New Releases by Mary Gentle

Mary Gentle is one of Britain''s most outstanding writers of imaginative fiction, able to move seamlessly from science fiction to fantasy within the same story. Following on from the success of ASH, 1610: A SUNDIAL IN A GRAVE and the omnibus volumes WHITE CROW and ORTHE, comes CARTOMANCY, the definitive collection of Mary Gentle''s short fiction. CARTOMANCY includes the stories from SOLDIERS AND SCHOLARS as well as a number of tales previously unpublished in book form, all with new afterwords and topped and tailed with a specially revised version of her split story ''Cartomancy''.

The year is 1610. Continental Europe is briefly at peace after years of war, but Henri IV of France is planning to invade the German principalities. In England, only five years earlier, conspirators nearly succeeded in blowing up King James I and his Parliament. The seeds of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War are visibly being sown, and the possibility for both enlightenment and disaster abounds. But Valentin Rochefort, duelist and spy for France''s powerful financial minister, could not care less. Until he is drawn into the glittering palaces, bawdy back streets, and stunning theatrics of Renaissance France and Shakespearean London in a deadly plot both to kill King James I and to save him. For this swordsman without a conscience is about to find himself caught between loyalty, love, and blackmail, between kings, queens, politicians, and Rosicrucians, and the woman he has, unknowingly, crossed land and sea to meet.

This gracefully written sequel to Golden Witchbreed powerfully depicts the impact of a high-technology civilization on a decaying planet. Ten years after having served as Earth''s first envoy to Orthe, which is struggling to survive after a planetwide holocaust millennia ago, Lynne de Lisle Christie returns there as an advisor to PanOceania, one of Earth''s giant multinational companies, which is seeking to discover the technological secrets of the Goldens, the ruling race that had destroyed itself while almost obliterating Orthe. Christie seeks to help the native people, some of whom have been her friends, some her enemies, but all closely bound in her memories and loyalties. Instigated by the last of the Golden, a madwoman seeking domination, war between the poor and starving hiyeks of the Desert Coast and the land-loving telestres of the north is aggravated by smuggled high-tech weapons. Christie, while holding a dreadful secret from the Orthe''s past, attempts to mediate. Gentle creates moving, different, yet recognizable societies and people that catch the reader''s emotions as they struggle to save themselves.

For the beautiful young woman Ash, life has always been arquebuses and artillery, swords and armour and the true horrors of hand-to-hand combat. War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare. Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 2000

Abandoned and alone, the fosterling Ilario grows up as the King''s Freak, surrounded by all the pomp, intrigue, and danger of the Iberian court. Fleeing a failed treacherous attack, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage, where the mysterious Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a strange and awful destiny awaits the would-be painter, one that spans continents and kingdoms.

It is a nameless city somewhere between past and future, a mythic realm at the "heart of the world," where wicked Rat Lords have reduced all humankind to slaves, and god-daemons make the decision to end all existence. This energizes a compelling quest for survival, and prompts the powerful White Crow to order an uprising against this chaotic strike that threatens them all. Among those who respond to her are the defiant Prince Lucas of Candover, a student at the University of Crime, and no mans''s slave; and Zari, the young Katayan woman who is destined to become the living Memory of all that follows. And others rally to join them in one final desperate revolt, hoping to create a magic powerful enough to reshape the very nature of how they live.

Mercenaries in lace and steel roam the countryside and the heads of criminals are impaled on London Bridge. The characters'' relationships are played out in the shadow of the hangman''s rope. Sequel to Rats and Gargoyles.

Orthe - half-civilized, half-barbaric, home to human-like beings who live and die by the code of the sword. Earth envoy Lynne Christie has been sent here to establish contact and to determine whether this is a world worth developing. But first Christie must come to understand that human-like is not and never can be human, and that not even Orthe''s leaders can stop the spread of rumors about her, dark whisperings that could cost Christie her life.And on a goodwill tour to the outlying provinces, these evil rumors turn to deadly accusations. Christie is no offworlder, Church officials charge: she is a treacherous and cunning descendant of Orthe''s legendary Golden Witchbreed - the cruel, ruthless race that once enslaved the whole planet. Suddenly, Christie finds herself a hunted fugitive on an alien world, where friend and foe alike may prove her executioners. And her only chance of survival lies in saving Orthe from a menace older than time...

