Kage Baker Books In Order

The Company Books In Publication Order

  1. In the Garden of Iden (1997)
  2. Sky Coyote (1999)
  3. Mendoza in Hollywood (2000)
  4. The Graveyard Game (2001)
  5. The Life of the World to Come (2004)
  6. The Children of the Company (2005)
  7. The Machine’s Child (2006)
  8. Rude Mechanicals (2007)
  9. The Sons of Heaven (2007)
  10. The Empress of Mars (2009)
  11. Not Less Than Gods (2009)
  12. In the Company of Thieves (2013)

Company Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (2002)
  2. Gods and Pawns (2007)

Anvil Of The World Books In Publication Order

  1. The Anvil of the World (2003)
  2. The House of the Stag (2008)
  3. The Bird of the River (2010)

Anvil Of The World Books In Chronological Order

  1. The House of the Stag (2008)
  2. The Anvil of the World (2003)
  3. The Bird of the River (2010)

Nell Gwynne Books In Publication Order

  1. The Women of Nell Gwynne’s (2009)
  2. Nell Gwynne’s Scarlet Spy (2010)
  3. Nell Gwynne’s On Land and At Sea (2012)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. The Hotel Under the Sand (2009)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. Where the Golden Apples Grow (2006)
  2. Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key (2008)
  3. The Books (2012)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Mother Aegypt and Other Stories (2004)
  2. Dark Mondays (2006)
  3. The Best of Kage Baker (2012)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Train Wrecks of the Silent Screen (2011)

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Books In Publication Order

  1. Fast Ships, Black Sails (2008)

The Dying Earth Books In Publication Order

  1. The Dying Earth / Mazirian the Magician (1950)
  2. Cugel’s Saga / Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight (1966)
  3. The Eyes of the Overworld / Cugel the Clever (1966)
  4. A Quest for Simbilis (1974)
  5. Morreion (1978)
  6. The Seventeen Virgins (1979)
  7. The Bagful of Dreams (1979)
  8. Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)
  9. The Laughing Magician (2006)
  10. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009)

The Book of Cthulhu Books In Publication Order

  1. The Book of Cthulhu (2011)
  2. The Book of Cthulhu II (2012)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (2003)
  2. New Voices In Science Fiction (2003)
  3. ReVisions (2004)
  4. Escape from Earth (2006)
  5. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009)
  6. The Book of Cthulhu (2011)
  7. Time Travel: Recent Trips (2014)
  8. Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore (2017)

The Company Book Covers

Company Short Story Collections Book Covers

Anvil Of The World Book Covers

Anvil Of The World Book Covers

Nell Gwynne Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Book Covers

The Dying Earth Book Covers

The Book of Cthulhu Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Kage Baker Books Overview

In the Garden of Iden

The first novel of Kage Baker’s critically acclaimed, much-loved series, ‘The Company’, introduces us to a world where the future of commerce is the past. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life for profit of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza, the botanist. She is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. But while there, she meets Nicholas Harpole, with whom she falls in love. And that love sounds great bells of change that will echo down the centuries, and through the succeeding novels of The Company.

Breathtakingly detailed and written with great aplomb, In the Garden of Iden is a contemporary classic of the science-fiction genre.

Sky Coyote

Facilitator Joseph is quite a guy. He’s sailed with the Phoenicians, and he’s been an Egyptian priest, an Athenian politician, and secretary to a Roman senator. After all, his employer, the twenty fourth century Company, sends immortal cyborgs like Joseph all over the world and all over time. But now Joseph finds himself in 1699, in the Mayan jungle’s Lost City actually a spa for the Company’s operatives with his protegee, the Botanist Mendoza, who still hasn’t forgiven him for that unfortunate incident in Elizabethan England. And he has to save an ancient people from encroachment by the coming white men even if it means convincing the entire pre Columbian village to step into the future. Facilitator Joseph is quite a guy. He’s sailed with the Phoenicians, and he’s been an Egyptian priest, an Athenian politician, and secretary to a Roman senator. After all, his employer, the twenty fourth century Company, sends immortal cyborgs like Joseph all over the world and all over time. But now Joseph finds himself in 1699, in the Mayan jungle’s Lost City actually a spa for the Company’s operatives with his protegee, the Botanist Mendoza, who still hasn’t forgiven him for that unfortunate incident in Elizabethan England. And he has to save an ancient people from encroachment by the coming white men even if it means convincing the entire pre Columbian village to step into the future. Facilitator Joseph is quite a guy. He’s sailed with the Phoenicians, and he’s been an Egyptian priest, an Athenian politician, and secretary to a Roman senator. After all, his employer, the twenty fourth century Company, sends immortal cyborgs like Joseph all over the world and all over time. But now Joseph finds himself in 1699, in the Mayan jungle’s Lost City actually a spa for the Company’s operatives with his protegee, the Botanist Mendoza, who still hasn’t forgiven him for that unfortunate incident in Elizabethan England. And he has to save an ancient people from encroachment by the coming white men even if it means convincing the entire pre Columbian village to step into the future.

