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Trullion – World 2262 of the Alastor Cluster – was a beautiful waterworld of fens, mists, idyllic islands set in clear oceans whose teeming richness provided food for the taking. The Trill were a carefree, easy-living race. But violence entered their lives during the raids of the galactic pirates known as the Starmenters. And there was also the planetwide game of hussade, when the Trill’s ferocious passion for gambling drove them to risk all – even life itself – on the hazardous water-chessboard gaming fields. Their prize? The virginal body of the beautifu sheirl-maiden, the body any Trill is willing to die for.

Power-Greedy.

Men wished to rule the world, but one man stood in their way. Peter Duncan came from the planet Mattrain – but who was he? Was he human? If so, whence came his vastly superior intellect and technical knowledge? These were mysteries the Administration feared – because they could not find the answer to them. Too late they saw danger. For, by then, Peter Duncan had escaped and taken refuge in the Devastated Areas, from which he continued his fight to save the human race from final utter destruction. But then, he had a reason. Martha of the chestnut hair and striking beauty, who alone knew his secret and who taught him how to love.

An international agency, COSMOS, is in charge of space exploration in the not very distant future. Odd forms of life have been discovered on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter; there may be a life form on Mercury; and finally something utterly mystifying is discovered on the moon. Three astronauts land and examine an installation that all three perceive as radically different – one sees a heap of gold, one a fort bristling with guns, one a space platform and space craft. They return to Earth with some crystals picked up at the mystery site.

All three soon produce children – the moon children, gifted, precocious, and seemingly damned by the crystals their fathers had handled. Two are eerily beautiful, the third a grotesque monster. And the three soon discover that they are Earth’s hope for survival, as interplanetary invasion brings overwhelming alien forces to bear on mankind.

A genetic experiment gone wrong produces a tiny pink “worm” that matures into a beautiful woman whose superhuman powers propel her toward a unique destiny.

The Lyonesse sequence evokes the Elder Isles, is a baroque land of pre-Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds . . .

Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he redeems his birthright, he must pass the breadth of Hybras Isle as prisoner, vagabond, and slave, an acquaintance of faeries, wizards, and errant knights, and lover to a sad and beautiful girl whose fate sets his bitter rivalry with the tyrant Casmir, King of Lyonesse.


(First published in 1983)

So begins one of the most celebrated stories in fantasy literature . . . packed full of mystery, deep themes and incredible prose, meet Severian the Torturer and follow him on his journey across the great world of Urth

Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman.

Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name.

Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild – a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination . . .

Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel, 1981
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1982

Readers can’t stop reading The Shadow of the Torturer:

‘Full of rich characters and great imagination’ Mark Lawrence, author of Red Sister

‘A dark jewel . . . He has a mastery of language not often seen in fantasy writing . . . Couple this with an original and unique, highly imaginative and complex worldbuilding and the high praise is warranted‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘This is a picaresque fantasy with a difference, for our hero Severian is no wide-eyed country boy from the shire, but an apprentice torturer, thoroughly schooled in his trade’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘There are certain books that can be considered life-changing experiences. Gene Wolfe is an author who has written one of those for me’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
‘The Book of the New Sun Tetralogy is one of the great achievements in science fiction and is a MUST READ for fans of the genre. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘In addition to being unique in style, The Shadow of the Torturer is a gorgeous piece of work: passionate storytelling (heart-wrenching in places), fascinating insights into nature and the human condition, beautiful prose’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Genre fiction at its finest. Original, difficult and well-crafted, it is easy to see how Wolfe is regarded as a writer’s writer’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The torturer Severian continues his journey of exile to the city Thrax, carrying with him the ancient executioner’s sword and the Claw of the Conciliator, a gem of extraterrestrial power and beauty which no one man is meant to possess . . .

Winner of the Nebula Award for best novel, 1981

Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of Torturers, flees from exile. In a mountain wilderness

Severian, the disgraced apprentice torturer, has reached his place of exile – Thrax, the city of Windowless Rooms, where he must take up his post as Lictor, executioner and torturer. However, he flees the city and heads into the mountains. There he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live on, adopts a son only to lose him in battle and discharges an old debt to vengeance. As his exile takes stranger and stranger turns, he encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and meets the mysterious Dr Talos . . .

Earth has been under alien domination by strange winged creatures for centuries. They keep the population severely limited and isolated; humans may only meet at occasional matings. The account of the resistance to the aliens, set largely in a beautifully evoked Oceania, is taut, superbly written, and given a very surprising final twist.

After roving through space for centuries, a starship unburdens its cargo of human embryos on a harsh new world. They quickly grow to maturity in the ship’s artificial womb. A lifetime of Earth memories is programmed into their dreams.
But before their indoctrination is complete, an alien intruder infiltrates and destroys the system, and the reason for the odyssey is never learned.
Now, on a verdant island surrounded by quicksand, Othman, wanderer, dreamer, and self-proclaimed leader of the Earthling band, builds a mighty bridge to span the ocean of molten mud that keeps them from the world beyond.
He has yet to face the deadly toll his quest will take on the delicate ecology of the planet – or the revolt of his beautiful, strong-willed wife, Silandi. And he has yet to discover the hidden knowledge locked deep within their hearts.

