Amalia Cornaro is a good-hearted scholar who likes wearing trousers. She’s also the daughter of La Contessa, the most powerful woman in the Empire. And she’s just forged an unbreakable bond with Zaira, the most destructive warlock the Empire has seen in centuries. Life’s about to get complicated…
5 stars
The Empress ordered her fleets to destroy the Citadel of Weeping Pearls and its ruler – her daughter – for fear of the weapons their unusual science was creating. But the Citadel disappeared. 30 years later, with war looming against an enemy who can turn their mindships against them, can the Bright Princess be found – and persuaded to come home?
Unexpected saviours of Ilus, the crew of the Roci scatter for a well-earned break. But old feuds die hard. As humanity streams through the Gates to colonise new worlds, the Solar System is ripped apart by unexpected violence on an unimaginable scale. Can Alex, Amos, Jim and Naomi survive alone?
Everything changes in a Season. First guard the gates. Keep storecaches clean and dry. Obey the stonelore, make the hard choices, and maybe when the Season ends there will be people who remember how civilisation should work. Or maybe not. Not this Season.
Nahri is a hustler with a sixth sense for sickness, trying to save up enough money from her scams to study medicine. When she accidentally summons a daeva during an improvised ritual, her dreams go up in smoke. Now she must flee her home to survive the ifrit who hunt her bloodline down. Will she find sanctuary in the City of Brass?
The Rosalind Franklin is Beacon’s best hope, on an epic journey around Britain seeking a natural inhibitor to the hungry plague. But it is as riven by politics as Beacon itself – can the crew put aside their differences or is humanity doomed to rip itself apart before the hungries even reach them?
If you get lost enough, you can find Arcadia. The South Seas Company are keen to limit access to maintain their monopoly on trade. The Church, with no such worldly concerns, wish to bring the Word of God to the Fair Folk. And Catherine Helstone wants to find her beloved brother Laon, missionary to the Court of the Pale Queen…
‘Tis the season in Lychford: Autumn is feeling more single than ever, Judith is almost used to the idea that she might have friends, and Lizzie’s struggling to keep her Christmas spirit in the face of Greg Lake, a Christmas Eve wedding and ghostly visits from a scared young boy…
Children go missing all the time. Sometimes, there is a fuss. Sometimes, they come home. Sometimes, they’ve been much further than you’d think. Welcome to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. Leave your disbelief at the door. Open your heart wide. Bring tissues.
Jake has gone to school. Isabella has weathered another storm of disapproval. And now King and country need someone to take over a dragon-breeding program in the deserts of Akhia. Where Suhail comes from. OH ISA-BE-LL-A….
The virus had a long incubation period. By the time it started killing, it had already spread across the stars. Those who survived the second day lived. The rest burnt up, 99.9999% of the human race reduced to piles of dust. Now the few survivors – scattered across planets – must try to reconnect, regroup and choose their future. Should Jamie try to rebuild what she’s lost or choose a fresh start?
When the High Priestess dies, the lesser priestesses leave the Tombs of Atuan and go in search of the newborn she has become. If she grows healthy and unblemished, she is fed to the Nameless Ones, keeper of their rituals, heir to their secrets. Could such a child ever turn her back on the Dark?
Kell Maresh and Lila Bard saved the worlds and went their separate ways. Kell has been confined to keep his royal brother safe; Lila has finally gone to sea to find herself (and scare sensible men witless). But the triennial Essen Tasch lures the world’s best sorcerers back to London – and a girl from Grey London has a few tricks up her sleeve she’d like to try…
Diziet Sma needs to recruit former superstar agent Cheradenine Zakalwe for one last job to resolve a situation in a politically-unstable star system. But is Zakalwe still up to the job? And will the price he puts on his renewed service unravel him beyond repair?
Jernau Morat Gurgeh is bored of winning, a master of strategy and tactics who can beat anyone at almost any game. When Special Circumstances approach him to represent the Culture in the vicious Empire of Azad – home to a complex Game so revered the winner is made Emperor – he can’t say no. But to play will mean putting more than just his life at risk. Can he resist the lure of Azad?