Mendoza in Hollywood

At Cahuenga Pass, in a stagecoach inn on the road to Los Angeles, Mendoza meets her new cyborg colleagues in this third novel of the Company. In the vein of Grand Hotel, we get to know the lives and stories, both sad and funny, of these operatives from the twenty fourth century. As bullets fly overhead, we learn that Mendoza is being haunted, in her dreams, by the man she loved and lost three centuries ago and whose ghost is unexpectedly reincarnated by the arrival of a very large, very suave, and very handsome British spy, Edward Alton Bell Fairfax. We watch the immortals’ reactions as they screen, for relaxation, D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance; we root for Oscar, an anthropologist in the guise of a traveling salesman, as he tries repeatedly to sell the Criterion Patented Brassbound Pie Safe.

The Graveyard Game

You wouldn’t take Lewis for an immortal cyborg: he looks like a dapper character from a Noel Coward play. And Joseph short and stocky in his Armani suit, with a neatly trimmed black mustache and beard that give him a cheerfully villainous look you’d never guess that his parents drew the Neolithic cave paintings in the C vennes. But what are these two operatives of the Company doing in an amuseme*nt arcade in San Francisco in 1996? They’re looking for Mendoza, fellow cyborg of Dr. Zeus Incorporated who has been banished Back Way Back. They’re also trying to solve the mystery of her impossibly reappearing English mortal lover. Soon they will begin uncovering some extremely hush hush stuff about what the Company has been doing with the cyborgs it no longer wants in the field. With this fourth book in the Company series, Kage Baker once again takes the reader on a wry, intelligent, and absorbing journey into the future and the past.

The Life of the World to Come

From idea to flesh to myth, this is the story of Alec Checkerfield: Seventh Earl of Finsbury, pirate, renegade, hero, anomaly, Mendoza’s once and future love. Mendoza is a Preserver, which means that she’s sent back from the twenty fourth century by Dr. Zeus, Incorporated the Company to recover things from the past which would otherwise be lost. She’s a botanist, a good one. She’s an immortal, indestructible cyborg. And she’s a woman in love. In sixteenth century England, Mendoza fell for a native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. He died a martyr’s death, burned at the stake. In nineteenth century America, Mendoza fell for an eerily identical native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. When he died, she killed six men to avenge him. The Company didn’t like that bad for business. But she’s immortal and indestructible, so they couldn’t hurt her. Instead, they dumped her in the Back Way Back. Meanwhile, back in the future, three eccentric geniuses sit in a parlor at Oxford University and play at being the new Inklings, the heirs of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Working for Dr. Zeus, they create heroic stories and give them flesh, myths in blood and DNA to protect the future from the World to Come, the fearsome Silence that will fall on the world in 2355. They create a hero, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality.’Now,’ stranded 150,000 years in the past, there are no natives for Mendoza to fall in love with. She tends a garden of maize, and she pines for the man she lost, twice. For Three. Thousand. Years. Then, one day, out of the sky and out of the future comes a renegade, a timefaring pirate, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality. This is the beginning of the end.

The Children of the Company

Take a ride through time with the devil. In the sixth book of the Company series, we meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus. He’s used his immortal centuries to plot a complete takeover of the world since he was a young god-figure in Sumeria. In a meditative mood, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion of the Company black project ADONAI. He considers also Aegeus, his despised rival for power, who has discovered and captured a useful race of mortals known as Ho*mo sapiens umbratilis. Their unique talents may enable him to seize ultimate power. Labienus plans a double cross that will kill two birds with one stone: he will woo away Aegeus’s promising protege, the Facilitator Victor, and at the same time dispose of a ghost from his own past who has become inconvenient. The Hugo-nominated novella ‘Son Observe The Time,’ telling that part of the story, is integrated into the narrative. Fans of the series will love this book, and new readers will be enthralled.

