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Search Results for: ancient-of-days

Showing 1-24 of 26 results for ancient-of-days

The Calorium Wars

The Calorium Wars

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Dennis O’Flaherty

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A quick-witted Irish safecracker juggles alchemy and automatons in the action-packed follow-up to the nineteenth-century United States steampunk adventure, King of the Cracksmen.

Liam McCool, the premier safecracker in 1877 New York, isn’t the type to hang around fairy circles on the Celtic day of the dead. But an invitation from his Gram leaves the “King of the Cracksmen” possessed by the spirit of Finn McCool, the great hunter-warrior of ancient Ireland and a mighty magical force.

Just in time, too. Edwin Stanton, once Lincoln’s Secretary of War but now a self-proclaimed dictator, has restored slavery in the United States, and conscripted every able-bodied white male to fight in the war he’s waging against Little Russia, made up of all the continental North America west of the Mississippi, sold to Russia by Andrew Jackson fifty years earlier.

Stanton needs Little Russia’s calorium, a mineral used to power America’s airships, factories, and humanoid automatons. But Liam and the love of his life, world-famous reporter Becky Fox, mean to stop him. Joined by Crazy Horse, the Sioux war chief and medicine man, and Ambrose Chen, a Taoist sorcerer and alchemist, Liam and company embark on a wild series of adventures from New Petersburg, where revolutionaries are fighting to overthrow the government, to the Bear Flag Republic, a California enclave governed by P. T. Barnum.
The Western Wizard

The Western Wizard

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Mickey Zucker Reichert

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When Odin breathed life into the mortal realms, he also created the Cardinal Wizards: the Northern Wizard as the representative of Good, the Southern as master of Evil, and the Western and Eastern as the keepers of the balance between Good and Evil, each neutral, both sharing the burden of holding their fellow magic wielders in check.
But now the days decreed in ancient prophecy have come upon the mortal realms. The Great War has been fought and a Renshai has proven its Champion.
Yet even as the war’s heroes struggle to place the rightful king of Bearn upon his throne, and the also true Renshai seeks to train a new generation of his warrior race, the word is carried forth on falcon’s wings that the Western Wizard is no more.
And unless Shadimar, the Wizard of the East, can find the one mortal with any hope of surviving the challenge of the Seven Tasks of Wizardry, the worlds of gods and mortals alike will fall….
The Fenris Device: Hooded Swan 5

The Fenris Device: Hooded Swan 5

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Brian Stableford

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In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds like New Alexandria to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, the Star-Pilots that link the cosmos are the great heroes of the day, and Grainger has become a legend in his own lifetime. The atmosphere of Mormyr is so dense that the surface is unreachable, which made it the ideal place for the alien Gallacellans to hide an ancient spaceship. Now they want it back. Grainger refuses, but when the Hooded Swan answers a mayday call, Grainger and his crew are trapped by a madman, who forces them to pursue the salvage anyway. Success will mean Grainger’s freedom from Titus Charlot, owner of the Hooded Swan; failure will mean the death of the inhabitants of an entire planet. And then the Gallacellans appear!
Kingfisher

Kingfisher

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Patricia A. McKillip

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Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. Look for us, they tell Pierce, if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden s court.

Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father s destructive love for King Arden s queen, and Heloise s decision to raise her younger son alone.

As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden’s youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father s kingdom.
Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory or destroy it…”
October the First Is Too Late

October the First Is Too Late

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Fred Hoyle

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The Yorkshire Moors below Mickle Fell in August would seem a safe enough place to be, yet it was there that Richard’s old schoolfriend, John Sinclair, disappeared for 13 hours. Two days later, while bathing in a mountain stream, Richard noticed that a strawberry birthmark was missing from Sinclair’s back.

Climbing, music, ancient Greece and the year 5000 AD: all these play a part in Fred Hoyle’s far-reaching and witty science fiction book, which teems with arresting ideas. Its central themes are time and the meaning of consciousness; around them the author of The Black Cloud and Ossian’s Ride has spun a glittering web of adventure and logical surmise. In this world of dual personalities and shifting time scales it is entirely plausible that October the first should have been too late.
Time Trap

Time Trap

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Keith Laumer

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ABE LINCOLN IN AFRICA?