Amongst the gorse and the heathers of his native highlands, Skelter the mountain hare enjoyed an idyllic life: browsing and gambolling; taking in the superb scenery and making female friends, including the beautiful Rushie. Then one day Skelter’s life of ease came to an abrupt end. Netted and captured, he and several other hares are transported hundreds of miles, to the strange lands of the south, destined for the cruel sport of hare coursing. Amidst a hell of shouting men and howling greyhounds, Skelter witnesses a nightmare, before making a miraculous escape.


Alone, stranded in a landscape he does not understand, Skelter must learn to survive, despite the hostility and distrust of the local hares and other natural hazards.


By far the most horrifying peril that faces Skelter is the florge: a vast, flying monster which is terrorising the countryside, killing indiscriminately.


Raised in isolation by a man, thousands of miles from his native habitat, Bubba is a killer more terrifying than any natural creature: for he believes himself human. Can one small mountain hare survive against such a monster?

Garry Kilworth’s first collection shows him to be one of the most original and enjoyable writers in the field. The thirteen stories in The Songbirds of Pain mix science fiction and fantasy, with a dash of unclassifiable strangeness. Kilworth is particularly adept at evoking colourful and exotic locales in distant parts of the world, as in ‘The Dissemblers’, a story set in the Arabian deserts, about a man resorting to bizarre self-torture in his attempts to see beyond the veil of death. ‘Blind Windows’ is an adventure set in the Far East, reminiscent of an updated Rider Haggard: a group of Westerners searching for some fabled crystals find their way into a hidden underground world. ‘Scarlet Fever’ is about an artist in a sterile future society who gives himself the disease in an attempt to stimulate creativity. And the titled story tells of a woman who undergoes a strange and painful series of treatments in order to achieve perfect beauty.

Blue Genes…

Ape-like and with one arm replaced by a claw, the not-quite-human Angelo and his beautiful female partner Ariadne are genetically bred rescuers programmed to travel vast distances through space in suspended animation to bring back Pioneers – explorers sent out from Earth generations ago to settle other planets. The latest mission is to rescue Pioneer Murray from the planet La Plage and to return to Earth where – as usual – decades have passed while they have been travelling between the stars.

But Earth itself has gone through a catastrophic collapse from which its burnt-out civilization is trying to recover. And amongst the remnants of a sterile and despairing humanity, there is less room than ever before for such strange creatures as Angelo.

Combining rich and weird alien environments with exciting deep-space adventure, Pioneers is a brilliant novel of love and alienation in a strange and poignant future.

For centuries it has waited. Now it is free.

Badger Ettison does not believe in demons. Until a shrieking, freezing horror escapes its ancient prison. A soulless hunger. Hunger that turns a beautiful woman into a shrivelled husk before she has time to scream. Hunger that has no form, no substance – but fangs and claws and eyes to seek its prey.

Badger Ettison does not believe in magic. But the old blood-rituals are the only way to stop the voracious evil that pursues his wife and son. And they demand that Badger must sacrifice one of the two he loves to save the other.

Badger Ettison does not believe in terror. Now he is living it.

It was many, many years ago that humans came and settled the world of Newholme – cruelly bending the planet to their will; setting down roots and raising up cities and farms and a grand temple to their goddess.


But now the ground itself is shaking with ever-increasing violence. And the Greatest Questioner, official arbiter of the Council of Worlds, has come to this isolated orb to investigate rumours of a terrible secret that lies buried deep within Newholme’s past – a past that is not dead, not completely. And it will fall to Mouche, a beautiful youth of uncommon cleverness and spirit, to save his imperilled home by discovering and embracing that which makes him unique among humans.

For every living thing on Newholme is doomed, unless Mouche can appease something dark and terrible that is coiled within, and surrender to the mysterious ecstatic revelry that results when the six moons join.

TWO PATHS TO ARMAGEDDON
Two valiant humans: swashbuckling Elron and the Sorceress Shannara…two implacably evil “Others”…two kinds of weapons with which to fight…and many kinds of doom awaiting an entire world if the battle is lost!
Again Ted White takes us to the strange, paradoxical world of Qanar, where a weird age-old magic exists as everyday reality, side by side with the remnants of an equally ancient but less understood science. The alien “Others” are making a new bid to take over the planet…and only the noble Elron stands against them. But not entirely alone after he meets the beautiful Shannara, and she adds her limited psionic powers to his great strength to vanquish the enemy. Together they share an outstanding Odyssey – through unpredictable matter transmitters and over treacherous terrain – to reach a hair-raising climax…IN THIS GREAT SEQUEL TO PHOENIX PRIME!

Makstarn was ugly, an outcast in the midst of the beautiful people of his tribe. Where they were tall and slender, he was short and squat. Where they were golden, touched with the beauty of the dawn, he was black and hairy . . . and hated by those of his own generation. It little mattered that the Elders respected him for what he was . . . and for what his father, Max Quest, had been; the young were all that mattered.

