Most Popular Books by Kage Baker

IL FIGLIO DELLA MACCHINA Mendoza, agente della Compagnia, è stata costretta a diventare un''immortale, un essere umano geneticamente modificato che può ambire all''eternità, per poi essere bandita in una prigione persa nel tempo. Ora i suoi amanti del passato, Alec, Nicholas e Bell-Fairfax, sono determinati a salvarla, ma prima devono imparare a convivere, perché i tre possiedono un unico corpo. Una volta ritrovata Mendoza, scoprono che la situazione è persino peggiore di quanto potessero immaginare, al punto da convincerli finalmente a combattere la Compagnia.

In this new story set in the world of The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, two teenagers join the crew of a huge river barge after their addict mother is drowned. The girl and her half-breed younger brother try to make the barge their new home. As the great boat proceeds up the long river, we see a panorama of cities and cultures, and begin to perceive patterns in the pirate attacks that happen so frequently in the river cities. Eliss, the girl, becomes a sharp-eyed spotter of obstacles in the river for the barge, and more than that, one who perceives deeply. A young boy her age, Krelan, trained as a professional assassin, has come aboard, seeking the head of a dead nobleman, so that there might be a proper burial. But the head proves as elusive as the real explanation behind the looting of cities, so he needs Eliss’s help. And then there is the massive Captain of the barge, who can perform supernatural tricks, but prefers to stay in his cabin and drink.

Mars is an old world, one that has been mapped by science fiction writers for over a century. The late Nebula and Locus Award winning writer Kage Baker was among the most skilled cartographers to render the Red Planet as full of life and love, hope and heroism. Gathered together here for the first time are all of Baker''s Mars stories, beginning with "The Empress of Mars," for which she won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. It was in this story that Baker first laid out her vision of our neighboring planet, with its patchwork quilt of societies based in part on the history of the British Empire. Here are Celts and colonialists side by side with adventuring Haulers who bring ice from the poles and missionaries who bring the message of their goddess from Luna. These tales are all part of an imaginatively worked out near future, where raucous frontier people intermingle with devoted terraformers in an uneasy mix overseen by Areco, Baker''s version of the British East India Company. Turn by turn, each story sets its protagonists the task of understanding and altering a world that resists change. In "The Empress of Mars," a woman gathers her family--her children along with outcast Eccentrics--and turns an unexpected windfall into the founding of a place they can be proud to call their own. "Plotters and Shooters" recounts a series of incidents in an orbital defense station involving characters who may be delightfully familiar. In the "Maelstrom," one of the Eccentrics remakes himself into a theatrical impresario, founding a theater that serves as "a cathedral to pure weirdness." Finally, in "Attlee and the Long Walk," a young child of the agricultural tunnels takes a journey through both her physical and emotional worlds, making unexpected discoveries in both. Maelstrom and Other Martian Tales stands as a testament to the gritty and glorious imagination of a writer gone too soon. These are remarkable stories by a remarkable author.

". . . Baker’s fans will delight in this slight, bawdy and funny confection." —Publishers Weekly In nineteenth-century England, the women of Nell Gwynne’s brothel—intellectual, elegant, refined, and ready to cater to every whim—work at an establishment that serves rich, powerful men. So close to the highest halls of power, they are also perfectly-placed spies for the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society. But catering to the rich and powerful is hard work, so every year, the courtesans, led by their Proprietress, Mrs. Corvey, take a holiday to the seaside, for a respectable stint of rest, relaxation, reading, and sea bathing. But this year, the boarding house also boasts a suspicious American as a guest, and instead of a vacation, Mrs. Covey and the ladies are assailed by thugs, dead butlers, their cook’s unexpected departure, and sea monsters. With the GSS operatives all otherwise engaged, it is up to the ladies of Nell Gwynne’s to get to the bottom of the mysterious goings-on and save the day.

More than five-hundred pages, over one-quarter of a million words... Space Opera spans a vast range of epic interstellar adventure stories told against a limitless cosmos filled with exotic aliens, heroic characters, and incredible settings. A truly stellar compilation of tales from one of the defining streams of science fiction, old and new, written by a supernova of genre talent.

"The idea of time travel has been with us since ancient times. Now, the concept of time travel seems ... almost ... plausible. Today, tales of chrononauts are more imaginative and thought-provoking than ever before: new views, cutting-edge concepts, radical notions of paradox and possibility -- state-of-the-art speculative stories collected from those written in the twenty-first century. Forward to the past, back to the future -- get ready for a fascinating trip!"--Page 4 of cover.

