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The Saga of Banak Zuur

In a universe bigger and older than terrestrial science can fathom, all sentient life is about to be exterminated.

The hope for the future -- perhaps the entire future -- lies with with a ragtag crew of unlikely people and fragments of ancient technology scattered across the universe, the last remnants of a hidden plan that has been at work for four and a half million years.  But it is a plan already gone astray, and that is a century or more behind schedule.  Can a handful of people from multiple races, across multiple generations fill in the gap, and is there time left to repair the damage?

If there is hope, it lies with the children.

Korvoros

(137,000 words)

Timothy Saugers, an unlikely human from an unlikely planet, gets drawn into an interstellar society.  Teaming up with Wendy Miller, the only other human who even knows of the Free Space Alliance, he accepts a project to retrieve a spacecraft from an outpost abandoned tens of millenium ago by an unknown civilization. What should have been a fairly routine mission quickly turns into a race not only for their lives but for the future of the Alliance as they get snared in a tangle of mysteries older than history itself.

Timothy may be afraid of the Oracle, which knew of him 2,000 years before he was born, and of the Dead Zone into which his fate draws him, but the objects of his fears are insignificant compared with that even older mystery that terrifies those very things that terrify him. That answer, if it exists, lies in the Dead Zone.

Where Korvoros awaits.

 

 

A Hierarchy of Gods

(Coming in 2014)

Aw!  What an adorable pair of little girls!

NOT!

Hold onto your fusion reactor!

It was only freak timing that got college student Lesley Kellerman roped into an intergalactic feud that has lasted 70,000 years.  Now, the only way out of the predicament seems to be to follow through with an unlikely — possibly insane — plan: steal a deep-space ship from the World Academy, outfit it with technology that does not yet exist on Earth, and secretly launch it to the stars.  Right!  But all the while, they must keep a step ahead of powerful forces out to destroy or use them, both those enemies they make on Earth, and the infinitely more dangerous ones from 200,000,000 light-years away.  How can they succeed when death and stranger things are following close behind?

 

 

To follow:

The White Shamitz *

The Humanity Experiment *

Labyrinth of Space

A Remembrance of Evil

The Black Tower

Tetragrammaton

* written and awaiting production

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The End of the Ancients

The Ancients are gone, vanished to an unknown place, having left for an unknown reason.  But before disappearing 5,000 years ago, they fought a terrible battle that light the night skies like daytime.  They left behind them works of great wonder, artifacts of great power, and most of all ... that horrible enemy that forced them to leave the world of elves and dwarves so long ago.  Standing in their place now as Protector of the Elves, is an unlikely farm boy, whose only claim to fame is that he likes to read.

 

The Lastchild

(248,000 words)

A routine hike to a neighboring city turns anything but routine to Lad Oxley when he encounters a dwarf, a fiery shadow that walks on its own, and a band of gargoyles brandishing broadswords.

He quickly finds himself in a new world with its own set of dangers and horrors. Magic is failing and becoming unpredictable, the elves are weakening, evil is becoming ever more powerful, and there seems to be no way to stop it. No one knows what is behind it. All those who could understand Old Elfin have been exterminated; only Lad remains. If there is hope, it lies with this farm boy who likes to read, cryptic runes, and a god-like people who vanished abruptly 5,000 years ago. In his dreams that are not dreams, he is called the Lastchild.

On an impossible mission, one step ahead of dark forces, he must learn the ultimate answer before the Lastchild remembers.

 

To Follow:

The Last Children

The Firstborn

...and the second Trilogy:

The Keep of Ages

The Citadel of Light

The Bastion of Darkness

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Anthologies

Quantum Incoherence

An anthology of stories written over a period of more than 20 years. Among them:

In a future where corporations are bigger than planetary governments, one of them plans to destroy the competition by dropping the output of a star into their boardroom.

A high school band geek comes home to find a pretty girl in his bed — with a futuristic weapon at her side. She claims to be an elf tracking a band of goblins who have stolen a nuke.

A sadistic serial rapist just released from 35 years in prison decides he is too old to go back to his old ways,so he hatches a plan to relive all his previous conquests.

A 13-year-old acolyte, on her Trial, finds herself imprisoned with a dead wizard and 40 angry demons. She must chose between saving the townsfolk and staying out of hell.

A technically advanced robotic scarecrow with a soul must terrorize the Orion Empire and seek out a Phantom, which terrifies the Empire more than he does. Little does he suspect what will happen when he finds one.

 

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