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Being a god isn't easy. Oh sure, you can crash the super-exclusive club at that hot new pyramid, but one little drought and your worshippers are suddenly burying you neck-deep in scorpions.

Samantha never expected to wake from her long sleep. When she came to, mortals were riding around inside big metal cows, shooting invisible info-rays across the sky, and doing amazing things with cake frosting. They took cell phones for granted and thought nothing of a university where Physics stood between Inhumanities and Necro.

Now, deep in the great museum, other gods have begun to wake--old gods, terrible gods, gods that would drown the world in suffering. If Samantha can just wake the dead, outwit a huge disembodied brain, and evade the Great Hunter who's after her head, maybe she can do something about it!

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How can a minor goddess like Sammy compete with cell phones, computers, or cartoon mascots that actively implore people to have candy for breakfast? The days of burnt offerings are long past, and chanting her own name at barbecues just isn't the same.

At least she can make a few bucks returning some sleeping gods to Belize. Easy, right? Of course, that was before everyone and their undead cousin started meddling in her business. With the Mad Doctor attacking her, the Great Hunter helping her, the River Guardians' guardian inserting pizza wizards into her memory, and Death itself taking a playful interest in her, it soon becomes clear that something far bigger is at stake. And this time, sadly, that does not mean a cake big enough to sleep on.

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Being a god in this modern world is tough. True, the whole "Egyptian princess of brief and minor divinity" thing means that Sammy is pretty much indestructible: She can fall down stairs like nobody's business, which is a surprisingly big hit at parties. Well, the kind of parties she goes to. Still, it's hard to make people care when they spend all their time staring at Magic Glowy Rectangles of Pizza-Calling.

Now, an ancient and powerful evil has begun to stir in Sri Lanka, which is a real bummer. Sammy will have to recruit whatever allies she can find: The Great Hunter (slash cover-model-for-romance-novels-he-didn't-know-she'd-edited-him-into), the world's angriest pacifist, a magic sloth-bear who tries to charge people to venerate his claws, and a leopard which has a nasty habit of ceasing to exist whenever it gets cloudy. True, they might seem grossly inadequate to face the coming storm, but only if you're paying attention. Fortunately for Sri Lanka, that's one weakness that Sammy has never had.

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Now, a spate of peculiar happenings has drawn Sammy to the Scottish island of Skirling. The problem is knowing who she can trust: The gruff little man who's been repaired so often, he contains more gears and metal than flesh? The gigantic crab-god locked in an inescapable prison of whimsy and merriment? The chatty and anatomically inexplicable Bog Body who has the power to lead anyone astray without meaning to?

Things are about to get weird in Skirling. They need a hero: What they've got is Sammy.

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They looked like decent, stand-up guys. Who wanted to eat my face, admittedly, but given my face-first method of eating most desserts, that was kind of excusable.

Now, ominous whispers and furtive hints have led Sammy back to where it all began—the museum of fossilized gods where she was once interred. Some of the elder gods in the museum, if they were allowed to wake, could drown the world in nightmares from which it would never wake… and it seems like someone, or something, is out to rouse them.

I sensed something disturbing, like if a divorced celebrity made a signature scent called "Depression" out of the distilled essence of their tears.

If Sammy wants to save the world—again—she'll have to figure out who she can trust. The polite ogre with the stitched-on grin? The graduate student who can't decide whether to befriend her or disprove her? The self-proclaimed mad doctor who has a reputation to live down to?

"If my political opponents are to continue assuming I'm crazy, thereby underestimating me and allowing me one easy victory after another, I must be seen scolding a duck this very evening. It's on my itinerary."

When it comes to evil, Sammy will never back down from a fight—but the odds have never been so steep. Is this the fight she's finally going to lose?

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There's no question that Zwirner isn't quite right. However friendly and well-meaning he might be, the fact remains that he was raised mostly by a haunted television set. The people he's trying to help have an unfortunate tendency to call the police--even when he isn't trying to steal their blood. How is that fair?

Thanks to a recent inheritance, Zwirner has money enough to found a paranormal investigation agency with his arch-nemesis and new best friend Derivus. Caught between warring factions of vampires who might actually be zombies, Zwirner will have to decide which television character to model himself after--the blue puppet who always sang about love, or the red puppet who always chanted 'KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL!!!'

