Search Results for: through-the-darkness

As the war which consumes Dervelai drags on, Algarve’s reserves become more and more stretched. King Mezentio undertakes war on many fronts, and his main armies become sucked in to the huge landmass of Unkerlant, their main enemy. As conquered races are inducted into the Algarvian army, their fighting edge softens, and swift victory becomes ever more necessary, leading to the sacrifice of more and more Kaunians to allow Algervian mages to create ever stronger blood sorcery. Meanwhile, the mad King Swemmel of Unkerlant orders the death of thousands of his own subjects in an attempt to match the magecraft of Algarve. But the most deadly magic of all is taking place on a small island, where the ultimate weapon is coming slowly to fruition.

Gisela von Hohenems joins the teaching staff of an exclusive girls’ school in upstate New York, where she befriends fellow newcomer Faustina Coyle. But a climate of fear surrounds Faustina, and after several strange incidents that defy rational explanation, she is forced to resign.

Gisela asks her fiancé, detective-psychologist Dr Basil Willing, to investigate in this highly acclaimed horror-mystery with shades of M. R. James.

Kane – indestructible swordsman, invincible sorcerer, immortal wanderer through strange worlds. Efrel, Empress of Pellin, seeks vengeance on the King of Thovnos and chooses Kane as her champion.

When Commander Herries of the Space Line began to sell the water of Mars as a ‘potion’ for lengthening life he had no idea that he was going to create the world’s greatest thirst and produce havoc among the two social grades of Earth – the Inelligentsia and the Normals. But produce it he did.

Among the confusion thus produced one man thinks clearly for his own ends – Vance Unthra, the leading scientist of the world – and he sees in the crisis which has hit Earth a way to be rid of all those who do not measure up to what he thinks as an intellectual standard. By his orders two synthetic worlds are created – Alpha and Omega – and to these are ruthlessly evacuated all the victims of the Martian water, there to rebuild there shattered fortunes and never cross the ‘Dark Boundaries’ which exist between those worlds and Earth.

Despite his careful planning, however, Unthra makes one mistake. In destroying the power of the Martian water over the evacuated thousands he miscalculates the strength of cosmic radiation on Omega with the result that the leader – the Controllix – of this world, Sylvia Grantham, becomes a far greater power in the grand scheme of things than her former lover, Dexter Carfax. Through the machinations of the wily Unthra open hostility breaks out between Dexter Carfax and the girl, and eventually their worlds are destroyed through the influence of a deadly chain reaction ‘disease’ from the Great Red Spot of Jupoter.

Both of them, however, through the various experiences they undergo, hold to one objective – to be avenged on Vance Unthra for his viciousness.

Emerging from the burned remains of their old home, the ancient, elegant Scarabae ready themselves for a new life of seduction and feasting, until little Ruth ignites a blaze of chaos through the streets of London that threatens them all.

This is book two in the Blood Opera series.

In his previous ‘Darkness’ books – Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, and Through the Darkness – bestselling author Harry Turtledove has been telling an epic tale of a world at war; a dark mirror of the terrible wars of our own twentieth century, set in a world where battles are fought with magic rather than technology.

Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War in such a place. The death, the destruction, the sheer scale of the horror is the same – but the bullets are beams of eldritch fire, the tanks are great horned and taloned beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. This is the world of the Derlavaian continent, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile after bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian Empire… forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people.

In this, the forth volume of the series, following on from Through the Darkness, the war for the future of Derlavai builds towards its crescendo as the mages of Kuusamo, aided by their former rivals from Lagoas, work desperately to create a newer form of magic. Magic of unprecedented destructive power. Magic that will change the course of the future.

FAILWAY- the organisation whose process could break through into an inferior energy level, transporting the people into other dimensions, bringing them pleasures simple, exciting, exotic or erotic…
FAILWAY- a police state, which tolerated no opposition. It was ruthless, thorough, and invariably fatal to its opponents…
FAILWAY- against whose other-world power stood one man…
DALROI

Commodore John Grimes was finally getting his space wings back. On his old ship, Faraway Quest, Grimes was to venture forth to the very Rim of the known worlds, seeing … The Outsider.

“The Outsider’s Ship … is a storehouse of science and technology … we, and the Federation, and the Shaara Empire, and probably quite a few more, have sent expeditions. Every one has ended disastrously.”

