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"I Dreamed of Owl. That Means Wizardry is Near."

Tristen is a weapon in an ancient war between wizardry and sorcery. He is a summoning and a shaping, brought to life by a wizard. And his sword is a weapon as well. Its keen blade, marked *Illusion *on one side and *Truth *on the other, once helped Tristen win the throne of Ylesuin for the young king Cefwyn, gaining Tristen the stewardship of the brave country of Amefel.

Tristen's rule in Amefel is blessed with two extraordinary friends: one a stalwart and simple warrior, the other a young rebel with royal blood. But the scarlet banners of war are unfolding again, and far more than a kingdom is at stake. Now Tristen must take up the sword--as well as the Sihhë magic he has forsworn. He is destiny's own, created a combatant in a far older and more fearsome conflict than any ever imagined by mere mortal man. And he is about to do battle once more. . . .

Rich with magic, intrigue, and adventure, this high fantasy series from the acclaimed C. J. Cherryh brings to life an enchanting world as real as, yet far more wondrous, than our own.

Two surprising allies have emerged to aid the embattled ruler in a struggle he *must* win: Cefwyn's two young sons. Aewyn Marhanen is the prince destined to rule. Aewyn's half-brother, Elfwyn Aswydd—the bastard son of the king and the sorceress Tarien Aswydd—has spent years unaware of his parentage, yet now it is his time to emerge and claim the gifted birthright he's been denied for so long.

But a dark, sinister magic has crept close to the young man and seized hold of the kingdom. Nothing is as it seems, as the bonds of family strain against the powerful forces that would see them undone—and the battle is joined to unmask and destroy the malevolence that threatens to unhinge the king's peaceful and fragile reign.

After a hundred pioneer years, the colony on Hestia seemed to be nearing its end. Its holdings on that green and fertile planet were still limited to a single river in one valley. Everywhere else hostile fauna hedged them in. A dam could break the deadlock, and they needed an engineer to build it for them. Sam Merrit was the man who came in answer to their S.O.S. -- and he wanted out as soon as he landed. But once down on Hestia, it was live or die within the colony. So Sam stayed -- to discover certain anomalies that the hardscrabble colonists had thrust from their minds.

Perhaps the most advanced and least understood race in the known universe, the idvue lived in giant spaceships that roamed in random patterns around the galaxy. For nearly two hundred years one of these mammoth vessels, The Ashanome, had been stalking an offender ... one of their own kind who betrayed an ancient rite and fled into the sanctuary of "human" space.

Now, as The Ashanome went into orbit around his hiding place, it was time for vaikka, the ultimate vengeance and return of honor which the iduve cherished above all else. To accomplish their task, they commanded the aid of three very different individuals — Aiela Lyailleue, a young man of the peaceable kallia race who was forcibly inducted into the Starlord's service, possibly never to see his home or family again; Daniel, a savage human with nothing but fear and a blind hatred for his captors; and Isande, a beautiful woman who knew more about the iduve than the iduve themselves.

Together, through the process of Asuthi, all three had their minds melded into a single entity — learning not only each other's language, but each other's way of life, inner feelings and deepest secrets. For in a short time they would descend to the threatening surface of Priamos. Their mission: search out and kill the offender.

If they were to be successful, they would surely need the combined resources of all their wits and intuitive knowledge. Within a few short hours, the trio had to find the needle in the haystack — or they and all the planet's million other men, women and children would perish in a single, searing flash of white hot energy. The iduve knew no other way...

Kurt Morgan’s survival capsule brought him down safely on a nameless Earth-type world. He was the only one left of the battle crew that had just annihilated a human planet of the Hanan, the enemy in a galactic war.

The planet was inhabited by humanoids with a pre-technology civilization, a complex religion, and a long history of intricate internal relations. There was one other galactic  battle survivor on that world-and she was an officer of the hated Hanan-and also the high priestess of the land in which Kurt had found refuge.

The novel that C. J. Cherryh has written on this premise will establish her role even more firmly as one of the major new talents in science fiction.

“A born storyteller... fully worthy of the company of Leigh Brackett or C. L Moore.”

In a fantastic city of canals, seventeen-year-old gondolier Altair Jones finds herself involved in aristocratic plots and mortal danger when she rescues a man thrown into the canal to drown

But fear of the world of Faery ran deep in the hearts of men, and when Ciaran Cuilean, Lord of Caer Wiell, a man with Elvish blood in his veins, found himself the object of increasing distrust and suspicion from his men, his king, and even his own family, he knew he must once again put his humanity aside and return to Ealdwood. For shadows of a newly awakened evil swarmed across both lands, and unless Ciaran reclaimed his haunted weapons from the Tree of Swords and joined Arafel, he would see this evil overtake not only the warm hearthstones of the mortal keeps but the silvery heart of Ealdwood itself!

Things weren't right in the little kingdom of Maggiar, so the princes Bogdan and Tamas set off to seek an answer to the kingdom's troubles in the world over the mountain, a world they knew only from legends. But that glorious place was great no more. The goblins had declared war, and no one--especially not visitors were safe from the raging battles, the darkest sorcery, and the evil that roamed the land....

But what should have been a blessing was as much a curse—for jealousy and fear grew in the lands of men. Shadows of newly awakened evil swarmed across both landscapes threatening to bring the clang and reek of war from the warm hearthstones of the mortal world keeps to the silvery heart of Ealdwood. And Ciaran knew that he must once again put his humanity aside and reclaim his haunted weapons from the Tree of Swords or see both his worlds fold into darkness!

Native-born humans, however, said that was not the case. There were no such blue-robes and no aliens.

Such was the viewpoint of both Herrin the artist and Waden the autocrat—until a crisis of planetary identity forced a life-and-death confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question…

This acclaimed series, winner of numerous World Fantasy Awards, continues its tradition of excellence with scores of short stories from such writers as K. W. Jeter, Karl Edward Wagner, Terry Bisson, S. P. Somtow, Charles de Lint, Kobo Abe, Jane Yolen and many others. Supplementing the stories are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, Edward Bryant's witty roundup of the year's fantasy films, and a long list of Honorable Mentions—all of which adds up to an invaluable reference source, and a font of fabulous reading.

