- Home
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
Product DescriptionWestern wizardry meets the mages of the exotic East. Neither will ever be the same.Daimbert the wizard is on the road to adventure with five guys from Yurt. Their search for a missing lord soon becomes a quest for a fabled blue rose and for an unthinkably powerful magical artifact from the time of Solomon. Along the way they face intrigue, treachery, black magic, and a big green djinn. Only Daimbert may be able to save their lives--and their souls--as the line grows thin between a fatal curse and finding one's heart's desire. Views: 34
In love, time is relative, until they run out…
Regulations limit time digger Ish and time cop Kabal, born years and worlds apart, to two dates a year, making every date precious. But when Kabal announces his retirement at their tenth anniversary, what should have been a happy occasion might be their last night together. Views: 34
Activist Elizabeth Devane wished for an end to nuclear weapons. Surely, she thought, if they'd known what they were unleashing, the scientists of the Manhattan Project would never have created such a terrible instrument of destruction. But during a protest action, the unthinkable happened: a flash of light, a silent confusion, and Elizabeth awakes to find herself alone in a desolate desert arroyo… and almost fifty years in the past. June 1944. Los Alamos, New Mexico. While the Allies battle in the Pacific and begin the Normandy invasion in Europe, Nazi Germany deviates from the timeline Elizabeth knows and uses its newfound nuclear arsenal against America. Somehow, someway, Elizabeth has been given the chance to put the genie back in the bottle… yet could she—should she—attempt the greatest sabotage in history? Views: 33
FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem Ursula K. Le Guin’s selection of twenty-six stories showcases Wells’s genius and reintroduces readers to his singular talent for making the unbelievable seem utterly plausible. His originality and inventiveness are fully on display in this essential collection. Views: 33
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.It was all over the flat-screen TVs hung from the rafters and tuned to CNN when Annja entered the airport terminal. Five dead and one gravely injured in an inexplicable attack on an archaeological dig in western Oklahoma.It's so tragic about those other poor people, she thought as she headed to the baggage claim. Does it make me a bad person that I feel glad that Paul's the one who survived?She hadn't been coming to rekindle any old embers. It had been good with Paul while it lasted. And when it was done, it was over. He was still a sweet guy, if a little bit of a player, and a good archaeologist on the tenure track at the university.Now she just hoped he was still on any track at all.She collected her single black bag. And I thought I was due for a little relaxation here, she thought as she walked briskly through the crowds toward the car rental desk.Because of the severity of his injuries, Paul had been taken by helicopter from the site west of Lawton to the trauma unit in Norman, right outside Oklahoma City.Finding the trauma center wasn't hard. Once inside amid the bright lights and muted sounds and quietly purposeful traffic of the hospital, things got a little dicier. The staff initially tried to keep Annja from seeing Paul in intensive care.It seemed to be a well-run facility, so Annja didn't even try playing her journalist-cum-TV-personality card. It was never her first choice in any event. But Paul's family had yet to arrive, given that the crime had actually occurred while she was in transit from New York to Houston. His next of kin, it seemed, would only arrive late that evening. Though the nurses wouldn't say so, Annja got the sickening impression they didn't expect him to live long enough to see them.In the meantime, Paul was asking incessantly for Annja Creed so his doctors and the police officer in charge of the case agreed to let her in.Sunlight streamed through the window. The early online weather reports had showed clouds over western Oklahoma, but they'd dissipated by the time her flight touched down.Paul was all tubes and bandages and taped-on wires. Half his face was obscured by a bandage. But his good brown eye was open. It turned toward her as she walked in the door."Annja," he said. His voice was a croak. He tried to sit up."Paul." She stopped in the doorway, momentarily overcome.The nurse who had escorted Annja to the room—a short, wide woman—moved past Annja. Though a head shorter she was heavy enough to push Annja aside as if she were a child. Annja frowned, but held her temper. She's doing her job, she told herself."Now, Paul, calm down," the nurse said. She turned and glared back with narrowed blue eyes. "Ms. Creed, I'm afraid you're going to have to cut short your visit, after all.""No," Paul said. Alarms shrilled as his heart rate spiked. "Please, Roslee. Please! I have to talk to her. I have to tell her."The nurse gave Annja a speculative scowl. The businesslike amiability with which she had initially greeted Annja was long