The rebirth of the harpies begins with one young man.

Harper Reed's post-high-school plans are up in the air. His promising football career has been cut short by an injury, the girlfriend he thought he might marry has dumped him after he confided to her that he also likes guys, and now, on his 18th birthday, he's started growing feathers.

According to the mouthy poltergeist who appears in his room, Harper's becoming a "mythic," one of thousands of creatures thought imaginary by most humans. Oh, and he's also the subject of an ancient legend and might well bring on the doom of...

Young Mirya Thunderstone, like all Dwarf women, has lived her entire life inside her people's mountain home. Frustrated by her confinement, she longs to take up her family's legendary axe, and follow in the footsteps of her late, war-hero brother. But when an accident strands her outside the mountain, she finds there's more to being a hero than wielding a weapon.

Joined by a playful otterkin couple, a deadly Elf warrior, a laid-back Native hunter and an outcast orc, Mirya must use both her axe and her wits to find the truth behind the war that claimed her brother's life....

Seattle, 2060. Twenty years after a catastrophic earthquake left her effectively an orphan, exotic-animal specialist Sasha Delescu has returned to the rebuilt city of her birth for a new job, and, she hopes, a new chance at taking on the personal demons that have dogged her since her childhood tragedy.

The job, an internship with space-exploration company Xenobiology Network, is great at first. She gets to put her education to use studying newly retrieved samples of extraterrestrial life, and meets new friends Alex, a physics genius and fellow intern and Jay, a former soldier and...