Showing results for "Science Fiction Confidential" in Literature & Fiction

The Tarot Sequence imagines a modern-day Atlantis off the coast of Massachusetts, governed by powerful Courts based on the traditional Tarot deck. Rune Saint John, last child of the fallen Sun Throne, is backed into a fight of high court magic and political appetites in a desperate bid to protect his ward, Max, from a forced marital alliance with the Hanged Man. Rune's resistance will take him to the island's dankest corners, including a red light district made of moored ghost ships and the floor of the ruling Convocation, where a gathering of Arcana will change Rune's life forever.

His identity now revealed, Damen must face his master, Prince Laurent, as Damianos of Akielos, the man Laurent has sworn to kill. On the brink of a momentous battle, the future of both their countries hangs in the balance. In the south, Kastor's forces are massing. In the north, the Regent's armies are mobilizing for war. Damen's only hope of reclaiming his throne is to fight together with Laurent against their usurpers.

Rune Saint John, the last child of the fallen Sun Court, is hired to search for Lady Judgment's missing son, Addam, on New Atlantis, the island city where the Atlanteans moved after ordinary humans destroyed their original home. With his companion and bodyguard, Brand, he questions Addam's relatives and business contacts through the highest ranks of the nobles of New Atlantis. But as they investigate, they uncover more than a missing man: a legendary creature connected to the secret of the massacre of Rune's Court.

Since she was a child, the divine Empress O Shizuka has believed she was an untouchable god. When her uncle, ruler of the Hokkaran Empire, sends her on a suicide mission as a leader of the Imperial Army, the horrors of war cause her to question everything she knows. Thousands of miles away, the exiled and cursed warrior Barsalyya Shefali undergoes trials the most superstitious would not believe in order to return to Hokkaran court and claim her rightful place next to O Shizuka.

Victor Decimus is a 2,000 year old vampire, having last seen the sun when he was a Roman soldier in biblical times. There are few rules that govern a vampire's existence, but those rules are absolute: 1) Vampires are not allowed to associate with other vampires and 2) Once a vampire convinces a human to take his place as a vampire, he must leave the earthly realm for the Dark Kingdom. Victor, unfortunately, has broken both those rules - he's sired his human lover Paul as a vampire and stayed with him on Earth.

In this visionary novel by Larissa Lai - her first in 16 years - a community of parthenogenic women, sent into exile by patriarchal and corporate Salt Water City, go to war against disease, technology, and an economic system that threatens them with extinction. Kirilow is a doctor apprentice whose lover, Peristrophe, is a "starfish", a woman who can regenerate her own limbs and organs, which she uses to help her clone sisters whose organs are failing.

Commercial deep-sea diver Solvig has a secret. She wants to be one of the first human beings to colonize Mars, and she is one of a hundred people shortlisted by the Mars Project to do just that. But to fulfill her ambition, she will have to leave behind everything she has ever known - for the rest of her life. As the prospect of heading to space becomes more real, 37-year-old Solvig is forced to define who she really is. Will she come clean to James, her partner, about her plans? Or will she turn her back on the project and commit to her life on Earth?

Killian O'Neal has a plan. The governor's son, Neith, has been enslaved in a high-end brothel. Killian's going to break him out, take him home and collect a reward. It's a daring mercenary rescue. What could go wrong? A lot, as it turns out. The governor doesn't want his son back, the ship and crew are on the run from the slavers, and Neith is in withdrawal from a drug that instills in him a desperate lust. A passionate heat flares between Killian and Neith - but is it just the effects of the drugs still in Neith's system, or could it be something more permanent?

Annice, Pat, and Barby are best friends from Iowa, freshly arrived in booming 1950s Chicago to explore different paths toward independence, self - expression, and sexual freedom. From the hip-hang of a bohemian lifestyle to the sophisticated lure of romance with a handsome, wealthy, married boss to the happier security of a lesbian relationship, these three experience firsthand the dangers and limitations of women’s economic -reliance on men.

Dr. Edith Vane, scholar of English literature, is contentedly ensconced at the University of Inivea. Her dissertation on pioneer housewife memoirist Beulah Crump-Withers is about to be published, and her job's finally safe, if she only can fill out her AAO properly. She's a little anxious, but a new floral blouse and her therapist's repeated assurance that she is the architect of her own life should fix that. All should be well, really. Except for her broken washing machine, her fickle new girlfriend, her missing friend Coral.

