Starscape – förlag

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.

Amy Anne is shy and soft-spoken, but don’t mess with her when it comes to her favorite book in the whole world. Amy Anne and her lieutenants wage a battle for the books that will make readers laugh and pump their fists as they start a secret banned books locker library, make up ridiculous reasons to ban every single book in the library to make a point, and take a stand against censorship.Reminiscent of the classic novel Frindle by Andrew Clements, Ban This Book is a love letter to the written word and its power to give kids a voice.

Paxco has a new ruler. Dorothy Hayes claims to be the secret daughter of the recently-assassinated Chairman. She also claims that Nate Hayes, the true heir and her supposed brother, was the one who murdered their father. Nate and his best friend, Nadia Lake, are the only ones who know the truth about what really happened to the Chairman, and more importantly, the truth about Dorothy. But with Dorothy in power, Nate and Nadia know their days are numbered. They have nowhere to run except the Basement, Paxco's perilous and lawless slums. But Dorothy is far from content with driving her enemies into hiding. She wants them dead.

Anna Marshall wishes she could be anywhere but Ames, lowa, and anything but a singer and music instructor at lowa State University. She gets far more than she expected when she is magically transported to the world of Erde. On Erde, Anna is no longer just a professional singer, she is a sorceress, potentially the strongest in the whole world. In this world, song is magic, and a wrong note can mean death to a sorcerer. Because Anna has trained for a lifetime to reach the level where she won't miss a note even under the worst conditions, she can sing more powerfully and precisely than anyone else. Anna's power does not go unnoticed. The moment she arrives, she becomes a target: both the political entities, who fear the unknown power she represents, and the sexist men of Erde, who fear a powerful woman, try to kill her. Merely to survive, Anna must learn enough song-magic and enough about Erde not only to ensure her survival, but to create a new life for herself.

It's a stinky situation when Nathan's school, Belgosi Upper Elementary, develops a mold problem and his class is forced to share space with the first-graders. Soon the eighth-graders showup too, including Rodney the bully's older and meaner brother, Ridley. Could he be the reason for the stinky, putrid, rotten smell that seems to be following Nathan around? It's up to Nathan, Abigail, and Mookie to solve the mystery of the big stink before it pollutes the whole town. Fans of David Lubar's popular Weenies short story collections, which have sold more than one and a half million copies, are sure to enjoy this fourth hilarious installment of the adventures of Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie.

London, 1895: Riots in the streets! Erasmus Croach's miraculous factory, Ember, has flooded London with steampowered automatons. The already suffering working class take to the streets to protest the jobs lost to these machines, and to quell the riot, Captain Thorn of Scotland Yard calls in Ember's latest and greatest creation, the automatic police boy, Sky! Meanwhile, Sally Peppers, Croach's headstrong and brilliant niece, dreams of a life beyond manners and marriageability. When she escapes her overbearing governess on a motorized velocipede and joins a no-rules road rally through the slums, Croach sends Sky to bring her back, preferably alive. Together, the impulsive Sally and the naive Sky crash headlong into a mystery involving rogue automatons prowling the sewers, children disappearing without a trace, and a dark secret so big it could overturn all of London. But the biggest mystery of all is why Sky is the first robot who can dream...

And all that's left is a smoking ruin. Devastated by the demolition of their last hope, Ember and Chase follow tracks leading away from the wreckage - the only sign that there may have been survivors. With their high profile, they know they can't stay out in the open for long. They take shelter in the wilderness and amidst the ruins of abandoned cities as they follow the tracks down the coast, eventually finding refugees from the destroyed safe house. Among them is someone from Chase's past-someone he never thought he'd see again. Banding together, they search for a place to hide, aiming for a settlement a few of them have heard about...a settlement that is rumoured to house the nebulous organization known as Three. The very group that has provided Ember with a tiny ray of hope ever since she was first forced on the run.

It is the dawn of a new century in San Francisco and Delia Martin is a wealthy young woman whose life appears ideal. But a dark secret colors her life, for Delia's most loyal companions are ghosts, as she has been gifted (or some would say cursed) with an ability to peer across to the other side. Since the great quake rocked her city in 1906, Delia has been haunted by an avalanche of the dead clamoring for her help. Delia flees to the other side of the continent, hoping to gain some peace. After several years in New York, Delia believes she is free...until one determined specter appears and she realizes that she must return to the City by the Bay in order to put this tortured soul to rest. It will not be easy, as the ghost is only one of the many victims of a serial killer who was never caught. A killer who after thirty years is killing again. And who is now aware of Delia's existence.

Ellis Harkington is trapped in limbo between life and death, struggling to escape the domination of an evil force masquerading as her friend, Merrick. Only Ellis has ever escaped him, and now that she has discovered the truth, he wants to make sure she can never escape again. Merrick's dark power has turned the seaside town of Gamin, Maine, into a place of nightmares. The town is transformed into a decaying succession of infinite rooms, bottomless stairwells, and boundless corridors filled with never ending masquerades, balls, and banquets. Each pageant is about the life Ellis lived before her return - each revelation more terrifying than the last. Ellis is desperate to find her missing cousin and leave, but there is no exit from the House of Dreams except, perhaps, through a seance to contact the living.

