Search Results for: king,-the

Marcus King, ruthless entrepreneur and commercial giant, was a man obsessed. His obsession-staying alive! He used his millions to buy life from the bodies of others. Then someone devised a highly scientific plan to kill him-only for King to survive the attack, and plan his revenge. But who was the mastermind behind the assassination attempt?

Dale Markham, chief of local police, is quickly on the crime scene. But the case is so bizarre, with far-reaching international implications, that Security is also called in and special agent Steve Delmonte is assigned to work with the police.

Delmonte’s investigations uncover a tangled web of sadistic intrigue and he has to follows a trail of further murders all the way to the moon before the incredible truth behind the attack is revealed.

To rescue Princess Sumia and save her city, barbarian adventurer Thongor of Valkarth challenges the vampire-king Xothun, who has ruled the lost city of Omm for a thousand years.

In 1993, a character took the fantasy world by storm. He was known by countless names and terrifying deeds-thief, magic wielder, swordsman, assassin, adventurer. But chief among those names and the most dangerous of his personae was Nightfall, a man-or perhaps the legendary demon himself-gifted with a power any sorcerer would kill to possess.

Now, Nightfall makes his triumphant return in a spellbinding new adventure that sweeps readers from the high courts to the darkest dungeons, from piracy and derring-do at sea to sorcerous encounters and cutthroat attacks in enemy territory.

Bound by sorcery and oath to guard and guide Prince Edward on his quest, Nightfall is forced to reveal his true name, Sudian, and to use every trick at his command to keep himself and his idealistic young charge alive. And when Edward suddenly becomes a king, he makes Sudian his advisor. But advisor or not, Sudian cannot dissuade King Edward from a journey to repay a debt of honor to Duke Varsah, an expedition that ends in disaster when all of Edward’s guards are slain and the king himself vanishes without a trace.

Now Sudian must turn to Duke Varsah for aid. But is he putting himself into the clutches of the very man responsible for Edward’s disappearance, a man whose greatest desire is vengeance against Sudian himself?

A respectable citizen trips on a store escalator. On cue, Cadillacs start disappearing from lots all over San Francisco, as a team of scam artists use pure criminal genius to do one California bank out of $1.3 million of Detroit’s finest.

The bank hires Daniel Kearny Associates to get the cars back, and soon Kearny’s team discover what they’re up against: Gypsies. Dangerous charmers, they are one nation united in street crime. The escalator fall has mortally wounded their beloved King, and they’re planning to attend his funeral Cadillac-style. And the action won’t let up until both repo-men and Gypsies reach the dying Gypsy King – and the biggest scam of all.

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…

For the Rider Wen, peace in Gillengaria has only brought despair. Plagued by guilt for failing to protect her king, Wen has fled the royal city and given herself the penance of a life of wandering, helping strangers in need, making sure they remain that: just strangers.

Until the day she helps a terrified young woman abducted by an overeager suitor. The girl, she discovers, is the daughter of one of those who rose against the dead king, and is now heir to the great estate known as Fortune. Once she has delivered her safely home, Wen wants nothing further to do with the girl or her family. But fate has other plans. For behind the walls of Fortune, Wen will fine her future – and she will finally confront the ghosts of her past…

Xylara is a Daughter of Xy, brought up to do her duty to her country, her king and her people. Her father, the Warrior King Xyron, is dead and her incompetent half-brother Xymund is on the throne; she has chosen to serve her people as a healer, until she is needed to make a marriage of alliance.
But the once-great kingdom of Xy is threatened by the Warlord and his barbarian Firelanders, and her brother Xymund is forced to surrender. The terms are fair: the kingdom will remain under Xymund’s control, and the taxes and tithes are reasonable. All prisoners and wounded are to be exchanged unharmed.
There is just one thing more: to ensure a true peace – no pillaging, no looting, no rapine – the Warlord has claimed tribute.
He claims Xylara, Daughter of Xy, to be his Warprize . . .

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.

It all seemed so simple: take a small, sealed container to the planet Fraxilly, and hand it over to the planet’s ruling God-King. Hardly a problem for someone with the reputation of Del Curb interstellar courier and self-styled hero.