This is the second, after *Turning Points* (2002), in another series of collections of new stories about the city of Sanctuary, originally the creation of editor Abbey and Robert Asprin in their Thieves' World, now long a setting exploited by a variety of authors. Sanctuary was founded by runaway slaves, hence the name, and remains a refuge for those able to call no other place home--a deadly fate, indeed, for there is no one there to guard one's back. Weapons, wizardry, music--any of these can start something in Sanctuary that only the boldest can finish. Editor Abbey unifies this book with the device of a shipwreck off the coast of Sanctuary, with the stuff looted from it cranking up the levels of menace and chaos in the city. She has gotten high-quality contributions from mostly well-known fantasy hands, and she interweaves them so deftly that the book reads like a novel. Although it will help to be previously acquainted with Thieves' World, it isn't necessary to appreciate this book. *Roland Green* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved* ### Review On *Thieves' World* TM: *Turning Points* "Thieves' World was a signal event in fantasy history ...(a) rich legacy of first rate story."-- *New York Times* bestselling author Raymond E.Feist "Amusingly 'low' fantasy adventure, varied enough to appeal to those who have had their fill of Tolkien and want funnier, nastier stuff." -- *Kirkus Reviews*

Heroes from Earth including Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Julius Caesar become caught up in a war between demons and mortals

In the wake of civil war, Bren Cameron, the brilliant human diplomat of the alien atevi civilization, has left the capital and sought refuge at his country estate, Najida. But now he is trapped inside Najida—which has been surrounded by enemies—with Ilisidi, the powerful grandmother of his ally, Tabini-aiji, atevileader of the Western Association. But Ilisidi, the wily and dangerous aiji-dowager, is not inclined to be passive, and in a brazen maneuver sends Bren into enemy territory, to the palace of Machigi, the leader of the rebels. Bren's mission is to negotiate with Machigi—a young atevi lord who has never actually seen a human—and somehow persuade him to cease his hostile actions against the West. Bren knows that the autocratic Machigi rules a fractious clan, and that his hospitality is not guaranteed. Bren's genius for negotiation enable him to make a daring trade offer to Machigi—one that seems to interest the young warlord. But Machigi is suspicious of Ilisidi's motives, and, to Bren's utter shock, evokes an ancient law that jeopardizes Bren's life. Can Bren stay alive, not alienate and not alienate Ilisidi or Tabini, while also representing the interests of their enemy? The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Betrayer is the 12th Foreigner novel. It is also the 3rd book in the fourth subtrilogy.

The civil war among the alien atevi has ended. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri, his son and heir, and his human paidhi, Bren Cameron, have returned to Bujavid, their seat of power. But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over. Since the rebellion, Bren Cameron's apartment in the capital has been occupied by an old noble family from the Southern district—the same district from which the coup was initiated. This family now claims loyalty to Tabini, but the aiji is dubious. To avoid conflict, Bren has decided to absent himself from the Bujavid and visit Najida, his country estate on the west coast.Tabini-aiji is training his young son in the traditional ways of the atevi, and has Cajeiri under strict supervision. But after two years in space, surrounded by human children, Cajeiri bristles in this boring environment. Desperate for freedom and adventure, disregarding the obvious danger, Cajeiri escapes the Bujavid with his young bodyguards and sets out to join Bren on the coast.Determined to insure his son's safety, Tabini recalls Ilisidi from her home in the East, asking her to find Cajeiri and secure him at Bren's estate. But it has been a long time since Bren has been to Najida, and the war has shifted allegiances in many quarters. A district that was once considered a safe haven may now be a trap. And with Bren, Cajeiri, and Ilisidi all under one roof and separated from their allies, that trap is now baited.The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Conspirator is the 10th Foreigner novel. It is also the 1st book in the fourth subtrilogy.

They named him Thorn. They told him he was of their people, although he was so different. He was ugly in their eyes, strange, sleek-skinned instead of furred, clawless, different. Yet he was of their power class: judge-warriors, the elite, the fighters, the defenders.

Thorn knew that his difference was somehow very important – but not important enough to prevent murderous conspiracies against him, against his protector, against his caste, and perhaps against the peace of the world. But when the crunch came, when Thorn finally learned what his true role in life was to be, that on him might hang the future of two worlds, then he had to stand alone to justify his very existence.

Version 1.0 – Kelzan

Please update version number before posting corrected version.

Die katzenartigen Chanur befahren weite Gebiete der Galaxis. Ihre Handelsschiffe sind ausschließlich von Frauen "bemannt", die demselben Familienclan angehören — ähnlich wie bei den menschlichen Kauffahrern. Auch auf "Chanurs Stolz" ist das so, die von Pyanfar Chanur kommandiert wird, einer Lady mit seidigem Pelz, aber messerscharfen Krallen und einem messerscharfen Verstand.

Pyanfar ist eine edle Hani im Kapitänsrang, und sie kennt eine Menge anderer Rassen, wie die Stsho, die ammoniakatmenden Kif, die Knnn, aber ein Wesen wie dieses — bleich, schmutzig, pelzlos bis auf ein Büschel auf dem Kopf, und unverständliche Kehllaute ausstoßend — ist ihr noch nie begegnet. Es ist von einem Kif-Frachter im Dock der Meeting-Station geflohen und in einem unbewachten Augenblick in die Luftschleuse der "Chanurs Stolz" geschlichen. Ist es ein Tier? Das Alien gehört einer raumfahrenden Rasse an, die in den Außenbezirken der Galaxis lebt. Sie nennt sich "Menschen".

The civil war among the alien atevi has ended and Tabini-aiji, the ruler of the Western Association, has returned to power. Bren Cameron, Tabini's human paidhi, decides to return to his recovered home on the coast, but when Tabini's son Cajeiri flees his responsibilities to join Bren, Tabini sends the boy's great-grandmother, Ilisidi, to find him.Najida, Bren's coastal home, is no longer the safe haven it once was. For a neighbor's estate—the ancestral home of Lord Geigi, a close associate of Bren's—has been left without strong leadership. Lord Geigi now resides on the atevi space station, and in his absence, rebel clans have infiltrated his home. When these rebels attack Bren's home, the paidhi has no choice but to recall Lord Geigi from space. With Lord Geigi, Ilisidi, Bren, and Cajeiri all under one roof, they pose an irresistible target for the enemy. Can these four powerful individuals overcome their adversaries and end this guerilla war that is the last vestige of revolution?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Deceiver is the 11th Foreigner novel. It is also the 2nd book in the fourth subtrilogy.