So, it is out to the Rim and find The Outsider. But the mystery ship is not always easy to find. And other worlds, too, yearn for the treasures of the alien technology. What Commodore Grimes finds at the Rim, and what finds him there, sends him racing through time tracks, surrounded by enemies and temporary friends, trying endlessly to discover the secret dangers of … The Outsider.

Since the first classical ghost story was written, and since the unexplainable caught the imaginations of men, the mysteries of ancient Egypt have captivated the reading public in both fact and fiction.
Non one who walks through the Egyptian exhibits of a museum can fail to be impressed by the immense number and complexity of the exhibits.
What meanings lie hidden in that ageless heiroglyphic writing?
What forbidden knowledge lurks behind the inscrutable eyes of Nephthys, Guardian of the Dead?
What dreadful secrets are revealed when the seals around the lid of a sarcophagus are broken?
Do the falcon-headed gods Horus and Set still walk the earth?
Do the carnivorous fangs of the weird Anubis still seek the human blood.
Does Mont, the macabre bull-headed god still hold sinister sway in forgotten corners of the Delta?
The explorers who raided the timeless tomb at Luxor discovered to their cost, that an Egyptian curse was independent of time and space…

The grand conflict for control of the continent of Derlavai rages on, in a battle with all the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks and submarines are great lumbering beasts, and the fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets.

Yet hope may be dawning at last. The terrible onslaught of the conquering forces of Algarve-who power their battle magics with the life energy of their murdered victims-begins to founder as it runs into Habbakuk: a sorcerous ship of ice used by embattled nations of Lagoas and Kuusamo to ferry their deadly dragons across the seas to strike at the very heart of Algarvian power.

But though the tide has begun to turn, the conflict is far from over. The widely disdained Kaunians still struggle desperately to escape as the Algarvians kill them by the thousands-for life energy, but also simply for the crime of being Kaunian. And as the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides continue to feed the flames of war, those who have struggled to survive and preserve their freedom have only their passions to see them through. . . .

Regein was the first human colony struck by the Quarn – aliens never seen by man, yet who sow a strange death through man’s crumbling empire. In humanity’s wreckage, Ling Sanjen, a rare half-breed Caucasian, sets forth to find what – and who – has broken the spirit of mankind…

The King’s Rider Justin has been dispatched to watch any suspicious activity at the convent that houses the fanatical Daughters of the Pale Mother. Worshippers of the moon goddess, they believe that all magic-wielding mystics are evil. Yet, in their midst, a young novice named Ellynor possesses the gift of healing and the ability to move through the night unobserved. Assuming the guise of a stablehand, Justin befriends Ellynor – and love blossoms between them. And when he discovers her magical talents, Justin will risk everything – his own secret, the trust of his friends, even his very life – in order to save her…

Telling the story of a dying Earth, The Night Land begins with a man from the 17th century who, mourning the death of his true love, is given a vision through the eyes his future incarnation. In that distant time Earth is only dimly lit by the remaining glow of the dead Sun. The last millions of the human race cluster together inside the Last Redoubt, a huge metal pyramid, and are set upon by mysterious forces from the dark outside. Leaving the protection of their refuge means certain death, but our narrator makes mind contact with a survivor in a forgotten Lesser Redoubt. He must journey alone through the evil darkness to find her, knowing that she is the reincarnation of his past precious love.

That first visit to Mars had been a mistake. A miraculous journey out through the myriad miles of space and back, back through the millennia to a time before Man existed, it had been the chance result of a small-scale malfunction in an experimental matter transfer machine.
But Michael Kane’s first great adventure in a world where great mythic armies battled, where hugely bizarre creatures roamed and deeds of high heroism and dark treachery resounded, was but the start. For as he learned to control and use the machinery, he was to return to Mars again and again.
The second volume of the Martian adventures of Michael Kane, of the proud Princess Shizala, her warrior brother and the darkly beautiful but evil Horguhl, as book two of the Warrior of Mars series is available in ebook for the first time!

Duke Dorian Hawkmoon’s quest to destroy the Dark Empire of Granbretan leads him onto the path of a man who possess a rare ring that allows men to travel through time. Hawkmoon uses this ring to travel to a far future New Orleans, where he must battle the Pirate Lords who possess the Great Sword of the Dawn, which can end the Dark Empire once and for all.