Welcome to a haunted world; the world of Keith Roberts’ powerful and unique imagination. These stories show Roberts’ fascination for the curious and unclassifiable; and as ever, his mastery of character and detail. ‘Susan’ introduces the reader to a schoolgirl with awesome psychic powers; but the sensitive treatment turns a shock situation into a brilliant fable, while ‘The Scarlet Lady’, predating Stephen King’s Christine, has the genuine stench of petrol, oil and demons. ‘The Eastern Windows’ chillingly continues the theme; by contrast, ‘Winderwood’ introduces us to a fearsome locale that Roberts insists is real. ‘Mrs. Cibber’ transports the reader, with complete conviction, to the smog-ridden London of the fifties and unfolds the strange tale of a young graphic designer haunted by a woman from the eighteenth century. ‘The Snake Princess’, equally atmospheric, tells the story of a boy’s doomed, bizarre love, while ‘Everything in the Garden’ presents the tour de force of a haunting within a haunting.

For centuries, interstellar prospectors had searched for the fabled worlds of the Three Kings, the lost El Dorado of the galaxy. But none had succeeded. Only the mad cyborg Prophet, Ishmael Hand, had ever seen the mysterious system, and he had refused to reveal its location before vanishing forever into history. Then a starfaring evangelist – Doctor Karl Woodward – found it, only to disappear in turn.

Now a new group of explorers must follow the trail that Woodward blazed. A spacegoing salvage team, desperately in debt after a violent alien menace ruins a lucrative assignment and decimates the group, is hired to follow the clues Woodward left behind.

Fearing pursuit by their former backers, the group heads off for the ultimate salvage operation. By hook or by crook, they will find the Three Kings- if the galactic underworld’s repo men don’t get them first!

The death of a duke leads to a bloody war, as the King of Algarve moves swiftly to reclaim the duchy which was lost during a previous conflict. But country after country is pulled into war, as alliances reassert themselves and a hatred of difference escalates into rabid nationalism.

In the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in North East Lincolnshire.

The Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking conquering planets, and having determined from orbit that this one is suitable, they initiate standard procedure. Their ship carries guided missiles and nuclear weaponry – but they have long since lost the art (and weapons) of hand-to-hand fighting. And this time it’s no mere primitives the Wersgorix seek to enslave – they’ve launched their invasion against Englishmen!

In the end, only one alien is left alive – and Sir Roger’s grand vision is born. He intends for the creature to fly the ship first to France to aid his King, then on to the Holy Land to vanquish the infidel. And then . . . ?

The famous first adventure of the mightiest warrior-hero since Conan. The ancient dragon kings have deemed that the hour is right to regain their dominance over Earth and only Thongor and his companions, aided by the science and magic of the wizard Sharajsha, stand between mankind and the night of doom.

865 A.D. Warring kings rule over the British Isles, but the Church rules over the kings. Powerful bishops and black-robed priests fill their cathedrals with gold, while threatening all who oppose them with damnation. But there are those who do not fear the priests, and they are the dreaded Vikings of Scandinavia. Among these Northern invaders, those who follow the Way of the Gods of Asgard carry the Hammer of Thor as their emblem, and they are sworn to increase mankind’s knowledge and strength by conquest and by craft. And as Viking warlords cast hungry eyes upon a weak and divided Britain, the Way collides with the Church, launching an all-out war between The Hammer and the Cross.
At the center of this bloody conflict is Shef, bastard son of a Norse raider and a captive English lady. A smith and a warrior, he is driven by strange visions that seem to come from Odin himself. Torn by divided loyalties, Shef alone dares to imagine new weapons and tactics with which to carve out a kingdom – and threaten the holy power of Rome itself!

Garth of Ordunin had been set a new task by the Forgotten King: bring back to Skelleth whatever he found upon the altars of the seven temples of Dusarra. As he went about his blasphemous errand he learned more about the Dark Gods – and more about his own destiny!

As author and illustrator, Keith Roberts did more than most to define the look of UK science fiction magazines in the 1960s. In addition to his BFSA Award wins, he was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. He is perhaps best known for his seminal alternate history novel, Pavane, but his work covered a broad range of SF’s tropes and settings, as can be seen from the titles collected in this omnibus: The Chalk Giants, Kiteworld and The Grain Kings.

