The Prince of Morning
Bells
"Anyone
who has ever doubted the psychological link between fantasy and
life will be quickly corrected by this insightful and highly
recommended novel".--Roger C. Schlobin, "Fantasy Newsletter".
The Golden Grove
Fantasy
novel about obsession set in pseudo-historical Greece.
The Price of Oranges
(Novelette)
An old man
seeks a boyfriend for his granddaughter ... from 1937.
The White Pipes
Fia,
the storygiver, had come to Veliano to practice her art. In the
mist that swirled between her hands, tiny figures acted out tales for
the entertainment of lords and ladies.
But
in the court of King Rofdal, the story forming in the mist becomes a
tale of twisted passion and shocking betrayal - a magic linked to the
dark legend of the White Pipes...
An Alien Light
The
human race is at war with the Ged, a
collective species that is baffled by mankind’s ability to turn
violence upon itself and yet advance into space. In order to defeat the
humans, the Ged must first understand them.
So they go to a world called Qom, where a lost Earth colony has
forgotten it’s origins and regressed to pre-industrial society. They
are split into two warring city-states: Delysia, town of merchants, and
Jela of Spartan wariors. The Ged build a walled city out in the
wilderness, promising riches and new weapons for anyone brave enough to
stay in the city one year.
The offer attracts a diverse collection of outcasts and
adventurers, Jelite warriors and Delysian artisans. Once inside, they
are taught the secrets of science and technology. In watching them
learn, the Ged hope to find out how humans think. But they don’t
anticipate the few humans who will cross feudal boundaries to unite
against the Ged, deducing more than the Ged meant to teach about the
nature of the universe and the origin of humans on Qom.
Brain Rose
A
corporation-backed religion celebrates the glories of garbage and
right-wing extremists engage in occasional terrorism. In a
plague-ravaged world victimized by a hideous virus that feeds on
memory, a thief, a wealthy, emotionally troubled woman, and a dying
attorney undergo a radical neurosurgery that enables them to tap into
their previous lives.
But meddling in
the past can be far more dangerous than anything in
this life. For in the miasma of racial memory these three are linked in
terrifying ways they never dreamed possible - a connection that
threatens to alter - and devastate - the course of human history.
Oaths and Miracles
FBI
agent Robert Kavanaugh believes that the
murders of a showgirl in Las Vegas and a scientist in Boston are
connected. He quickly suspects that they are also connected to a
Mafia-funded effort at DNA research, but in classic thriller fashion,
he is unable to convince his superiors and must play a lone hand
against a conspiracy in which the possibility of Mafia-developed
biological weapons is only one element. The ensuing action is fast and
furious, and the average reader will be sweating out Kavanaugh's quest
for the better part of two hundred pages before an ending mercifully
more happy than not. Kress is a master of characterization and every
other skill needed to make hers a much-above-average thriller.
Dancing on Air (Novelette)
Someone
is killing bio-enhanced ballerinas. A reporter who happens to
be the mother of an aspiring dancer is in a race against time to find
the reason.
Maximum Light
By
2034, endocrine-disrupting chemical pollutants
have caused a collapse in world fertility. Human cloning-crucially but
quite unbelievably-doesn't work, and many women will do anything to
acquire a child, or even a surrogate. Kress provides three first-person
narrators. Shana Walders, 19, a wannabe soldier, exploits her physical
attributes to get what she wants. While doing her year's compulsory
National Service, she glimpses three monkeys with human hands and
faces. But when she reports this to a powerful government committee,
only dying doctor Nick Clementi believes her. Later, furious at her
rejection by the army, Shana learns whose face the monkeys wore: that
of Cameron Atuli, a dancer whose memories have been tampered with.
Shana contacts Nick and demands action. Nick's government source,
curiously, draws a blank. Shana, meanwhile, confronts Cameron, who
finds he can no longer dance and wants to know what happened to him.
Cameron, it emerges, was abducted by a secret organization that's
producing illegal human-animal hybrids to satisfy the demand for
child-substitutes; the government knows but chooses to ignore it,
hoping that the illegal labs will also solve the fertility problem.
Beaker's Dozen
The
twenty-first century, it's often remarked,
will transform our knowledge of biology the same way that the twentieth
century transformed physics. With knowledge, of course, comes
application. And with the application of all we are learning about
genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of the
knotty.
This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific
laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science
fiction rehearses the implications of those technologies. What might we
eventually do with our newfound power? Should we do it? Who should do
it? Who will be affected? How? Is that a good thing or not? For whom?
Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight are concerned with
what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers
of microbiology. Not everything in these stories will come to pass.
Possibly nothing in them will; fiction is not prediction. But I hope
that stories at least will raise questions about the world rushing in
on us at the speed - not of light - but of thought.
Stinger
FBI
Agent Robert Cavanaugh has been tranferred
from the organized crime unit to the slow paced field office for
southern Maryland, where the "biggest federal crime is the condition of
the roads." His main job is to keep tabs on the various fringe groups
that inhabit the rural backwoods of Maryland.
But things take an unpleasent turn when a nurse notices a sudden
increase in the incidence of fatal strokes amoung otherwise healthy
black adults. The trail leads to a new strain of malaria that causes
rapid blood clotting in people with sickle-cell trait (which occurs
more frequently in blacks and Indians).
It's an unlikely natural mutation, yet there's no hard evidence of
human intervention. Did a fringe hate group arrange for a bioengineered
weapon to decimate the black population? As the disease begins to
spread and more people die, Cavanaugh must convince the FBI to look for
the answers before it becomes an epidemic that threatens millions of
lives ... or even race war.
Nothing Human
NOTHING
HUMAN starts in 2005 and covers nearly a
hundred years. Thirteen-year-old Lillie falls into a coma, during which
some anomalous genes come on-line in both her and about seventy other
children in the eastern United States. How did this happen? Who
engineered these otherwise normal kids, why, and how? As time
progresses, these questions get answered, while simultaneously the
Earth's condition deteriorates. Eventually a choice becomes clear:
genetically engineer our descendants even more radically than Lillie,
or else let humanity die out entirely. But would the results still be
human?
Dogs
The
threat of terrorism and biological warfare become all too real in
this riveting thriller when the danger comes from a family's most
cherished pets. Tessa Sanderson, ex-FBI agent, has moved to a sleepy
Maryland town to escape her tragic past. When the town's beloved dogs
begin viciously attacking pet owners, federal CDC agents determine that
the dogs are carrying a mutated flu affecting the aggression center of
their brains, for which their is no known cure. Tessa offers to help
round up and quarantine the dogs, even though some unconvinced locals
are preparing to protect their pets by any means necessary. But she has
another reason for getting involved—someone has been sending her
threatening emails in Arabic claiming responsibility for the virus, and
Tessa is resolved to go deep undercover to expose this deadly
conspiracy. Combining hard science with thoughtful narrative, this
chilling tale of science fiction explores the complex relationships
between dogs and their owners.