The Machine’s Child

Kage Baker’s trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to The Life of the World to Come. Mendoza was banished long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are ‘dealt with.’ Now her past lovers: Alec, Nicholas, and Bell Fairfax, are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec’s body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.

Rude Mechanicals

The year is 1934, the scene is a Wood Near Athens temporarily relocated to the environs of the Hollywood Bowl, as German theater impresario Max Reinhardt attempts to stage his famous production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Fortunately for Reinhardt, he has immortal assistance in the person of Literature Specialist Lewis, a cyborg working undercover for Dr. Zeus Incorporated, masters of time travel. Lewis is tasked with preserving Reinhardt’s promptbooks for future Company profits at auction. Unfortunately for Reinhardt, there are complications…
For Joseph, Lewis’s fellow cyborg, is on the case as well, attempting to salvage a botched mission of his own. It involves the lost treasure of the Cahuenga Pass, a missing diamond, a third century pope, burglary, disguises, car chases, and a legendary Hollywood party spot. All of which interact, more or less disastrously, with Lewis’s mission and Reinhardt’s Shakespearean extravaganza. Will the show go on?

The Sons of Heaven

A Romantic Times BOOKreviews Top Pick for 2007: One of the best books of the year. One of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best SF Books of 2007The Kage Baker novel everyone has been waiting for: the conclusion to the story of Mendoza and The Company. In The Sons of Heaven, the forces gathering to seize power finally move on the Company. The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters. Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha Omega, vital to the mortals survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants. And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr Zeus. Filled with great climaxes, wonderful surprises, and gripping characters many readers have grown to love or hate, The Sons of Heaven is a triumph of SF.

The Empress of Mars

First came Edgar Rice Burroughs’ view of the Red Planet, then the romance of Leigh Brackett, the poetic visions of Ray Bradbury, and the hard sf underpinnings of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy. Now, added to that estimable list, we have Kage Baker, who makes Earth’s nearest neighbor all her own. When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold red planet. Outcasts, misfits and dreamers emigrated there in droves only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn’t turn a profit on Mars. This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It’s the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan, of the denizens of the Martian Motel, and of the machinations of another Company entirely, all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. Based on the Hugo nominated novella of the same name, The Empress of Mars is a rollicking novel of action, offworld romance and high adventure. The Subterranean Press edition of The Empress of Mars will be the true first edition, preceding the trade edition by several months. It is limited to 448 numbered copies signed by the author.

Not Less Than Gods

Recently returned from war, young Edward Anton Bell Fairfax is grateful to be taken under the wing of the Gentleman’s Speculative Society. At the Society, Edward soon learns that a secret world flourishes beneath the surface of London s society, a world of wondrous and terrible inventions and devices used to tip the balance of power in a long running game of high stakes intrigue. Through his intensive training Edward Anton Bell Fairfax, unwanted and lonely boy, becomes Edward Anton Bell Fairfax, Victorian super assassin, fleeing across the Turkish countryside in steam powered coaches and honing his fighting skills against clockwork opponents. As Edward travels across Europe with a team of companions, all disguised as gentleman dandies on tour, he learns more about himself and the curious abilities he is gradually developing. He begins to wonder if there isn t more going on than simple international intrigue, and if he and his companions are maybe part of a political and economic game stretching through the centuries. But, in the end, is it a game he can bring himself to play?Edward Anton Bell Fairfax, the idealistic assassin. Perhaps the most dangerous man alive.

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers

This collection brings together the early Company stories in one volume for the first time with three previously unpublished works, including ‘The Queen in Yellow,’ written exclusively for this compilation. In these tales sci fi fans follow the secret activities of the Company’s field agents once human, now centuries old time traveling immortal cyborgs as they attempt to retrieve history’s lost treasures. Botanist Mendoza’s search for the rare hallucinogenic Black Elysium grape in 1844 Spanish held Santa Barbara, facilitator Joseph’s dreamlike solicitation of the ailing Robert Louis Stevenson in 1879, and marine salvage specialist Kalugin’s recovering of an invaluable Eug ne Delacroix painting from a sunken yacht off the coast of Los Angeles in 1894 are included.