Derivus scowled. "It's going to be a long night, isn't it?"

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Aris has somehow managed to live a quiet life, even in a stark desert land of glorious tales and beautiful lies, crazed artists and mad hermits. So what if he has a knack for tales? A single young man isn't going to change the world, especially not a messenger with no proper career. Mighty great works he'll leave to mighty great men.

Sar Efrem snorted. "You're looking well. Too well. A man might mistake himself for a corpse in comparison to your radiant healthfulness."  "Ah, but you're quite a beautiful corpse! That is... everyone else would kill themselves, if that were so, to be more like you."

Now the soldiers of Majra are sweeping across his homeland, bound by an unwavering determination to pacify his "savage" people. Few dare stand against them. Certainly Aris never meant to. Taking work with the invaders was supposed to be a way to help his family, not gain insights into the alien ways of their singular truth.

"Thinking is evil, wouldn't you say? If the Truth lies complete in a book, all thought either agrees with it--and is redundant--or disagrees, and is wrong. Come, let us take out our brains and we'll all be Majeri!"

Beset by beguiling widows and vengeful plutocrats, firebrand Sheyks and sword-tongued maidens, Aris must now choose: The elaborate, demented, wheels-within-wheels complexity of Lies--or the swift straight purity of Truth. A city--indeed, an entire people--hang in the balance.

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"In distant Saithan, holy hermits have perfected a great celestial machine of flawless design. In its whirling stars and planets, vast as a mountain, shining as the sea, they can read every story that was, is, or ever will be. Why, then, do they only see the bloodthirsty conquests of powerful men? I defy them. Let my tale be told with as many voices as the sky has stars, though it sunder their creation to the foundations of the earth. Perhaps, in the wreckage, a clockwork maiden will find a tongue that works."

Growing up amidst wealth and privilege has been endlessly frustrating to Eyla. Real life is out there: Matching wits with desert nomads and wise old men; Throwing dice and telling tales enough to shame Reality with its inadequacies; Exploding the sky with fire powder and eating curries hot enough to make stone burst into flames.

"My father labors under the curious belief that gold equals happiness. Loving him as I do, what choice do I have but to lance the wound and drain away the offending substance?"

Now the soldiers of Majra have come, outlawing anything not in accordance with their narrow ideals--including the delicate beauty of tales and lies, exaggerations and insults. When her captors try to use her as a weapon against her own father, Eyla must decide whether to forsake everything she's ever had--and everyone she's ever known.

"I lashed out with a sky-sundering seven-monkeys spin kick so vicious it killed everyone in the universe. Of course, the gods--unwilling to surrender their sadistic little game just yet--brought everyone back to life. Being too lethal, to an uninformed observer, can look an awful lot like being utterly ineffectual."

Majra is about to learn what happens when they pick on the wrong person. With the help of the shadowy, insidious Black Cabal, Eyla is planning the most extraordinary theft her city has ever seen. All depend on her--extravagantly eccentric artists and magnificently offensive grandmothers, oddly perilous sages and a rose-breeder whose flowers (he claims) will someday become grand enough to rise into the air and fly. The only question is, can she pull it off--and in time?

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"Now there's a plan!" I grinned. "Pointless, insane... it's like watching The Camel That Sweats Honey be murdered by huge swarms of butterflies. No matter how the horror mounts, I just can't look away!"

Aris is a reluctant lawbringer, helping his people even when he'd rather be sitting around the fire spinning tales so beautiful, lunatic artists could drown the world in paint and no one would notice. Eyla desperately wants to be a dread criminal mastermind, at least when it comes to defending all the exuberant widows, demented storytellers and proud desert Sheyks that make up their crazy world.

"Forgive me for speaking so plainly--"  "What's there to forgive? In my memories, you set the world aflame with such salacious innuendo that Reality herself ran off with you, leaving the rest of us naked save for daydreams."

The soldiers of Majra have found conquering this land far harder than they expected. How could mere savages withstand the simple, swift sword of Truth? A final great push may settle the matter once and for all. If Aris is exiled, if Eyla and all her ilk are taken captive, who will be left to stand against them?

"I hope I have time to grow a long prisoner's beard," I mused, stroking my chin. "Last time, I only had enough to braid into half a story. It was horrible. Everyone saw the headless princess and the happy dancing mice and drew a wildly wrong conclusion."