Nearly ten years after the unexpected return of the starship Phoenix, the alien atevi have three functioning space shuttles, and teams of atevi engineers labor in orbit to renovate the space station. But these monumental advances not only add a dangerously powerful third party to an already precarious diplomatic situation, but rouse pro- and anti=s[ace factions in atevi society to incendiary levels. To help negotiate these treacherous diplomatic waters, Tabini-aiji, the powerful head of theatevi's Western Association, has sent the only human he fully trusts into space: his own paidhi, Bren Cameron.However, the threat of possible invasion by hostile aliens who attacked Phoenix's station in a far-off sector of space hangs over them all. And when one of the senior captains of the Phoenix confesses that this station was not completely destroyed, as had been previously thought, the crew mutinies. How can Bren hope to mediate on a station overcome by a rebellious crew intent on taking the Phoenix on a rescue mission back into hostile alien territory?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Defender is the 5th Foreigner book. It is also the 2nd book in the second subtrilogy.

In the aftermath of civil war, the world of the atevi is still perilously unstable. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with his son and heir Cajeiri, and his human paidhi, Bren Cameron, have returned to the seat of power. The usurper, Murini, has escaped to the lands of his supporters, but the danger these rebels pose is far from over. Ilisidi, Tabini's grandmother, the aiji-dowager, has returned to her ancient castle in the East, for she has powerful ties in the lands of the rebels, and she seeks to muster whatever support for her grandson that she can from among those enemy strongholds.In his father's tightly guarded headquarters, eight-year-old Cajeiri is horribly bored. Two years on an interstellar starship surrounded by human children have left him craving excitement. But unbeknownst to this dissatisfied youngster he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule and everything it stands for. Though still a child, Cajeiri embodies a unique threat to the venerable, tradition-defined lifestyle of his people. For this young boy is the first ateva youth to have lived in a human environment. And after hundreds of years of tenuous atevi-human coexistence, Cajeiri may very well be the first ateva to ever truly understand the so similar yet so dangerously different aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Deliverer is the 9th Foreigner novel. It is also the 3rd book in the third subtrilogy.

It has been two years since the starship Phoenix left Alpha Station on a rescue mission where over four thousand human spacers were under attack by a hostile alien race. Now, exhausted from their journey, the crew of the Phoenix yearns for home. But when the ship makes the jump into atevi space, they learn the worst: that supplies to the station have been cut off; that civil war has broken out on the atevimainland; that the powerful Western Association has been overthrown; and that Tabini-aiji, Bren Cameron's primary supporter and Ilisidi's grandson and ally, is missing and may be dead.With no one left to lead the Western Association, Ilisidi and  Bren know that the survival of their allies lies in their hands. And with the atevi world at war, the only safe landing strip lies on the human colony at Mospheira. Although there are many dangers inherent in bringing a powerful atevi leader such as Ilisidi onto human lands, Bren realizes they have no other choice. But even if they safely survive their landing, will Bren and Ilisidi together prove strong enough to muster the remaining shards of the Western Association and regain control of their planet?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Destroyer is the 7th Foreigner novel. It is also the 1st book in the third subtrilogy.

It has been nearly ten years since the starship Phoenix returned to Alpha, the station orbiting the world of the atevi, which had been abandoned following a rift between a faction of the station's inhabitants and the spacers' Pilot's Guild. The unexpected return of the Phoenix has forever changed the lives of both atevi and Mospheirans, for over the ensuing decade, the captains of the Phoenix have brought both species into space. Their motivation seemed simple: Reunion Station, a human station in another sector of space, had been destroyed by aliens.But on his deathbed, the senior captain of the Phoenix admits that he lied to the crew—that Reunion was merely damaged, not destroyed, and many people may have survived. At this disclosure, the crew rebels and forces the Phoenix to undertake a rescue mission to Reunion. Onboard the rescue mission are Bren Cameron, brilliant human paidhi representing the atevi ruler Tabini-aiji, and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, a fearsome and ambitious atevi leader with an agenda of her own. Trapped in a distant star system with little fuel left, facing a bellicose alien ship, how can Bren help to avoid interspecies war when the notoriously secretive Pilot's Guild aboard Reunion Station refuse to cooperate, and may have kept the inhabitants of their own station ignorant of their true situation?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Explorer is the 6th Foreigner novel. It is also the 3rd book in the second subtrilogy.

The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race.From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreignerseries has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

Book One of the Chronicles of Morgaine

Scanned by BW-Scifi; proofed by Casca; reproofed and formatted by Nadie.

Niūru ir gūdu Magijaros karalystėje. Siaubas lediniais nagais kausto žmonių sielas bei širdis. Nes piktieji goblinai pasklebė karą.

Žmonės bejėgiai prieš goblinų kliautis ir burtus.

Vienintelė viltis — nedidelė goblinų veidrodžio šukė, spinduliuose spinduliuojanti magišką galią…

Six months after the return of the alien atevi to the human colony it had placed there two centuries earlier, the rise of a polarizing political faction threatens to send the fledgling planet into war, and three people become a society's only hope.  

Civil war on the world of the atevi seems to be over, but diplomatic disputes and political infighting continue unabated. Bren Cameron, brilliant human diplomat allied with the dominant Western Association, has just returned to the capital from his country home on the coast. But his sojourn was anything but restful. Attacked by rebel forces hoping to kill not only him, but also Ilisidi, the grandmother, and Cajieri, the young son, of Tabini-aiji, the powerful head of the Western Association, Bren and his resourceful associates have had a small war of their own to contend with. And this small war has ended with a daring proposition: that their longtime enemy Machigi, having been double-crossed by his allies and approached by Ilisidi with an offer of alliance, will sign a trade agreement with her Eastern district-a situation which has upset both the rebels and the loyal north.But Bren’s accustomed role as negotiator for Tabini, Ilisidi, and their associates has suddenly changed radically—for Machigi, to Bren’s utter shock, has evoked an ancient law. Bren wears the white ribbon that for the last few centuries has identified the single official human-atevi negotiator. But before humans landed, this white ribbon represented a specialized negotiator between atevi adversaries—a mediator who agreed to represent both sides with equal loyalty. These ancient mediators frequently ended up dead.Now back in the capital, Bren finds that things are even more complicated than they previously were. He has now been put in the precaroius position of representing both Ilisidi and Machigi to the congress, and is becoming embroiled with both conservative and liberal factions. Meanwhile, Tabini-aiji is enraged to have lost the personal negotiator who has been his associate for decades, and is also jealous of any other party who stands to influence his young son. But there are even more dangerous things afoot, for Bren’s bodyguard has warned him there is a crisis inside the immensely dangerous Assassins’ Guild, and that the recent dustup with the Shadow Guild, a rebellious faction within the Assassins, may be only the beginning.The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Intruder is the 13th Foreigner novel. It is also the 1st book in the fifth subtrilogy.