He was seen – and photographed – in a Tunisian bazaar. And an ancient Spanish galleon, fully crewed with ancient Spaniard, was taken in tow off Tampa by the Coast Guard…and a few luckless people found themselves living the same day over and over and over…

Something was badly wrong with Time – but Roger Tyson didn’t know it until he met the lovely agent from elsewhen and started on a mad chase through the dimensions, plagued by a motley bunch of temporal castaways, and pursued hotly by Oob the Rhox!
Retief in the Ruins

Retief in the Ruins

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Keith Laumer

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It’s a rare day when Terrans meet eye-to-eyestalk with the slimy little sticky-fingers – er, that is to say, the noble alien Groaci. This time the races clash on the planet Popu-Ri, once the home of a mighty interstellar power. Popu-Ri has sunk into decline…but its ancient treasures remain. Though not for long, if the Groaci have their way.

Groaci also finds Popu-Ri just the place to build a galactic warfleet. Still, for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne to respond would threaten the delicate balance of human/Groaci forces on the cocktail circuit. Therefore the ambassador must keep the lid on by doing nothing. But how to do nothing without seeming an inneffectual pantywaist? Send an observer!

Yep, the Ambassador has it all figured out. But he made one little mistake; he sent Retief…
Elephantasm

Elephantasm

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Tanith Lee

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Sixteen-year-old Annie Ember lives in grinding poverty in the city…until one day in a mysterious shop she discovers a tiny and ancient ivory elephant. The subsequent murder of her sister’s husband leaves Annie homeless, and she is found employment in a country house far away.

Sir Hampton Smolte returned from India with a great fortune – and also a dark obsession with that conquered land. His mansion is fanciful and extraordinary, like a raja’s palace set down in green English parkland.

Annie becomes a scullery maid in this strange place full of stuffed animals, eccentric servants and the even more peculiar Smolte family. Soon she catches the eye of the handsome Rupert and gradually succumbs to his advances…till one night she learns in disgust and horror just what his lovemaking entails.

Annie’s helpless fury then transforms this dream-house into a whirlwind of panic and the impossible…legging in all the avenging power of the jungle, and unlocking Hampton Smolte’s darkest secrets.
The Nations of the Night

The Nations of the Night

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Oliver Johnson

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In this, the second book of the epic trilogy begun in The Forging of the Shadows, the once-glorious city of Thrull has become a place of death and despair. Seven years before, Lord Faran Groton, High Priest of the God of Darkness, overthrew Thrull and set loose his army of vampires to plague the city, waiting for the day the sun would rise no more…But the God of Light has his champions as well. A motley trio of survivors searches for the three ancient artifacts which can defeat the darkness. Traveling far beyond their own lands, they will encounter nightmares and disasters before facing their most dangerous enemies — the Dark-born Nations of the Night!
The River and the Dream

The River and the Dream

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Raymond F. Jones

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All his life Manvar has had a dream. One day, he will escape the harshly primitive, blizzard-torn lands of the north. He will follow the paths of the Ancients and see for himself the fabled lands of the south: lands without ice and snow and perpetual night; lands of warmth and light, where life is easy and comfortable within walled cities of incredible beauty. Manvar follows his dream, but finds it hollow. Life in the wondrous city of Delphos is not the paradise it seemed.
All Fools' Day

All Fools' Day

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Edmund Cooper

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Summer 1971. A marvellous spell of weather, idyllic in its warmth. But new sun-spots had appeared; and with their appearance came a significant increase in the suicide rate. The wonderful summer continued for a decade: simultaneously Radiant Suicide reached endemic proportions, the only people to escape its effects being the supposed transnormals, the obsessionals, the eccentrics and the psychopaths. These were to be the only remnants of the ancient ‘homo sapiens’ . . .
Shrine of Stars

Shrine of Stars

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Paul McAuley

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Who would lay time to rest, or raise it up from its tomb?
The Ancients of Days – humans returned from a long exile in the depths of time and space and history – brought heresy and doubt to the artificial world of Confluence, and ignited a terrible civil war, of all the varied creatures of Confluence’s ten thousand genetically manipulated bloodlines, only young Yama holds the power to end the conflict, for who ever controls him controls the myriad machines of the world. Though now a helpless captive being forged intoa weapon of horrific consequence, Yama must win the struggle to reclaim his soul, and complete his search for the true story of his origin – a story mapped eons before his birth.
Ancients of Days

Ancients of Days

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Paul McAuley

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On an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long-vanished Preservers, young Yama’s ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires.
In the dust of many crumbling bureaucracies, Yama searches for an identity and a history – awed and fearful of his ever-growing capacity to awaken the terrible machines of destruction that his world’s absent gods left slumbering. To the common folk – the unshaped and aboriginal – he is the fulfillment of age-old prophecies. To the functionaries of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, he is a weapon to be molded and used in the bloody civil war raging at the planet’s midpoint – a seemingly endless battle that pits those who revere the Preservers’ laws against the dangerous Heretics who would obliterate all antiquated values and codes of conduct.
But there are still others who have taken notice of Yama as he pursues the hidden secrets of his past. Intelligent powers older than the Builders – as old, perhaps, as the Preservers themselves – are pursuing Yama in turn. And they will stop at nothing to control his present-and, as a result, the future of everything that lives-in anticipation of the ultimate triumph of the Ancients of Days.
The Wine of Violence

The Wine of Violence

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James Morrow

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Marooned on the planet Quetzalia after their ship clashed with the irresistable force of gravity, Day One In Paradise is not quite the blissful Utopia fact-finding Nearthlings Francis Lostwax and Burne Newman were expecting.