And their hatred drove him at last from the tribe, and on an impossible journey in search of the memory of his father . . . and in search of his own manhood.

Tad Dameron’s assignment was routine enough: escort Bjonn, the alien from Farhome, on the final leg of his journey to Earth – and learn what he could about the alien’s culture.
But from the beginning Dameron realized that there was something strange and ominous about Bjonn – something in his eyes and the way he spoke, even the way he help himself, that forewarned of danger.
Then Bjonn was gone, slipped away to mingle with Earth’s teeming millions, and with him the beautiful Dian, Dameron’s woman. When next he surfaced, Bjonn was heading a new religion – one which threatened to subvert all humanity. Dameron found himself embarked upon the most dangerous, most isolating job of his career in an attempt to halt the…
ALIEN MENACE

Into a future where a depleted fuel supply had the world spiralling down into grinding poverty and constant war came . . . Moondrift. Mysterious white flakes of alien matter that was the perfect fuel – clean powerful, dependable.

But the aliens – or whatever they were – who sent Moondrift seemed to demand a heavy ransom in return. After each Moondrift comes an eerie sound, as pure as a children’s choir, heard all over the world. It mesmerises all who hear it with it’s beauty – and when it is ended, certain people have simply disappeared without warning, never to be seen again.

This is the story of one who disappeared . . .

Cora Caley – A woman of fantastic beauty and wealth. A woman who had been denied nothing. Now her most incredible enterprise had been completed. She had transformed acres of Australia’ hot and arid desert into lush greenery and in its midst had built The House – a house of unequalled grandeur. And to crown her latest and most splendid achievement she was going to be hostess for the perfect party. She had spared nothing to ensure absolute elegance and lavishness for her guests.

Yet, as the party began Cora felt a tremendous sense of failure (she knew Plan X would most assuredly have to be instituted). The party was failing, but only because it somehow seemed to culminated the terrible vacuum of Cora’s own life. She was doomed to emptiness and she was terrified.

As the party progresses she is confronted by ex-husbands, former lovers, her sister, her daughters, servants and to all she seems on the verge of madness. Maybe she is, but then again maybe her own realization of the sterility of her life is her one sane thought – maybe it is her lifeboat.

Weaving through reality and fantasy, Cora reveals herself as Everywoman struggling not only for happiness and love, but for the certainty of her own definite and meaningful character.

Deep in the sounds, scents and shifting rhythms of the Amazon forest, a family have lost their seven-year-old child, stolen by the mysterious ‘Invisible People’, the tribe which has never been seen.
Through ten years their agonised search for him takes them beyond the world’s last great natural frontier into the cruel beauty of the Brazilian jungle.
When at last father and son do meet – in a dramatic and terrifying encounter – it is in the emerald forest, a place where the mythical and magical powers of primal existence must clash with the cold-hearted greed of modern man.

The hill below the fortress of Taurovinda, stronghold of Urtha, High King of the Cornovidi, is coming alive: the Otherworldly realm of the Shadows of Heroes are claiming the land as their own. But this time their actions are driven by a force that is darker and older than even the oldest among the ghosts. Who or what is raising the Dead? Merlin, a temporary resident in the fortress, must answer that question if this time of kings and lovers is to be saved. Jason’s wonderful ship, Argo, has returned, drawn back by her own guilty past, and a dreadful secret that she will reveal only to Merlin. Argo holds the key to the mystery. And Niiv, the bewitching, beautiful Northlands enchantress, is working her way even closer into Merlin’s charms.

This is a journey that will take Merlin back in history, and to a fabled island of legend. Love is in the air. But at a price.

It is 700 years after the age of destruction and London is just a forest. Britain is no longer an independent state but a primitive outpost of the Euro-African Federation. All is not well at the settlement near Avebury. The native Britons do not like the new Britons who have ‘come home’ from Euro-Africa, dancing a bizarre, twenty-two-man cricket dance and singing an obscure song called ‘Landa Fope’.

After one of these immigrants takes a shot at the High Commissioner, Ali Pretorius, chaos breaks out, and it is left to a beautiful young woman, Thea, to restore peace and order . . .

In an incredible far future, the known laws of Time and Space no longer apply to the world – and the seed of Man has mutated. Lobey is a mutant, different because he can hear the music in people’s minds. And when he encounters the beautiful dead-mute, Friza, he knows he has found a kindred soul.

Then Friza is killed, by someone or something unknown, and Lobey, driven by a knowledge he does not understand, sets out to bring her back from the dead. His journey leads him to strange lands and stranger people: people such as Spider, the eternal traitor incarnate; the Dove, embodiment of beauty; and Green-Eye, doomed to be the victim of a ritual as old as Time.

And always in the background, always waiting, stands the shadow of the chilling, childlike killer from the sea. The being called Kid Death . . .

Winner of the Nebula Award for best novel, 1968