One minute, twenty-four-year-old Sophie Hansa is in a San Francisco alley trying to save the life of the aunt she has never known. The next, she finds herself flung into the warm and salty waters of an unfamiliar world. Glowing moths fall to the waves around her, and the sleek bodies of unseen fish glide against her submerged ankles. The world is Stormwrack, a series of island nations with a variety of cultures and economies-and a language different from any Sophie has heard. Sophie doesn't know it yet, but she has just stepped into the middle of a political firestorm, and a conspiracy that could destroy a world she has just discovered...her world, where everyone seems to know who she is, and where she is forbidden to stay. But Sophie is stubborn, and smart, and refuses to be cast adrift by people who don't know her and yet wish her gone. With the help of a sister she has never known, and a ship captain who would rather she had never arrived, she must navigate the shoals of the highly charged politics of Stormwrack, and win the right to decide for herself whether she stays in this wondrous world...or is doomed to exile.

Grafton, an American writer of travel guides in need of a new location, chooses to travel to a small, obscure Eastern European country. The moment he crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards. Then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work, but in some ways they are not as threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in that country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an innocent citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and afterword.

When seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he's orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he's surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still-that he's been asleep for 14,000 years. Welcome to the Lockstep empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for millennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new centre of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own. Toby's brother Peter has become a terrible tyrant. Suspicious of the return of his long-lost sibling, whose rightful inheritance also controls the Lockstep hibernation cycles, Peter sees Toby as a threat to his regime. Now, with the help of a Lockstep girl named Corva, Toby must survive the forces of this new empire, outwit his siblings, and save human civilization.

Centuries ago, humanity fought a war against aliens and lost. A tiny population of humans fled to Safehold, where, centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history. For them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, secretly erected to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilisation. But not all of Safehold's founders agreed with the church. MerIyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth's long-dead defenders, has now been reawakened to restart human progress and challenge the hegemony of the Church - keeping his identity a secret. After a long and bloody fight, his allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. But then someone arrives who knows too many secrets including Merlyn's own...

One of them is Ximen del Azarchel, immortal leader of the mutineers from the star ship Hermetic and self-appointed Master of the World, who has allowed his followers to tamper continuously with the evolutionary destiny of man, creating one bizarre race after another in an apparent search for a species the Hyades will find worthy of conquest. The other is Menelaus Montrose, the post human Judge of Ages, whose cryonic tombs beneath the surface of Earth have preserved survivors from each epoch created by the Hermeticists. Montrose intends to thwart the alien invaders any way he can, and to remain alive long enough to be reunited with his bride Rania, who is on a seventy-millennia journey to confront the Hyades' masters, tens of thousands of light-years away. Now, with the countdown to the Hyades' arrival nearing its end, del Azarchel and Montrose square off for what is to be their final showdown for the fate of Earth, a battle of gunfire and cliometric calculus; powered armour and post human intelligence.

Justine is an A-list fashion model on a photo shoot in Europe. Adored by half the world, she can have whomever she wants, but she's never met anyone like the strange English girl whose bed she wakes up in one morning. Vienna is an autistic savant, adrift in a world of overwhelming patterns and connections only she can see. Socially awkward and inexperienced, she's never been with anyone before, let alone a glamorous supermodel enmeshed in a web of secrets and intrigue. When Justine's current beau is murdered in the bathroom of her hotel room, she suddenly finds herself thrown into the middle of a deadly conspiracy involving a set of antique wooden mannikins - the same ones that are the centrepieces of a photo shoot. What secret do the mannikins hide, and why is it worth killing over? Drawn together by an attraction neither of them can explain, Justine and Vienna are pursued across Europe by paparazzi, tabloid headlines, and the mystery of Vienna's own shadowy past, which holds the key to everything.

In the late 1860s, in Cairo, Egypt, Beatrice Smith and five other young people are summoned to become the Guard. From different backgrounds and faiths, they must unite in the Great Work. Beatrice, as the Leader, is granted intimate acquaintance with the goddess, who is preparing to take human form. What Beatrice does not expect is that her own heart will be opened to the possibility and promise of love. This enchanting prequel to Leanna Renee Hieber's gas lamp fantasy, Strangely Beautiful, returns to print after more than a decade, edited and revised for Tor's publication. Thrilling gaslamp fantasy by a master of the genre: 'Hieber has staked out the Victorian era the way Mary Robinette Kowal owns the Regency.' - Beatrice.com

Milwaukee homicide detective Ellie MacIntosh's bizarre case takes gruesome to a new level - and is eerily and frustratingly familiar. She has seen the signature work of the killer before, but cannot connect the victims. There isn't a single suspect in sight, but at least the case gives Ellie something to focus on instead of her chaotic personal life. Ellie's partner, Jason Santiago, is glad to be back on the job, even on a disturbing case like this one. Working with Ellie has evolved into a tangled relationship that is no longer platonic, at least to him. Jason's chance to make a move is now, but he's paralyzed by the fear he will ruin both his career and a partnership he values more than any he has ever had. When a timid woman named Rachel reveals that she suspects her promiscuous and charismatic roommate, Lea, has been involved in the grisly murders, therapist Dr. Georgia Lukens is put into the untenable position of deciding if these are the ramblings of a delusional patient or something more. As Ellie pieces together a macabre puzzle of past and present sins, it becomes clear that madness takes many forms and...it may be too late to stop her partner from becoming the next victim

