Search Results for: ring

Captain Future meets Captain Future…

The two men stood facing each other.

One man was tall and impressive. His red hair, his self-assured manner, the global ring he wore on his finger, left no question in the minds of viewers that he was the man he said he was – the man known the Solar System over as Captain Future.

The other man was tall too, but fierce looking, with a wild black beard and a scarred face. They called him Blackbeard and believed he was a space pirate, although the main claimed he didn’t remember who he was. Not even he suspected that he might be the real Captain Future…

The ability to see other-dimensional rings that float in Earth’s atmosphere was a late mutation of a few space-age humans. Daryl was under the care of the institution for muters, and she had discovered that if you jumped through the right ring at the right time it would land you in another dimensional world and another shape.



Spaceling is the story of Daryl’s desperate efforts to unravel the mystery of why she was being held captive and of what was really going on in a certain alien dimension. Because she was sure it was all bad and that someday everyone would thank her for the revelation.



But instead everyone was engaged in a wild effort to hold her down, to keep her on this Earth, and to keep the world simply intact!

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

Quayle, the master of a British spy ring in World War II, is faced with the task of dealing with a man who has come from Morocco with what he says is important information about German troops there. But is the man what he seems?

Quayle puts his agents into action, not hesitating to risk their lives to discover the answer, but it is Quayle who ends up doing most of the work – and who is prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause of war.

Lou Fingerhut’s boxing career is finished, but a golden opportunity drops into his lap, one that could see him right for life. Soon he and his old ring mates, Goldie and China, are caught up in an ever-expanding net of crime and violence, chalking up a score of four murders and a jewel robbery.

With the police moving in at one end and a rival underworld gang at the other, it dawns on them that they’re in deeper than they could have imagined possible. Will they ever break out of this game alive?

A brilliant but sadistic safe-breaker; a beautiful seductress; an expert young hunter and an ace pilot with a shady past – this is the team that undercover operator Armo Shalik assembles to steal the priceless Borgia ring from millionaire Max Kahlenberg’s closely guarded fortress in the remote and deadly African bush.

But when Kahlenberg finds out they are coming, the gang’s expedition turns into a strictly one-way safari – to slaughter …

‘Insanely readable’ Observer

Young Roderick Kinsmere was a country bumpkin when he strolled into the Great Court of Charles II’s Whitehall Palace. Three days later he had lost his fortune, gained a wife, fought for – and been outwitted by – his king, and no one would ever call Rowdy Kinsmere a bumpkin again.

It was 1670 and London was a teeming, filthy, dangerous and splendiferous place. The king was in trouble and Roderick was surrounded by plots and counterplots. And somehow everything centred on the beautiful sapphire ring he had inherited from his father …

‘Mr Carr has contrived a fine, adventurous entertainment of politics and piracy, espionage and murder’ The Times

‘Roger waited but nothing further came. Dayne’s expression, however, told its story. A story of fear and cunning …’

Tony Dayne’s predicament presents a problem. The English police had promised him escape and immunity for feeding them all he knew about his partners in an international counterfeiting ring.

But an accident and an over-zealous policeman gets Tony pulled during the raid. The best the police can do for him is appoint a young lawyer, Roger Elwin, who does some detecting that takes him as far afield as Vienna and the violent end of yet another conspirator.

A body in the belfry… and a gruesome mystery to uncover for the inimitable Crook and Parsons.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

The bell of St Ethelburga’s had stopped ringing. It had pealed out its customary call to the faithful, its gentle reproach to the sluggards; but somehow that morning it did not seem to ring as long as usual. For Death had been busy in the belfry, where a startled vicar made an appalling discovery.

The murder in the church begins another mystery for the inimitable Crook and Parsons, who shine with their trademark ingenuity and impudence.

A mission to help refugees – but someone has murder in mind…
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

It is at a local watering hole, the Duck and Daisy, that lawyer-detective Arthur Crook happens upon a party of men and women calling themselves the Peace Brigadiers. Their mission is to aid refugees from Europe.

But it isn’t long before Crook suspects one of them is using the premises for criminal ends. And when murder strikes Crook becomes entangled in a treacherous plot . . .

An ordinary day – which turns to blackmail and murder.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

What seemed like an ordinary phone call in the middle of the afternoon suddenly plunges its recipient, Simon Crete, into a plot of blackmail and murder.

‘Tell him it’s no use. I haven’t got it,’ the mystery woman’s voice cried desperately down the line. But who was she? And why was she ringing a man whom she had never seen?

Jerry Jamison wants out: out of a sloppy marriage, a dull job and the empty suburban rat race. Once Jerry had a beautiful bride and a good salary at her old man’s successful business – that was before his wife turned into a lush. Before the business started to go to pieces. And before the lazy afternoon when Vince Biskay, an old army buddy, rings his doorbell and makes an intriguing proposition. Vince promises to bring excitement into Jerry’s life – and money – but this is a plan that leaves only death and destruction in its wake.

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

Famous LAPD husband and wife sleuths Sergeant Ivor and Detective Sue Maddox return again, this time juggling half a dozen investigations at once. Balancing solving the cases of an enterprising team of daytime burglars, a scandalous sex ring and suspicious-seeming fatal accidents, they are stretched to the limit when a grandmother and her two-year-old granddaughter are discovered murdered . . .

Dark family secrets can be murder . . .
‘Joan Aiken’s triumph with this genre is that she does it so much better than others’ New York Times Book Review

Married to an ambitious but feckless architect and living in the pretentious show home they can ill afford, Jane is forced to return to work, leaving her children in the care of a less than reassuring childminder. As the weeks pass, her disintegrating marriage and the discovery of her husband’s secrets lead Jane into a battle to save both herself and her children from an explosive summer of hatred, jealousy – and murder.

