Search Results for: world-of-the-gods

In Towing Jehovah, the discovery of the two-mile-long corpse of God in the mid-Atlantic proved a serious menace to both navigation and to faith. But was God truly dead, as the nihilists and the New York Times believed? In Blameless in Abaddon, His body – comatose yet far from inert – has been hauled from its temporary resting place in the Arctic to Florida, where it has become the Main Attraction at Orlando’s Celestial City USA. And now one Martin Candle, a small-time and sore-afflicted judge practicing in Abaddon Township, Pennsylvania, proposes further travels for the Corpus Dei: to the World Court in The Hague, to answer for history’s injustices large and small.


In his quest to counter the world’s great theodicies, Martin embarks on an astonishing odyssey through the mind of the Creator, where Lot’s wife proves a most convenient way of adding salt to a margarita glass, early hominids vigorously debate Augustinian doctrine over jasmine tea, and Martin’s alter ego, Job, keeps an eternal vigil atop his dung heap. Once the Trial of the Millennium has begun, Martin will understand why Abaddon is another name for Hell. God hunting simply is not a sport for amateurs.

The Sinners of Erspia are the inhabitants of a bizarre world, ruled and guided by the hands of Ormazd and Ahriman, twin gods of good and evil. Histrina, a child of Ormazd, is taken by the evil hordes to a camp of terror where she meets Laedo, a man stranded far from his home.

Together they start on a hallucinatory journey to understand and escape from the surreal world that holds them prisoner.

World-saver, or world-breaker?

The treaty that ended the civil war decreed that the men of science and the followers of the gods would split all of society between them. Yet Guild apprentice Pol was torn between the logic of science and the lure of faith, unaware that destiny had already chosen a very special role for him to play.

For Pol was about to encounter a woman of unique power, the mistress of a mysterious, forbidden castle, who would lead him down the pathways of prophecy to a strange and frightening new world . . .

Thomas Blades, a 17th century curate, discovers a magical door to another world – or rather to an alternative Earth. But here, humanity is not the top of the food chain, as Blades finds when the poor, burrow-dwelling humans he stumbles over are hunted and eaten by the Null – mighty, ravening beasts whose intelligence and killing ability makes them top predator.

Returning to our own world for weapons, Blades vows to become humanity’s saviour on his new earth and, over the years, builds an empire of which he becomes the first God-king. Power shifts between humanity and Null but as the humans grow in sophistication, so comes treachery, jealousy and murder – and God-king Blades will change much from the timid cleric who first happened upon his domain…

The valley was isolated in time and space, a land of barbarous science and human sacrifice.

Coatlice the Dreadful stalked the night, her twin serpent heads dealing death to taboo-breakers.

Citallatonac the First Priest sacrificed anyone believed to be possessed by the gods.

Chimal rebelled: he wanted to escape the atavistic confines of his lost civilisation, to venture into the unknown world beyond the valley, a world of hope, and nightmare, too.

Behind the walls of Terra lay a secret no man could be allowed to learn. But Kickaha – the Earth-born adventurer of the tiered worlds – had to uncover that secret, or watch his home world destroyed.

Kickaha was returning to Earth from the World of Tiers, the many-levelled universe of the god-like Lords, that he had entered many years ago as Paul Janus Finnegan. Now he had returned to a world he no longer knew, to find it ruled by Red Orc, a Lord jealous of his personal domain and hostile to intruders. Yet Kickaha had to stay alive in order to defeat the deadly enemy that threatened Earth and the other worlds of tiers – the ‘Beller’, the malignant creature that was the mind-essence of a rebel Lord.

Thomas Blades has been released from his time as God-King in the alternative world he fought and ruled over. His descendants rule and fight but he cannot bear to return and meddle in their lives.

VOLKHAVAAR is a novel of witchcraft and wonders on a world far removed from those we know. Here the gods contend for power – the Dark forces against the Light – and here an entire city and its land is plunged into the shadow of an eil beyond anything conceivable.

It is the story of Shaina the slave girl and of Volk the outcast who enslaved himself to cosmic forces to gain total power – and of how they were finally to meet and flash – with an entire world as their prize.

Confluence – a long, narrow man-made world, half fertile river valley, half crater-strewn desert. It is a world at the end of its time, a place of savagery, bureaucracy and war, inhabited by countless flying micro-machines and ten thousand bloodlines ruled by devotion to absent gods.

It is the home of a singular young man named Yama. An infant who was discovered in a bier on the river, he was raised by the prelate of Aeolis until it was learned that his ancestry was unique. Yama appeared to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence.

Now, awed and fearful of his increasing ability to awaken the machines the Builders left behind, Yama searches for his identity and a history that is both his and his world’s.

The Last of the Renshai is the first volume of a sword-and-sorcery saga that is enormous in conception, and full of complex and arresting fantasy detail. The adventure arises from the trials of a lone warrior, a champion driven to avenge the genocide of his race. The magic lies with the immortal realms: this is a world controlled by four wizards whose strife not only presages the conflicts and wars of humans, it also threatens consequences and destruction on a world- wide scale. And the last Renshai is doomed to take on all – he will be the key for humans, wizards and gods alike. Throw in a fabulously detailed, rich fantasy world, and you have a tremendous, value-for-money, page turning epic

For Poilar Crookleg, the Pilgrimage to Kosa Saag has been a lifelong dream. Each year twenty men and twenty women attempt to reach the Summit, converse with the gods, and return with new knowledge. A few Pilgrims return as madmen. Most are never seen again.

Poilar and his childhood friend Traiben are determined to survive the terrifying journey not as madmen but as teachers of wisdom. Traversing mysterious Kingdoms and blasted landscapes, braving ghosts and monstrous apparitions, they will arrive at the secret of the gods themselves – a secret that will shatter centuries of belief and change their world forever.