Teenaged Holly finds a strange coin which leads her and her friend Chris into strange adventures with the magical people of the Hollow Hills.

Conrad Scalese is a writer of librettos for operas in a world where music has immense power. In the Church, the sung mass can bring about actual miracles like healing the sick. Opera is musicodrama, the highest form of music combined with human emotion, and the results of the passion it engenders can be nothing short of magical. In this world of miracles, Conrad is an atheist - he sees the same phenomena, but sees no need to attribute them to a Deity ... until his first really successful opera gets the opera-house struck by the lightning bolt of God''s disapproval ... ... And Conrad comes to the attention of the Prince''s Men, a powerful secret society, who are trying to use the magic of music to their own ends - in this case, an apocalyptic blood sacrifice. Life is about to get interesting for Conrad.

An orc is a fireplug of a fighting machine made of muscle, hide, talon, and tusk, with a villainous disposition and a mean sense of humor. And, of course, an orc is a poor dumb grunt—the much abused foot soldier in the Horde of Darkness. The usual last battle of Good against Evil is about to begin, and Orc Captain Ashnak and his war band know exactly what to expect. The forces of Light are outnumbered, full of headstrong heroes devoid of tactics, but the Light''s still going to win. Orcs will die by the thousands, and no one cares. Not even the Nameless Necromancer who hired them...

"First-rate speculative fiction from a very talented writer and a fascinating evocation of a turbulent, deeply significant moment in European history. ” — Washington Post Book World A sweeping, picaresque historical novel about two dueling swordsmen and the plot to kill a king in Renaissance Europe, A Sundial in a Grave is Shakespeare in Love meets The Three Musketeers, with a distinct edge 1610: Continental Europe is briefly at peace after years of war, but Henri IV of France is planning to invade the German principalities. In England, only 5 years earlier, conspirators nearly succeeded in blowing up King James I and his Parliament. The seeds of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War are visibly being sown, and the possibility for both enlightenment and disaster abounds. But Valentin Rochefort, duellist, down-at-heels aristocrat and spy for the Duc de Sully, France’s powerful finance minister, could care less. Until he is drawn into the glittering palaces, bawdy back streets and stunning theatrics of Renaissance France and Shakespearian London in a deadly plot to both kill King James I and to save him. Determined to save his liege Sully, Rochefort’s journey will take him as far away as the distant Nippons, and as close as the truths of his own heart. This swordsman without a conscience is about to find himself caught between loyalty, love, and blackmail, between kings, queens, politicians and Rosicrucians—and the woman he has, unknowingly, crossed land and sea to meet.

Abandoned and alone, the fosterling Ilario grows up as the King''s Freak, surrounded by all the pomp, intrigue, and danger of the Iberian court. Fleeing a failed treacherous attack, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage, where the mysterious Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a strange and awful destiny awaits the would-be painter, one that spans continents and kingdoms. Filled with intrigue, sex, and mystery, Ilario: The Lion''s Eye is a stunning tale of secret histories and self-discovery. The adventure continues in Book Two: The Stone Golem.