Tropical fronds turn out to be brain-eating Neurovores who decimate the rest of the scientists’ crew, and a sweeping, majestic river becomes a bubbling cauldron of caustic ‘noctus’ or liquified hate.

Abandoning their craft, the two scientists flee to the Quetzalians, a peace-loving race guided by the precepts of the Ancient Mexicans. Together they vow to rid the planet of the evil Neurovores.

But the technology-free Quetzalians demand that the Nearthlings destroy their machines and with them their lifeline back to the planet New Earth…
Julian Comstock: A Story of the 22nd Century

Julian Comstock: A Story of the 22nd Century

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Robert Charles Wilson

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From the Hugo-winning author of Spin, an exuberant adventure in a post-climate-change America

In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the sixty stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City. In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation’s spiritual needs. In Labrador, the Army wages war on the Dutch. America, unified, is rising once again.

Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax-Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is…troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.

Treachery and intrigue dog Julian’s footsteps. Hairsbreadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian’s soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob.

As told by Julian’s best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks- and answers-the age-old question: “Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?”
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

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Harry Turtledove

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David Fisher, an EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency) bureaucrat, was not the stuff of which heroes are made. At least he hoped not. All he wanted was a good life with a good wife, and a chance to do his bit for society reviewing magical impact statements (like the one that assesses the effect on local non-life resulting from the introduction of leprechauns into Southern California, for example) and ensuring that various manufacturers of magical devices did not intentionally or otherwise foul the environment with the sorcerous by-products of their trade. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a more regular and down to earth soul than that of David Fisher of the EPA. No hero he!

Then one day David received a call from Washington to investigate a certain Toxic Spell Dump, and suddenly he is up to his neck in skullduggery and magic most foul. Some ancient deity, it seems, is attempting to reopen for business in the L.A. Basin, complete with human sacrifice (open up their hearts and let the sun shine in!) and the destruction of Western Civilization. All that stands in the way is David Fisher – and he’s no hero.

Until he has to be.
The Knight of the Swords

The Knight of the Swords

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Michael Moorcock

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The Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn in exchange for the Heart of Airioch.

There were Gods abroad in the old days. It was their whim to wipe clean the slate of history, to destroy the old races: the Vadhagh, the Nhadragh, the remnants of still more ancient peoples. Mankind, the Mabden, was their instrument. But the Gods themselves fell out, and Chaos gained the advantage over Law.

Onto this stage stepped the Vadhagh Prince Corum. Driven mad for revenge by the callous slaughter of his family and race, and by his own grotesque mutilation at the hands of the Mabden, he agreed to accept, from the treacherous sorcerer Shool, the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll in exchange for a lien on his soul. Thus armed he set out upon a personal crusade against the Sword Rulers: the Lords of Chaos and puppetmasters to Man.

The first of these was the loathsome Arioch, Knight of the Swords, master of five of the fifteen planes of reality. From Arioch, Prince Corum required his heart…
Daybreak on a Different Mountain

Daybreak on a Different Mountain

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Colin Greenland

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Walled off from a world it no longer remembers, the city of Thryn decays in arrogant isolation. Its ancient scriptures tell of the god,Gomath, who will one day return to perfect his city. But his return has been long awaited.

In a bizarre coincidence of events, Lupio, a cynical and decadent young aristocrat, is unwillingly entangled in the prophecy. Appalled, he decides to break ancient law and flee the city. He joins up with Dubilier, a failed poet and dreamer, who is trying to escape from the death of inspiration and love. Together they travel through uncharted lands in search of the lost god. One of them wants to find him. The other certainly does not…
Between the Strokes of Night

Between the Strokes of Night

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Charles Sheffield

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In the 277th century, Earth is dead, but mankind survives in colonies scattered across the galaxy. To these new worlds come the Immortals, beings with strange ties to ancient Earth who seem to live forever, who can travel light years in days – and who use their strange powers to control the existence of ordinary mortals. On the planet Pentecost, a small group sets out to find and challenge the Immortals. But in the search they themselves are changed: as Immortals, they discover a new threat, not just to themselves, but to the galaxy itself.
Demon Moon

Demon Moon

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Jack Williamson

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According to legend, Zorn’s distant ancestors had vanquished fiery devils from the Demon Moon. Now, a thousand years later, that bloody red world looms closer every day.