Nearly two centuries after the starship Phoenix disappeared into the heavens, leaving an isolated colony of humans on the world of the Atevi, it unexpectedly returns to orbit overhead, threatening the stability of both Atevi and human government. This is the sequel to Foreigner.

COPYRIGHT ©, 1978, BY C. J. CHERRYH

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Gino D'Achille

Frontispiece sketch by the Author

For DON WOLLHEIM with most especial appreciation

FIRST DAW PRINTING, AUGUST 1978 123456789

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

The Faded Sun Trilogy Book 3

Gwiazda Pella, strategiczny punkt w konflikcie zbrojnym Kompanii Ziemskiej i międzygwiezdnych kolonii. Ten, kto kontroluje Stacje Pella, decyduje o zasięgu ziemskich sił obronnych bądź o skali ziemskiej ekspansji w celu odzyskania utraconego imperium. Ale Pell jest zdecydowany utrzymać neutralność za wszelką cenę.

Ludzie z Gwiazdy Pella to obszerna, wielowątkowa i dramatyczna wizja przyszłości, ukazująca charaktery, postawy i ambicje nie odbiegające od naszych. Przez stronice tej powieści przewija się galeria fascynujących postaci, ludzkich i nieludzkich, których losy zależą od wyniku tytanicznych zmagań w skali kosmicznej.

Powieść ta otrzymała nagrodę Hugo w roku 1982.

At last—Cajeiri has his young guests from the starship, three young folk entranced by weather and trees and creatures with minds of their own. It’s all he dreamed of... But now safety is foremost: Cajeiri’s grandfather has been assassinated, hostile Assassins Guild invaded Great-uncle’s house, and now Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, who was sent to keep the aiji’s son safe, has more than the young guests on his mind. The aiji-dowager knows who’s to blame for the attacks, and they’re going after him. The fact that the person responsible is in the heart of Assassins’ Guild Headquarters, the most closely guarded fortress on the continent, is not going to stop her. Bren Cameron has the pieces now, of a decades-old plot that’s been threaded through Guild actions going back before his arrival on the continent, and more—he knows the person responsible is going to find out he knows, and find out within hours. They have no choice. If they don’t move, the other side will. And the lives of the boy, the guests, the entire ruling family are at stake.

The human and atevi species join forces to rearm an ancient human space station in order to fend off an alien attack, in a sequel to the Foreigner trilogy. 

Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission in space, the crew of the starship Phoenix return home to find disaster: civil war has broken out, the powerful Western Association has been overthrown, and Tabini-aiji, its forceful leader, is missing. In a desperate move, paidhi Bren Cameron and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, along with with Cajeiri, Tabini's eight-year-old heir, make planetfall and succeed in reaching the mainland. The brilliant and forceful Ilisidi seeks refuge at the estate of an old ally, and Tabini-aiji arrives at the door.As word of Tabini's whereabouts circulates, clans allied with Tabini descend upon the estate, providing a huge civilian presence that everyone involved hopes will deter impending attacks by the usurpers. But as more and more supporting clans arrive, Bren finds himself increasingly isolated, and it becomes clear that both his extremely important report of alien contact in space, and even his life, rest on the shoulders of only two allies: Ilisidi and Cajeiri.Can one elderly ateva and and eight-year-old boy—himself a prime target for assassination—protect Bren, a lone human involved in a civil war that most atevi believe he caused?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Pretender is the 8th Foreigner novel. It is also the 2nd book in the third subtrilogy.

It's coming up on Cajeiri's birthday. The boy has been promised he can have the young human children he knew from his voyage sent down from the space station for a two week stay.But there's far a darker business going on in the background--a major split compromising the Assassins' Guild, which furnishes security and law enforcement to the whole continent.  Tabini's consort's own father has been barred from court, and may be involved in a new conspiracy against him. For safety reasons, Tabini wants Bren and Ilisidi to take charge of Cajeiri, and protect him and his young guests. They themselves are very likely targets of whatever's going on, no question of it. So is Cajeiri. But having the targets separated and contained is an advantage. It's Bren's responsibility to entertain the guests, keep the security problem secret...and let a lonely eight-year-old prince reestablish his controversial relationship with the only other children he's ever met...inside the best security they can manage.

The Faded Sun Triology Book 2

Lo avevano chiamato Thorn, e ancora neonato lo avevano affidato al più grande giudice-guerriero di quel mondo, Duun, perché lo allevasse come un membro della loro razza. Ma ben presto Thorn si rende conto di essere diverso; la sua pelle è chiara e priva di morbida pelliccia argentea, le sue mani mancano di artigli, e in tutto quel mondo non esiste un’altra creatura simile a lui. Quando poi gli attentati alla sua vita si moltiplicano, fino a condurre l’intero pianeta a una strenua guerra civile, Thorn capisce che deve cercare nello spazio la risposta all’enigma della sua origine, ben sapendo che da lui può dipendere il futuro di due lontane civiltà.

Nominato per i premi Hugo e Locus in 1986.

A truly breathtaking new anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, Swords & Dark Magic offers stunning new tales of sword and sorcery action, romance, and dark adventure written by some of the most respected, bestselling fantasy writers working today—from Joe Abercrombie to Gene Wolfe. An all-new Elric novella from the legendary Michael Moorcock and a new visit to Majipoor courtesy of the inimitable Robert Silverberg are just two of the treasures offered in Swords & Dark Magic—a fantasy lover’s dream.

Seventeen original tales of sword and sorcery penned by masters old and new

Elric…the Black Company…Majipoor. For years, these have been some of the names that have captured the hearts of generations of readers and embodied the sword and sorcery genre. And now some of the most beloved and bestselling fantasy writers working today deliver stunning all-new sword and sorcery stories in an anthology of small stakes but high action, grim humor mixed with gritty violence, fierce monsters and fabulous treasures, and, of course, swordplay. Don’t miss the adventure of the decade!

Swords & Dark Magic is the most important new fantasy anthology to be published this decade. Featuring new stories from the bestselling and brightest writers working in the genre, including: New York Times bestselling authors Scott Lynch and Garth Nix; genre greats Michael Moorcock (with an all-new Elric novella), Michael Shea (with a fully authorized new Cugel the Clever adventure), Robert Silverberg (with an all-new Majipoor tale), Glen Cook (with an all-new Black Company story), Gene Wolfe, and C. J. Cherryh; and hot new writers who’ve been re-inventing swords and sorcery like Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, Tim Lebbon, and many more.

