The Lightning-Struck Tree — Michael Phillips

In this sequel to Beyond the Empyrean, Hel Brand-a genetically engineered hero and rebellion leader-fights demons, dragons, and wizards, encounters talking animals, and meets a few old friends and enemies along the way. Part fantasy, part horror, and part space opera, but with a science fiction explanation for everything, this exciting novel has something for everyone. Hel wanders in the Alaskan wilderness during a blizzard. After nearly starving to death, he stumbles upon a small cabin and meets Hugh, who guides him out of the initial trauma of having transcended the fourth dimension. As his memories begin to settle, it turns out that he didn't immediately arrive on Earth after falling through the Empyrean Gate and meeting the Ainar. He was sent somewhere else first, and he begins to tell his story. In Part I, he must fight the demonic Asuri in a clockwork universe above a void, with only a mysterious talking crow as his guide. In Part II, he finds himself on a bizarre island where a mysterious disease is being spread by the frightening plague doctors. And then he runs into an old frenemy. In Part III, Hel seeks to understand the strange new universe in which he's trapped and travels to a medieval fantasy world in which dragons and wizards actually exist, and, in a surprising twist, it's all been created by someone very well-known to him. In Part IV, he takes over the body of a Luojai quantum magician and must master this new body's powers in order to save a nearly extinct society from evil aliens known as the Cíthleeri.