From cult phenomenon to award-winning literary sensation, “the sexiest action figure since James Bond” (Seattle Weekly) returns in an exhilarating new thriller. It doesn’t matter how well trained you are, how big, how fast, how strong; there will always be someone out there bigger or faster or stronger. Always. That’s what Aud Torvingen teaches the students in her self-defense class. But the question is whether Aud really believes this lesson herself-and if not, what it will take for her to learn it. Aud has trained herself to achieve a fierce, machine-like precision, in hand-to-hand combat as well as life. But in Always she is abruptly confronted with the limits of her own power. Her self-defense classes spin violently out of her grasp and, still reeling from the consequences, she embarks on a seemingly simple investigation of Seattle real estate fraud that pulls her into something far more complicated and dangerous than she had imagined

A first novel — winner in 1993 of both the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award & the Lamda Award for lesbian science fiction & fantasy “Ammonite is a marvelous blend of high adventure and mind-boggling social speculation—it marks the arrival of Nicola Griffith as a new sf star for the 90s.” Change or die. The only options available on the Durallium Company-owned planet GP. The planet’s deadly virus had killed most of the original colonists — and changed the rest irrevocably. Centuries after the colony had lost touch with the rest of humanity, the Company returned to exploit GP, and its forces found themselves fighting for their lives. Afraid of spreading the virus, the Company had left its remaining employees in place, afraid and isolated from the natives. Then anthropologist Marghe Taishan arrived on GP, sent to test a new vaccine against the virus. As she risked death to uncover the natives’ biological secret, she found that she, too, was changing, and realized that not only had she found a home on GP — she herself carried the seeds of its destruction

In a brilliant, wide-ranging anthology, Strahan presents stories by authors as diverse as Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Bear, and Paul Di Filippo. Ellen Klages contributes “Lotion,“ a story about imaginary numbers and the strange powers of math, in which a young girl discovers the magical potential of pure math. Ellen Kushner’s “Dolce Domum” is, perhaps, not about what its characters think it is. Bear’s “Swell” is a fairy tale about a musician seeking her voice, in which a mermaid’s gift is not as wonderful as at first glance it seems. Molly Gloss’ “The Visited Man” presents a lonely pensioner who lives upstairs from le douanier Rousseau and the relationship that develops after the painter brings the retiree a stray cat. As for the previous Eclipse anthologies, Strahan has picked stories whose authors care about both the craft of storytelling and the stories they tell. Each piece is distinctive and haunting

A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: Hild In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king’s youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. Her uncle, Edwin of Northumbria, plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild establishes a place for herself at his side as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—unless she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, for her family, for her loved ones, and for the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future. Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early Middle Ages—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Working from what little historical record is extant, Griffith has brought a beautiful, brutal world—and one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitby—to vivid, absorbing life

The Nebula Award Winner–1996 She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van Oesterling had been the daughter of one of the world’s most powerful families… and now she was nobody, and she had to hide. Then out of the rain walked Spanner, predator and thief, who took her in, cared for her wound, and taught her how to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore now: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped… but the cost of her newfound freedom was crime and deception, and she paid it over and over again, until she had become someone she loathed. Lore had a choice: She could stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner… and risk losing herself forever. Or she could leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and creating a new future. But to start again, Lore required Spanner’s talents—Spanner, who needed her and hated her, and who always had a price. And even as Lore agreed to play Spanner’s game one final time, she found that there was still the price of being a Van Oesterling to be paid. Only by confronting her family, her past, and her own demons could Lore meld together who she had once been, who she had become, and the person she intended to be…

Aud (it rhymes with “shroud”) Torvingen is six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. She can restore a log cabin with antique tools or put a man in a coma with her bare hands. As imagined by Nicola Griffith in this ferocious masterpiece of literary noir, Aud is a hero who combines the tortured complexity with moral authority. In the aftermath of her lover’s murder, the last thing a grieving Aud wants is another case. Against her better judgment she agrees to track down an old friend’s runaway fiancée—and finds herself up against both a sociopath so artful that the law can’t touch him, and the terrible specters of loss and guilt. As stylish as this year’s Prada and as arresting as a razor at the throat, Stay places Nicola Griffith in the first rank of new-wave crime writers