Cover illustration © by Benjamin Carré

STEVEN ERIKSON is the pseudonym of Canadian novelist Steve Rune Lundin, best known for his ongoing fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen, beginning in 1999 with Gardens of the Moon. Trained as an archaeologist and anthropologist, Erikson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is a World Fantasy Award-nominated author. SF Site has called the series “the most significant work of epic fantasy since Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.” Known for his portrayal of multidimensional characters, he said in an interview conducted by suite101.com, “It’s often commented that my stuff is all shades of gray rather than black and white, but that’s not the same as saying every character is similarly gray—the effect is an overall one rather than a specific one. Most of the characters I come up with have pretty fixed notions of right and wrong, they have a moral center, in other words, whether consciously recognized or not. But in coming at something from more than one side, the reader is left free to choose which one they’ll favor.” Erikson now lives in Cornwall, England.

GLEN COOK grew up in northern California and served in the U.S. Navy with the Third Marine Recon Battalion, an experience that fundamentally affected his later work. Cook then attended the University of Missouri and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. His first novel, The Heirs of Babylon, appeared in 1972 and was followed by a broad range of fantasy and science fiction novels, including the humorous fantasy Garrett PI series and others. His most important work, though, is the gritty Black Company fantasy series, which follows a mercenary unit over several decades and which brought a whole new perspective to fantasy. Cook is currently retired and lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he writes full-time.

GENE WOLFE worked as an engineer, before becoming editor of trade journal Plant Engineering. He came to prominence as a writer in the late 1960s with a sequence of short stories in Damon Knight’s Orbit anthologies. His early major novels were The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace, but he established his reputation with a sequence of three long, multivolume novels—The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun. His short fiction has been collected in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, Endangered Species, Strange Travelers, and, most recently, The Best of Gene Wolfe. He is the recipient of the Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, John W. Campbell Memorial, British Fantasy, British SF, and World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards. Wolfe’s most recent book is the novel An Evil Guest. Upcoming is his new novel The Sorcerer’s House.

JAMES ENGE has been developing his stories of Morlock Ambrosius for years, but had to wait for the pendulum to swing back in favor of sword and sorcery before he made a splash. Appearing only recently in the pages of Black Gate, Flashing Swords, and everyday fiction.com, his tales of a wandering wizard and swordsman built up a loyal following in a very short time, before leaping into novel form with the books Blood of Ambrose, This Crooked Way, and The Wolf Age. Strange Horizon writes of him: “There’s a kind of literately sensuous pleasure in Enge’s writing…the pleasure of an intelligent, skillful writer amusing himself and us.” Little surprise then that Enge is an instructor of classical languages at a Midwestern university. Speaking to Fantasy Book Critic, he said, “The modern realistic novel, increasingly in the twentieth century, concerned itself with character above all else: what the character felt and perceived. I’m not knocking this: realistic fiction has some triumphant achievements in this line…But I think it’s an approach that is susceptible to diminishing returns. Genre fiction, like medieval and classical traditions of storytelling, tends to concentrate much more on what people do and the context in which they do it. I love this concentration on conduct, on action (but not necessarily in the car-chases-and-gunfights sense) and on the world…I find it in the older narrative traditions; I find it in genre fiction; and I think it’s the reason that twenty-first-century literary fiction is looking to refresh itself at the wells of genre.”

C. J. CHERRYH began writing stories at the age of ten, when she became frustrated with the cancellation of her favorite TV show, Flash Gordon. She has a Master of Arts degree in classics from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a Woodrow Wilson fellow, and taught Latin, Ancient Greek, the classics, and ancient history in Oklahoma. Cherryh wrote novels in her spare time when not teaching, and in 1975 sold her first novels Gate of Ivrel and Brothers of Earth to Donald A. Wollheim at DAW Books. The books won her immediate recognition and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977. In 1979, her short story “Cassandra” won the Best Short Story Hugo, and she quit teaching to write full-time. She has since won the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice, first for Down-below Station in 1982 and then again for Cyteen in 1989. In addition to developing her own fictional universes, Cherryh has contributed to several shared world anthologies, including Thieves’ World, Heroes in Hell, and the Merovingen Nights series, which she edited. Her most recent novels are major new Alliance novel, Regenesis, and new Foreigner novel, Conspirator. She lives near Spokane, Washington, and enjoys skating and traveling. She regularly makes appearances at science fiction conventions.

Raised in rural Vermont, K. J. PARKER is part of the new generation of fantasy writers who, over the past ten years, has been publishing work that has been redefining sword and sorcery. Parker’s first novel, Colors in the Steel, appeared in 1998 and was followed by two further volumes in the Fencer trilogy, the Scavenger trilogy, and the critically acclaimed Engineer trilogy. Parker’s most recent books are novels The Company and The Folding Knife, and novella “Purple and Black.” Having worked in law, journalism, and numismatics, Parker is married to a solicitor, lives in southern England, and, when not writing, likes to make things out of wood and metal.

GARTH NIX grew up in Canberra, Australia. When he turned nineteen, he left to drive around the United Kingdom in a beat-up Austin with a boot full of books and a Silver-Reed typewriter. Despite a wheel literally falling off the car, he survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. He has since worked in a bookshop, as a book publicist, a publisher’s sales representative, an editor, a literary agent, and as a public relations and marketing consultant. His first story was published in 1984 and was followed by novels The Ragwitch, Sabriel, Shade’s Children, Lirael, Abhorsen, the six-book YA fantasy series the Seventh Tower, and, most recently, the seven-book the Keys to the Kingdom series. He lives in Sydney with his wife and their two children.

MICHAEL MOORCOCK was born in London, England. At the age of sixteen, he became editor of Tarzan Adventures, and later, Sexton Black Library. But it was his editorship of New Worlds magazine, from May 1964 to March 1971, during which he fostered the “New Wave,” perhaps the most important movement in the history of science fiction. Moorcock is best known, however, for his creation of the Multiverse and his influence on sword and sorcery (a subgenre he helped name, together with Fritz Leiber). His character, Elric of Melniboné, is one of the most influential fantasy antiheroes the genre has ever produced. Not only have the novels been in continuous print since the 1970s, but Elric has crossed over into comics, role-playing games, and rock and roll. Moorcock’s influence on sword and sorcery fiction is colossal and no anthology of same could hope to be complete without him. He and his wife, Linda, currently divide their time between Texas, France, and California.