Obéissant à un ordre de Marie de Médicis, sacrée la veille, le maître espion de Sully, Valentin Raoul Rochefort, organise l'assassinat d'Henri IV ; mais, ne tenant guère à ce que le projet aboutisse, il confie la tâche à un ancien instituteur de province un peu illuminé. Malheureusement, le 14 mai 1610, l'instituteur François Ravaillac profite d'un embouteillage dans les rues de Paris pour poignarder mortellement le roi. Condamné à l'exil, Rochefort se rend en Angleterre où dès son arrivée Robert Fludd, un disciple de Giordano Bruno, lui confie l'assassinat d'un autre roi, Jacques Stuart. Fludd, grâce à ses découvertes en matière de mathématiques, jure à qui veut l'entendre qu'il est capable de prédire le futur et voit dans le meurtre de Stuart la dernière chance de l'humanité pour échapper à l'Apocalypse. Peut-être a-t-il raison car, quelque part sous terre, un cadran solaire nous met en garde : tout a une fin, le monde y compris... Avec ce roman d'aventures dans lequel se mélangent espions, duellistes et astrologues, mathématiques divinatoires et Histoire secrète, Mary Gentle confirme son immense talent et se hisse à la hauteur d'Umberto Eco et d'Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

Presents a collection of four novellas that explore alternate history, including "The Daimon," in which Sokrates leads his soldiers to victory over the Spartans, and "The Last Ride of German Freddie," in which Nietzsche finds himself in Tombstone, Arizona, in works by Harry Turtledove, S. M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams. Reprint.

After being freed by the King, Ilario decides to journey to Roma to apprentice as a painter. Along the way he stops at Visigothic Carthage, which lies under the penitence. Ilario is quickly sold back to slavery. Maintaining a healthy attitude, he is determined to regain freedom and finish his journey to Roma.

The White Crow, one-time Soldier-Scholar of the Invisible College and a practioner of Hermetic science and magic, and Baltazar Casaubon, architect and lover, a man not too particular about his personal hygiene, are two of Mary Gentle¿s finest creations. The worlds they stride across range from the Renaissance city where aristocratic rats rule the human servant class, to a near-future London where chaos is come again. They are two of the most powerful players in the games of magic and politics, and the most colourful. This volume brings together three brilliantly imaginative, powerful and disturbing tales - Rats and Gargoyles, The Architecture of Desire and Left to His Own Devices - and the linked short fiction and confirms Mary Gentle as one of the foremost writers of dark and visionary fantasy.

The distant world of Orthe is littered with spectacular remnants of the Golden Empire, an ancient and technologically advanced civilisation extinct for two thousand years. Now their Orthean descendants have turned away from the technology which nearly destroyed them, and from their ancestors, the Golden Witchbreed. Then Earth envoy Lynne de Lisle Christie arrives and, all too quickly, finds herself the victim of intrigue and conspiracy, embroiled in a conflict that threatens to explode into war ¿ and which puts her own life in deadly peril . . .

This is a landmark anthology of four original novellas by the reigning masters of alternate history. Set in different eras, different places, and different times, these forays into "what might have been" showcases the stunning breadth and far-reaching possibilities the genre represents.

Ash, a mercenary warrior, launches a desperate defense to save Dijon from the demonic Wild Machines and the merciless soldiers of the Visigoth Empire, as the fate of all Europe hangs in the balance.

Aux frontières de la civilisation et de la barbarie, la planète Orthé est le domaine d'un peuple qui ressemble aux humains, mais dont la vie et la mort obéissent au code de l'épée. Envoyée par la Terre pour établir un contact diplomatique et déterminer si cette société primitive mérite d'être assistée, Lynne Christie découvre peu à peu un monde complexe et fascinant, aux coutumes millénaires étrangères à l'entendement humain. Un monde dangereux : accusée d'être la descendante perfide et maléfique des " Fils de la Sorcière ", une race cruelle et impitoyable qui jadis imposa sa domination à la planète entière, Lynne Christie, pourchassée, traquée, devra seule soustraire la planète Orthé à la menace légendaire des " Fils de la Sorcière ".

The fate of Western Europe and Africa lies in the hands of a female warrior named Ash, who alone holds the key to stopping the undefeated legions of Carthage that rage across the lands of Europe, by destroying a mysterious and living stone idol possessing an awesome power

When the ebullient genius, Baltazar Casaubon, re-enters her life, Valentine knows that it doesn't bode well. It is only when he reveals that he has invented a program that can transfer a person's memory directly to a computer, that she realizes just how much trouble he's in.