This claustrophobic thriller, based on events from the author’s own life and her struggles as a young widow, marries the desperate ring of truth with all the added horror of Joan Aiken’s gothic imagination.

PI Mike Hammer is moving through the dark streets of New York City when he hears a child’s terrible scream. When he finds the child, he also discovers the naked body of a beautiful woman who has been beaten to death with a whip.

So begins a complicated and baffling case, involving the deaths of other women and a newspaper reporter, who was tracking aspects of the case as well as following the lives of the city’s prostitutes. Mike uncovers a sadistic ring of international figures, where women risk their lives for a fortune in an attempt to pull themselves out of despair.

Can Mike, with the help of his beloved Velda, break the ring that is crushing the lives of vulnerable women?

They took her identity – they wanted her life – but they couldn’t take her spirit.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

When Julia Ross, a jobless and penniless young woman, is sent to meet a prospective employer, she is oblivious to the trap that awaits her. As she rings the bell to 30 Henriques Square, the door opens on a London household ruled by a woman dressed in red with murderous intentions. For Julia is exactly what she needs – someone with no family, no connections, who will not be missed…

Two days later, Julia awakes in a different house in different clothes and with a new identity. And no one will believe anything she says.

But the woman in red hadn’t reckoned on a secret admirer even Julia didn’t know she had – and the indefatigable sleuth Arthur Crook.

A wedding ring, a missing woman, a bizarre disappearance…

Brock and Poole have one of their most unusual cases to unravel

‘Devilishly engaging characters and authentic details of police operations’ Booklist

When Eunice Bailey takes her wedding ring to a London jeweller to have it enlarged, she is very keen for it to be done quickly. She is a reliable and favoured customer and when the jeweller is unable to get in touch with her to collect the ring, he contacts the police.

Detective Chief Inspector Brock and Detective Sergeant Poole are assigned to the case, and what begins as a fairly simple missing person enquiry develops into a mystery that has ramifications stretching as far as Bermuda . . .

From the vaults of the SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal introduction to the varied work of author, editor and critic, L. Sprague de Camp.

Although arguably best known for his continuation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, de Camp was an important figure in the formative period of modern SF, alongside the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. In a career spanning seven decades, he won the HUGO, WORLD FANTASY LIFE ACHIEVEMENT and SFWA GRAND MASTER AWARDs. This omnibus collects three previously out-of-print classics: LEST DARKNESS FALL, ROGUE QUEEN and THE TRITONIAN RING.

Lest Darkness Fall:
The Roman Empire had spread order, knowledge and civilisation throughout the ancient world. When Rome fell, the light of reason flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun; they would last a thousand years. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the fall of Rome?

Rogue Queen:
Decades before a certain five-year voyage, L. Sprague de Camp sent a spirited crew to a strange and distant world, where their meeting with its inhabitants created chaos in local politics, upset the balance of power and generally created the most entertaining havoc.

The Tritonian Ring:
The gods of Poseidonis – or Atlantis – were powerful and real. Now they were determined to destroy the kingdom ruled by the father of Prince Vakar, the one man whose mind they could not read. The only way to save the kingdom was to discover that thing which the gods feared most.

Thomas Covenant found himself once again summoned to the Land. The Council of Lords needed him to move against Foul the Despiser who held the Illearth Stone, ancient source of evil power.

But although Thomas Covenant held the legendary white gold ring, he didn’t know how to use its strength, and risked losing everything . . .

Patricia A. McKillip is the author of a number of hugely acclaimed fantasies, including The Riddle-Master of Hed and its sequels, which have been compared to Gene Wolfe’s epic Book of the New Sun, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Ombria in Shadow, both of which won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. She has won the Mythopoeic Award three times and in 2008 was given the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement. This omnibus collects three of her later works: In the Forests of Serre, Alphabet of Thorn and The Bell at Sealey Head.

IN THE FORESTS OF SERRE: In the tales of World Fantasy Award-winning author Patricia McKillip, nothing is ever as it seems. A mirror is never just a mirror; a forest is never just a forest. Here, it is a place where a witch can hide in her house of bones and a prince can bargain with his heart…where good and evil entwine and wear each others’ faces…and where a bird with feathers of fire can quench the fiercest longing…

ALPHABET OF THORN: One of the most spectacular fantasists of our time, Patricia A. McKillip creates fairy tale worlds of wonder and magic. Now, she opens the page on a time and place where an orphan girl is haunted by thorns…a reluctant queen rules between sea and sky… and epics never end…

THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD: Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses.

Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses …

She distrusted him at first, not least because she knew his words were lies. “Call me Grey,” he said, but that was not his name. Fear gripped her like a hand.

No one but the priestess could look upon the relics: the Ring, the Jewel and the Bone. It was for the bone that this grey stranger had come. He was like a thief, but she realized with a sinking heart that he was armed with as much magic as herself, and maybe more.

When J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings was published, reviewers saw that there was only one book with which it could legitimately be compared: E.R. Eddison’s classic fantasy adventure The Worm Ouroboros.

Set on a distant planet of spectacular beauty and peopled by Lords and Kings, mighty warriors and raven-haired temptresses, Eddison’s extravagant story, of a great war for total domination, is an unforgettable work of splendour.

Return to the eon-spanning and universe-crossing conflict between humanity and the unknowable alien Xeelee in this collection of stories, available in ebook for the first time!

Baxter’s future history, known as the Xeelee sequence, is an exemplar of the form: it comprises his first four novels – Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring – and these marvellous linked stories, as well as those in the new collection XEELEE: ENDURANCE.

Contains 21 short stories, all set in the XEELEE universe.