Search Results for: faces

I saw her, hanging in the sky like a flake of the moon. A woman, her face masked by a black shireen, her body by a black shift, but her white arms spread, and her white, white, bone-white hair blowing all around her like a flame composed of smoke. Recognition was immediate. It was my mother. I shouted at her. It was crystal clear to me, what he had meant for me, my father, Vazkor, what she had robbed me of. And I drew from my belt my hunting knife and threw it at her heart.

White-skinned, black-haired Sovaz is beautiful and wayward, yet seemingly soulless – as if vampirised by some unknown force. Wife of a very wealthy but older husband, she is the prize ornament of his treasure collection, yet she is toying with a naive young American lover. And while the faces of this doomed trio converge, somewhere outside the glowing casements a creature of darkness prepares to feed…

Here are a novel and twelve short stories encompassing all the richness and variety of Tanith Lee’s unique talent.

This fascinating and disturbing collection casts a new and chilling light on that ancient mythical creature, the mermaid… pinpoints the ultimate peril of mankind’s fascination with the domestic cat… sucks us into the pulsing horror of bricks and mortar with a life of their own… investigates the dark and marvellous legends of tree spirits, and the tantalising allure of other carnal obsessions.

A sequel to “Werenight” and “Prince of the North”. Just when he thought he could settle down to enjoy peace, Gerin the Fox is called upon to face a new enemy, the Gradi, who bring with them their cold, fierce gods, bent on the destruction of all who do not worship them.

As the Derlavaian War rages into its last and greatest battles, allied nations manoeuvre for positions against each other in a postwar world. But before that time can come, the forces of Algarve, Unkerlant and their allies must clash a final time, countering army with army and battle magic with ever-more-powerful battle magic. In the midst of it all, the people the war has battered and reshaped must struggle to face their greatest individual challenges, as loves are shattered and found, terrible crimes avenged…and some journeys end forever.

And the end of the war may not bring peace…

A terrible civil war was tearing apart the kingdom of Detina, a land which could no longer be half serf and half free. When the new ruler, King Avram, decided to liberate the blond serfs upon which the northern provinces depended, the north rebelled, taking Grand Duke Geoffrey as their King.


Neither side expected an easy victory. The south was larger and wealthier, but the north had better soldiers and more powerful wizards. Led by officers riding unicorns, supplied by flying carpets, both sides had clashed for three bloody years, as the tide slowly turned against the north.


But the war was far from over: The north had found a far more competent general, and he was determined to hold Peachtree Province. When the southrons attacked, they faced formidable obstacles both natural and manmade, as well as the deadly repeating crossbows of the northern rebels and the sorcerous storm and lightning wielded by the northern wizards.


Still, the very survival of Detina as one united realm was at stake, and King Avram’s forces had no choice but to attack, no matter what the odds, no matter how desperate the situation…

Once the great Glacier enclosed the Raumsdalian Empire. Now it’s broken open, and Count Hamnet Thyssen faces a new world. With the wisecracking Ulric Skakki, the neighboring clan leader Trasamund (politely addressed as Your Ferocity), and his lover, the shaman Liv, Hamnet leads an exploration of the new territory in hopes of finding the legendary Golden Shrine.

But dangers abound. A violent and implacable group known as the Rulers has already killed many, and now they attack again. Riding deer and woolly mammoths and using powerful magic, the Rulers triumph and force the Raumsdalians to flee.

In the spring another battle ends even more badly for Hamnet’s side, but the Glacier is also retreating, so they are able to escape. Meeting a tribe whose desperate living conditions have led them to overcome the Raumsdalian taboo against eating fallen foes, they find unexpected allies. Now, returning to the capital city and its intrigues, Hamnet prepares to lead an army against the merciless Rulers. The world, once so bounded and comprehensible, will never be the same…

England has driven the French from Atlantis, giving King George leave to tighten control over the colonies. As part of a strategy to bend the colonists to their will, the Redcoats seize the continent’s eastern coastal towns, depriving the Atlanteans of the markets where they sell their goods.

Instead, England’s tactics only strengthen the Atlanteans’ resolve to be free. As leader of the revolutionaries, Victor Radcliff will make the English pay for each and every piece of land they dare to occupy. He will stop at nothing to preserve the liberty of his people as a new nation is born – a nation that will change the face of the world.

Yellowstone National Park sits on a hot spot: a plume of molten rock coming up from deep inside the earth capable of volcanic eruptions far greater than any that have occurred in times past. It has been silent for many years, providing false security for a nation unprepared for the full force and fury of nature unleashed.

Then explosions send lava and mud flowing far beyond Yellowstone toward populated areas. Clouds of ash drift across the country, nearly blanketing the land from coast to coast. The fall-out destroys crops and livestock, clogs machinery, and makes cities uninhabitable. Those who survive find themselves facing the dawn of a new ice age as temperatures plummet worldwide.

