Search Results for: no-enemy-but-time

THE VAULT IN THE VALLEY

On a far semi-desert world, shunned by trade routes, and unattractive to star travellers, there is a barren and isolated valley. Dominating this valley is a great time-eroded Sphinx-like construction – a mass known to the few who have looked upon it as the Skull of Sykoris.

Cap Kennedy followed a dangerous trail across many worlds – a trail of murder, duels, and evil – to find that it ended there, before the Skull, confronting a mystery older than all mankind.

Beneath that Sphinx lay something desired by Earth’s old enemies. Beneath it lay something that lured the criminal minds of many worlds. But what it was none knew – until Cap Kennedy himself released the frightful power of the Eater of Worlds.

It was the party of a lifetime – but she never arrived…

‘Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion’ New York Times

When popular young schoolteacher Nina Redfield reports to police the whereabouts of Bushie Neal, a criminal on the run, she sets off a chain of events over which she has no control.

Nina is about to leave for a Hallowe’en party at a friend’s house. An escort is sent to collect her, so it’s no surprise to Nina when a masked man in a Harlequin costume calls for her. But Nina and her escort never reach the party . . .

Could her past association with Bushie’s sworn enemy Nick Brazza have any connection to her disappearance? And has she been spirited to safety – or further into danger?

Chemical symbol… atomic number… atomic weight…

Scientific terms for gold… but science can’t begin to explain the mystery and magic of gold.

It was gold that lured the ‘Secret Legion’ – as oddly mixed a group of adventures as any song or story – into the world’s most treacherous desert.

And gold they found – a golden man, and exotic golden woman, a huge golden tiger, and an eerie golden snake.

Gold brought them together… gold made them enemies in a battle to the death… gold held the key to the mysterious forces that assailed them.

Jack Williamson, alchemist with words, spins a rare web of adventure, fantasy and science… a gem from the golden age of Weird Tales, now available in book form for the first time.

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.

Asgard’s not an easy world to get away from. Mike Rousseau only wants to take a vacation in his home system, but he’s back before he has time to draw breath, and he’s been drafted into the Space Force once again. His new mission is even more dangerous than the last one, the number of his enemies has increased vastly, and his friends haven’t improved at all. By way of compensation, he has another chance to get closer to the mystery at Asgard’s heart–but the inhabitants of the megaplanet’s core are no longer content to sit quietly and wait to be found. They’ve discovered the outside universe, and are trying to decide what to do about it–but they have problems of their own. Only Rousseau can cross the boundaries between species, and offer each of the races a possible solution.

John of the Hawks was a proud, young man, proud of his people, proud of his heritage, and proud of his ability to count coup on his clann’s traditional enemies. He knew what was right and what was wrong – the four great books had laid down the way things had to be.

Which is why the uncouth ways of the clannless drifters from space outraged him so. Not only did these peddlers know nothing of the finesse of proper combat, they knew nothing of the respect due to such things as the coup stick, the right way to capture a wife, and the sanctity of the clann’s elders.

Worse still, they had some idiotic notion that that cheap silvery metal so commonly used for plumbing and horse-bits, known as platinum, was somehow of special merit.

Well, one could excuse an outrage or two on the grounds of ignorance, but there came a time when any good clannsman, such as John certainly was, must decide to teach these barbarians from space a lesson!

From “An Abbreviated History of the Bolo”:

The first completely automated Bolo, designed to operate normally without a man on board, was the landmark XV Model M. This model, first commissioned in the twenty-fifty century, was widely used throughout the Eastern Arm during the Era of Expansion and remained in service on remote worlds for over two centuries, acquiring many improvements in detail while remaining basically unchanged, through increasing sophistication of circuitry and weapons vastly upgraded its effectiveness.

The always-present, through perhaps unlikely, possibility of capture and use of a Bolo by an enemy was a constant source of anxiety to military leaders and, in time, gave rise to the next and final major advance in Bolo technology: the self-directing (and, quite incidentally, self-aware) Mark XX Model B Bolo Tremendous.

The Mark XX was greeted with little enthusiasm by the High Command, who now professed to believe that an unguided-by-operator Bolo would potentially be capable of running amok…

Nick Walker can pass for eighteen, which comes in useful while living on the streets. But Nick isn’t eighteen. He’s fourteen. He’s been fourteen for years . . .

A chance encounter with Manta, an exceedingly powerful witch, sees Nick cursed with changelessness. Not only will he never age, but, more usefully to Manta, broken bones and sliced flesh, while excruciatingly painful, will mend themselves in a short space of time – making Nick the perfect weapon against the demonic assassins sent by the evil Cartel. Constantly hunted, Nick is forced to run – evading his enemy when he can and facing gruesome and bloody battles when he can’t.

But, help comes from a surprising source – April, a young girl Nick rescues from some occult enthusiasts intent on sacrificing her, has powers beyond her control or understanding. Together, might they be a match for the sinister forces that stalk them?

Pip and Flinx: Book Ten.

Never have the cares of the universe lain so heavily on Flinx’s shoulders, nor the forces against him seemed so invincible. Pursued by a newly revealed sect of doomsday fanatics and hunted by factions inside and outside the Commonwealth, he is expected to single-handedly avert a looming galactic crisis (or bear responsibility for the consequences.) Flinx can be forgiven for feeling a slight touch of melancholy.