THE CHALK GIANTS: After the apocalypse the hazardous evolution of mankind continues. And in primeval response to the disaster, humanity’s solutions to catastrophe carve the harsh new world in violent patterns of magic and myth, rite and religion. Brave images scar the ancient hills, the clash of swords and the ageless power of sexuality sign-post another, bloodsoaked path to civilisation.

KITEWORLD: Powerful churches have long kept their grip on the people with a theology of fear that makes formidable demons out of the poor, weak mutants of the surrounding badlands. To ward off these specters, an elaborate, tradition-encrusted system of kites with hex signs or armed observers fly over the realm. The men of this Kite Corps, performing hazardous duty to sustain a myth, are driven to find a separate peace, to transform, if they can, disillusionment into enlightenment, to move forward from an assumption of guilt to an assumption of responsibility.

THE GRAIN KINGS: They call them The Grain Kings. Gigantic mechanical monarchs of the wheat-bearing plains that were once the frozen Alaskan wastes. Whole eco-systems in themselves, they can supply the food so desperately needed by the teeming millions of our overpopulated planet. But even now, as the whole world waits in hungry suspense, the great powers battle for control of the prairies and two competing combine harvesters find they are heading on a course of collision.

The fourth volume of new adventures set in H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands. David Hero has been trapped in the Dreamworld for many years; long enough, he thought, to have battled most of its monsters. But in the service of King Kuranes he sees greater perils than any he has yet encountered.

When Avram became King of Detina, he intended to liberate the blonde serfs from their ties to the land. The northern provinces, who would not accept his lordship, seceded from Detina, choosing Avram’s cousin, Grand Duke Geoffrey, as their king in his place.

Avram refused to let Geoffrey rule the north and sent armies clad in grey against them. Geoffrey raised his own army, and arrayed his men in blue.

Avram held the larger part of the kingdom, and the wealthier part, too. But Geoffrey’s men were bolder soldiers. And the north, taken all in all, had better wizards than the southrons did. The war raged for almost three years, until Avram’s General Guildenstern moved against the northern army under Count Thraxton the Braggart and his commander of unicorn-riders, Ned of the Forest, which held the town of Rising Rock, close by Sentry Peak. Both sides knew this was a crucial battle in the desperate war, but neither guessed just how crucial it would be…

Meek and mild curate Thomas Blades discovered an alternative earth where humanity languished at the base of the food-chain. Over eventful years, Blades defeated the bestial Null master-race and carved out the empire of ‘New-Wessex’. Shedding all former inhibitions, he ascended its throne as unchallenged ‘god-king’.

Exiled in turn by overpowering new enemies – the ‘angels’ – Blades was rescued by his own descendant, Guy Ambassador, after centuries of absence. Under Blades’ strangely charmed leadership, the enigmatic and merciless angels were repulsed and humanity enjoyed a respite of liberty. But now, decades later, the venerable god-king broods in seclusion, refusing to die; the fountainhead of bitter thoughts and deeds.

Meanwhile, Wessex sinks-into anarchy and neglect. Guy Ambassador travels amongst the bickering princedoms and warring states, wavering in the faith that has cost him family, friends and home. All around him the world of New-Wessex is moving towards resolution of its ultimate destiny and reason for being. Forces beyond human comprehension invade the already baroque realm.

He wears the guise of a Necromancer: the black cloak, the broad-rimmed hat, the gauze mask painted with a death’s head. But raising the dead is the least of his Talents. He is a wild card that threatens the True Game itself. Demon, Doyen, Dragon and Tragamor, Sorcerer, Seer, Armiger and King – take your places. Let the Game begin.

Set during the reign of King George II, this gruesome tale concerns the persecution of the Bannerworth family by Sir Francis Varney: a vampire who has developed the habit of creeping into the Bannerworth home and sucking the blood of their daughter, Flora. Varney is presented sympathetically, a victim of circumstances as he tries to save himself, and his victims, from such dreadful acts.

With the strength of a beast and the grace of an athlete, Tarzan of the Apes has risen to become the king of the animals. His life changes, when he spies a young woman, Jane Porter, among a crew of stranded treasure hunters. Tarzan falls deeply in love with Jane, and his quest for her brings him into contact with unfamiliar human civilization.

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.