Луиз Марли0.0 Louise Marley weaves a compelling story of a woman whose faith may be the only thing that can save a girl from certain doom.
A priest and anthropologist, Isabel Burke has been called to the barren planet of Virimund. The ExtraSolar Corporation, developing Virimund as an energy source, has encountered an "incident" that has stopped their work...There is human life on Virimund after all-and there are children born here who do not age. One little girl has been captured by ExtraSolar, which hopes to discover the secret to her ageless existence. For ExtraSolar, she's a resource to be used and discarded. But for Isabel, she's an innocent who needs help...
In the kingdom of Raine, a vast realm at the edge of the world, an orphaned baby girl is found by a palace librarian and raised to become a translator. Years later, the girl -- named Nepenthe -- comes in contact with a mysterious book written in a language of thorns that no one, not even the wizards at Raine's famous Floating School for mages, can decipher. The book calls out to Nepenthe's very soul, and she is soon privately translating its contents. As she works tirelessly transcribing the book -- which turns out to be about the historical figures of Axis, the Emperor of Night, and Kane, his masked sorcerer -- the kingdom of Raine is teetering on the brink of chaos. The newly crowned queen, a mousy 14-year old girl named Tessera who wants nothing to do with matters of state, hides in the woods as regents plot revolution. The queen's destiny, however, is intertwined with Nepenthe's ability to unravel the mystery of the thorns.
All of the colonists aboard a spaceship bound for Alpha Centauri long to find a habitable planet at the end of their journey. Finding one planet would be cause for celebration, but finding two could tear the crew and its families apart.
Enter an ancient world of courtly elegance and intrigue, where sages are also sorcerers, and the daughter of a lowly seamstress can become a companion to an empress. In this magical land there is a secret language -- a language that women have passed down from mother to daughter for countless generations -- a language that signals a bond like no other . . . the bond of jin-shei.
Set in a mythical Chinese kingdom, The Secrets of Jin-shei is a timeless story of what sustains friendship -- and what tears it apart. Accepting all the joys and responsibilities of jin-shei, eight girls pledge lifelong loyalty to each other: the poet, Tai, whose promise to a dying girl changes the history of an empire; the warrior, Xaforn, an orphan who will protect her chosen family no matter what the cost; Khailin, the scholar, whose thirst for knowledge leads her into a world of dark secrets and alchemy; sage Nhia, the only person with the power to save Khailin; Tammary, the gypsy girl, whose secret lineage could ruin a royal house; Qiaan, daughter of a captain in the Imperial Guard, with family secrets of her own; the healer, Yuet, confidante to the empress; and the empress herself, Liudan, whose search for family and ultimate quest for immortality holds the power to destroy them all.
This collection of fact and fiction was inspired by the time science fiction writer Lucius Shepard spent with Missoula Mike, Madcat, and other members of a controversial brotherhood known as the Freight Train Riders of America. Shepard rode the rails throughout the western half of the United States with the disenfranchised, the homeless, the punks, the gangs, and the joy riders for the magazine article "The FTRA Story." That original article is presented here, along with two new hobo novellas, "Over Yonder" and "Jailbait." In "Over Yonder," alcoholic Billy Long Gone finds himself on an unusual train. As Billy travels his health improves and his thinking clears, and he arrives in Yonder-an unlikely paradise where a few hundred hobos live in apparent peace and tranquility. But every paradise has its price, and in Yonder, peace and tranquility breed complacency and startling deaths. "Jailbait" is a hardcore tale of deception, lust, revenge, and murder in the seedy underbelly of rail yards and train hopping. Madcat, who functions best in a whiskey-induced haze, must decide between solitude and companionship when he meets up with Grace, an underaged runaway. Grace, in turn, seeks the security of an older man and the life about which only young girls can dream.
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