According to his ship’s Al, there’s only one solution for what ails Flinx – a vacation. But with increasing number of enemies chasing him with ever greater enthusiasm, Flinx must find a getaway shrouded in obscurity. It seems that Jast, a planet smack in the middle of nowhere, is prefect, but trouble can find Flinx anywhere. What he doesn’t know is that his vacation paradise is a danger zone of the highest magnitude. And by the time he learns the truth, it may be too late.

Alien horror becomes a living nightmare as the Xenos, meaning “strangers”, inflict mayhem on earth.

International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course.

National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Military officials, the government and the FBI work alongside physician Mark Freedman and Soviet scientists to uncover the supernatural mystery that lies behind these unexplainable events. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures that not even the wildest imagination could invent – sinister parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision.

The terror that unfolds has terrifying consequences for all involved, and the invasion reveals something much more frightening and final than ever suspected.

Since time began, twenty Gods have ruled the universe. Though each god possessed different abilities, each was all-powerful within his realm. Now one of the Gods has upset the balance of power, leaving the others scrambling for control in the new order…

Here is the epic tale of the Great War of the Gods – and the proud people upon whom the fate of the world depends. When the God of the desert, Akhran the Wanderer, declares that two clans must band together despite their centuries-old rivalry, their first response is outrage. But they are a devout people and so reluctantly bow to his bidding.

Enemies from birth, the headstrong Prince Khardan and impetuous Princess Zohra must unite in marriage to stop Quar, the God of Reality, Greed, and Law, from enslaving their people.

But can Khardan and Zohra keep from betraying each other? Can their two peoples maintain their fragile alliance until the long-awaited flowering of the legendary Rose of the Prophet?

Against the powerful legions of the evil Amir, Khardan and Zohra fight to save the desert people – a fight unexpectedly joined by an exiled wizard named Matthew and the mysterious powers of his alien land.

What if you could change your gender with barely a thought?
Cory Lanus is a teen out of place. He doesn’t fit in. He doesn’t act right. There’s something off about him. Or so his friend Jaz Andrews believes.
Jaz is a typical teenage girl with too much schoolwork, grief at home, and a huge crush on the new guy. She spends as much time with him as she can, to the chagrin of her friends, yet she can’t get close enough to him. Surely he likes her as much as she likes him.
Cory is out of place. Far out of place. On the run from his family’s enemy, Corilanus has literally landed on earth, his home world’s only hope for survival. He finds comfort on this seemingly backward planet that puts so much emphasis on what everyone expects you to be. Cory finds being a boy comfortable enough, but sometimes being a girl works too.
But when someone from his home comes looking for him, Cory’s new found peace is set for destruction because those he left behind have come to finish what they started and nothing, especially not his new friends, are going to stand in their way.

Eight hundred years have passed since King Connavar of the Rigante and his bastard son, Bane, defeated the invading army of Stone. In that time, Connavar has become a legend, and the Rigante have lost the freedom so many gave their lives to preserve. A conquered people, they live and die under the iron rule of the Varlish, their culture all but destroyed.

One woman remains who follows the ancient paths once trod by the

Rigante. She is the Wyrd of Wishing Tree Wood, and she alone knows the nature of the evil soon to be unleashed on a doomed and unsuspecting world.

In a perilous land, facing an uncertain destiny, she pins her initial hopes on two men: Jaim Grymauch, the giant Rigante fighter, a man haunted by his failure to save the friend he loved from betrayal, and Kaelin Ring, a youth whose deadly talents will earn him the enmity of all Varlish. One will become the Ravenheart, an outlaw leader whose daring exploits will inspire the Rigante. The other will forge a legend and light the fires of rebellion.

The Wyrd knows that ultimately all hopes will rest on a third man. Of the bloodline of Connavar the King, he will need to overcome generations of fear and hatred if he is to achieve his destiny. For he is a Varlish nobleman, and – worse – the son of the Rigante’s greatest enemy . . .

Read by Adjoh Andoh
(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

Kicking off one of the most celebrated series in fantasy literature . . . and introducing Thomas Covenant, the legendary antihero, who is about to start a dark adventure like no other

He called himself Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, because he dared not believe in the strange alternative world on which he suddenly found himself – the Land.

But the Land tempted him. As a leper, in his own world he had been an outcast, unclean, a pariah. Now he was regarded as a saviour, the reincarnation of the Land’s greatest hero – Berek Halfhand. Only the mystic powers of the white gold he carried could protect the Lords of the Land from the ancient evil of the Despiser, Lord Foul.

Yet Thomas Covenant had no idea how those powers could be tapped . . .

Readers love Lord Foul’s Bane:

‘It has to be one of the strangest, most frightening, and surrealistic fantasy worlds ever created . . . Stephen R Donaldson is my unsung hero of fantasy greatness. He is up there with the best’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Thomas Covenant is a character unlike most you’ll probably see in other fantasy stories . . . if you are interested in high fantasy stories, a colourful setting rich in magic and lore, and enjoy broken main characters, this could be a great title for you’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘What I loved most about these stories: that nothing was easy or assured for the “Hero”. He was his own worst enemy . . . Yet, I rooted for Thomas’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘I remember thinking at the time that for as much as I liked the LOTR, the bad guys just weren’t bad enough . . . Lord Foul’s Bane answered those issues and then some’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘A classic in the genre that is quite unlike anything I’ve read before . . . believable and fascinating, despite being disturbing at times‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘There are scenes in this series that literally had me in tears they were so moving and other scenes that made me put down the book in utter amazement . . . It will take your breath away‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