But Zorn knows little of the past. For generations, his family have been Lords of Wolver Riding, flying their winged unicorns to protect the land from werewolves, wyverns and other deadly threats. As Zorn grows, he finds his world increasingly strange. Where did the werewolves come from? How did unicorns fly?

His questions end the day his evil uncle usurps the throne. Torn between ancient fears and modern science, wooed by a seductive temptress and plagued by a demonic priest, Zorn must unlock secrets shrouded in the mists of time – or watch everything he loves be consumed in the hellfire of the . . .
Ancient of Days

Ancient of Days

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Michael Bishop

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Imagine a living specimen of a multimillion-year-old hominid species, Homo habilis, encountering the contemporary world.

Told in the first-person narrative of Paul Loyd, divorced owner of a small town restaurant, Ancient of Days tells the story of a habiline man found wandering in a Georgia pecan orchard, a living descendant of a habiline tribe, brought from Africa via Haiti as a slave. Paul’s ex-wife, RuthClaire, takes in the living fossil, appropriately naming him Adam, and as an artist she discovers Adam’s mute but vibrant artistic sensibility, falls in love with him, and marries him – much to Paul’s confusion and dismay.

And then the story begins to widen out onto a broader canvas, as Adam first faces persecution by small town Georgia Klansmen, then, surviving that, moves with RuthClaire to Atlanta and encounters the whole spectrum of American culture, from art critics and media spectacles to evangelists and punk clubs.

Throughout the peregrinations and travails of Adam, however, runs a rich and developing strain of self-conscious spiritual, intellectual, and artistic growth, interwoven with Adam’s genuine anguish over the problematic nature of his true humanity.

In the end, the central characters come together on the Haitian island of Montarez in the aftermath of crisis, and in a moment of illumination and revelation meet the mysterious and extraordinary origins of Adam and his race in human prehistory.
The Day of Their Return

The Day of Their Return

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Poul Anderson

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Back under the thumb of the Terran Empire after leading their planetary sector in an almost successful war against Imperial rule, Commissioner Desai saw real trouble brewing this time. A strange, fanatical movement was spreading like wildfire: there were rumours of the return of the fabled Elder Race: the Firstling, leader-elect of the planet, was on the run and hiding from Imperialist retribution. And off-planet agents from the Ythrian Domain and Mersia, Terra’s ancient foe, were abroad in the land. Unless Commissioner Desai could damp the fuse of rebellion, the universe would begin its terrifying descent into the Long Night . . .
The Sleeping City

The Sleeping City

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E.C. Tubb

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From the opening reared a head, wide, flat, huge. Below it stretched a body beautiful with iridescent scales of gold edged with ruby. Nictitating membranes lifted over enormous eyes, deep, limpid pools of ancient wisdom, catching and reflecting the light of the miniature sun, turning the glowing orb into a scatter of stars shimmering in an ebon sea. From open jaws a forked tongue flickered with a soft susurration. Its scent was dry, acrid, tinged with that of living fur on a summer’s day. The head rose higher, swaying over the three men on the ledge, the sinuous length of the body almost filling the passage through which it had come. From it radiated an impression of incredible age.

“A serpent,” whispered Thagamista. “A creature from the beginning of time. Somehow surviving to find this place and feast on those who well here. It was inevitable they should think it a god.”

THE SLEEPING CITY continues the dynamic saga of the Chronicles of Malkar, E.C. Tubb’s newest fantasy hero!
The Great Fetish

The Great Fetish

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L. Sprague deCamp

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On the 15th day of Franklin, Year of Descent 1008, in the Kralate of Vizantia Planet Kforri.

A young teacher, Marko Prokopiu, is convicted and jailed. His heinous crime: preaching the false and unholy belief that Kforri was originally settled by men arriving from Earth in flying machines – a dangerous heresy against the official doctrine of divine evolution.

Goaded into jail-break by his wife’s desertion and mightily armed with his father’s great ax, Markorushes to avenge his marital honour. With an eminent philosopher, Dr. Halran, inventor of the incredible hot-air balloon, Marko journeys perilously to exotic lands – to decadent Anglonia, hostile Afka, civilised Eropia and, at last, the all-female Isle of Mnaenn. There, by clever ruse and uncommon physical daring, he must recover the Great Fetish and solve the riddle of planet Kforri’s ancient history, or meet a fate more complicated than death!
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