Colin Ferguson is a police lieutenant in a suburb of Los Angeles, where snow is falling for the first time in decades. He fears for his family, who are spread across America, refugees caught in an apocalyptic catastrophe in which humanity has no choice but to rise from the ashes and re-create the world…

Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a modern young professional, proud of her legal skills but weary of childcare, of senior law partners who put the moves on her, and of her deadbeat ex-husband. Following a ghastly day of dealing with all three, she falls into bed asleep – and awakens the next morning to find herself in a different life, that of a widowed tavernkeeper in the Roman frontier town of Carnuntum around 170 A.D.

Delighted at first to be away from corrupt, sexist modern America, she quickly begins to realise that her new world is as complicated as her old one. Violence, dirt, and pain are everywhere – and yet many of the people she comes to know are as happy as those she knew in twentieth-century Los Angeles. Slavery is a commonplace, gladiators kill for sport, and drunkenness is taken for granted – but everyday people somehow manage to face life with humour and good will.

No quitter, Nicole manages to adapt to her new life despite endless worry about the fate of her children “back” in the twentieth century. Then plague sweeps through Carnuntum, followed by brutal war. Amid pain and loss on a level she had never imagined, Nicole finds reserves of strength she had never known.

Jeremy Dodge knew the Earth would face starvation if it were not for the new science of “aquaculture”. With the world’s population numbering many billions, only the extra food being cultivated on the bottom of the sea could feed everyone.

But, like the rest of the surface-dwellers, Jeremy did not know what a vicious monopoly underwater cultivation had become. That is, until the dreadful moment when he himself was kidnapped and dragged beneath the depths.

And there he was to learn that just making his own escape would not be enough – he would have to save mankind from the tyranny of a new race of water-breathing human monsters!

This is the story of one member of the Terran Survey Corps. His name is Loftus Tait. There are many men of his stamp in the Corps; men who possess a deep and unshakable conviction that what they are doing has a meaning in face of the great unknowns, men who, recognising the transience and minuteness of humankind, yet believe that Man has a destiny among the stars.

Not for him or his crew was there the refinement and luxury of a base ship equipped like a small world; they took their frail craft across the parsecs and set down as and when they could, and worked at their jobs, and came back – if they were lucky.

Some were not so lucky.

Matthew Wade had been a coord, one of the mysterious chosen ones, who through the powers unknown to the rest of mankind, ruled over the known galaxy. But Wade fled the overwhelming responsibility of his exalted caste and went into hiding on the symb-socket circuit.

The symb-socketeers were the migrant workers of the galaxy. Traveling from planet to planet, they worked for play and played for a living. Matthew Wade adopted the freewheeling, ever-changing life hoping to evade the bailiffs of Altimus, the home planet of the cords, knowing that they would never rest until they had tracked down the renegade.

And then Wade took service on the plant of Ashramdrego, and was faced with the most important decision of his life – would he let an entire planet be destroyed rather than reveal his true identity?

A planet’s destiny trembled in the balance.Waiting, quiet and as dangerous as a timber-wolf, Vickery heard another faint slither of foot on stone. A dark shape flitted past the lighted shop front on the opposite side of the street and vanished into the doorway. Vickery’s heard gave one gigantic lunge, and a wolfish smile creased his face. He fired at the shadows and the brilliance of the exploding charge threw everything out in the street into garish highlights…

Expressway to an Uncharted Sphere

“Theyre about!” the woman whispered, and Crane abruptly saw a strange light shining through the heavy black curtains that shrouded the house. He crossed to the window and before anyone could stop him he drew the curtain back.

At first he did not understand what he saw: a round gleaming, colour-running orb stared unwinkingly back into his face. It was an eye. An immense sad eye staring at him through the chink of the curtains, an eye surrounded by a living whorl of flame that he had last seen engulfing poor Barney in the parking lot.

At least three others had disappeared into the strange world from which those aliens had come, and a girl had been driven insane by them. And before Crane’s quest to unravel the secret of the Map Country was complete, the fate of two worlds would hang in the balance.

Rodro’s men were pushing past, were blundering with reeking weapons into the room to kill and take the princess away.



Lai half stretched up from the princess’s restraining arms. The room was empty of other life apart from Sir Fezius and the two knights now lifting their swords, ready to cut down Lai.



A popping noise sounded like a drum bursting.



A man appeared in the middle of the room.



One moment he was not there; the next he stood there, holding a bulky stick in his arm, peering about with a white face. He said something that sounded like “Skeet.”



The next instant the room resounded with an avalanche roar and a hellfire blast of scorching flame.

“Upon you and you alone must rest the fate of the universe. You are the only ones to save it.” Thus spoke the mysterious Cosmic Engineers to a small group of human beings on the rim of the solar system. Somewhere out there in the vastness of the galaxies lurked the greatest challenge they would ever face – the catastrophic fury of the Hellhounds of Space. Promptly, courageously the earthlings boarded their galactic spaceships and journeyed out far beyond uncharted stars, plunging into dangers too awful even to contemplate.

After a thousand years in space the earth vessel lands on a remote planet capable of supporting human life, Shakespeare’s Planet.



