Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Elantris was built on magic, and it thrived. But then the magic began to fade, and Elantris began to rot. Now its shattered citizens face domination by a powerful Imperium. Can a young Princess unite the people of Elantris and lead a rebellion against the imperial zealots? Brandon Sanderson's debut fantasy showed his skill as a storyteller and an imaginer of baroque magical systems to be fully developed from the start.

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. In Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn.

In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship, Rocinante, have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace. In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices.

5,000 years in the future, humanity faces total extermination. Our one defence: highly-trained soldiers who scour the metal-strewn blackness of space to hunt down a terrifying enemy: an insect life-form known only as 'Bugs.' This is the story of trooper Johnny Rico, from his idealistic enlistment in the infantry of the future through his rigorous training to the command of his own platoon. And his destiny is a war that will span the galaxy.

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell is chief minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, the king’s new wife. But Anne has failed to give the king an heir, and Cromwell watches as Henry falls for plain Jane Seymour. Cromwell must find a solution that will satisfy Henry, safeguard the nation and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge unscathed from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can be collected only one unit at a time from individual people.

Podkin is the son of a warrior chieftain. He knows that one day it will be up to him to lead his warren and guard it in times of danger. But for now, he's quite happy to laze around. Then Podkin's home is brutally attacked, and the young rabbits are forced to flee. With danger all around them, Podkin must protect his family and attempt to defeat the most horrifying enemy rabbitkind has ever known.

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen. And the Empire stands alone.

The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel. William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the cyberpunk movement.

City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. As their legions scour the world of superstition with the bright flame of reason, so they deliver a mountain of ragged, holed and scorched flesh to the field hospital tents just behind the frontline. Which is where Yasnic, one-time priest, healer and rebel, finds himself. Reprieved from the gallows and sent to war clutching a box of orphan Gods, he has been sequestered to a particularity unorthodox medical unit.

Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity: a civilisation where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey. But this isn't Space City from those old science-fiction books. It's more like Hell City, built into and from a huge crater. There's a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, because we can't breathe the air here. I guess it's a perfect place to live, if you want to live on Mars. At some point I must have wanted to live on Mars, because here I am.

From Carnegie Medal-winning author Kevin Crossley-Holland, these dramatic, enthralling and atmospheric tales are based on the Scandinavian myth cycle - one of the greatest and most culturally significant stories in the world - and tell of Odin with his one eye, Thor with his mighty hammer and Loki, the red-haired, shape-shifting trickster. In this stunning anthology of myths, the strange world of ancient magic, giants, dwarfs and monsters is unforgettably imagined. 

A collection of stunning short stories from the most acclaimed Science Fiction author of any generation. Arthur C Clarke is without question the world's best-known and most celebrated science fiction writer. His career, spanning more than sixty years, is one of unequalled success.

Count Zero is a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the designer's defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo gods in the Net and angels in the software, he can only hope that the megacorps and the super-rich have their virtual hands too full to notice the amateur hacker with the black market kit trying desperately to stay alive....

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse. What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. But when Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him, she refuses–and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonised and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah–God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven–is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Hadrian, a warrior with nothing to fight for, is paired with Royce, a thieving assassin with nothing to lose. Together they must steal a treasure that no one can reach. The Crown Tower is the grandest fortress ever built and home to the realm's most prized possessions. But it isn't gold or jewels that their employer is after; if he can keep them from killing each other, they might just get him his prize.

In the middle of the 21st century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions - and the ability to kill. 

Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the Starlit Order, performing funeral rites for the dead across the galaxy, guiding souls back into the Infinite Light. Despite the comfort he wants to believe he brings to the dead, his relationships with his fellow Vessels are distant at best, leaving him reliant on his AI implant for companionship.

In a city that never was, in an America that never was, on a snowy night at the end of winter, two detectives find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. It's 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on – a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about.