and her tenure with the airline have been exemplary. But her husband’s savage death in Iraq was more than anyone should bear, leaving her widowed with three children. A major film star is on board. So is an off-duty pilot who has just lost his forty-year career. So is a distraught father, traveling with the baby son he has abducted from his estranged wife. Sifting through data and relying on instinct, Ben becomes convinced that someone on Helen’s plane is planning something terrible. And he’s right. Passengers, crew, and experts on the ground become heroes out of necessity to try to avert tragedy at the eleventh hour. In her stunning novel, Danielle Steel combines intense action with stories of emotionally rich, intertwined lives. As the jet bears down on its destination of San Francisco, strangers are united, desperate choices are made, and futures will be changed forever by a handful of accidental heroes.

"Harry Brod situates superheroes within the course of Jewish-American history: they are aliens in a foreign land, like Superman; figures plagued by guilt for abandoning their families, like Spider-Man; and outsiders persecuted for being different, like the X-Men. Brod blends humor and sharp observation as he considers the overt and discreet Jewish characteristics of these well-known figures and explores how their creators integrated their Jewish identities and their creativity."--From publisher description.

A Hero Born is a story about being the best person you can be, the way you can be it for yourself. To be your own hero.

When her brother Hiroki disappears after a violent altercation with school bullies, Yuriko finds a magical book in his room. The book leads her to another world where she learns that Hiroki has been possessed by the evil King in Yellow, and that only she can save him...and solve the riddle of why the King is also called "Hero." -- VIZ Media

The complete fantasy comedy series and an exclusive short story - Heroes of Hastovia Origins: The Rise of Ragnus Book 1: The First Adventure Will Karl find his true home before he’s killed by a crazed Man-Hawk? Karl’s had a rotten week. He lost another job, a tyrant Man-Hawk invaded the only place he ever called home, and to make things worse, a greedy parrot just revealed that Karl isn’t who he thinks he is. Clueless and hopeless, Karl has to find a portal to his real home before he’s captured. Luckily he has the help of an Oaf, obsessed with revenge but incapable of killing, and Questions, the last of her kind who can only talk in questions. And so Karl’s adventure begins. He’s forced to explore a magical world that terrifies him. He'll make friends, enemies and put his hand in dragon dung. It’s an adventure he doesn’t want to be on, but one which will change his life… forever. Book 2: Rise of the Deathbringer Peace doesn’t last. It’s just a temporary break while war rests. They might as well rename times of peace ‘war holidays’ Karl and his friends have had their fill of conflict and are thankful to live whatever is considered a normal life. But not too far away, a noble deed produces terrifying results, awakening a fearsome foe obsessed with unleashing a power so devastating it could destroy all life on Hastovia. Karl and his friends must find a magic relic, put their trust in the untrustworthy, and make sacrifices that could include their lives. Hastovia needs some heroes. Book 3: In Memory of... Would you risk your afterlife to get back to those you love? Karl has one more adventure in him. Can he stop the greatest evil he's ever faced, or will this be his final adventure for the wrong reasons? Reviews: I heard this was weird, and it definitely is, but the best kind of weird! The author has found a great balance between comedy and fantasy, and I love the characters I met on Karl's journey. It's witty, charming and full of creativity, but it's all so easy to imagine. I can see why some people have likened it to Pratchett, but I think this is somewhere between Pratchett's whimsy and The Princess Bride's charm. I can't wait to read the second book Get the complete collection of the comedy fantasy series now. It's packed with magic, monsters, adventure, strange creatures, and characters you'll wish were your friends, and some you're glad you don't know.

"China. The year is 1200. The Song Empire has been defeated in the north by invading Jurchen forces. Pushed further south, the empire is in danger of collapse and the Chinese population is furious. Now it falls to lone patriots trained in the martial arts to save China. Guo Jing's father was one such hero, killed in defence of his country. His mother was forced to flee to the edges of the empire, where Guo Jing was brought up fighting with Genghis Khan. Yang Kang, Guo Jing's sworn brother since birth, grew up to a different fate among the enemy. Enter Qiu Chuji, a Taoist priest famed for his martial prowess and burning patriotism. Enlisting the help of the eccentric band of martial artists known as the Seven Freaks of the South, he must find the two young men and train them in a way befitting the memory of their fathers, to take back China."--Provided by publisher.

The idea of heroism has become thoroughly muddled today. In contemporary society, any behavior that seems distinctly difficult or unusually impressive is classified as heroic: everyone from firefighters to foster fathers to freedom fighters are our heroes. But what motivates these people to act heroically and what prevents other people from being heroes? In our culture today, what makes one sort of hero appear more heroic than another sort? In order to answer these questions, Ari Kohen turns to classical conceptions of the hero to explain the confusion and to highlight the ways in which distinct heroic categories can be useful at different times. Untangling Heroism argues for the existence of three categories of heroism that can be traced back to the earliest Western literature – the epic poetry of Homer and the dialogues of Plato – and that are complex enough to resonate with us and assist us in thinking about heroism today. Kohen carefully examines the Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus and Plato’s Socrates, and then compares the three to each other. He makes clear how and why it is that the other-regarding hero, Socrates, supplanted the battlefield hero, Achilles, and the suffering hero, Odysseus. Finally, he explores in detail four cases of contemporary heroism that highlight Plato’s success. Kohen states that in a post-Socratic world, we have chosen to place a premium on heroes who make other-regarding choices over self-interested ones. He argues that when humans face the fact of their mortality, they are able to think most clearly about the sort of life they want to have lived, and only in doing that does heroic action become a possibility. Kohen’s careful analysis and rethinking of the heroism concept will be relevant to scholars across the disciplines of political science, philosophy, literature, and classics.