Elizabeth Bear – författare

Meet Doctor Jens.She hasn't had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. The first part of her job involves jumping out of perfectly good space-ships. The second part requires developing emergency treatments for sick aliens of species she's never seen before. She loves it.But her latest emergency is also proving a mystery: Two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a dangerous embrace. A mysterious crew suffering from an even more mysterious ailment. A shipmind trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away. A murderous virus from out of time.Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can't resist a mystery. Which is why she's about to discover that everything she's dedicated her life to . . . is a lie.Praise for Elizabeth Bear'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universethat blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly 'This is certainly the best science fiction novel I've read in 2019 so far and I look forward to see how Bear develops the characters and her impressively rich universe' (POPULAR SCIENCE)'Elizabeth Bear is just as comfortable writing steampunk and fantasy as she is hard science fiction, and Ancestral Night, first half of a duology, brims with heady concepts and sleek far-future hardware. There is a mordant wit at work' (FINANCIAL TIMES)'Awesome, awe-inspiring space opera. Fittingly, it shifts from weighty themes to lighter humour with dexterity, grace and crackling dialogue' (Daily Mail)'Bear has constructed a fascinating, absorbing universe populated with compelling and intelligent characters who conform to neither clichés nor stereotypes. It's sci-fi of the top order' (popmatters.com)

How do you encompass all the worlds of the imagination? Within fantasy’s scope lies every possible impossibility, from dragons to spirits, from magic to gods, and from the unliving to the undying. In Fearsome Journeys, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan sets out on a quest to find the very limits of the unlimited, collecting twelve brand new stories by some of the most popular and exciting names in epic fantasy from around the world.With original fiction from Scott Lynch, Saladin Ahmed, Trudi Canavan, K J Parker, Kate Elliott, Jeffrey Ford, Robert V S Redick, Ellen Klages, Glen Cook, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Kushner, Ysabeau S. Wilce and Daniel Abraham, Fearsome Journeys explores the whole range of the fantastic.

Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin. Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards. These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.

Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. As if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap - a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered. Hard on the heels of that horrifying discovery comes a lawman who has been chasing this killer for months. Marshal Bass Reeves is closing in on his man, and he's not about to reject any help he can get, even if it comes from a girl who works in the Hotel Mon Cheri. Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the Old Steampunk West with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.

Shattered Pillars is the second book of Bear's Eternal Sky trilogy and the sequel to Range of Ghosts. Set in a world drawn from our own great Asian Steppes, this saga of magic, politics, and war sets Re-Temur, the exiled heir to the great Khagan, and his friend Sarmarkar, a Wizard of Tsarepheth, against dark forces determined to conquer all the great empires along the Celedon Road.

Re Temur, exiled heir to his grandfather's Khaganate, has finally raised his banner and declared himself at war with his usurping uncle. With his companions - the Wizard Samarkar, the Cho-tse Hrahima, and the silent monk Brother Hsiung - he must make his way to Dragon Lake to gather his army of followers. Temur has many enemies, and they are not idle. The sorcerer who leads the Nameless Assassins, whose malice has shattered the peace of all the empires of the Celedon Highway, has struck at Temur's uncle already. To the south, in the Rasan empire, a magical plague rages. To the east, the great city of Asmaracanda has burned, and the Uthman Caliph is deposed. And in the hidden ancient empire of Erem, Temur's son has been born and a new moon has risen in the Eternal Sky.

This first volume of a new Eternal Sky trilogy takes readers over the dangerous mountain passes of the Steles of the Sky and south, into the Lotus Kingdoms.The Gage, a brass automaton created by a long-dead wizard of Messaline around the core of a human being, works as a mercenary. He carries a message from the most powerful sorcerer of Messaline to the Rajni of the Lotus Kingdom. With him is the Dead Man, a bitter survivor of the bodyguard of the deposed Uthman Caliphate, protecting the message and the Gage. They are friends, of a peculiar sort.They are walking into a dynastic war between the rulers of the shattered bits of a once great Empire.

The Lotus Kingdoms are at war, with four claimants to the sorcerous throne of the Alchemical Emperor, fielding three armies between them. Alliances are made, and broken, many times over—but in the end, only one can sit on the throne. And that one must have not only the power, but the rightful claim.Mrithuri Rajni stands as the chief claimant to the Peacock throne now, but she and her empire remain a prize to be taken unless she gets an heir. She has her allies—her cousin Sayeh, a dragon, a foreign wizard, a fearsome automaton, and the Dead Man—but the throne has the final say. And if it rejects her, the price is death.

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants.She thinks she knows who she is.She is wrong.A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of a powerful ancient technology, just as Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way and find themselves both on the run, and in possession of ancient, universe-changing technology.When the authorities prove corrupt, it becomes clear that Haimey is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilisation from its potential power - and from the revolutionaries who want to use it to seed terror and war. But doing so will take her from the event horizon of the super-massive black hole at the galaxy's core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge. Along the way, she'll have to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time as well as her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever . . .Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton.Praise for Elizabeth Bear'Gripping, perfectly balanced, and highly recommended' Kirkus'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universethat blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly

On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwellers have grown complacent with their aging metal world. But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change...Ariane, Prince of the House of Rule, was known to be fiercely cold-blooded. But severing an angel's wings on the battlefield - even after she had surrendered - proved her completely without honor. Captive, the angel Perceval waits for Ariane not only to finish her off - but to devour her very memories and mind. Surely her gruesome death will cause war between the houses - exactly as Ariane desires. But Ariane's plan may yet be opposed, for Perceval at once recognizes the young servant charged with her care.Rien is the lost child: her sister. Soon they will escape, hoping to stop the impending war and save both their houses. But it is a perilous journey through the crumbling hulk of a dying ship, and they do not pass unnoticed. Because at the hub of their turning world waits Jacob Dust, all that remains of God, following the vapor wisp of the angel. And he knows they will meet very soon.Originally published in 2007 as Dust.

