Showing results for "Well" in Fantasy

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

"In The Falling World", Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud Court, has traveled with Chime and Balm to another Raksuran court. When she fails to return, her consort, Moon, along with Stone and a party of warriors and hunters, must track them down. Finding them turns out to be the easy part; freeing them from an ancient trap hidden in the depths of the Reaches is much more difficult. "The Tale of Indigo and Cloud" explores the history of the Indigo Cloud Court, long before Moon was born.

Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return with two new novellas from Martha Wells, who continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical.

All his life, Moon roamed the Three Worlds, a solitary wanderer forced to hide his true nature - until he was reunited with his own kind, the Raksura, and found a new life as consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court. But now a rival court has laid claim to him, and Jade may or may not be willing to fight for him. Beset by doubts, Moon must travel in the company of strangers to a distant realm where he will finally face the forgotten secrets of his past, even as an old enemy returns with a vengeance.

asper Fforde has done it again in this genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment. After two rollicking New York Times bestselling adventures through Western literature, resourceful literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And...

When second son Alexander Valentine loses his brother to an assassin's arrow, he discovers that his family protects an ancient secret and reluctantly finds himself at the center of the final battle of a war that was supposed to have ended two thousand years ago. Pursued by the dark minions of an ancient enemy, Alexander flees to the mountain city of Glen Morillian where he discovers that he is the heir to the throne of Ruatha, one of the Seven Isles, but before he can claim the throne he must recover the ancient Thinblade.

At the heart of a bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived.… Below average in height and unprepossessing in appearance, Nathan Brazil is an unassuming if cynical starship owner, carrying passengers and cargo for a living - hardly the sort of person to hold the fate of the entire universe in his hands. But when Nathan detours from his route to answer a distress call, a hidden stargate hurls him and his passengers to the Well World, the master control planet for the cosmos. Billions of years ago, a godlike race unlocked all the secrets of space and time and remade the universe according to their grand design.

An expedition of groundlings from the Empire of Kish have traveled through the Three Worlds to the Indigo Cloud court of the Raksura, shape-shifting creatures of flight that live in large family groups. The groundlings have found a sealed ancient city at the edge of the shallow seas, near the deeps of the impassable Ocean. They believe it to be the last home of their ancestors and ask for help getting inside.

Moon has spent his life hiding what he is - a shape-shifter able to transform himself into a winged creature of flight. An orphan with only vague memories of his own kind, Moon tries to fit in among the tribes of his river valley, with mixed success. Just as Moon is once again cast out by his adopted tribe, he discovers a shape-shifter like himself... someone who seems to know exactly what he is, who promises that Moon will be welcomed into his community.

The same night Lady Katherine Blakely discovers just what a monster her husband is, she meets a charming stranger, a gentleman from top to toe, not a wolf in gallant evening dress as so many of them are. But even he is not all that he seems. Lord George Draconis Thornton has returned from abroad as Earl of Melbourne. As the commander of the Dominus Daemonum, demon hunters set on earth to purge the world of creatures corrupting mankind, his mission is to expel the demon prince, Damas, back to the underworld before he corrupts his last remaining descendant.

Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working on the edge of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors and to support Sagai's family. When Khat is hired to find relics believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, they are both reluctant to become involved. But the request comes from the Warders, powerful mages who serve Charisat's Elector.

"Narrator Eric Mok makes this wonderfully inventive and diverse fantasy eminently accessible... Mok's Kai is appealing and relatable--he sounds simultaneously young and resigned, weary of death and pain and betrayal and yet still hopeful for something better. Listeners will hope we get more of...

I keep my head down. In this backward pack, females rank low, and my bad leg makes me damaged goods. It doesn’t help that I’ve never shifted. I don’t mind the late-20s single life, though. No one’s paying any attention as I build an illicit farmer’s market empire. My roomies and I are doing it for ourselves, and if life under Killian Kelly is stifling, at least it’s predictable. We can deal. But when biology finally kicks in, I lose my mind. I claim our alpha as my mate. And he rejects me in front of the whole pack.

H. G. Wells wrote dozens of novels and short stories and is often called the 'father of science fiction'. Here we collect together the works of H. G. Wells as broadcast on BBC Radio. With full-cast dramatisations of novels including The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The War of the Worlds, Ann Veronica, The First Men in the Moon and The Wonderful Visit; plus readings of The Invisible Man, Love and Mr Lewisham and several short stories including The Inexperienced Ghost and In the Abyss.

The kingdom of Ile-Rien lies in peril, menaced by sorcerous threats and devious court intrigues. As the weak King Roland, flattered and misled by treacherous companions, rules the country, only his ruthless mother, the Dowager Queen Ravenna, guards the safety of the realm. But now rumors arise that Urbain Grandier, the dark master of scientific sorcery, has arrived to plot against the throne. And Kade, bastard sister of King Roland, appears unexpectedly at court. The illegitimate daughter of the old king and the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, Kade's true desires are cloaked in mystery.

Moon, once a solitary wanderer, has become consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court. Together, they travel with their people on a pair of flying ships in hopes of finding a new home for their colony. Moon finally feels like he’s found a tribe where he belongs. But when the travelers reach the ancestral home of Indigo Cloud, shrouded within the trunk of a mountain-sized tree, they discover a blight infecting its core.

Every year in the great Temple City of Duvalpore, the image of the Wheel of the Infinite must be painstakingly remade to ensure another year of peace and harmony for the Celestial Empire. Every hundred years the sacred rite takes on added significance. For it is then that the very fabric of the world must be rewoven. Linked by the mystic energies of the Infinite, the Wheel and world are one. Should the holy image be marred, the world will suffer a similar injury. But a black storm is spreading across the Wheel.

When a tornado whisks young Dorothy away from Kansas with her faithful dog Toto, she finds herself in the mysterious Land of Oz, where unknown dangers and strange creatures await her. Can she find a way back home? Can her new friends the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man find courage, brains, and a heart? Searching for answers from the mysterious Wizard of Oz, and pursued by the forces of the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy and her companions must work together to complete their dangerous quest.

This volume is the definitive collection of the best science fiction novellas published between 1929 and 1964, containing 11 great classics. No anthology better captures the birth of science fiction as a literary field. Published in 1973 to honor stories that had appeared before the institution of the Nebula Awards, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame introduced tens of thousands to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country.

From the winner of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters comes a brand new, never before published collection of short stories Following the success of his recent collections, The Cat’s Pajamas and One More for the Road, Ray Bradbury has once...