After the tragedy at Altzard, Mizeria and Zelfa travel north to the city of Zazaatz, in pursuit of Rikhter and his captive, Clarissa. There, a festive carnival tempts our heroine to forget her worries, but danger lurks in the crowd...
Chaos is everywhere as the Lord of the Nexus orders his servant Haplo and the human child known as Bane to further their master's work on Arianus, the realm of air. But their one time companion Alfred has been cast into the deadly Labyrinth. And somehow the assassin Hugh the Hand has been resurrected to complete his dark mission. More important, the evil force that Haplo and Alfred discovered on Arianus has escaped. As Haplo's doubts about his master grow deeper, he must decide whether to obey the Lord of the Nexus or betray the powerful Patryn...and endeavor to bring peace to the universe.
Four authors. Twelve stories. Another writing session with only the unknown before them. In the pages of Beyond the Door Volume 2 can be found stories about: - a dangerous beauty seeking revenge - the power of words - an alien invasion - espionage during the Civil War - fraternity hazing with a dangerous edge - election tampering from the future The authors from Beyond the Door Volume 1 have come together again to mine their imagination for more visions of time lines only they could discover. Clones, child detectives, first ladies, and missing pregnancies mask a reality only they could survive to tell the world. If an open door is an invitation then consider this a taste of what you'll find inside. They are halfway through the deck. Q: What was it like to write these stories without the others in the room with you? A.B. Alvarez: Who says I wasn't in the room with the others? Just because they couldn't see me. I mean, I wasn't in the room with them. At all. Not under the bed or in the closet which BTW needs a good cleaning. I was home sipping a fine Merlot while watching the ships travel down the Hudson. While I wrote about pits covered in sharp pointy pieces of glass. That takes a lot of concentration and focus. And a good Merlot. Serena B. Miller: After editing your stories, Alvarez, I think a little less Merlot might be in order? And please stay out of my closets. That last restraining order is still valid. Jesse R. Lyle: Bittersweet. Since I didn’t have to listen to the droning-thunderous striking of keyboard keys from overzealous-caffeine driven digits, I could actually think straight, but I didn’t get to trade attempted witty remarks with my fellow companions. Derek E. Miller: It was a dream. I was home enjoying a fine Craft Artisan Amish made Root Beer listening to the neighbor’s dog bark way too much. But all that commotion was still better than listening to A.B. Alvarez constantly make laser sounds as he would write his futuristic sci fi stuff. You definitely need a good Root Beer to write. Q: Derek E. Miller, during your tour of duty in the military what was it like interacting with the aliens from Area 51? A: Turns out I was well prepared. Dealing with New Yorkers like A.B. Alvarez more than prepared me for interaction with an alien species. One of them even gave me two t-shirts. They have printed on them, "I Love Zork" and "The Big Abbsou." Q: Jesse R. Lyle, based on your fictitious medical degree from Johns Hopkins, did the details about genetics in your story help you make better breeding decisions about the multi-legged organisms you have running around your home? A: Oh, without a doubt my fictitious medical degree helped more than a legitimate medical degree. And yes, she might be a genetically created multi-legged organism, but she’s my little multi-legged organism. MuHahahaha Q: Serena B. Miller, after reading Sunny I can see you owning multiple guns and not being afraid to use them. Have you ever sneaked into a foreign country with the express intent of overthrowing its government? A: That depends. Has California attained foreign country status yet? Q: A.B. Alvarez, the last time you went time traveling did you find your doppelganger? A: Is that question for me? I've never gone time traveling. If I did would I be here? Multiple time streams don't make any sense. That doesn't mean I haven't been visited by others who purport to be from a different time stream. Meet my doppelganger? Don't be silly. What would I do if I met myself? Kill him and take his place? Of course not! He might try to kill me and take my place. By the way: why did you call me A.B. Alvarez?
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Map of Time and The Map of the Sky, the final installment in the award-winning trilogy that The Washington Post called “a big, genre-bending delight.” When the person he loves most dies in tragic circumstances, the mysterious protagonist of The Map of Chaos does all he can to speak to her one last time. A session with a renowned medium seems to offer the only solution, but the experience unleashes terrible forces that bring the world to the brink of disaster. Salvation can only be found in The Map of Chaos, an obscure, hand-written mathematical treatise that he is desperate to uncover. In his search, he is given invaluable help by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, and of course by H.G. Wells, whose Invisible Man seems to have escaped from the pages of his famous novel to sow terror among mankind. They alone can discover the means to save the world and to find the path that will reunite the lovers separated by death. Proving once again that he is “a master of ingenious plotting” (Kirkus Reviews), Félix J. Palma brings together a cast of real and imagined literary characters in Victorian London, when spiritualism is at its height. The Map of Chaos is a spellbinding adventure that mixes impossible loves, nonstop action, real ghosts, and fake mediums, all while paying homage to the giants of science fiction.
Mizeria continues her travels with Zelfa and company in search of her sister. The towns and cities they pass are as magnificent as they are dangerous, for Rikhter is still after Mizeria's life.
Fate’s eye continues to watch the Hidden Lands. Blood has been spilled and trials overcome, but dark truths are about to come to light that will once again alter the lives of those that oppose the might of Talgoth. Caleb Rambrant and his companions have succeeded in driving the forces of the Lioness off their lands, but at great sacrifice. Caleb’s father has gone into the heart of Talgoth and Caleb will stop at nothing to join him – though the road will not be easy. With a mysterious assassin still on their trail, and Anselem and L’iothrin now facing a new dark power, the loyalty and courage of the five companions from Tritus will be stretched to their very limits. The struggle of power kindled by the sister blades is now in motion…and Fate is watching.
John C. Wright burst onto the SF scene with the Golden Age trilogy. His next project was the ambitious fantasy sequence, The Last Guardians of Everness. Wright's new fantasy is a tale about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who begin to discover that they may not be human beings. The students at the school do not age, while the world around them does. The children begin to make sinister discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter around him; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls where none had previously been; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the inexplicable universe: and they should not be able to co-exist under the same laws of nature. Why is it that they can? The orphans have been kidnapped from their true parents, robbed of their powers, and raised in ignorance by super-beings no more human than they are: pagan gods or fairy-queens, Cyclopes, sea-monsters, witches, or things even stranger than this. The children must experiment with, and learn to control, their strange abilities in order to escape their captors. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
As the planetoid Thanatos Minor explodes into atoms, a specially-fitted cruiser escapes the mass destruction and hurtles into space only a step ahead of hostile pursuit. On board Trumpet are a handful of bedraggled fugitives from an outlaw world - old enemies suddenly and violently thrown together in a desperate bid for survival. Among this unlikely crew of allies are Morn Hyland, once a UMC cop, now a prisoner to the electrodes implanted in her brain; her son, Davies, "force-grown" to adulthood by the alien Amnion and struggling to understand his true identity; the amoral space buccaneer Nick Succorso, whose most daring act of piracy could be his last; and Angus Thermopyle, unstoppable cyborg struggling to wrest control of his own mind from his UMC programmers.
Kaylin Neya is a Hawk, part of the elite force tasked with keeping the City of Elantra safe. Her past is dark, her magic uncontrolled and her allies unpredictable. And nothing has prepared her for what is coming, when the charlatans on Elani Street suddenly grow powerful, the Oracles are thrown into an uproar and the skies rain blood…. The powerful of Elantra believe that the mysterious markings on Kaylin's skin hold the answer, and they are not averse to using her—how ever they have to—in order to discover what it is. Something is coming, breaking through the barriers between the worlds. But is it a threat that Kaylin needs to defend her city against—or has she been chosen for another reason entirely?