There aren't stories enough in the world to turn a whole people into smoke so they can drift unseen from an unbroken prison. A city can't be rebuilt in a day, the sky can't break, the desert can't burst into an artist's fever-dream of flowers. So the Majeri claim. But somewhere in a world so vast and strange as ours, mustn't all things be true?

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"Where only one note is allowed, there is no music; where only one color is permitted, there are no paintings; where only one meaning inflects their words, it's a wonder people can speak at all."

Who would notice if a tiny desert land like Serzhen was conquered by mighty Majra? Yes, the fabled liars of Serzhen have filled their lives with beauty and tales, festivals and feasts, mad feral artists and deranged desert hermits—but what use are tales when the other side has swords, not to mention a fanatical belief in their singular truth?

"I'm not a gossip, but if folks insist on painting upon the canvas of their lives such towering masterpieces of depravity, what choice do I have but to applaud their artistry by talking about it?"

Aris Al-Sindba may prefer to dream about sky pirates and dragon-encrusted treasure maps, riddle-asking orchids and ominously ticking gearbound fruit, but he has a keen understanding of Majra's laws. He could surely defend his people—if only he had the resources.

"Talking to you, Aris, is like getting an intimate examination from a puppet doctor. Futile, painful, and faintly ridiculous."

Sar Efrem may garb himself in every color dreamed by more-than-usually demented sunsets, but he also has enough wealth, power and ruthlessness to stand against Majra. He could surely help Aris—if only he saw more than an impetuous young man overflowing with impossible schemes.

After years of occupation, Majra has come up with a new plan of attack—simple, devastating, and direct. Will anyone be there to stop them?

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Laboring under a curse of supernatural bad luck would be tough in the best of places, but just try it in Kairay—a remote desert fastness infested with cantankerous wizards, super-gigantic rocs, and bizarre mechanical men who alternate randomly between good and evil. The only sane course, perhaps, would be to live a meek and retiring life, quiet and blameless and with eyes downcast. Too bad no one told Saraya.

"So what if Reality knocks me down? It only wins if I fail to get up again. Or—when my tendons snap for no reason—if I fail to roll over and flop around all angry-like."

Unfortunately for Saraya, the royal family of Kairay has decided that she has something they want. Fleeing through caves piled high with relics of failed wizardry, cities so bizarre they clearly don't exist, and mysterious temples filled with nasty traps and nastier gods, she uncovers a secret that may alter the fate of Kairay itself.

"Me, I just get a kick out of how things can always get worse. Reality can be so inventive if you give it the chance."

As sure as a river at flood raises all boats but hers, and as sure as she'll always find a way to cut herself on a grape ("they're pointier than you think!"), Saraya will never stop fighting. The question is, with her luck, can she ever start winning?

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"Wearing a bag on my head is terribly exciting. I walked into a table when I crossed the room this morning. Or! Secret assassins hate my shins! Who can say?"

Jatha has always been content to make furniture, start outrageous rumors about himself, and indignantly deny that he's a wizard (well, someone had to put the idea into their heads!). Now his island home is threatened from two directions at once: The great mountain above, and the irascible lordling who rules from the coast.

"There Jatha goes again, always lying, always trying to make me look bad!"
"If I wanted to make you look bad, I'd hold up a mirror," I said laconically.

It may be time to stand and fight. But with allies like a self-proclaimed Pirate Queen, a man who was once outwitted by yams, and a prank-obsessed girl who keeps dropping spiders in his beer, does he even stand a chance?

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Shale expected the great oceanside city of Vinsama to be easy, profitable, and fun. All right--so there were giant mutant squirrels, and mad scientists assembling monsters from bits, and a power-mad tyrant threatening his life on a semi-regular basis. It wasn't anything that marked cards, a silver tongue, and a prediliction for faking his own death couldn't deal with.

"My dear friend!" I said, shocked. "I do not lie. I uplift my audience with salubrious falsehoods, telling them the world as it should be, filling their lives with wonder and hope! The fact that I keep ending up with all their money is sheer coincidence."

Everything was fine until Shale found himself blackmailed by both sides at once. Save the city or betray the city, his life would be forfeit either way. Chased by bloodthirsty pirates and murderous mechanisms, mired in a labyrinth of insane mutant monsters, he might just have to pretend to be a hero. The only question was--who in their right mind would believe him?