Enter the magical worlds of Sheri S. Tepper, with this eBook collection, containing the Marianne trilogy and the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy:

Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore
Marianne, the Madame and the Momentary Gods
Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse

The Song of Mavin Manyshaped
The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped
The Search of Mavin Manyshaped

The continuing adventures of Tarra Khash, Hrossak, in the Primal Land at the dawn of time.

Long before Atlantis and Mu, in olden Theem’hdra the Primal Continent, there existed a world of swords and sorcery, of magic and mayhem, and of wizards, demons, and alien gods from far, dark stars. One of the principal players in this land of myth and legend was Tarra Khash, Hrossak, an inveterate wanderer and adventurer.

Join Tarra now in the ultimate challenge, the ultimate quest: to save a world from the menace of pit-spawned demons, called up from hell by Sorcery in Shad!

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.

Rhavas is a good, holy, and pious man, as befits a member of the clergy. He is also the cousin of the Avtokrator, ruler of the Empire. Hoping someday to become ecumenical patriarch of Videssos, he was reluctantly willing to bide his time in one of the smaller cities on the outskirts of the Empire.

Then civil war broke out, and the Avtokrator had to pull back the troops guarding the borders as he struggled for control of the Empire. Rhavas had to flee for his life as the fierce Khamorth nomads took advantage of the chaos and sacked the city he had come to love. He only survived because he accidentally discovered that he had an unsuspected power: Men often cursed each other – but Rhavas’s curse had the power to kill!

Rhavas had always followed Phos, the god of light and goodness, Videssos’ own god, just as he had always despised Phos’ evil rival Skotos. Those who fall off the Bridge of the Separator during judgment in the afterlife are doomed to dwell in Skotos’ ice and darkness forevermore. But Rhavas has reverenced logic as well as goodness, and knows the power to kill with a curse cannot be an attribute of Phos. As evil swallows up the world, Rhavas, ever the logician, decided that Skotos is actually the more powerful god, and becomes determind to change the official religion of Videssos. But in the end, it is he who will be changed, and neither the world nor he will ever be the same again…

It is a time of great darkness, when the sun is in danger of being forever extinguished, and mankind has been divided into two warring factions: the worshipers of the God of Light and the servants of Eternal Night. Now three unsuspecting travelers are called by prophecy to face a legion of the undead and the powers of the Dark Lord in the faint hope of reclaiming the world for the light.

God is dead, and Anthony Van Horne must tow the corpse to the Arctic (to preserve Him from sharks and decomposition). En route Van Horne must also contend with ecological guilt, a militant girlfriend, sabotage both natural and spiritual, and greedy hucksters of oil, condoms, and doubtful ideas. Winner of a 1995 World Fantasy Award.

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…

The ultimate maquiladora. Montezuma Strip: First World tech and Third World wages, sprawling from L.A. to East Elpaso Juarez, Guyamas to Phoenix; a thousand gangs, a million locos; and a few wealthy beyond the dreams of gods…


And Federale Angel Cardenas, a living lie detector, is a top cop on the blistering streets of virtual reality scams and cryogenic kidnaps, where talking animals are programmed to kill, computer screens can spit murder, and even the Holy Blessed Virgin’s ghost runs extortion rackets.


Once Angel Cardenas was blind. But now he sees…straight into the heart of darkness that rules…


MONTEZUMA STRIP

From the vaults of the SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes this republication of a trilogy of early, pseudonymous adventure tales by Robert Holdstock, WORLD FANTASY AWARD-winning author of MYTHAGO WOOD.

The Berserker books are raw, primeval stories of a young Norse warrior, cursed by the gods to a life of savage warfare. Possessed by an animal, ferocious rage – implacable, invincible – Harald Swiftaxe fights his way across the Celtic world in search of release from his curse and, finally, peace. The Berserker omnibus contains SHADOW OF THE WOLF, THE BULL CHIEF and THE HORNED WARRIOR.

THE STORM LORD is a big novel of an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples on that world. It is a story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage.

It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed.

It is an epic in every sense of the word.

Enemies become allies and allies enemies as the races struggle for possession of the Earth. Yet only Prince Corum Jhaelin Irsei of the Scarlet Robe can save them from a doomed fate. With the spear of Llaw Ereint in his silver hand, Corum must face the Cold Gods in a final battle that will defeat the forces of Chaos – or deliver the world to evil unending…

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.

To find it, Prince Vakar set out across the largely unknown world where dangers multiplied with every league. There he found savage countries and strange people – the wild Amazons; a voluptuous, ensorcelled queen; a too-charming girl who was half-horse, half-woman; dangerous magicians who ruled hordes of headless slaves; and the Gorgons, who could paralyze their victims at a glance.

Behind was his ambitious brother, determined that Vakar must fail. Even closer were unknown enemies set on his trail by the suspicious gods.

And to add to his troubles, Vakar had no idea of what he sought!

The Long Winter is over.

The People of the New Springtime must go out and reclaim their world.

For generations the survivors of the cataclysm have sheltered in cocoons buried in the earth and waited for the gods to grow tired of hurling down death-stars onto a frozen world. Now it is time for Koshmar and the boy-chronicler, Hresh, and the rest of Koshmar’s tribe to emerge into the sun. A strange and savage landscape awaits them, where rat-wolves, bloodbirds and soulless hjjk-men stalk – and terrifyingly altered other creatures.

In the ruins of Vengiboneeza, the ancient capital of the sapphire-eyes folk, Hresh dares to celebrate their triumph – and suffers a shattering defeat at the realisation of a great and terrible truth.




(First published 1988)