A police lieutenant with the elite “Red Dogs” until she retired at twenty-nine, Aud Torvigen is a rangy six-footer with eyes the color of cement and a tendency to hurt people who get in her way. Born in Norway into the failed marriage between a Scandinavian diplomat and an American businessman, she now makes Atlanta her home, luxuriating in the lush heat and brashness of the New South. She glides easily between the world of silken elegance and that of sleaze and sudden savagery, equally at home in both; functional, deadly, and temporarily quiescent, like a folded razor. On a humid April evening between storms, out walking just to stay sharp, she turns a corner and collides with a running woman, Catching the scent of clean, rain-soaked hair, Aud nods and silently tells the stranger Today, you are lucky, and moves on—when behind her house explodes, incinerating its sole occupant, a renowned art historian. When Aud turns back, the woman is gone. “A hero as sexy and iconic as television’s Xena… At once appalling and awe-inspiring, Aud is a bracing amaigam of fire and ice, of the New South and the Old World. She’s a stirring inductee into the sisterhood of lady law. Or lawless, as the case may be.” “A suspense novel… a character study… a love story… told in lush and potent prose.” “Griffith has a fine way with character and a sure talent.”

Все началось примерно семнадцать тысяч лет назад, когда в мире появились Древние. Неведомые и могучие существа, решившие, что нашли неплохое местечко для жизни. Они повелевали пространством и, возможно, временем. Были способны творить жизнь и вообще больше всего напоминали богов. Освоившись на новом месте, они начали создавать разумных существ себе в помощники. Однако идиллия созидания была нарушена Силами Хаоса, пожелавшими уничтожить молодой мир. Голодный и алчный, Хаос ринулся в материальный мир, сметая все на своем пути. И когда казалось, что все потеряно, силы порядка все-таки вырвали победу из лап Хаоса, заперев его путь в этот мир. После этого разумным расам пришлось приспосабливаться к новым реалиям — Хаос, пускай и запертый, продолжал влиять, порабощать и изменять. Однако столетия сменяли друг друга, старые раны мало-помалу заживали, эльфы, гномы, люди и прочие творения Древних знакомились друг с другом и худо-бедно учились жить вместе. Это уже не были золотые века под защитой Древних. Войны сменяли одна другую, и кровь щедро лилась на землю, однако после кошмара Хаоса даже такое существование воспринималось, как благо. Книга производства Кузницы книг InterWorld'a. https://vk.com/bookforge — Следите за новинками! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Кузница-книг-InterWorldа/816942508355261?ref=aymt_homepage_panel — группа Кузницы книг в Facebook

Все началось примерно семнадцать тысяч лет назад, когда в мире появились Древние. Неведомые и могучие существа, решившие, что нашли неплохое местечко для жизни. Они повелевали пространством и, возможно, временем. Были способны творить жизнь и вообще больше всего напоминали богов. Освоившись на новом месте, они начали создавать разумных существ себе в помощники. Однако идиллия созидания была нарушена Силами Хаоса, пожелавшими уничтожить молодой мир. Голодный и алчный, Хаос ринулся в материальный мир, сметая все на своем пути. И когда казалось, что все потеряно, силы порядка все-таки вырвали победу из лап Хаоса, заперев его путь в этот мир. После этого разумным расам пришлось приспосабливаться к новым реалиям — Хаос, пускай и запертый, продолжал влиять, порабощать и изменять. Однако столетия сменяли друг друга, старые раны мало-помалу заживали, эльфы, гномы, люди и прочие творения Древних знакомились друг с другом и худо-бедно учились жить вместе. Это уже не были золотые века под защитой Древних. Войны сменяли одна другую, и кровь щедро лилась на землю, однако после кошмара Хаоса даже такое существование воспринималось, как благо. Книга производства Кузницы книг InterWorld'a. https://vk.com/bookforge — Следите за новинками! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Кузница-книг-InterWorldа/816942508355261?ref=aymt_homepage_panel — группа Кузницы книг в Facebook

Ежегодная антология Гарднера Дозуа традиционно собирает под одной обложкой лучшие образцы жанра – повести и рассказы, завоевавшие престижные награды, заслужившие высокие оценки критиков и любовь читателей. Известный составитель сборников и бесспорный знаток научной фантастики Гарднер Дозуа не только неустанно следит за творчеством прославленных мастеров, но и обладает уникальным талантом открывать новые имена. В этом выпуске представлено тридцать два произведения, принадлежащих перу таких авторов, как Брюс Стерлинг, Пол Макоули, Питер Уоттс, Роберт Чарльз Уилсон, Йен Макдональд, Адам Робертс, Джон Райт и многих других. Замечательный подарок для истинных ценителей качественной фантастики!