Gods and Pawns

In the Company, you re either a God or a Pawn, but sometimes you have to be both. The eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection delve further into the history and exploits of the Company and its operatives, including Mendoza, Lewis, and Alec.

The book opens with the novella, ‘To the Land Beyond the Sunset,’ starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. Their ability to grow a small tropical paradise in the middle of the desert certainly seems godlike, and it’s Mendoza’s job to figure what their secret is.’Standing in His Light’ features Van Drouten, and her role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. The story illustrates how, with a little help from the Company, lost masterpieces can be found or created easily. Other stories include ‘Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst,’ which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, ‘Hellfire at Twilight,’ which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in the England of the 18th century.

This book is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts

The Anvil of the World

Kage Baker’s stories and novels of the mysterious organization that controls time travel, The Company, have made her famous in SF. So has her talent for clever dialogue and pointed social commentary with a light touch. Ms. Baker is the best thing to happen to modern science fiction since Connie Willis or Dan Simmons. She mixes adventure, history and societal concerns in just the right amount, creating an action packed but thoughtful read, says The Dallas Morning News. The Anvil of the World is her first fantasy novel, a journey across a landscape filled with bizarre creatures, human and otherwise. It is the tale of Smith, of the large extended family of Smiths, of the Children of the Sun. They are a race given to blood feuds, and Smith was formerly an extremely successful assassin. Now he has wearied of his work and is trying to retire in another country, to live an honest life in obscurity in spite of all those who have sworn to kill him. His problems begin when he agrees to be the master of a caravan from the inland city of Troon to the seaside city of Salesh. The caravan is dogged by murder, magic, and the brooding image of the Master of the Mountain, a powerful demon, looking down from his mountain kingdom upon the greenlands and the travelers passing below. In Salesh, Smith becomes an innkeeper, but on the journey he befriended the young Lord Ermenwyr, a decadent demonic half breed. Each time Ermenwyr turns up, he brings new trouble with him. The outgrowth of stories Baker has been writing since childhood, as engaging as Tolkien and yet nothing like him, Smith’s adventure is certainly the only fantasy on record with a white uniformed nurse, gourmet cuisine, one hundred and forty four glass butterflies, and a steamboat. This is a book filled with intrigue, romance, sudden violence, and moments of emotional impact, a cast of charming characters, and echoes of the fantasy tradition that runs from Lord Dunsany and Fritz Leiber to Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny.

The House of the Stag

Before the Riders came to their remote valley the Yendri led a tranquil pastoral life. When the Riders conquered and enslaved them, only a few escaped to the forests. Rebellion wasn’t the Yendri way; they hid, or passively resisted, taking consolation in the prophecies of their spiritual leader.

Only one possessed the necessary rage to fight back: Gard the foundling, half demon, who began a one man guerrilla war against the Riders. His struggle ended in the loss of the family he loved, and condemnation from his own people.

Exiled, he was taken as a slave by powerful mages ruling an underground kingdom. Bitterer and wiser, he found more subtle ways to earn his freedom. This is the story of his rise to power, his vengeance, his unlikely redemption and his maturation into a loving father as well as a lord and commander of demon armies.

Kage Baker, author of the popular and witty fantasy, The Anvil of the World, returns to that magical world for another story of love, adventure, and a fair bit of ironic humor.

The Bird of the River

In this new story set in the world of The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, two teenagers join the crew of a huge river barge after their addict mother is drowned. The girl and her half breed younger brother try to make the barge their new home. As the great boat proceeds up the long river, we see a panorama of cities and cultures, and begin to perceive patterns in the pirate attacks that happen so frequently in the river cities. Eliss, the girl, becomes a sharp eyed spotter of obstacles in the river for the barge, and more than that, one who perceives deeply.A young boy her age, Krelan, trained as a professional assassin, has come aboard, seeking the head of a dead nobleman, so that there might be a proper burial. But the head proves as elusive as the real explanation behind the looting of cities, so he needs Eliss’s help. And then there is the massive Captain of the barge, who can perform supernatural tricks, but prefers to stay in his cabin and drink.