TIM LEBBON was born in London and lived in Devon until the age of eight. His first short story was published in 1994 in the indie magazine Psychotrope, and his first novel, Mesmer, appeared three years later, in 1997. Since then he has published over thirty books, including 2009’s The Island and The Map of Moments (with Christopher Golden). His dark fantasy novel, Dusk, which came out in 2007, won the August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society, and his novelization of the film 30 Days of Night was a New York Times bestseller. His new novel, Echo City Falls, is due out in 2010. A full-time writer since 2006, he now lives in Goytre, Monmouthshire, with his wife and two children.

ROBERT SILVERBERG, born in New York City, is a science fiction Grand Master, and a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. He published his first novel, the children’s book Revolt on Alpha C, in 1955. Silverberg won his first Hugo Award for Best New Writer the following year, 1956, the same year he completed an AB in English Literature from Columbia University. A prolific author, he contributed to the genre such classics as Dying Inside, Nightwings, and Downward to the Earth. In 1980 he published Lord Valentine’s Castle, the first book in his landmark sci-fantasy Majipoor series. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author and editor Karen Haber.

GREG KEYES, who also writes under the names Gregory Keyes and J. Gregory Keyes, was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse, storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Waterborn, The Black-god, the Age of Unreason tetralogy, and the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. In 2003, he began his fantasy quartet called the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, which began with The Briar King and continued with The Charnel Prince, The Blood Knight, and The Born Queen. He lives with his family in Savannah, Georgia, where he is also the head coach of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s fencing club.

MICHAEL SHEA was born to Irish parents in Los Angeles, California, where he frequented Venice Beach and the Baldwin Hills for their wildlife. After attending UCLA on the advance-placement program while still in the tenth grade, he made his way to UC Berkeley for the wildlife there during the Time of Troubles. He hitchhiked across America and Canada twice, and at a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves: The Eyes of the Overworld, by Jack Vance. It led to his first Vancean novel, A Quest for Simbilis, which was published in 1974. Shea followed that with several novellas, some horrific, some comic, in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, including the Nebula Finalist, “The Autopsy.” He published Nifft the Lean in 1982. A classic of the genre, it won the World Fantasy Award and was followed by The Mines of Behemoth and The A’rak. Other work includes novels The Color Out of Time; In Yana, the Touch of Undying; and collections Polyphemus and The Autopsy and Other Stories.

SCOTT LYNCH was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He worked a variety of jobs, including as a dishwasher, waiter, Web designer, freelance writer, and office manager, before publishing his first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, in 2006. Part of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, concerned with the life of thief and con man Locke Lamora, and set in the world of the shattered Therin Throne Empire, the series is projected to run to seven books. In addition to being a 2007 John W. Campbell Award, William L. Crawford Award, and Locus Award finalist, Scott is a volunteer firefighter, certified in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. He lives with his wife, Jenny, in the city of New Richmond, Wisconsin.

TANITH LEE became a freelance writer in 1975, and has been one ever since. Her first published books were children’s fantasies The Dragon Hoard and Animal Castle. Her first adult fantasy novel, The Birthgrave, was the start of a long association with DAW, which published more than twenty of her works of fantasy, SF, and horror in the 1970s and 1980s. She received the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award in 1980 for Death’s Master, World Fantasy Awards for Best Short Story in 1983 (for “The Gorgon”) and 1984 (for “Elle est Trois (La Mort)”). Enormously prolific, Lee has recently published a trilogy of pirate novels for young adults (Piratica and sequels), a science fiction novel for adults (Mortal Suns), an adult fantasy trilogy (Lionwolf), a young adult fantasy trilogy (Claidi and sequels), and the first of two retrospective short story collections (Tempting the Gods). Upcoming are new books in the Flat Earth series. In 2009 she was made a Grand Master of Horror. Tanith Lee lives with her husband, the writer and artist John Kaiine, on the southeast coast of England.

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN was born in Skerries, Dublin, Ireland, but grew up in Leeds, Alabama. As a teenager, she worked as a volunteer in Birmingham, Alabama’s, Red Mountain Museum, and later studied geology and vertebrate paleontology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has coauthored several scientific publications, beginning in 1988, the latest published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2002. Her first novel, Silk, was published in 1998, and she has written eight novels to date, the most recent being The Red Tree. A multiple International Horror Guild Award-winning author, she has also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Award. Kiernan has also written for DC Comics. She lives with her partner in Providence, Rhode Island.

BILL WILLINGHAM was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He got his start as staff artist for TSR, Inc., providing illustrations for a number of its role-playing games, among them Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World. In the 1980s, he gained attention for his comic book series Elementals (published by Comico), and contributed as an illustrator to such titles as DC’s Green Lantern. Willingham created the popular DC Vertigo comic book Fables in 2002, about characters from folklore residing in contemporary Manhattan. To date, Fables is the recipient of fourteen coveted Eisner Awards. His Jack of Fables, created with Matthew Sturges, was chosen by Time magazine as number five in their Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2007. His first Fables prose novel, Peter and Max, was released in 2009, the same year that his comic book Fables: War and Pieces was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. One of the most popular comics writers of our time, he currently lives in the woods in Minnesota.

JOE ABERCROMBIE attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He moved into television production before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. His first novel, The Blade Itself, was published in 2004, and was followed by two further books in the First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. His most recent book is a stand-alone novel set in the same world, Best Served Cold, and he is currently at work on another, The Heroes. Joe now lives in Bath with his wife, Lou, and his daughters, Grace and Eve. He still occasionally edits concerts and music festivals for TV, but spends most of his time writing edgy yet humorous fantasy novels.

A truly breathtaking new anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, Swords & Dark Magic offers stunning new tales of sword and sorcery action, romance, and dark adventure written by some of the most respected, bestselling fantasy writers working today—from Joe Abercrombie to Gene Wolfe. An all-new Elric novella from the legendary Michael Moorcock and a new visit to Majipoor courtesy of the inimitable Robert Silverberg are just two of the treasures offered in Swords & Dark Magic—a fantasy lover’s dream.

Seventeen original tales of sword and sorcery penned by masters old and new

Elric…the Black Company…Majipoor. For years, these have been some of the names that have captured the hearts of generations of readers and embodied the sword and sorcery genre. And now some of the most beloved and bestselling fantasy writers working today deliver stunning all-new sword and sorcery stories in an anthology of small stakes but high action, grim humor mixed with gritty violence, fierce monsters and fabulous treasures, and, of course, swordplay. Don’t miss the adventure of the decade!