Victor Decimus has been a vampire for over 2,000 years. Once a Roman Legionnaire, for millennia Victor has remained a step or two ahead of rivals, would-be executioners, and the mysterious Dark Kingdom, which sets the rules for vampires' existence. Having left New York and his lover Paul Lewis - the vampire he made then abandoned to escape the vengeance of the Dark Kingdom - Victor sets himself up again, with his thrall, in New Orleans. But in New Orleans, his thrall becomes the point of a new, larger conflict.

He’s back. Once a Roman officer rejected as a lover by Jesus of Nazareth, now a vampire still haunted by Jesus after two millennia of grisly revenge in monasteries around the world, Victor Decimus returns to his hometown, the Eternal City of Rome. At the Monastery of San Benedetto, 'Brother Victor' continues his campaign of defiance against the Christian God, while remaining near his first love, whose apparitions have never ceased.

Seven years ago, Jase awoke with the mystical power to heal people - and no memory of his past. The only clue to his identity is the number 40 tattooed on his arm. Driven by a mission he doesn't understand, Jase follows his visions to those he's meant to save. He is convinced that the 40th person he's drawn to - a little girl named Macy Pearl - is the key to finally learning the truth.… Social worker Lucas Jacobson has made a promise to protect Macy, orphaned when her parents were murdered. So when Jase shows up in Naples claiming he's there to heal the child, Lucas is wary, despite his attraction to the enigmatic stranger.

What do you do when you wake up to a whole new life…with dangerous urges you can't control? Medic Drake McKennan has never been good at following protocol, so she doesn't think twice about rendering emergency care when a teenager's life is at stake - even if the young girl is in the throes of Were fever and any sane human should know better. It isn't the bright shining pain of the bite or even the wrenching agonies of the fever that convinces Drake everything in her life has changed.

Niki Kroff has one mission in life--to lead Sylvan Mir's elite guard and protect the wolf Alpha's life. When Lara, another of the centuri, becomes a Vampire in the course of saving Sylvan's life, Niki is assigned to protect her during her transition. Removed from Sylvan's guard, Niki struggles to find her place in the Pack and control her desire for a forbidden Were whose call grows stronger every day

Wolf Were Alpha Sylvan Mir wants nothing more than to keep her pregnant mate Drake safe in their secluded stronghold, deep in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, but enemies, political and praetern, force her into battle. Sylvan must confront the Vampire Chancellor Francesca, a one-time lover, about her part in a recent attack on Mir Laboratories—a confrontation that will test Sylvan’s alliance with the Vampires and lead to war.

Edgar Mason is losing Agamemnon Frost despite everything they've been through - the passion, the torture, the heat. Frost's fiance, Theodora, is back, and Mason can feel his lover gravitating toward her. Every day he sees them together, it tears at his heart. Frost feels raw himself. His brother and sister-in-law are missing, and his guilt about failing to save Theodora from Pandarus eats at him. His feelings for Mason, whom he has put through hell twice already, just twist the screws tighter.

The telepathic communications net, known as "The Dream," has been shattered. And the majority of the Silent who used it are unable to reenter. But Kendi Weaver has more pressing concerns: finding the family that slavers tore from him more than a decade before....

Every year, Jathan One-Moon faces increasing pressure that he marry and have children. What Jathan really wants is a male mate that can enjoy both playful sex and his more dominant nature. To tame his stress, Jathan orders a male escort from Spice 'n' Solace, the premier male brothel in the Galactic Alliance - and is thrilled to be sent a man whose air of innocence and obvious desire for Jathan arouse him like never before.

Decorated artilleryman Edgar Mason was forced to find new work when the British Empire replaced its foot soldiers with monstrous machines. Agamemnon Frost, however, is far from the foppish man-about-town he appears to be. He's working to protect the Earth from an alien invasion being planned by a face-changing creature known as Pandarus. And on the night he plans to confront the aliens, he enlists Mason to assist him. For a man to love a man is a serious crime in Victorian England. But when Mason meets Frost, his heart thunders and his blood catches fire.