The Women of Nell Gwynne’s

Lady Beatrice was the proper British daughter of a proper British soldier, until tragedy struck and sent her home to walk the streets of early Victorian London. But Lady Beatrice is no ordinary who*re, and is soon recruited to join an underground establishment known as Nell Gwynne’s. Nell Gwynne’s is far more than simply the finest and most exclusive brothel in Whitehall; it is in fact the sister organization to the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society, that 19th century predecessor to a certain Company…
and when a member of the Society goes missing on a peculiar assignment, it’s up to Lady Beatrice and her sister harlots to investigate.

Nell Gwynne’s Scarlet Spy

Lady Beatrice was the proper British daughter of a proper British soldier, until tragedy struck and sent her home to walk the streets of early Victorian London. But Lady Beatrice is no ordinary who*re, and is soon recruited to join an underground establishment known as Nell Gwynne’s. Nell Gwynne’s is far more than simply the finest and most exclusive brothel in Whitehall; it is in fact the sister organization to the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society, that 19th century predecessor to a certain Company…
and when a member of the Society goes missing on a peculiar assignment, it’s up to Lady Beatrice and her sister harlots to investigate.

The Hotel Under the Sand

Appealing to boys and girls alike, this beguiling adventure explores classic fantasy themes from a unique young hero*ine’s perspective. Nine year old Emma loses everything she has in a fearsome storm and finds herself alone in the wilderness of the Dunes an area desolate since the mysterious disappearance of a resort known as the Grand Wenlocke. Finding a friend in Winston, the ghostly bellboy who wanders the Dunes, Emma learns that it has been more than 100 years since the hotel with an unsavory reputation vanished; but, unbeknownst to either of them, the long slumbering resort has just begun to stir. Allying herself with a motley crew of companions the ghost bellboy, a kindhearted cook, a pirate with a heart of gold, and the imperious young heir to the Wenlocke fortune Emma soon learns that things are not always as lost as they seem, especially if you have a brave heart and good friends.

Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

It’s 1672 in Port Royal, Jamaica. John James, London bricklayer’s apprentice turned pirate, is returning from the sack of Panama with his share of the loot a lousy 200 pieces of eight and a resolve to go back to bricklaying, since piracy pays so badly. First, though, he has a duty: he must deliver a letter to a lady. The letter is from his dead comrade, Sir Thomas Blackstone, who was a court intriguer on a mission for Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The letter’s recipient is Clarissa Waverly, Blackstone’s mistress and accomplice. Before he went off to Panama, Blackstone hid four thousand pounds of the prince’s money, unwilling to trust his lady friend not to make off with it in his absence. Dying of battle wounds, he wrote to let her know where he’d concealed the money.

Mother Aegypt and Other Stories

A brand new short story collection from Kage Baker, including an original novella set in her ongoing series of The Company, ‘Mother Aegypt’. The Company novels are being released by Tor, and include The Graveyard Game and The Life of the World to Come. ‘In each story, Baker’s even hand and compelling characterizations entrance. Listen closely, and perhaps you will hear the collective sigh of delight from intelligent lovers of fantasy the world over. A book to savor.’ Booklist ‘These wry and often wise narratives prove Baker is one of the most accomplished fantasists of our era.’ Publishers Weekly

Dark Mondays

Kage Baker author of the popular Company series delivers a collection that explores the dark and fantastic sides of her writing. This collection is anchored by an original novella involving pirates.

Fast Ships, Black Sails

Do you love the sound of a peg leg stomping across a quarterdeck? Or maybe you prefer a parrot on your arm, a strong wind at your back? Adventure, treasure, intrigue, humor, romance, danger and, yes, plunder! Oh, the Devil does love a pirate and so do readers everywhere! Swashbuckling from the past into the future and space itself, Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, presents an incredibly entertaining volume of original stories guaranteed to make you walk and talk like a pirate.

