Everyone says Pete Cardinal sounds just like John Wayne on the radio. People who have never seen him are often surprised to meet a six-foot mustang lieutenant instead of a six-four admiral. Leaving San Diego with just a year to go before retirement, he's headed to a cushy desk job in Memphis. Or so he thinks...

Pilots Jerry and Psycho are just getting a handle on their secret mission's special weapons and tactics when a crash landing ruins their day. Also ruined is the career of the guy who put bad fuel in their plane as well as Pete's plan for an easy year in Memphis. Bidding his family a hasty goodbye, he heads for a bay in Vietnam where he isn't sure he will live to see tomorrow. With Pete's support from the mother ship, Jerry and Psycho can focus on their mission, eliminating North Vietnamese supply boats using an obsolete seaplane meant for hunting submarines.

In this military tale, things that actually happened meld with war stories (things that might have happened) to bring to life a little known episode from the Vietnam War.

From Brandon Sanderson—author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive and its fourth massive installment, Rhythm of War—comes a new hefty novella, Dawnshard. Taking place between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, this tale (like Edgedancer before it) gives often-overshadowed characters their own chance to shine.

When a ghost ship is discovered, its crew presumed dead after trying to reach the storm-shrouded island Akina, Navani Kholin must send an expedition to make sure the island hasn't fallen into enemy hands. Knights Radiant who fly too near find their Stormlight suddenly drained, so the voyage must be by sea.

Shipowner Rysn Ftori lost the use of her legs but gained the companionship of Chiri-Chiri, a Stormlight-ingesting winged larkin, a species once thought extinct. Now Rysn's pet is ill, and any hope for Chiri-Chiri’s recovery can be found only at the ancestral home of the larkin: Akinah. With the help of Lopen, the formerly one-armed Windrunner, Rysn must accept Navani's quest and sail into the perilous storm from which no one has returned alive. If the crew cannot uncover the secrets of the hidden island city before the wrath of its ancient guardians falls upon them, the fate of Roshar and the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.

Unable to find work in London in 1771, Samuel Daniels comes to America as an indentured servant to farmer Silas Weatherby. Although Weatherby is nothing but generous and kind, Samuel wants more in life than the lowly position of farmhand. But he will not repay Weatherby's kindness by breaking his agreement, and he stays on until his indenture is fulfilled.

Meanwhile, rebellion rages through the colonies, and Samuel sees his chance to secure his future. He joins the Continental Army, and his fi rst day in camp forms a friendship with a man named Spencer. A few days later, outside Hartford, Connecticut, he befriends a twelve-year-old orphan and forms another lasting friendship. Th ough life as a soldier isn't what he thought it would be, Samuel savors his independence and earning his own income. But the reality of war intrudes as they struggle against the cold and the British.

Wounded at Saratoga, Samuel is cared for by the beautiful Mary Elizabeth-and he can't help but fall in love with her. But she is promised to Samuel's good friend and fellow soldier, Jeptha Isaacson. Confused and tormented, Samuel decides to return to his unit before he is fully healed.

Dark days lie ahead on the battlefield, and now, Samuel must fight for the birth of a new nation, one where he will finally find true freedom.

OCTOBER, 1962: The discovery of soviet missiles in Cuba has sparked a confrontation with global implications. Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khruschev and United States President John F. Kennedy face off in a perilous chess game of heightened military readiness, hard-line policy, and round-the-clock negotiation. When the USS Gearing is suddenly lost at sea and believed to be destroyed by a soviet submarine attack, diplomacy becomes abruptly and absolutely irrelevant. Around the world, bombs fall, and the stage is set for what will become the darkest and most desperate expanse of human conflict. Unknown to anyone else, the USS Gearing encountered a strange storm in 1962 which sent it twenty years into the future. OCTOBER, 1982: The USS Gearing reappears in the Atlantic, and its proximity to Cuba violates the terms of the Soviet-American Armistice of 1977. President Ronald Reagan leads Free America as fighting is renewed between mighty navies on the high seas, and between soviet occupation forces and homeland defenders in California, Florida, and the Carolinas. A weakened United States on the brink of soviet domination, with NATO and allied governments in exile, prepare for the final battle to decide the fate of the free world and prevent the extinction of freedom and democracy. Professor Edwin Theodore Burnside and three of his students, due to being in the presence of a mysterious artifact, are alone in their awareness that something is wrong with this alternate reality in 1982. Once investigation yields a plausible theory on how to repair the timeline, Professor Burnside embarks on a mission to save the world from an apocalyptic war. The alteration in reality caused by the USS Gearing travelling through time affords Professor Burnside a second chance to keep his childhood friend from once again becoming the one that got away. Eventually, he will be forced to decide if he should go ahead with his mission even if it means erasing from history the woman he loves.

Colonel Simon Alexander, a famous African mercenary, languishes away in Black Beach Prison. Failing health makes an unsupported escape impossible, and the diplomatic process is failing as fast as his health. In the face of all this, a backer with deep pockets is putting a team together to get him out.

Commanding this team is none other than forty-three-year-old Rhys Munroe, a tough and cunning Grey. Composed of one black and one white Special Forces operator, the Special Operators Unit known as the Greys can go anywhere, kill everything, and disappear into the grey mist. Their combined skills are far greater than the sum of their own abilities.

Armed with massive hardware, ammunition, manpower, and a secret weapon, Munroe and his team concoct a daring master plan to free Simon. Though they are battle-hardened soldiers, they are well aware that the international mission is dangerous and could go awry at any time. But the Greys lived by one very important commandment: Thou shalt not fall.

Tom Greenlee, the CEO of Ameribank and the leader of a forty-member secret group called the National Association for Preserving White America, believes the country is self-destructing. He preaches that the white middle and upper classes of the country are finding their wealth stripped away, their beliefs trampled, their culture spat upon, and their lives threatened by people of color. He and his group of "protectors" desire to carve out an independent nation of their own. As a fragmented and polarized society, Americans begin to feed on each other until they become a target for attacks by both internal and external enemies. A strike on Houston's Reliant Stadium kills and maims thousands of citizens. It's being touted as a scheme concocted by the CIA to keep the U.S. fighting in the Middle East. Minutemen vigilantes massacre a group of migrant workers and their families in order to intimidate others from entering the country. Dan Louder, New York City's first black mayor, survives an assassination attempt. The New York Stock Exchange closes its doors. While the country teeters on the edge of destruction, the citizens of the U.S. must prepare themselves to live a very different existence in the future.