Showing results by narrator "John Lee" in All Categories

When Tyndal and Rondal, journeymen wizards and knights errant, travel to southern Alshar to rescue a helpless boy and his mother, it sets in motion a series of events that will shake the foundations of the Five Duchies! While they are beginning their quest against the vast criminal gang known as the Brotherhood of the Rat, the two knights encounter the Cats of Enultramar, a family of shadowmagi and high-class thieves who help them discover a plot to attack the rich lands and prosperous people of Alshar, from the Wilderlands to the Great Bay...and only Rondal and Tyndal can stop them.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton is the first in Night's Dawn, a sweeping galactic trilogy from the master of space opera. In AD 2600 the human race is finally realizing its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets across the galaxy host a multitude of wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary space-born creatures.

The high-action concluding novel of the Commonwealth Saga from one of the world's bestselling Science Fiction writersAfter hundreds of years secretly manipulating the human race, the Starflyer alien has succeeded in engineering a war which should result in the destruction of the Intersolar Commonwealth.

In the future, when mankind has spread across the stars, the hierarchy of man is dictated by the color of one’s caste. The Golds rule all, but what will happen when one falls for a lowly Red? See how a forbidden love will set the course of events for the future and lead to the formation of the formidable Sons of Ares!

Peter F. Hamilton’s startling perspectives on tomorrow’s technological and cultural trends span vast tracts of space and time, his stories are as compelling as they are epic in scope, and yet they are always grounded in characters – human, alien and other – who, for all their strangeness, still touch our hearts and fire our imaginations.

After defending his fledgling realm against the undead lord Gaja Katar all winter long, Count Minalan of the Magelaw faces a new threat in the spring: the Nemovort Shakathet, favored of Korbal, leading the mighty hordes out of the Penumbra. This time, Minalan faces a real strategist; one who drives his armies with purpose and efficiency. The road to war leads through Megelin Castle and the vulnerable lands to the south of Vanado. Old enemies will become allies, and old friends will become valuable assets.

On the night of March 24, 1944, Bram Vanderstok was number 18 of 76 men who crawled beyond the barbed wire fence of Stalag Luft III in Zagan, Poland. His memoir sets down his wartime adventures before being incarcerated in Stalag Luft III and then, in extraordinary detail, describes various escape attempts which culminated with the famous March breakout.

In Elizabethan London, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her education has endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but still she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees the theatre, Emilia discovers the power of stories to beguile audiences. Secretly, she forms a plan to bring a play of her own to the stage – by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Adam Scott listens to the reading of his father's will, aware that the contents can only be meagre. The Colonel, after all, had nothing to leave - except a letter he had never opened himself, a letter that can only bring further disgrace to the family name. Against his mother's advice, Adam opens the letter, and immediately realizes his life can never be the same again. The contents leave him with no choice but to follow a course his father would have described as a matter of honour.

The planet Bienvenido is in crisis. It has finally escaped the Void, emerging into regular space. But it's millions of light-years from Commonwealth assistance, and humans are battling the Fallers for control of their world. This rapacious adversary, evolved to destroy all sentient life, has infiltrated every level of human society - hijacking unwilling bodies so its citizens fear their leaders, friends and family. A mysterious figure known as the Warrior Angel leads a desperate resistance.

Miguel de Ruyter is a man with a past. Fleeing the 'wolves'—the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors—he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas. The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything...utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them.

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way. But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

After facing war, death, unruly gods, and unmitigated evil, Minalan the Spellmonger is forced to return to Farise, the site of his earliest battles, with the simple assignment to conquer the subtropical city-state and expel the pirates that plague the kingdom’s shipping. Tired of warfare, Minalan embarks on a clandestine campaign to do so, assuming an alias and setting up shop in Farise as a mere Practical Adept as cover for his operation. Recruiting a cadre of talented agents to assist, he reluctantly begins the task of infiltrating and observing Farisian society.

One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed for his murder.

Featuring Inspector Dreyfus - one of Alastair Reynolds' most popular characters - this is a fast-paced SF crime story, combining a futuristic setting with a gripping tale of technology, revolution and revenge. One citizen died a fortnight ago. Two a week ago. Four died yesterday...and unless the cause can be found - and stopped - within the next four months, everyone will be dead. For the Prefects, the hunt for a silent, hidden killer is on....

The ancient menace has finally escaped from Lalonde, shattering the Confederation's peaceful existence. Those who succumbed to it have acquired godlike powers but now follow a far from divine gospel as they advance inexorably from world to world. On planets and asteroids, individuals battle for survival against the strange and brutal forces unleashed upon the universe.

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

Hadrian Marlowe, privileged first son of a Duke, was destined for greatness, and he has become a legend. The Sun-Slayer. The Breaker of Sieges. The Crusher of Civilisations. His is a story which defined the course of worlds. This novel is not that story - not the only laid out in the history books, charting the 300 years of his life. Rather this is Hadrian's story, told in his own worlds.

The Intersolar Commonwealth is in turmoil as the Living Dream’s deadline for launching its Pilgrimage into the Void draws closer. Not only is the Ocisen Empire fleet fast approaching on a mission of genocide, but also an internecine war has broken out between the post-human factions over the destiny of humanity.