The Dying Earth / Mazirian the Magician

The stories included in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisdom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home in Vance’s lyrically described fantastic landscapes like Embelyon where, The sky was a mesh of vast ripples and cross ripples and these refracted a thousand shafts of colored light, rays which in mid air wove wondrous laces, rainbow nets, in all the jewel hues…
. The dying Earth itself is otherworldly: A dark blue sky, an ancient sun…
. Nothing of Earth was raw or harsh the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich and invested every object of the land…
with a sense of lore and ancient recollection. Welcome. The Dying Earth and its sequels comprise one of the most powerful fantasy/science fiction concepts in the history of the genre. They are packed with adventure but also with ideas, and the vision of uncounted human civilizations stacked one atop another like layers in a phyllo pastry thrills even as it induces a sense of awe at…
the fragility and transience of all things, the nobility of humanity s struggle against the certainty of an entropic resolution. Dean Koontz, author of the Odd Thomas novels. He gives you glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he d been born south of the border, he d be up for a Nobel Prize. Dan Simmons author of The Hyperion Cantos.

Cugel’s Saga / Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

‘Vance sees himself in the tradition of popular fantasy writers, but his classic writing style is also comparagle to Homer’s Odyssey, and Cervante’s Don Quixote. Though the Cugel tales may lack the scope and pathos of the greatest adventure yarns, in the twenty-first century, they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human perseverance.’–editor, Brilliance Audio Cugel’s Saga, published 17 years after Eyes of the Overworld, is the second novel that features the scoundrel and trickster, Cugel. Again, Cugel tests wits with Iucounu and acquires rudimentary powers himself. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a rogue so venal and unscrupulous that that he makes Harry Flashman look like Dudley Do-Right. How could you not love a guy like that?…
. Judging from the number of times that Cugel has come back…
you can’t keep a bad man down.’ -George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and thieves…
. Probably the least attractive hero it would be possible to find, struggling through a universe like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a hero only in that nearly everybody else he encounters in that universe is on the make too, and yet the Cugel stories are howlingly funny.’ -Kage Baker, author of Empress of Mars.

The Eyes of the Overworld / Cugel the Clever

The Eyes of the Overworld is the first of Vance’s picaresque novels about the scoundrel Cugel. Here he is sent by a magician he has wronged to a distant unknown country to retrieve magical lenses that reveal the Overworld. Conniving to steal the lenses, he escapes and, goaded by a homesick monster magically attached to his liver, starts to find his way home to Almery. The journey takes him across trackless mountains, wastelands, and seas. Vance s career began when he was in the merchant marine and continued through extended stays in exotic cities. Through cunning and dumb luck, the relentless Cugel survives one catastrophe after another, fighting off bandits, ghosts, and ghouls stealing, lying, and cheating without insight or remorse leaving only wreckage behind. Betrayed and betraying, he joins a cult group on a pilgrimage, crosses the Silver Desert as his comrades die one by one and, escaping the Rat People, obtains a spell that returns him home. There, thanks to incompetence and arrogance he misspeaks the words of a purloined spell and transports himself back to the same dismal place he began his journey.

Rhialto the Marvellous

Rhialto the Marvellous takes up the personal and political conflicts among a conclave of two dozen magicians of Ascolais and Almery in the 21st Aeon. The shocking appearance of the Llorio the Murtha, a powerful female force from an earlier aeon threatens to unbalance nature by ensqualming or feminizing the magicians. This triggers a tremendous struggle for power and the other mages turn against Rhialto. Hoping to reestablish his rightful place, Rhialto travels to other aeons to restore the missing Perciplex which projects the Mostrament, the constitution of the association. In his final adventure, Rhialto must, ultimately, travel to the very ends of time and space to confront an old adversary whom he had wronged and must commit further misdeeds to restore order. Out of this welter of exotic politics, values systems, personal eccentricity, and magic, the figure of Rhialto slowly comes into focus and takes on dimension. He is a vain, apparently superficial man, not ashamed to demonstrate his melancholy to enhance his reputation. But he is courteous, patient, and subtle, even kind. He is self aware and introspective as Cugel never could be the wisest and most sympathetic of all of Vance’s wizards.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance

Thank You, Mr. Vance, by Dean Koontz. 2009 by Dean Koontz. Preface, by Jack Vance. 2009 by Jack Vance. The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale, by Robert Silverberg. 2009 by Agberg, Ltd. Grolion of Almery, by Matthew Hughes. 2009 by Matt Hughes Company Ltd. The Copsy Door, by Terry Dowling. 2009 by Terry Dowling. Caulk the Witch Chaser, by Liz Williams. 2009 by Liz Williams. Inescapable, by Mike Resnick. 2009 by Mike Resnick. Abrizonde, by Walter Jon Williams. 2009 by Walter Jon Williams. The Traditions of Karzh, by Paula Volsky. 2009 by Paula Volsky. The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod, by Jeff VanderMeer. 2009 by Jeff VanderMeer. The Green Bird, by Kage Baker. 2009 by Kage Baker. The Last Golden Thread, by Phyllis Eisenstein. 2009 by Phyllis Eisenstein. An Incident in Uskvesh, by Elizabeth Moon. 2009 by Elizabeth Moon. Sylgarmo’s Proclamation, by Lucius Shepard. 2009 by Lucius Shepard. The Lamentably Comical Tragedy or the Laughably Tragic Comedy of Lival Laqavee, by Tad Williams. 2009 by Tad Williams. Guyal the Curator, by John C. Wright. 2009 by John C. Wright. The Good Magician, by Glen Cook. 2009 by Glen Cook. The Return of the Fire Witch, by Elizabeth Hand. 2009 by Elizabeth Hand. The Collegeum of Mauge, by Byron Tetrick. 2009 by Byron Tetrick. Evillo the Uncunning, by Tanith Lee. 2009 by Tanith Lee. The Guiding Nose of Ulf nt Bander z, by Dan Simmons. 2009 by Dan Simmons. Frogskin Cap, by Howard Waldrop. 2009 by Howard Waldrop. A Night at the Tarn House, by George R. R. Martin. 2009 by George R. R. Martin. An Invocation of Incuriosity, by Neil Gaiman. 2009 by Neil Gaiman.

The Book of Cthulhu

The Cthulhu Mythos is one of the 20th century”s most singularly recognizable literary creations. Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries the so called ‘Lovecraft Circle’, The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today. Table of Contents: Caitlin R. Kiernan Andromeda among the Stones Ramsey Campbell The Tugging Charles Stross A Colder War Bruce Sterling The Unthinkable Silvia Moreno Garcia Flash Frame W. H. Pugmire Some Buried Memory Molly Tanzer The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins Michael Shea Fat Face Elizabeth Bear Shoggoths in Bloom T. E. D. Klien Black Man With A Horn David Drake Than Curse the Darkness Charles Saunders Jeroboam Henley”s Debt Thomas Ligotti Nethescurial Kage Baker Calamari Curls Edward Morris Jihad over Innsmouth Cherie Priest Bad Sushi John Hornor Jacobs The Dream of the Fisherman”s Wife Brian McNaughton The Doom that Came to Innsmouth Ann K. Schwader Lost Stars Steve Duffy The Oram County Whoosit Joe R. Lansdale The Crawling Sky Brian Lumley The Fairground Horror Tim Pratt Cinderlands Gene Wolfe Lord of the Land Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. To Live and Die in Arkham John Langan The Shallows Laird Barron The Men from Porlock

Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian

Janis Ian has inspired fans for years with her lyrical and evocative music. Now, this popular music legend has invited her favorite science fiction and fantasy writers to interpret her songs using their own unique voices. The result is the most unusual and exciting collaboration in the worlds of both science fiction fantasy and music.

New Voices In Science Fiction

A collection of virtually all original stories by the next generation of science fiction superstars chosen by one of its current stars. Includes stories by Kage Baker, Janis Ian, Julie E. Czerneda, Susan Matthews, Shane Tourtelotte, Cory Doctorow, Kay Kenyon, and others.

ReVisions

Fifteen original tales of ‘what if’

Some of today’s top science fiction writers explore the futures that might have been, including original stories from Julie E. Czerneda and other great names in the genre.

Escape from Earth

Imagine a world where interplanetary travel isn t just possible it’s commonplace. Human beings have terraformed Mars. You can reach into another dimension through a wormhole. The virtual world can be the only place where you exist, because you don t have a body. The possibilities are endless. Escape from Earth, inspired by Robert Heinlein s juveniles, featuring stories by Orson Scott Card Ender s Game, Elizabeth Moon the Vatta books, and Joe Haldeman The Forever War, among others, will take you places beyond your imagination.

Related Authors

Leave a Comment