John Meaney – författare

Police officer Donal Riordan, killed and brought back to life with the heart of his undead lover beating in his chest, is getting used to a bizarre and frightening new existence. As one of the undead the living citizens of Tristopolis distrust and fear him. But death has its advantages. He can sense the presence, the thoughts the feelings of his fellow zombies, he is tireless, he can see better, hear more acutely.But none of this will necessarily save him as he begins to investigate who is behind a plot to ensorcel the entire population of Tristopolis. The plot goes right to the top and anyway who gets in the way will be killed again.And all the time the members of the Unity party are stoking the fires of hatred towards the undead.John Meaney''s new series is a superb melding of the science fiction and horror genres and is perfectly timed for the resurgance of horror in the market.

600 years from now on the world of Fulgor Roger Blackstone, son of two Pilots (long-time alien spies, masquerading as ordinary humans) aches to see the mythical Pilot''s city of Labyrinth, in the fractal ur-continuum of mu-space.In 8th century Norseland, a young carl called Wulf kills a man, watched by a mysterious warrior who bears the mark of Loki the Trickster God. In 1920s Zurich, Gavriela Silberstein enters the long, baroque central hallway of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule where Einstein so recently studied. And on a nameless world, not knowing his human heritage, a silver-skinned youth tries to snatch back an Idea - but it floats away on gentle magnetic currents.There are others across the ages, all with three things in common: they glimpse shards of darkness moving at the edge of their vision; they hear echoes of a dark, disturbing musical chord; and they will dream of joining a group called the Ragnarok Council.ABSORPTION is the first novel of RAGNAROK, a new space opera trilogy of high-tech space warfare, unitary intelligences made up of millions of minds, the bizarre physics of dark energy, quantum mechanics and a mindblowing rationale for Norse mythology.

The second volume of Meaney''s epic Ragnarok space opera trilogy. The dark matter in the universe is alive and is seeking to pervert human history to its own ends.Its influence has reached back into the dark ages, to the centre of the Third Reich and 600 years into the future.The Ragnarok universe not only provides a stunning SF rationale for Norse mythology but posits a world where pilots are locked into symbiotic relationships with their ships and the cities can come alive.

From the leader of a Norse raiding party in 7th-century England to a young symbiotically bonded Pilot-and-Ship in the far future. From a female German scientist during the Second World War to a member of an alien race who communicates by smell. From the past to the future, war is coming. And only a few can see the darkness.Hidden at the centre of the Universe, the darkness spreads its tendrils throughout space and time. Those it touches become puppets, dedicated to slowing down the improvement of the human race and preventing it from reaching its true potential. For the darkness knows that when it makes its final invasion of our space, humanity will stand against it.And in the far, far future, knowing that they are the last hope for the galaxy, the Ragnarok council is forming...

Lieutenant Donal Connor has been given the most bizarre of new cases. Four famous stage performers have died in recent months, thee of them in state capitals within Transifica, the fourth in far Zurinam. And now the idolised diva Maria deLivnova is coming to Tristopolis. Donal''s boss is determined that nothing like this is ever to happen in his city. Connor is to have anything he needs, as long the diva lives.And so begins a dark investigation through a world where corpses give up their pyschic energy in the massive necroflux generators which power the city, where gargoyles talk, where wraiths work in slavery, a world of the dead where corruption is alive.This is an extraordinary SF novel set in alternate universe quite unlike any imagined in SF before; a universe where magic and the supernatural and the undead are given a scientific rationale and hoorfyingly plausible rationale.The novel''s setting, Tristopolis, is the ultimate noir city; an immense baroque creation of haunted stone skyscrapers, black metal and city-wide catacombs. Its hero Donal Connor is immensely likeable and easy to identify with. Even once he''s dead.