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly came to the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, young surgeon lieutenant O'Reilly answered the call of duty to serve in World War II. Fingal just wants to marry his beloved Deirdre and live happily ever after. First he must hone his skills at a British naval hospital before reporting back to the HMS 3 Warspite, where as a ship's doctor he faces danger upon the high seas. With German bombers a constant threat, the future has never been more uncertain, but Fingal and Deirdre are determined to make a life together ...no matter what may lie ahead. Decades later, the war is long over, and O'Reilly is content to mend the bodies and souls of his patients in Ballybucklebo, but there are still changes and challenges a plenty. A difficult pregnancy, as well as an old colleague badly in denial concerning his own serious medical condition, test O'Reilly and his young partner, Barry Laverty. But even with all that occupies him in the present, can O'Reilly ever truly let go of the ghosts from his past?Shifting effortlessly between two singular eras, bestselling author Patrick Taylor continues the story of O'Reilly's wartime experiences, while vividly bringing the daily joys and struggles of Ballybucklebo to life once more.

In the twenty-second century, our civilization has retained many familiar characteristics, but the population is smaller. Technology has made significant advances, and there are robots - and clones. One such is E. A. Smithe, a borrowed person, a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library. His personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. As library property, Smithe is not a legal human. The father of Colette Coldbrook, a wealthy library patron, has disappeared and been proclaimed dead. She decides to check Smithe out of the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was the sole item in her father's safe, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. Her brother, Conrad, turned up dead in the family home shortly after giving the book to her. Colette has reached the end of her options. She's afraid of the police, and there are others who might want the book's secret. Smithe is her last hope. Borrowing him might help her find the connection between the deaths and Murder on Mars.Together they find something far beyond their expectations - something almost anyone would kill for.

Frank M. Robinson (1926-2014) accomplished a great deal in his long life, working in magazine publishing, including a stint for Playboy, and writing science fiction novels such as The Power, The Dark Beyond the Stars, and thrillers such as The Glass Inferno (filmed as The Towering Inferno). Robinson also passionately engaged in politics, fighting for gay rights, and most famously writing speeches for his good friend Harvey Milk in San Francisco. This deeply personal autobiography explains the life of one gay man over eight decades in America and contains personal photos. By turns witty, charming, and poignant, this memoir grants insights into Robinson's work not just as a journalist and writer, but as a gay man navigating the often perilous social landscape of twentieth-century life in the United States. The bedrock sincerity and painful honesty with which he describes this life makes Not So Good a Gay Man compelling reading.

The Librarians is one of the biggest new hits on cable. Spinning off from a popular series of TV-movies, the TNT series began its second season in Fall 2015. The Librarians and the Lost Lamp is the first of three thrilling all-new adventures that will delight fans of the TV series and movies. For thousands of years, the Librarians have secretly protected the world from dangerous magical relics, everything from Pandora's Box to King Arthur's sword. Ten years ago, Flynn Carson was the only living Librarian. When the ancient criminal organization known as the Forty steals the oldest known copy of The Arabian Nights by Scheherazade, Flynn is called in to investigate. Fearing that the Forty is after Aladdin's fabled Lamp, Flynn must race to find it before the Lamp's powerful and malevolent djinn is unleashed upon the world. Today, a new team of inexperienced Librarians, along with Eve Baird, their tough-as-nails Guardian, is investigating an uncanny mystery in Las Vegas when the quest for the Lamp begins anew ...and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Andrew Waggoner has always hung around with the losers in his school, desperately hoping each day that the school bullies -- led by Drake -- will pass by him in search of other prey. But one day they force him into the woods, and the bullying escalates into something more; something unforgivable; something unthinkable. Broken, both physically and emotionally, something dies in Waggoner, and something else is born in its place. In the hills of the West Country a chalk horse stands vigil over a site of ancient power, and there Waggoner finds in himself a reflection of rage and vengeance, a power and persona to topple those who would bring him low. Paul Cornell plumbs the depths of magic and despair in this brutal exploration of bullying in Margaret Thatcher's England.

Commander Ronaldo Aldo has committed an unforgivable crime. He will ask for forgiveness all the same: from you, from God, even from himself. Connected by ansible, humanity has spread across galaxies and fought a war against an enemy that remains a mystery. At the edge of human space sits the Citadel a relic of the war and a listening station for the enemy's return. For a young Ensign Aldo, fresh from the academy and newly cloned across the ansible line, it's a prison from which he may never escape. Deplorable work conditions and deafening silence from the blackness of space have left morale on the station low and tensions high. Aldo's only hope of transcending his station, and cloning a piece of his soul somewhere new is both his triumph and his terrible crime.