Swords & Dark Magic is the most important new fantasy anthology to be published this decade. Featuring new stories from the bestselling and brightest writers working in the genre, including: New York Times bestselling authors Scott Lynch and Garth Nix; genre greats Michael Moorcock (with an all-new Elric novella), Michael Shea (with a fully authorized new Cugel the Clever adventure), Robert Silverberg (with an all-new Majipoor tale), Glen Cook (with an all-new Black Company story), Gene Wolfe, and C. J. Cherryh; and hot new writers who’ve been re-inventing swords and sorcery like Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, Tim Lebbon, and many more.

Cover illustration © by Benjamin Carré

STEVEN ERIKSON is the pseudonym of Canadian novelist Steve Rune Lundin, best known for his ongoing fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen, beginning in 1999 with Gardens of the Moon. Trained as an archaeologist and anthropologist, Erikson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is a World Fantasy Award-nominated author. SF Site has called the series “the most significant work of epic fantasy since Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.” Known for his portrayal of multidimensional characters, he said in an interview conducted by suite101.com, “It’s often commented that my stuff is all shades of gray rather than black and white, but that’s not the same as saying every character is similarly gray—the effect is an overall one rather than a specific one. Most of the characters I come up with have pretty fixed notions of right and wrong, they have a moral center, in other words, whether consciously recognized or not. But in coming at something from more than one side, the reader is left free to choose which one they’ll favor.” Erikson now lives in Cornwall, England.

GLEN COOK grew up in northern California and served in the U.S. Navy with the Third Marine Recon Battalion, an experience that fundamentally affected his later work. Cook then attended the University of Missouri and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. His first novel, The Heirs of Babylon, appeared in 1972 and was followed by a broad range of fantasy and science fiction novels, including the humorous fantasy Garrett PI series and others. His most important work, though, is the gritty Black Company fantasy series, which follows a mercenary unit over several decades and which brought a whole new perspective to fantasy. Cook is currently retired and lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he writes full-time.

GENE WOLFE worked as an engineer, before becoming editor of trade journal Plant Engineering. He came to prominence as a writer in the late 1960s with a sequence of short stories in Damon Knight’s Orbit anthologies. His early major novels were The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace, but he established his reputation with a sequence of three long, multivolume novels—The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun. His short fiction has been collected in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, Endangered Species, Strange Travelers, and, most recently, The Best of Gene Wolfe. He is the recipient of the Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, John W. Campbell Memorial, British Fantasy, British SF, and World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards. Wolfe’s most recent book is the novel An Evil Guest. Upcoming is his new novel The Sorcerer’s House.

JAMES ENGE has been developing his stories of Morlock Ambrosius for years, but had to wait for the pendulum to swing back in favor of sword and sorcery before he made a splash. Appearing only recently in the pages of Black Gate, Flashing Swords, and everyday fiction.com, his tales of a wandering wizard and swordsman built up a loyal following in a very short time, before leaping into novel form with the books Blood of Ambrose, This Crooked Way, and The Wolf Age. Strange Horizon writes of him: “There’s a kind of literately sensuous pleasure in Enge’s writing…the pleasure of an intelligent, skillful writer amusing himself and us.” Little surprise then that Enge is an instructor of classical languages at a Midwestern university. Speaking to Fantasy Book Critic, he said, “The modern realistic novel, increasingly in the twentieth century, concerned itself with character above all else: what the character felt and perceived. I’m not knocking this: realistic fiction has some triumphant achievements in this line…But I think it’s an approach that is susceptible to diminishing returns. Genre fiction, like medieval and classical traditions of storytelling, tends to concentrate much more on what people do and the context in which they do it. I love this concentration on conduct, on action (but not necessarily in the car-chases-and-gunfights sense) and on the world…I find it in the older narrative traditions; I find it in genre fiction; and I think it’s the reason that twenty-first-century literary fiction is looking to refresh itself at the wells of genre.”

C. J. CHERRYH began writing stories at the age of ten, when she became frustrated with the cancellation of her favorite TV show, Flash Gordon. She has a Master of Arts degree in classics from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a Woodrow Wilson fellow, and taught Latin, Ancient Greek, the classics, and ancient history in Oklahoma. Cherryh wrote novels in her spare time when not teaching, and in 1975 sold her first novels Gate of Ivrel and Brothers of Earth to Donald A. Wollheim at DAW Books. The books won her immediate recognition and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977. In 1979, her short story “Cassandra” won the Best Short Story Hugo, and she quit teaching to write full-time. She has since won the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice, first for Down-below Station in 1982 and then again for Cyteen in 1989. In addition to developing her own fictional universes, Cherryh has contributed to several shared world anthologies, including Thieves’ World, Heroes in Hell, and the Merovingen Nights series, which she edited. Her most recent novels are major new Alliance novel, Regenesis, and new Foreigner novel, Conspirator. She lives near Spokane, Washington, and enjoys skating and traveling. She regularly makes appearances at science fiction conventions.

Raised in rural Vermont, K. J. PARKER is part of the new generation of fantasy writers who, over the past ten years, has been publishing work that has been redefining sword and sorcery. Parker’s first novel, Colors in the Steel, appeared in 1998 and was followed by two further volumes in the Fencer trilogy, the Scavenger trilogy, and the critically acclaimed Engineer trilogy. Parker’s most recent books are novels The Company and The Folding Knife, and novella “Purple and Black.” Having worked in law, journalism, and numismatics, Parker is married to a solicitor, lives in southern England, and, when not writing, likes to make things out of wood and metal.

GARTH NIX grew up in Canberra, Australia. When he turned nineteen, he left to drive around the United Kingdom in a beat-up Austin with a boot full of books and a Silver-Reed typewriter. Despite a wheel literally falling off the car, he survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. He has since worked in a bookshop, as a book publicist, a publisher’s sales representative, an editor, a literary agent, and as a public relations and marketing consultant. His first story was published in 1984 and was followed by novels The Ragwitch, Sabriel, Shade’s Children, Lirael, Abhorsen, the six-book YA fantasy series the Seventh Tower, and, most recently, the seven-book the Keys to the Kingdom series. He lives in Sydney with his wife and their two children.

