I'm a spec-fic writer who has been fascinated by the world building and deep creativity of sci-fi and fantasy novels for over 40 years. A common theme in these genres is the use and abuse of power, especially of systems of authority that the main characters battle against—not always successfully! I've recently published a complete fantasy trilogy dealing with these same themes—The Wraith Cycle—and am looking forward to the publication of my next stand-alone sci-fi novel—The Currents Of Infinity—due to come out within the next year.
In the isolated traders’ town of Greystone, two young thieves named Wilt and Higgs scratch out a living on the street. Both have quick minds and even quicker fingers, but Wilt has another weapon, an ability to sink into others' thoughts, reading them, knowing before they do what action they will take. Such power is not easily hidden when the Prefects of Redmondis come through town on a pilgrimage to recruit skilled ones, wielders, those who have an affinity with the secret welds that join all living things.
Epic fantasy with an original magic system, likable characters, and enthralling prose—a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered by YA and older readers alike.
George Orr's dreams are more than just dreams—they affect reality directly. Any idea prompted in his dreams becomes the new reality for everyone else. He's guided by his ambitious therapist William Haber, who seeks to use George's strange power for his own ends, which as you can imagine, never works out quite the way he wants.
Highly imaginative and deeply terrifying vision of what power can do in the hands of the unscrupulous—and IMHO one of the greatest book titles of all time!
'Her worlds have a magic sheen . . . She moulds them into dimensions we can only just sense. She is unique. She is legend' THE TIMES
'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER
George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality - and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.
Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help. At first sceptical of George's powers, he comes…
Not one for the arachnophobes! In the 25th century a nuclear holocaust has driven humans to hide in the desert from the predatory giant spiders who now rule the earth. But main character Niall has a secret, he shares the spiders' gift of telepathy, and moves to liberate humanity from the Spider Lord.
The description of the giant spiders' use of will to control their prey is fascinating, and the move from pure adventure story into political intrigue and power games is genius. A very underappreciated fantasy novel.
Once the Earth was ruled by human, and insects were very small, with even the largest no bigger than a man's fist. But now, in the 25th century, humans serve giant beetles and spiders as slaves and often as food.
Slaves all, or servantsexcept for those who live in the desert, spending most of their time underground. For Niall and his family, life is hard, but together they eke out an existence until the day Niall does what was said to be impossible:
He kills a spider.
This powerful act brings Niall to the attention and seat of the Spider…
The Philip K Dick novel I always recommend. Bob Arctor lives a double life as both an undercover narc and a slacker drug abuser, but the new drug Substance D is the most dangerous drug to find its way onto the streets, destroying the user's brain bit by bit until they are no longer able to recognise themselves. Based on Dick's own drug misadventures in the 1970s, it's a novel about "some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did."
A brilliant sci-fi novel from one of the last century's most influential pop culture figures
Substance D - otherwise known as Death - is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage. Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but to pass as an addict he must become a user, and soon, without knowing what is happening to him, he is as dependent as…
Within the lands of the True Game, humans possess specific 'talents', such as shape-shifting or telekinesis. Much like a planet-sized game of chess each player is utilised in great 'games' of war that ravage the planet. Enter Peter, a young necromancer, who must uncover the truth behind the disappearance of prominent gamesmen from the board.
Wildly clever and surprisingly touching, it's a novel I've read and re-read many times over the past 35 years.
Grass, has helped redefine speculative fiction. Award winner, national bestseller, and one of the genre's most respected and acclaimed talents, she has transcended the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy with her widespread success. Available for the first time in one volume, this is the long out-of-print trilogy that launched her remarkable career: King's Blood Four, Necromancer Nine, and Wizard's Eleven.
In the lands of the True Game, your lifelong identity emerges as you play-Prince or Sorcerer, Demon or Doyen. Raising the dead is the least of the Necromancer's Talents-he is a wild card who threatens the True Game itself.…
Ice-nine is a substance that freezes any liquid water into more ice-nine, created for military use, and so obviously overpowered and out of control that any actual use of it would mean the end of the world as we know it. But humans, being the stupid, greedy beings that we are, will find a way...
Vonnegut wrote this novel in 1963 yet it remains as grimly relevant to the world of today. A true classic.
One of America's greatest writers gives us his unique perspective on our fears of nuclear annihilation
Experiment.
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it.
Solution.
Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to…
An entertaining mystery on a 1894 trans-Atlantic steamship with an varied array of suspects, and a detective who must solve his case in six days to prevent international conflict.
Retired from the British Indian army, Captain Jim is taking his wife Diana to Liverpool from New York, when their pleasant cruise turns deadly. Just hours after meeting him, a foreign diplomat is brutally murdered onboard their ship. Captain Jim must find the killer before they dock in six days, or there could be war! Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime.
Fortunately, his wife Diana knows her way around first-class accommodations and Gilded Age society. But something has been troubling her, too, something she won’t tell him. Together, using tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jim, and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.
In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.
Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.
On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to…
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