Sometimes the greatest sin is survival.The generation ship Jacob's Ladder has barely survived cataclysms from without and within. Now, riding the shock wave of a nova blast toward an uncertain destiny, the damaged ship - the only world its inhabitants have ever known - remains a war zone. Even as Perceval, the new captain, struggled to come to terms with the traumas of her past, the remnants of rebellion aboard the ship still threaten the crew's survival.Yet as Perceval's relatives Tristen and Benedick play a deadly game of cat and mouse in pursuit of a traitor through a cast ship that is renewing itself in strange and dangerous ways, an even more insidious threat is building in a place no one ever thought to look. And this implacable enemy could change the face of the ship forever if a ragtag band of heroes cannot stop it.Originally published in 2010 as Chill.

From Elizabeth Bear comes a near-future tale about a woman who was engineered for combat in a world that's running out of time.Jenny Casey is a former Canadian special forces warrior living on the hellish streets of Hartford, Connecticut, in the year 2062. Her artificially reconstructed body is failing her, but a government scientist from her old life thinks she is perfect for his high-stakes project.Suddenly Jenny is a pawn in a battle being waged on the Internet, the streets, and in the complex wirings of her man-made nervous system. And she needs to gain control of the game before a brave new future spins completely out of control.

Jenny Casey was not born for this mission. She was modified for it.The year is 2062, and after years on the run, Jenny Casey is back in the Canadian armed forces. Those who were once her enemies are now her allies, and at fifty, she's been handpicked for the most important mission of her life - a mission for which her artificially reconstructed body is perfectly suited. With the earth capable of sustaining life for just another century, Jenny - as pilot of the starship Montreal - must discover brave new worlds. And with time running out, she must succeed where others have failed.Now Jenny is caught in a desperate battle where old resentments become bitter betrayals and justice takes the cruelest forms of vengeance. With the help of a brilliant AI, an ex-crime lord, and the man she loves, Jenny may just get her chance to save the world. If it doesn't come to an end first . . .

Elizabeth Bear's near-future trilogy concludes with the fate of the world in the palm of Jenny Casey's artificially reconstructed hand . . .Give Canada's Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey an inch and she'll take a galaxy. That's just the kind of person a world on the brink of destruction needs. The year is 2063, and Earth has been brutalized. An asteroid flung at Toronto by the PanChinese government has killed tens of millions and left the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in its wake. Humanity must find another option . . .Perched above the devastation in the starship Montreal, Jenny is still in the thick of the fray. Plugged into the worldwire, connected to a brilliant AI, her mind can be everywhere and anywhere at once. But it's focused on the mysterious alien beings right outside her ship. Are they there to help - or destroy? With Earth a breeding ground for treason and betrayal as governments struggle to assign blame, Jenny holds the fate of humankind in her artificially reconstructed hand . . .

At last the generation ship Jacob's Ladder has arrived at its destination: the planet they have come to call Grail. But this habitable jewel just happens to be populated already: by humans who call their home Fortune. And they are wary of sharing Fortune - especially people who have genetically engineered themselves to such an extent that it is a matter of debate whether they are even human anymore. To make matters worse, a shocking murder aboard the Jacob's Ladder has alerted Captain Perceval and the Angel Nova that formidable enemies remain hidden somewhere among the new crew.On Grail - or Fortune, rather - Premier Danilaw views the approach of the Jacob's Ladder with dread. Behind the diplomatic niceties of first-contact protocol, he knows that the deadly game being played is likely to erupt into full-blown war - even civil war. For as he strives to chard a peaceful and prosperous path forward for his people, internal threats emerge to take control by any means necessary.Originally published in 2011 as Grail.

Dr. Sunyata Song must travel across the Milky Way to learn to communicate with the greatest discovery of her century: an artificial intelligence the size of a stellar system, in Hugo Award-winning author Bear's next science fiction epic.Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files. But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her - and her family - halfway across the galaxy to save the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called the Baomind.As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.The remote research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.Tens of thousands of light years from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.Praise for Elizabeth Bear'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universethat blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly'Elizabeth Bear is just as comfortable writing steampunk and fantasy as she is hard science fiction, and [the White Space novels] brim with heady concepts and sleek far-future hardware' Financial Times'Awesome, awe-inspiring space opera. Fittingly, it shifts from weighty themes to lighter humour with dexterity, grace and crackling dialogue' Daily Mail

Strap in for an epic new WHITE SPACE adventure from the multiple Hugo award winning, and John W. Campbell award winning author.Praise for Elizabeth Bear'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universethat blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly 'This is certainly the best science fiction novel I've read in 2019 so far and I look forward to see how Bear develops the characters and her impressively rich universe' (POPULAR SCIENCE)'Elizabeth Bear is just as comfortable writing steampunk and fantasy as she is hard science fiction, and Ancestral Night, first half of a duology, brims with heady concepts and sleek far-future hardware. There is a mordant wit at work' (FINANCIAL TIMES)'Awesome, awe-inspiring space opera. Fittingly, it shifts from weighty themes to lighter humour with dexterity, grace and crackling dialogue' (Daily Mail)'Bear has constructed a fascinating, absorbing universe populated with compelling and intelligent characters who conform to neither clichés nor stereotypes. It's sci-fi of the top order' (popmatters.com)

Spans a range of epic interstellar adventure stories told against a limitless cosmos filled with exotic aliens, heroic characters, and incredible settings.