Dorian Hawkmoon, the last Duke of Koln, swore to destroy the Dark Empire of Granbretan. But after his defeat and capture at the hands of the vast forces of the Empire, Hawkmoon becomes a puppet, co-opted by his arch nemesis, the ruthless Baron Meliadus, to infiltrate the last stronghold of rebellion against Granbretan: the small but powerful city of the Kamarg. He has been implanted with a black jewel, through which the Dark Empire can control his every decision. But in the stronghold of the Kamarg, Hawkmoon discovers the power inside him to overcome any control, and his vengeance against the Dark Empire is filled with an unrelenting fury.

The romantic legend of the Holy Grail is almost without parallel in the stories of chivalry. It has about it a quality of inspiration and a standard of purity that transcends everyday life. It shines like a star through the darkness of the Dark Ages. But what if Satan has his own counterpart? What if – just as the Black Mass of the witches and wizards, is an abominable reversal of the Holy Communion Service of the Christian – what if, then, there is an Unholy grail? A sinister thing of death and terror. A glittering, golden chalice forged in the nethermost chasms of Hell, wrought by the hands of unholy craftsmen. Gilded by demons, decked with gems by jewellers who life with the Prince of Darkness.

A thing that originated below the dark hills where trolls dwell…

That, too, would be the object of many a quest. There would be dedicated heroes searching to destroy it. There would be unscrupulous men who wanted to employ its dark power for their own ends. There would be weak men unable to resist its call. There would be strong men whose wills clashed with the almost irresistible power of the Golden Goblet.

The third book of The Eternal Champion trilogy.

John Daker is the Eternal Champion, trapped in a dimensionless plane outside of time, defender and destroyer of justice, a hero whose quest for justice leads only further into darkness.

Haunted by the memories of too many battles waged during countless lifetimes, he searches for the beautiful Ermizhad – and for the key that will allow him to step off the wheel of infinite incarnations. His is a voyage on a dark ship piloted by a blind helmsman, through the slave stalls of the Cannibal Ghost Women and the tunnels of doom to a monstrous confrontation with the Evil that could plunge the world into the final night of oblivion.

It is the 21st century, and a man can journey through time in the form of disembodied consciousness. Now Roy Colton is about to leap 20,000 years into the past. His mission: to observe the fabled city-island of Atlantis through the mind of its royal heir, Prince Ram. But Roy is soon worried by Ram’s dark dreams. Do they presage the island’s legendary destruction? And how can Atlantis be so technologically brilliant during a barbaric ice age? Boldly, Roy seeks the truth, yet nothing can prepare him for the strange secret of Atlantis’s past…and future.

Pel Brown has troubles in his basement. But it’s not water leaking in – it’s magic. Sword-carrying barbarians are spilling through, demanding that Pel help them defeat Shadow, a dark force taking over their world.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a spaceship has crashed in Amy Jewell’s backyard, and the aliens want Amy’s help against the Shadow seeking to conquer their world. When Pel and Amy go through the basement portal into the world of magic, the Shadow attacks and traps them inside.

Now Pel and Amy find themselves entangled in escapades that will make them into heroes … or corpses.

Aejole Ehomba has led his companions through jungle, veldt, and desert. Now to reach the fabled port of Hamacassar, the simple herdsman must trek through deadly “civilized” lands where flowers wage war, dogs herd lightning, demons govern the darkness, and Time itself can be held captive.

In this new world, the tribesman must rely upon his friends, wondrous weapons, and the magic of memories so potent they can raise the dead or bring the sea to dry land. But no matter where he goes, every seer and sage Ehomba mets offes the same prophecy: his quest will end in failure …and death.

When Lieutenant Thomas Savage of the Polar Warfare Research Section found the frozen corpse of a woman from another age, little did he know what fearful realms her supernatural influence would lead him into. By taking the Blue Cordon from her mummified body he opened the way to a journey through Fear and the Land of Eternal Dark . . .

Warm Worlds and Otherwise contains the following stories:

All the Kinds of Yes
The Milk of Paradise
And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost Ways
The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
Amberjack
Through a Lass Darkly
The Girl Who Was Plugged In
The Night-Blooming Saurian
The Women Men Don’t See
Fault
Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death
On the Last Afternoon

Dick Darwent brooded in a dark cell of Newgate Prison – waiting to be hanged. Lady Caroline Ross, rich, cold and beautiful, prepared a champagne breakfast to celebrate her marriage. How were the fates of these two people intertwined? And how were their lives changed by a shot through a bathroom window, a riot at the opera, a pistol duel at dawn, and a mysterious coachman whose cloak was stained with graveyard mold?