"Kage Baker is the greatest natural storyteller to enter the field since Poul Anderson." —Gardner Dozois In the Company, you''re either a God or a Pawn, but sometimes you have to be both. These eight stories, reprinted for the first time, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company and its operatives, including Mendoza, Lewis, and Alec. The book opens with the novella, To the Land Beyond the Sunset, starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. Their ability to grow a small tropical paradise in the middle of the desert certainly seems godlike, and it''s Mendoza''s job to figure out their secret. Standing in His Light features Van Drouten and her role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. The story illustrates how, with a little help from the Company, lost masterpieces can be found (or created) easily. Other stories include the original novelette, Hellfire at Twilight, that concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in the England of the eighteenth century. This book is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts.

"In this enchanting, if melancholy, story collection from Hugo- and Nebula Award-nominee Baker, the supernatural matter-of-factly touches the shabby lives of people in small, isolated towns, providing resolution and revelation . . ." —Publsihers Weekly Kage Baker, celebrated creator of the Company novels and the standout collection Mother Aegypt, now brings together pirates, primates, eldritch horrors, maritime ghosts, and much more in Dark Mondays. This captivating new collection of fantastic short fiction is sure to cement her reputation as one of the most original storytellers working in the fantasy and speculative fiction genres today. Whether spinning tales of the mysterious young woman and the dreadful pirate captain Henry Morgan in the original novella “The Maid on the Shore,”or the tiny California beach community assaulted by Lovecraftian terrors in “Calamari Curls,” or the girl menaced by a haunting photograph and a trio of aspiring vampires at the heart of “Portrait, With Flames,” Kage Baker distinguishes herself throughout Dark Mondays as a storyteller extraordinaire, crafting intricately woven plots, compelling characters, and captivating settings filled with convincing detail. As likely to shock and surprise as it is to fill you with a sense of weird wonder and delight, Dark Mondays will entrance you with its inventive prose, astound you with its action, and seduce you with its style. Dark Mondays features five never-before-published stories, including the forty-one-thousand-word pirate novel, “The Maid on the Shore,” which chronicles the lesser known aspects of Captain Henry Morgan’s infamous sacking of Panama City.

"Like a brisk October wind, these 13 stories blow clear and cold, bringing with them unusual landscapes, brilliant colors, multilayered shadows, and haunting characters. They challenge from the first page with insights and concepts sure to win inquiring, thoughtful, imaginative minds . . . Listen closely, and perhaps you will hear the collective sigh of delight from intelligent lovers of fantasy the world over. A book to savor." —Paula Luedtke, Booklist A short story collection from Kage Baker, including an original novella set in her ongoing series of The Company, "Mother Aegypt."

This book includes the concluding novels of Kage Baker''s "Company" series and brings all the counterplots to a head in a final showdown.

1699. En pleine jungle maya, Mendoza et son mentor Joseph se reposent à Nouveau Monde Un, le centre de vacances de luxe pour les agents immortels de la Dr Zeus Incorporated, cette organisation secrète du XXIVème siècle qui s''est donné pour but de sauver les espèces et les oeuvres d''art condamnées à disparaître. Joseph, qui navigua avec les Phéniciens, fut un homme politique athénien, ou encore un prêtre espagnol de l''Inquisition, reçoit une nouvelle mission : sauver de la destruction la tribu précolombienne des Chumash, avant l''arrivée des colonisateurs. Pour cela, il lui faut convaincre tout un village de s''installer dans le futur... Or, si l''organisation sociale des Chumash est précisément ce qui a intéressé Dr Zeus, elle ne va pas lui faciliter la tâche.

Clarkesworld is a Hugo Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art. Our April 2015 issue (#103) contains: Original Fiction by Robert Reed ("The Empress in Her Glory"), Berrien C. Henderson ("Let Baser Things Devise"), Benjanun Sriduangkaew ("The Petals Abide"), and Emily Devenport ("Postcards from Monster Island"). Reprints by Kage Baker ("Noble Mold") and Indrapramit Das ("Weep for Day"). Non-fiction by Julie Novakova (Small Markets, Big Wonders), a roundtable on Spanish science fiction, an Another Word column by Alethea Kontis, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.

"Everyone''s favorite immortal cyborg, Mendoza, and the three incarnations of her not-quite-human love, Nicholas Harpole/Edward Bell-Fairfax/Alec, are all together for the first time. And now they can really begin to fight back against the Company. The Machine''s Child is the one all Baker fans have really been waiting for, the start of a complex and gripping war along the timelines."--Jacket.