gone."Okay," she said. "He seems to really need to get something off his chest. It may be good for him to have company. I'll give you five minutes. And I do not want you stressing my patient. Please tell me you understand."Annja took no offense at the woman's words or her tone. A good nurse had the same outlook on anyone or anything that might prove detrimental to her patients as a mother grizzly bear toward potential threats to her cubs."I understand," Annja said. And she did. Perfectly. Herself a chronic defender of innocence, she could only approve of the nurse's protectiveness.The nurse looked at her a beat longer. Then she nodded. "All right. Call me if any changes happen. I'll be right outside."The nurse left. Annja sidestepped to give her plenty of clearance. Then she moved forward and took Paul's unbandaged hand."Paul, what happened?"The torn lips quirked into a painful smile. "Something right up your alley, Annja.""What's that, Paul?"Suddenly his fingers clenched hers in a death grip. "A monster," he said.For a mad moment she thought he was making a joke well beyond good taste. But his lone visible eye showed white all around, and a tear rose in the corner of it and rolled down his cheek. His whole body seemed to tense."Paul," she said, trying to keep her own voice low and steady. "Please calm down.""No! There's no time. There's something out there, Annja. Something awful. It killed them.""What did?"His fingers dug into her hand. "I told you. That— creature.""Paul, please. Settle down. You're getting upset and not making any sense.""Annja! I saw it. It was a wolf, but it wasn't. Sometimes it seemed like a man, sometimes like an animal. And it killed and killed.""That's just in the movies," Annja said."No! It looked like a wolf but didn't move like one."He shook his head from side to side so violently Annja was afraid he'd pull something loose. "No! No! It was terrible. Oh, God. It killed them. It was so fast. So strong. Not anything natural—""Why would a wolf attack such a large group of people?" she asked. It made no sense to her that a solitary member of a pack-hunting species would attack multiple human beings. It totally reversed the whole mathematics of wolf predation."It wasn't natural, I tell you. Wasn't an animal!" His eye rolled. "Annja, listen. It wasn't an animal. It wasn't. And it's hunting me!"He sat up and grabbed her arm with his good hand. Alarms began to shrill."It was a skinwalker! A Navajo wolf! I saw his eyes—those glowing—"The frantic cry ended.Paul seemed to shrink, then fell back onto the bed. His one visible eye stared at the ceiling.The keening of the flatline alarms was barely audible through the roaring in Annja's ears."What's your interest in this poor deceased fella, Ms. Creed?"Lieutenant Tom Ten Bears of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol sat down behind the plain wooden desk in his office. He had the unmistakable look of an officer who'd spent many years with the force. Not a tall man, he was built strong and low to the ground, short in the legs, wide around the middle, suggesting still both strength and a certain agility.Annja sat across from him in a not very comfortable wooden chair. It reminded her way too much of being called before the Mother Superior back at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. She suspected the visiting-the-prin-cipal effect wasn't entirely accidental."We're friends, Lieutenant," she said. "Uh, were friends."The highway patrol officer's round, pockmarked face, beneath a salt-and-pepper military cut, was set in lines and contours of grave compassion. He probably gets a lot of practice with that look in his line of work, she realized. It also didn't mean he didn't feel it.The office walls were wood paneling. An Oklahoma state flag hung behind him, along with a plaque in the arrowhead shape of the OHP patch, certificates of completion from training courses and numerous citations, including a commendation from the Comanche Nation. From his features and body type, which would have been burly and bearlike even if he hadn't been carrying a certain excess above the belt, Annja suspected he was a member of the Nation himself. She gathered they hadn't named this Comanche County for nothing."My condolences," he told her. "I know that don't help much. All the times I've offered condolences over the years, I never yet figured out a way that actually does a body any good. I keep trying.""I appreciate it, Lieutenant. Really.""It was unusual for them to let you in to see him. But the ICU staff tell me he kept asking for you so insistently they figured it was better for him to let him see you.""Maybe that was a mistake," she said, faltering.He shook his head. "No point second-guessing something like that, Ms. Creed. That poor boy was pretty torn up. I don't reckon he could've lasted long regardless of anything you did or didn't do.""Thanks," Annja said.She drew in a deep breath and tried to ignore the stinging in her eyes. "I was coming out to visit him," she said. "He was also kind enough to want to consult with me on the dig, even though pre-Columbian North American archaeology is way outside my area of