But due to a systems malfunction Carter Horton is the only crew member to awaken from his long sleep. And on the strange alien planet he finds only the bizarre creature named Carnivore. Soon he discovers that the two of them must leave the planet immediately – or face certain death. But his space-ship is now obsolete and the inner-space tunnel, their only escape-route to safety, has broken down…

Asa Steele was unprepared for the incredible events that began to unfold when Rila Eliot – a long-lost love – stepped out of the past and his faithful dog Bowser started loping into it through time trails he’d discovered in his own backyard.

Rila’s appearance was mere coincidence, but Bowser’s retrieval of fresh dinosaur bones was as inexplicable as was the curious crater in Asa’s backyard that seemed to have been made by a spaceship from the stars. Soon Asa himself tripped in time, led into prehistoric eras by an enigmatic cat-faced alien. In short order, the time trails in the quiet town of Willow Bend became the focus of global attention and government scrutiny.

Then time-travelling turned into big business and led to big trouble, when Asa and Rila uncovered an interstellar mystery from before recorded time!

What looked like a big black box – perhaps fifty feet high, two hundred long – had settled squarely on Jerry Conklin’s car. The townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota, were the first to see it – and one of them was the first and only human to shoot at it. He paid for his rashness with instant death.
Within hours the public knew something strange had happened and was beginning to face the incredible possibility that the Earth harboured something from outer space. A machine? An intelligent being? There was no way to know. But Jerry Conklin knew. The Visitor had scooped him up, held him prisoner for several hours, then let him go. Jerry knew the Visitor was a living intelligent creature!

Gone from the galaxy… A startling discovery has shaken Earth’s galactic Empire: more than two hundred and fifty thousand people have vanished from the resort moon, Vesa, without a trace! Called to duty, SOTE’s most daring secret agents, Jules and Yvette D’Alembert – the former aerialists from the triple-gravity planet Des Plaines, possessed of lightning-reflexes and super-strength – are faced with a lethal and baffling conspiracy.

Together the D’Alemberts have conquered many of the Empire’s most dangerous foes, but now the mighty pair must divide forces – each to challenge a deadly evil terror alone!

Stranglers’ Moon is the second book in the “Family D’Alembert” series.

Jules and Yvette d’Alembert had faced challenges before – but rarely one as daunting as this. To them fell the perilous task of infiltrating a vicious conspiracy which threatened to destroy the Stanley dynasty and throw the whole of interstellar civilisation into chaos.

Now, as rival candidates from all corners of the galaxy gather for the Progress, the two most daring space super-agents of all time go into action. For among the suitors competing to be consort to the royal heiress of the Empire of Earth, there is a traitor. And somewhere close to the Princess, a time bomb is ticking…

Lord Tedric of the Marshes, ex-Corpsman and interplanetary warrior, faces a crucial mission: to crush the threat of the Destructive Forces by capturing their agent on the Bioman sphere, the ruthless Black Knight Fra Villion

Tedric’s crew are bound together by the strong loyalty of outcasts: Yod Cartwright, ex-pirate; Juvi, a prostitute turned expert pilor; Ky-shan the exiled Wykzl; Wilson, the renegade robot; and Pal Galmain, brave but banished Knight of the noble order of Vemplars.

Tedric mjust warn the Bio,en that their castle is a gatewhile for the annihilation gathering in the grey depths of space, but who will believe the word of a barbarian against the lightning whipsword of Fra Villion?

Muphormosy, a disease not unlike leprosy, has ravaged the first settlers on the planet Tezcatl. Generations later, their similarly emaciated descendants live in a compound where they are isolated from the planet’s normal inhabitants. The new kommissar of the compound, Lucian Yeardance, cares for his charges and alleviates their suffering with the narcotic heartsease. despite the open revulsion the normal inhabitants show for the maimed men and women, Luican determines to find out what the dread disease really is. Still, he is unprepared for the appalling discovery he makes: except for the open lesions and missing limbs and digits, not one of the muphormers shows a sign of any disease.

Imagine a living specimen of a multimillion-year-old hominid species, Homo habilis, encountering the contemporary world.

Told in the first-person narrative of Paul Loyd, divorced owner of a small town restaurant, Ancient of Days tells the story of a habiline man found wandering in a Georgia pecan orchard, a living descendant of a habiline tribe, brought from Africa via Haiti as a slave. Paul’s ex-wife, RuthClaire, takes in the living fossil, appropriately naming him Adam, and as an artist she discovers Adam’s mute but vibrant artistic sensibility, falls in love with him, and marries him – much to Paul’s confusion and dismay.

And then the story begins to widen out onto a broader canvas, as Adam first faces persecution by small town Georgia Klansmen, then, surviving that, moves with RuthClaire to Atlanta and encounters the whole spectrum of American culture, from art critics and media spectacles to evangelists and punk clubs.

Throughout the peregrinations and travails of Adam, however, runs a rich and developing strain of self-conscious spiritual, intellectual, and artistic growth, interwoven with Adam’s genuine anguish over the problematic nature of his true humanity.

In the end, the central characters come together on the Haitian island of Montarez in the aftermath of crisis, and in a moment of illumination and revelation meet the mysterious and extraordinary origins of Adam and his race in human prehistory.