Mary Gentle Libri

There Is More Than One History Of The World...In the mid-fifteenth century there was Burgundy, the jewel of Europe - opulant and powerful, the undisputed center of an uncivilized world.In an epoch of war and madness there was Ash. A girl born in mud and dung, she slew her first men while only eight. Scarred and ravaged, but still beautiful, she rose up to lead a great mercenary army before the age of twenty - and followed a sacred voice wise in the bloody ways of battle to a pinnacle unattainable to even the most potent of legends.In a time when empires and alliances shifted like sand - when Mithras the bull was worshiped freely alongside the Christ - a great cloud arose out of Africa to darken the sun. The Visgoths came with their terrible machines - powered by magic or a science unknown to this day - and aimed their irresistible might toward the rich Burgundian prize, wrenching the wheel of civilization in an unknown and unexpected direction. And with their coming, one incomparable warrior raised on Destiny's ash heap became more than anyone thought one woman could be.

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 CARTOMANCY includes the stories from SOLDIERS AND SCHOLARS as well as a number of tales previously unpublished in book form, all with new afterwords and topped and tailed with a specially revised version of her split story 'Cartomancy'.

1st Orbit 1990 edition 1st printing paperback, vg++ to fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Born a true hermaphrodite, Ilario has lived as the king's freak in the Iberian kingdom of Tarraconensis. All Ilario wants is to be one of the first - and best - Renaissance painters. In order to do so, Ilario must embark on a quest to escape the wrath of the court.

SF novel (alternate history of London) with The White Crow and Causaubon, characters from Rats & Gargoyles and The Architecture of Desire. Contents:* Left To His Own Devices* Black Motley * What God Abandoned * The Road To Jerusalem

As two factions--the royalists devoted to Queen Carola and the soldiers who follow the Protector-General Olivia--battle for control of London, the White Crow, Master Physician, and her husband, the Lord-Architect Casaubon, are drawn into the magical strife.

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...

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.

A labyrinthine city, too immense for the mind to easily comprehend; where medieval cathedrals, Renaissance chateaux and factory production lines co-exist; where Rats are kings and humans their servents;where gods are capricious and miracles happen every day. A city beyond time and imagination. Tension in the city is strained beyond breaking point.Deep beneath the streets, a plot to overthrow the Rat-lords is hatching. On production lines there are whispers of a wildcar strike.Unearthly dangers begin to threaten both the irreverent and the wise - for the apcocalypse itself may be approaching...

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