MICHAEL MOORCOCK was born in London, England. At the age of sixteen, he became editor of Tarzan Adventures, and later, Sexton Black Library. But it was his editorship of New Worlds magazine, from May 1964 to March 1971, during which he fostered the “New Wave,” perhaps the most important movement in the history of science fiction. Moorcock is best known, however, for his creation of the Multiverse and his influence on sword and sorcery (a subgenre he helped name, together with Fritz Leiber). His character, Elric of Melniboné, is one of the most influential fantasy antiheroes the genre has ever produced. Not only have the novels been in continuous print since the 1970s, but Elric has crossed over into comics, role-playing games, and rock and roll. Moorcock’s influence on sword and sorcery fiction is colossal and no anthology of same could hope to be complete without him. He and his wife, Linda, currently divide their time between Texas, France, and California.

TIM LEBBON was born in London and lived in Devon until the age of eight. His first short story was published in 1994 in the indie magazine Psychotrope, and his first novel, Mesmer, appeared three years later, in 1997. Since then he has published over thirty books, including 2009’s The Island and The Map of Moments (with Christopher Golden). His dark fantasy novel, Dusk, which came out in 2007, won the August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society, and his novelization of the film 30 Days of Night was a New York Times bestseller. His new novel, Echo City Falls, is due out in 2010. A full-time writer since 2006, he now lives in Goytre, Monmouthshire, with his wife and two children.

ROBERT SILVERBERG, born in New York City, is a science fiction Grand Master, and a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. He published his first novel, the children’s book Revolt on Alpha C, in 1955. Silverberg won his first Hugo Award for Best New Writer the following year, 1956, the same year he completed an AB in English Literature from Columbia University. A prolific author, he contributed to the genre such classics as Dying Inside, Nightwings, and Downward to the Earth. In 1980 he published Lord Valentine’s Castle, the first book in his landmark sci-fantasy Majipoor series. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author and editor Karen Haber.

GREG KEYES, who also writes under the names Gregory Keyes and J. Gregory Keyes, was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse, storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Waterborn, The Black-god, the Age of Unreason tetralogy, and the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. In 2003, he began his fantasy quartet called the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, which began with The Briar King and continued with The Charnel Prince, The Blood Knight, and The Born Queen. He lives with his family in Savannah, Georgia, where he is also the head coach of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s fencing club.

MICHAEL SHEA was born to Irish parents in Los Angeles, California, where he frequented Venice Beach and the Baldwin Hills for their wildlife. After attending UCLA on the advance-placement program while still in the tenth grade, he made his way to UC Berkeley for the wildlife there during the Time of Troubles. He hitchhiked across America and Canada twice, and at a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves: The Eyes of the Overworld, by Jack Vance. It led to his first Vancean novel, A Quest for Simbilis, which was published in 1974. Shea followed that with several novellas, some horrific, some comic, in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, including the Nebula Finalist, “The Autopsy.” He published Nifft the Lean in 1982. A classic of the genre, it won the World Fantasy Award and was followed by The Mines of Behemoth and The A’rak. Other work includes novels The Color Out of Time; In Yana, the Touch of Undying; and collections Polyphemus and The Autopsy and Other Stories.

SCOTT LYNCH was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He worked a variety of jobs, including as a dishwasher, waiter, Web designer, freelance writer, and office manager, before publishing his first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, in 2006. Part of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, concerned with the life of thief and con man Locke Lamora, and set in the world of the shattered Therin Throne Empire, the series is projected to run to seven books. In addition to being a 2007 John W. Campbell Award, William L. Crawford Award, and Locus Award finalist, Scott is a volunteer firefighter, certified in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. He lives with his wife, Jenny, in the city of New Richmond, Wisconsin.

TANITH LEE became a freelance writer in 1975, and has been one ever since. Her first published books were children’s fantasies The Dragon Hoard and Animal Castle. Her first adult fantasy novel, The Birthgrave, was the start of a long association with DAW, which published more than twenty of her works of fantasy, SF, and horror in the 1970s and 1980s. She received the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award in 1980 for Death’s Master, World Fantasy Awards for Best Short Story in 1983 (for “The Gorgon”) and 1984 (for “Elle est Trois (La Mort)”). Enormously prolific, Lee has recently published a trilogy of pirate novels for young adults (Piratica and sequels), a science fiction novel for adults (Mortal Suns), an adult fantasy trilogy (Lionwolf), a young adult fantasy trilogy (Claidi and sequels), and the first of two retrospective short story collections (Tempting the Gods). Upcoming are new books in the Flat Earth series. In 2009 she was made a Grand Master of Horror. Tanith Lee lives with her husband, the writer and artist John Kaiine, on the southeast coast of England.

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN was born in Skerries, Dublin, Ireland, but grew up in Leeds, Alabama. As a teenager, she worked as a volunteer in Birmingham, Alabama’s, Red Mountain Museum, and later studied geology and vertebrate paleontology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has coauthored several scientific publications, beginning in 1988, the latest published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2002. Her first novel, Silk, was published in 1998, and she has written eight novels to date, the most recent being The Red Tree. A multiple International Horror Guild Award-winning author, she has also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Award. Kiernan has also written for DC Comics. She lives with her partner in Providence, Rhode Island.

BILL WILLINGHAM was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He got his start as staff artist for TSR, Inc., providing illustrations for a number of its role-playing games, among them Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World. In the 1980s, he gained attention for his comic book series Elementals (published by Comico), and contributed as an illustrator to such titles as DC’s Green Lantern. Willingham created the popular DC Vertigo comic book Fables in 2002, about characters from folklore residing in contemporary Manhattan. To date, Fables is the recipient of fourteen coveted Eisner Awards. His Jack of Fables, created with Matthew Sturges, was chosen by Time magazine as number five in their Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2007. His first Fables prose novel, Peter and Max, was released in 2009, the same year that his comic book Fables: War and Pieces was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. One of the most popular comics writers of our time, he currently lives in the woods in Minnesota.

JOE ABERCROMBIE attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He moved into television production before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. His first novel, The Blade Itself, was published in 2004, and was followed by two further books in the First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. His most recent book is a stand-alone novel set in the same world, Best Served Cold, and he is currently at work on another, The Heroes. Joe now lives in Bath with his wife, Lou, and his daughters, Grace and Eve. He still occasionally edits concerts and music festivals for TV, but spends most of his time writing edgy yet humorous fantasy novels.

Book Two of the Chronicles of Morgaine

Scanned by BW-SciFi; proofed by Cress; reproofed and formatted by Nadie.