When young adventurer Laios and his company are attacked and soundly thrashed by a dragon deep in a dungeon, the party loses all its money and provisions...and a member! They're eager to go back and save her, but there is just one problem: If they set out with no food or coin to speak of, they're sure to starve on the way! But Laios comes up with a brilliant idea: "Let's eat the monsters!" Slimes, basilisks, and even dragons...none are safe from the appetites of these dungeon-crawling gourmands!

Without the wealth, without the cave, he’s still the Absolute Dark Knight! Meet Batman as you’ve never seen him before, reimagined with a modern origin story at the hands of superstar creative team Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta! An astonishing new version of DC’s iconic characters is here! In the Absolute Universe, familiar heroes have been reinvented from the ground up with origin stories that completely reshape both their abilities and their circumstances but maintain the core characteristics that fans have known and loved for decades! Bruce Wayne comes from nothing. He’s not the scion of a wealthy empire in Gotham City, he’s the son of a public school teacher who he experienced the unimaginable horror of random gun violence as a child, changing the trajectory of his life forever. With no limitless resources, no billions to fund him, no mansion, and no butler to care for him, Bruce has shaped himself into an entirely different breed of Batman, one that is equal parts brain and brawn, who exists exclusively in the grittiest and most underserved parts of Gotham with no high society mask to fall back on. Collects Absolute Batman #1-6

Without the wealth, without the cave, he’s still the Absolute Dark Knight! Meet Batman as you’ve never seen him before, reimagined with a modern origin story at the hands of superstar creative team Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta! An astonishing new version of DC’s iconic characters is here! In the Absolute Universe, familiar heroes have been reinvented from the ground up with origin stories that completely reshape both their abilities and their circumstances but maintain the core characteristics that fans have known and loved for decades! Bruce Wayne comes from nothing. He’s not the scion of a wealthy empire in Gotham City, he’s the son of a public school teacher who he experienced the unimaginable horror of random gun violence as a child, changing the trajectory of his life forever. With no limitless resources, no billions to fund him, no mansion, and no butler to care for him, Bruce has shaped himself into an entirely different breed of Batman, one that is equal parts brain and brawn, who exists exclusively in the grittiest and most underserved parts of Gotham with no high society mask to fall back on. Collects Absolute Batman #1-6

When young adventurer Laios and his company are attacked and soundly thrashed by a dragon deep in a dungeon, the party loses all its money and provisions...and a member! They're eager to go back and save her, but there is just one problem: If they set out with no food or coin to speak of, they're sure to starve on the way! But Laios comes up with a brilliant idea: "Let's eat the monsters!" Slimes, basilisks, and even dragons...none are safe from the appetites of these dungeon-crawling gourmands!

Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. But Frieren will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to understand what life means to the people around her? The Northern Plateau is a wild place, teeming with monsters and other dangers—a place Frieren once traveled with her legendary companions now long passed. Now, she finds herself once again following old familiar paths, this time with new friends. But powerful enemies still stand in their way, and a demon lord of exceptional ability may be more than a match for this party of heroes.

BELLY OF THE BEAST In the depths of the Serpentback Cave, a brimmed cap casts its murky shadow upon Qifrey and his apprentices. The brimmed cap's dark magic has transformed Euini into a wild beast, and Coco, Tetia, and a critically injured Qifrey find themselves surrounded by the venomous stares of the cursed Romonons. In the face of doom, these witches must once again find a path to safety using their wits and their unique qualities, but will that be enough as they battle against a powerful new enemy who doesn't play by the rules?

Yvette Tan, one of the Philippines’ most celebrated horror writers, returns with her second short story collection. Two friends adapt in a zombie-infested Angeles City. At Luneta Park, a girl and a young tikbalang begin their journey to save the last moon. A brothel in Poblacion offers an expecting father pleasures he cannot resist. And in the titular story, an American unwittingly purchases a mail-order bride from the mystical island of Siquijor. From stories of youthful charm with supernatural twists, to provocative tales of unassuming humans willingly falling prey to creatures with manicured talons, Seek Ye Whore and Other Stories forms a panoramic view of the Filipino experience—sometimes humorous and touching, oftentimes dark and forbidding.

Dive into the gripping world of 'Kuwentong Butsero,' a compelling collection of modern thriller and transgressive short stories written in Filipino by J.L. Chua. With illustrations by Randy Valiente, this anthology pushes boundaries and explores dark corners of contemporary fiction. The book's striking cover design, featuring a bold silhouette against a red background with a yellow sun, hints at the intense narratives within. As noted by Efren R. Abueg in the cover quote, this collection is described as 'Matapang. Marahas. Madugo.' (Bold. Violent. Bloody.) - suggesting powerful, unflinching storytelling that challenges readers' expectations. Perfect for readers who appreciate edgy, contemporary Filipino literature and those seeking stories that venture beyond conventional boundaries. The collection promises to deliver thought-provoking narratives that examine the darker aspects of human nature through a distinctly Filipino lens.

A coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.

Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. But Frieren will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to understand what life means to the people around her? The Northern Plateau is a wild place, teeming with monsters and other dangers—a place Frieren once traveled with her legendary companions now long passed. Now, she finds herself once again following old familiar paths, this time with new friends. But powerful enemies still stand in their way, and a demon lord of exceptional ability may be more than a match for this party of heroes.

Dapitan, 1893. DR. JOSÉ RIZAL thought exile meant peace and quiet—until his prized student vanished, and whispers began circling about a soil merchant in a manse on the hill. Rizal follows the trail into a nightmare older than the colony itself. Now the exiled revolutionary must confront an impossible horror—elegant, ancient, and very, very hungry. THE INDIO & THE IMPALER is a blood-soaked collision of gothic horror and Philippine history, where the greatest mind of the islands pits himself against the Prince of Darkness—COUNT DRACULA.

Published in 1942 by French author Albert Camus, The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."

From the nationally bestselling author of the “powerful, heartbreaking” (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran. In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.” But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives. Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences. Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature “evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful” (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transforms our lives.

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage. Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for. At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.