study.""You're doin' me a favor, Ms. Creed, by comin' out here to see me," he said. "I was needing to interview you, anyway."He put on a pair of heavy-framed reading glasses and moved his mouse around on the pad, peering at a flat-screen monitor set at an angle so as not to intrude between him and a visitor. Aside from an in-box stacked with papers, the only other objects on his desk were a picture of a grinning young and handsome Indian man wearing an Army uniform, a much younger girl, maybe twelve, with pigtails, both built along much more aerodynamic lines than the lieutenant, and another picture of a young man in BDUs and combat gear with a bullet-pocked adobe wall for a backdrop. The soldier held a CAR-4 assault carbine decked out with the usual array of sights and lights. He looked like the same person as the grinning kid in the other photo, only older. Not so much in years, maybe, but still much older, Annja thought."So you work for a television show," he said."Yes. I'm kind of the resident skeptic—the token voice of reason. I suspect Paul's superiors hoped that by inviting me out they might put their department in the way of some free publicity.""The anthro department at OU wanted to get on something called Chasing History's Monsters?"She shrugged. "The hope of getting on TV can have a strange effect on people. Even intelligent, well-educated ones."He made a face, took off the glasses and looked at her. "Maybe the monster thing's actually app... Views: 33
Sand City, a town in the Pacific Northwest, where the rents are too high and the rain never stops. On the surface, it appears normal – except this city is run by General Savage, an alleged supervillain. Grateful for a second chance, Kimber Wellington ignores the city’s strange obsession with super villains. That is, until the daughter of General Savage nearly dies in his arms. Views: 33
Jonny Rodriquez ascended to his position as the Black God mere days after learning he was a Natural, a human with supernatural abilities. He gave up all thoughts of a normal life, as well as his humanity, to lead the ongoing struggle between the vampires he commands and the Guardians – the immortals charged with protecting humans.Six grueling years later, he's managed to reconcile who he is and what he must do to maintain order and control. However, the old guard in his vamp army resents the changes he's made as part of a truce with the White God. Jonny's army splinters in two, and the old guard tries to rekindle the war between vamps and Guardians. Jonny has little time to crush the rebellion before any chance at coexistence with humanity is gone.When a vigilante disables his ability to track the rogue vamps, he's forced to confront a face from his past, one he's never truly forgotten. His first love, Ashley, is everything he doesn't need in his life. She's reckless, stubborn,... Views: 33
Young Jedi Nuru Kungurama and the clone troopers of Breakout Squad receive orders to escort new allies across space to Coruscant. But the diplomatic mission turns deadly when the identity of a mysterious saboteur is revealed and Nuru encounters a deadly armored warrior with ties to Count Dooku. This series is written by acclaimed writer Ryder Windham, who has authored over 50 Star Wars books. Views: 33
Vasiht'h always thought himself lucky to have befriended one of the rare and fascinating Eldritch, so when Jahir invites him home for a cousin's wedding, he's eager for the chance to find out more about these enigmatic aliens.Naturally, he gets more than he bargains for; by the end of his trip, he'll either know all Jahir's secrets...or he'll be dead...A 92-page story in the Pelted Universe. Views: 33
In the savage and magical world of the River, the pace of life is dictated by the ebb and flow of great tides - and by the power of a fearsome religion. Yet dangerous currents gather force beneath the placid surface. Together, Pamra Don and Thrasne the Boatman seek to uncover the terrible truth about the river and its awesome strength. But in the world of the Awakeners, the truth can kill you. Southshore is the conclusion to Sheri S. Tepper's acclaimed Awakeners sequence. Views: 33
The first book of Kate Elliott's epic Novels of the Jaran, set in an alien-controlled galaxy where a young woman seeks to find her own life and love, but is tied to her brother's revolutionary fateIn the future, Earth is just one of the planets ruled by the vast Chapalii empire. The volatility of these alien overlords is something with which Tess Soerensen is all too familiar. Her brother, Charles, rebelled against them at one time and was rewarded by being elevated into their interstellar system—yet there is reason to believe they murdered his and Tess's parents.Struggling to find her place in the world and still mending a broken heart, Tess sneaks aboard a shuttle bound for Rhui, one of her brother's planets. On the ground, she joins up with the native jaran people, becoming immersed in their nomadic society and customs while also attempting to get to the bottom of a smuggling scheme she encountered on her journey there. As she grows ever closer to the charismatic jaran... Views: 33
