Crusades Fiction

Best-selling author David Ball has won widespread critical and popular acclaim for his sweeping novels, including Empires of Sand. With Ironfire Ball delivers a stirring historical epic of the Crusades. In the 16th century, only the Knights of Malta stand against the Ottoman Empire of Suleiman the Magnificent and his 40,000 brutal warriors.

We survived the destruction of our brothers in Canis Mayor, where both the Alpha and X Legions were laid to waste by Ahmurai. After my rescue by the special forces agent Captain Setzune and her android Rin, we have found a way to return to the Milky Way.

Even supervillains have lines they dare not cross. If only the same could be said of heroes.... For more than two decades, the sight of Doctor Fid's powered armor has struck terror into the hearts of hero and civilian alike. But when a personal tragedy motivates Doctor Fid to investigate a crime, a plot is uncovered so horrific that even he is taken aback. Haunted by painful memories and profound guilt, the veteran supervillain must race against time if he is to have any hope of confronting the approaching threat.

In the wake of the Crusades, Wilfred of Ivanhoe vows to return Richard the Lion Heart to the throne. But the Saxon son’s allegiance to the Norman king, and his forbidden love for Lady Rowena, leave Ivanhoe disinherited from his father. To set his mission on course, he returns to England in disguise and quickly finds himself entrenched in an epic battle for power. As destinies entwine, Ivanhoe fights to restore the crown and marry his queen with help from the healer Rebecca; Robin Hood and his Merry Men; and the Black Knight, the Saxon’s mysterious ally.

1096. The Pope has called for a crusade to free Jerusalem, and half the warriors of Europe have responded. Among them is the Norman, Count Bohemund, one-time enemy of Byzantium. In company with his warrior nephew, Tancred of Lecce, Bohemund must once more cross the Adriatic to the lands of the Byzantine Empire. His first task, pushing back the infidel Turks, calls for an uneasy alliance with old enemy Emperor Alexius. But can the Crusaders trust the wily Emperor?

Robert: Left on the steps of a church as a baby, Robert was often hungry but never stole food like the other orphans in town. Introverted and extraordinarily intelligent, he knew all the Latin prayers and hymns by heart by the time he was five years old. Georgette: Her own mother died in childbirth, leaving Georgette with a father who, seventeen at the time, had neither experience nor aptitude as a nurturing parent, and a brother known in town as Le Fuer - The Spitfire - for his terrible temper.

Thanks to the stratagems of Bohemund de Hauteville, leader of the Apulian Normans, the Crusade has taken the city of Antioch, and just in time. Once the besiegers, Bohemund and his men are about to become the besieged - a huge Turkish-led army, commanded by the fearsome General Kerbogha, is fast approaching. Provisions are desperately needed, but the surrounding countryside is near barren and the storerooms of Antioch much depleted. The Crusaders will not hold out for long without falling prey to starvation.

Picking up from where Dragonwall left off, the book sheds light on the Cormyrean king, masterminding and then leading the crusade in the defense of the entire continent following the invasion of eastern Faerun, Ashanath, Rashemen, and Thesk, by Khahan Yamun and the Tuigan horsemen. Crusade is written from King Azoun's and subsequently the West's perspective. In addition, there are two parallel stories running: the king's relations with Alusair, his estranged daughter, and the adventures of John Razor.

After years of planning, the Lunar Free State is going to war, on a crusade to liberate the people of Tatanna from the evil Bugs. For Lorna Greenwood, this will be a trial by fire—her first mission with her own command, the Predator-class destroyer LFS Lynx. She’s looking to get some payback for her last trip there eight years ago, which didn’t end well.

Earth-2 is a world almost consumed by dangers, on the brink of civil war between the cloned “Tanks”, the “Natural Borns”, and the hybrid “Mules”. The only thing that has prevented actual fighting, a conflict that may destroy the young planet, is the existence of an even worse enemy, one that sees the three groupings as part of the same infection. The Regent and the deadly threat of the First Imperium’s robot warriors has provided sufficient fear and incentive to force the human groupings together, to hold off their own contest.

"Crusade" was first published in 1968 in The Farthest Reaches. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Thousands of knights and foot soldiers are mustering in Venice for the launch of the fourth Crusade. Among them is young Arthur de Caldicot, soon to dubbed a knight. He is thrilled to be part of this huge gathering; but all too soon the crusade falls into disarray.

A chance discovery on the jungle world of Hyperion leads Alliance scientists on a path to creating a permanent spacebridge to the distant Orion Nebula. In a matter of days, great fleets of military and civilian ships depart for the single greatest expedition since the colonization of Alpha Centauri. Into this great adventure travel two heroes of the war, retired Marines Spartan and Teresa Morato, and their son Jack.

In each section of Michael Cunningham's new book, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an older man, and a young woman. "In the Machine" is a ghost story which takes place at the height of the Industrial Revolution, as human beings confront the alienated realities of the new machine age. "The Children's Crusade," set in the early twenty-first century, plays with the conventions of the noir thriller as it tracks the pursuit of a terrorist band which is detonating bombs seemingly at random around the city.

In Guntersville, Mike Brown and his wife, Lauren, continue to twist the very souls of the deluded congregation that would follow him to hell and back. Their dark secret is becoming an unholy gospel, bent on destroying everything good. Simultaneously, the Island's embattled government fights back against the unprovoked attacks by this messianic cult leader's crazed followers.

Former ranger Jack Smith watched an Army bio-warfare experiment go horribly wrong in an Afghan village in 2001, escaping only after he turned to a makeshift mace and bayonet to destroy the skulls of the infected creatures that bullets to the chest could not stop. With the traumatic experience seared into his mind, he earned his PhD, in ancient history and began developing medieval weapons-making skills after he left the service.

Winter 1264. England is in turmoil. King Henry III's reign is under threat. In Oxford the barons prepare to challenge his rule. Searching for his lodgings down a dark alley, young student Thomas Symon hears a scream. It's a young girl, her throat slit. Mistaken for the fleeing killer, Thomas is saved from a vengeful town mob by a stranger pulling him into a dark passageway. The man is his new university tutor, renowned academic Regent Master William Falconer.

When it was clear that defeat was inevitable, Richard ordered the remnants of the Dawning chivalry back to fortify Dawning Castle in a last desperate attempt to preserve the barony, while he and William attempted to delay the enemy. Now sealed in the castle with only a handful of trained soldiers remaining, the Dawnings struggle to hold the gates against a superior army, while an unseen enemy within the castle works to undermine them at every step.

Thirteenth-century England: The nobility is aligning against King John in a struggle for power. The kingdom is embroiled in war and bankrupt, and the Crusades are rampaging through the Middle East. The Dawnings are a once-powerful family of English knights who are facing the bleak prospects of their declining power and imminent destruction at the hands of enemies that surround them both at home and abroad. Join the Dawnings as they feud over power, love, jealousies, and old grudges that threaten to destroy the family from within at the moment they most need to stand united.

Valentine never thought death would be so difficult. Tough, a crack shot and popular with her unit. She’s a young woman with a bright future in the Corps. But everything changed the day her unit boarded the dreaded "Burijas", a Leviathan Class Battleship and flagship of the invading Star Empire. The assault is a bloodbath, but little does she know it will be her last action. A devastating blast tears her fragile body apart, leaving her a broken woman close to death.