Showing results by author "David Drake" in All Categories

Fortress is America's guarantor of freedom, an orbiting arsenal of laser weapons and nuclear missiles. It was considered impregnable - until now. Former CIA officer Tom Kelley is sent to learn the secrets surrounding a dead alien found in Turkey and discovers a maze of lies and treachery that could transform America's shield into an engine of global terror.

The Fortress of Glass is the first in the Crown of the Isles trilogy, which will conclude the epic Lord of the Isles series. A true trilogy, the action extends over the whole three-book arc. The Fortress of Glass begins the story of how the new kingdom of the Isles is finally brought into being by the group of heroes and heroines who have been central to all the books in the series.

Garric - or Reise - was born the son of an innkeeper in Barca's Hamlet on the Isle of Haft, but through valor and determination became first a prince and then the Regent and successor to the feeble Valence III, King of the Isles

Return again to the world of the Isles in Servant of the Dragon, a world with hundreds of warring kingdoms without a single overlord for many centuries. Now the sources of magic are reaching a thousand-year peak, and the present generation of sorcerers is the most powerful in the millennium. Follow the small band of heroes and heroines as they journey across these landscapes, these seas, to find their loves, their destinies and - for one - a crown.

In a distant galaxy where immense danger threatens, desperate pirates travel to the outer limits of space, doing trade with the star colonies and encountering rivals, aliens, and strange human hybrids.

The Cutter Stream colonies were at peace. If everybody behaved reasonably, that peace could last a thousand years. Allen Allenson had known war; it had made him peaceful and reasonable. He was far too experienced to believe the same was true of all his fellow colonists, however, let alone the government of the distant homeworld across the Bight.

Earth is a dead cinder beyond the dense clouds. On a terraformed Venus, the land is ruled by savage plants and the even more savage beasts that prey on them, while monsters out of nightmare swim though the globe-girdling seas. Mankind huddles in domed underwater Keeps, living a purposeless static existence - dedicated to pleasure but destined for oblivion later if not sooner. Only the Free Companions, the mercenaries who fight proxy wars for the Keeps, live on the surface of Venus.

Governor Saxa, of the great city of Carce, a fantasy analog of ancient Rome, is rusticating at his villa. When Saxa's son Varus accompanies Coryluson a visit to the household of his father, Crispus, a retired military commander, Saxa graciously joins the party with his young wife Hedia, daughter Alphena, and a large entourage of his servants, making it a major social triumph for Crispus.

The second novel of The Books of the Elements. The wealthy Governor Saxa, of the great city of Carce, has generously and lavishly subsidized a theatrical/religious event. During this elaborate staging of Hercules founding a city on the shores of Lusitania, strange and dark magic turns the panoply into a chilling event. The sky darkens and the waves crash in the flooded arena. A great creature rises from the sea: a huge, tentacled horror on snake legs. It devastates the city, much to the delight of the crowd.

The Venus Asteroid Expedition is en route to the "Mirror," an impenetrable membrane to another universe that holds all the riches of the Federation, but the only point of entry is the point through which Landolph and his men traveled long ago - with most of the men never returning.

For the first time in a thousand years, the Kingdom of the Isles has a government and a real ruler: Prince Garric of Haft. The enemies joining against him intend to destroy not only the kingdom but humankind as well. The rebels gathering in the West outnumber the royal army and the magic they wield can strike into the heart of the palace itself, but far greater dangers lie behind those. On the far fringes of the Isles, ancient powers ready themselves for a titanic struggle in which human beings are mere pawns - or fodder! Reptilian and insect monsters from out of the ages march on the kingdom, commanded by wizards no longer human or never human at all.

When they say that war changes a man, they're being euphemistic. War makes a man insane by civilian standards. When the man comes back, he may return to civilian norms again. After a while. I'm not proud of many of the things that happened in Nam. I'm not proud of some of the things I did myself. But the men I served with were, for the most part, doing the best job they could with the cards they'd been dealt. I'm proud of them, and I'm proud to have been among them.

Here are weird stories set in the present, along with alternative histories filled with gritty realism and exacting detail as well as an assortment of horrors and monsters. Most of all, here are the tough heroes who throughout time master their own fears and face the very real terrors that haunt existence. Sometimes these heroes win a partial victory. Sometimes it’s enough to go down fighting.

Starting in Lord of the Isles and continuing in Queen of Demons, Servant of the Dragon, and Mistress of the Catacombs, David Drake has told the continuing, interlocking stories of Garric and Sharina, Cashel and Ilna, young brother and sister pairs who journey together from a small town to the capital. Their destiny is to reunite the island kingdoms of the Isles into one empire for the first time in a millennium.

Galaxy's Edge is a Hugo-nominated, bi-monthly magazine published by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor, an award-winning independent press based in Maryland. Each issue of the magazine has a mix of new and old stories, a serialization of a novel, columns by Barry Malzberg and Gregory Benford, book reviews by Jody Lynn Nye and Bill Fawcett and an interview conducted by Joy Ward.