This author masterfully navigates the complexities of the human psyche, exploring themes of isolation and the search for meaning in the modern world. Her style is characterized by sharp insight and a melancholic atmosphere that draws readers into the depths of the human experience. Through carefully crafted characters and evocative settings, she creates works that resonate long after the final page is turned. Her writing is an invitation to contemplate the intricacies of our lives and what it means to be human.
Set against a backdrop of conflict, the story follows Smith, a former assassin seeking a peaceful retirement among the feuding Children of the Sun. His attempt to live quietly is disrupted when he takes on the role of caravan master for a journey from Troon to Salesh. As he navigates the challenges of the trip, old enemies and new dangers emerge, threatening his desire for a life free from violence and conflict.
Set in a magical world filled with adventure and love, this standalone story by Kage Baker combines wit and irony to deliver an engaging narrative. Readers can expect a blend of humor and fantastical elements, characteristic of Baker's previous works, as they explore new characters and experiences in this enchanting setting.
Ein uralter Menschheitstraum wird wahr: Die Möglichkeit, durch die Zeit zu reisen. Die Firma Dr. Zeus Inc. schickt Wissenschaftler in die unterschiedlichsten Epochen der Vergangenheit. Ihr Auftrag: Die menschliche Geschichte zu studieren, ohne die Zukunft zu verändern. Ein so faszinierendes wie riskantes Unternehmen-…
„Zeitstürme“ ist eine fesselnde Kombination aus Zeitreise-Geschichte, historischem Roman und romantischem Abenteuer, die Leserinnen und Leser über das Genre der Science Fiction hinaus begeistert.
Magic lives in remarkable realms – and in the short fiction of today's top fantasists. In this fifth breathtaking volume of the year's best flights of the fantastic, award–winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present a dazzling new array of wonders – stories that break through the time–honored conventions of the genre to carry the reader to astonishing places that only the most ingenious minds could conceive. In the able hands of Neil Gaiman, Kage Baker, Tim Powers, and others, miracles become tangible and true, impossible creatures roam unfettered, and fairy tales are reshaped, sharpened, and freed from the restrictive bonds of childhood. Lose yourself in these pages and in these worlds – and discover the power, the beauty, the unparalleled enchantment of fantasy at its finest.
In 16th-century Spain, everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition, as they have a well-known tendency to cart people off to their dungeons on trumped-up charges. What 5-year-old Mendoza, on the brink of being tortured as a Jew, is totally unprepared for is to be rescued by the Company--the ultimate bureaucracy of the 24th century--and made immortal. In return, all she has to do is travel through time on a series of assignments for the Company and collect endangered botanical specimens. The wisecracking, mildly misanthropic Mendoza wants nothing to do with historical humans, but her first assignment is to travel to England in 1553--uncomfortably close to those damn Inquisitors--with Joseph and Nefer, two other Company operatives. Their intent is to gather herb samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden, a foolish though generous country squire. (Kage Baker knows her Shakespeare: Sir Walter is the descendant of Alexander Iden, loyal subject of Henry IV, who slew the hungry rebel Jack Cade in that very garden in Kent.) The cyborg trio poses as Doctor Ruy Lopez, his daughter Rosa (the irrepressible Mendoza, now grown), and her duenna, Doña Marguerita; Sir Walter's hospitality and discretion are bought for the promise of restored youth. (There are hilarious moments that call to mind the Coneheads, who claimed to be from France when caught doing anything peculiar.) Sir Walter's secretary, Nicholas Harpole, is immediately suspicious of and hostile towards the strange "Spanish" visitors, which prompts Mendoza to fall in love with him. Nicholas has his own badly kept secret: he's proudly Protestant at a time when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain are on a Catholicizing rampage. Mendoza knows Nicholas is probably doomed, and that as a Company operative she cannot meddle with his fate, but love makes people do desperate things. Baker surpasses even Connie Willis in humor and precision of period detail in this fresh, ingenious first novel.<i>--Barrie Trinkle</i>
In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. Mendoza is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her future--with a man she will long outlive.
