Epic Historical Fantasy

Almost anyone who has read or written science fiction or fantasy has been inspired by the work of Michael Moorcock. His literary flair and grand sense of adventure have been evident since his controversial first novel Behold the Man, from the stories and novels featuring his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to his fantasy masterpiece, Gloriana, winner of both the Campbell Memorial and World Fantasy awards for best novel.

Guo Jing has confronted Apothecary Huang, his sweetheart Lotus Huang's father, on Peach Blossom Island, and bested the villainous Gallant Ouyang in the three trials to win the hand of his beloved. But now, along with his two friends and shifus, Zhou Botong of the Quanzhen Sect, and Count Seven Hong, Chief of the Beggar Clan, he has walked into another trap. Tricked into boarding an unseaworthy barge by Apothecary Huang, the three friends will surely drown unless Lotus - who has overheard her father's plans - can find a way to save them.

It is the richest empire the world has ever known, and it is also doomed - but only one man can see it. Haunted by prophetic dreams, Orhan has hired a company of soldiers to cross the desert to reach the capital city. Once they enter the palace, they have one mission: Kill the emperor, then all those who remain. Only from the ashes can a new empire be built. The company is a group of good, ordinary soldiers for whom this is a mission like any other. But the strange boy Marith who walks among them is no ordinary soldier.

They're an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as he is with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa A.D. 950.

The Cerani Empire reaches a tipping point in the thrilling conclusion to the Tower and Knife trilogy. The world is at its breaking point. The nothing, a terrible darkness caused by the festering wounds of a god, bleeds out the very essence of all, of stone, silkand souls. Emperor Sarmin thought he had stopped it, but it is spreading toward his city, Cerana and he is powerless to halt the destruction. Even as Cerana fills with refugees, the Yrkmen armies arrive with conquest in mind, but they offer to spare Sarmin’s people if they will convert to the Mogyrk faith.

The tales tell of three sisters, daughters of the high king. The eldest, a valiant warrior-woman, heir to the kingdom. The youngest, the sweet beauty with her Prince Charming. No one says much about the middle princess, Andromeda. Andi, the other one. Andi doesn't mind being invisible. She enjoys the company of her horse more than court, and she has a way of blending into the shadows.

A sweeping tale of clashing cultures, warring gods, and forbidden love: In AD 1000, a young Inuit shaman and a Viking warrior become unwilling allies as war breaks out between their peoples and their gods - one that will determine the fate of them all.

In The War God's Own, Bahzell had managed to stop a war by convincing Baron Tellian, leader of the Sothoii, to "surrender" to him, the War God's champion. Now, he has journeyed to the Sothoii Wind Plain to oversee the parole he granted to Tellian and his men, to represent the Order of Tomanak, the War God, and to be an ambassador for the hradani. What's more, the flying coursers of the Sothoii have accepted Bahzell as a wind rider-the first hradani wind rider in history.

Ridmark Arban is the Gray Knight, questing to stop the return of the terrible Frostborn to the High King's realm. Yet the soulstone, the instrument of the return of the Frostborn, has been stolen by a ruthless cult and secured within the grim fortress of the Iron Tower. And Ridmark must risk everything to retrieve it. Mara wishes only to live peacefully. Yet her father was a dark elven wizard of power, and his shadow-tainted blood flows through her veins, threatening to transform her into a monster.

Disillusioned healer Blackthorn and her companion, Grim, have settled in Dalriada to wait out the seven years of Blackthorn's bond to her fey mentor, hoping to avoid any dire challenges. But trouble has a way of seeking out Blackthorn and Grim. Lady Geiléis, a noblewoman from the northern border, has asked for the prince of Dalriada's help in expelling a howling creature from an old tower on her land - one surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of thorns.

Based loosely on the tale of Puss in Boots, Reserved for the Cat takes place in 1910 in an alternate London. A young dancer, penniless and desperate, is sure she is going mad when a cat begins talking to her mind-to-mind. But her feline guide, actually an Elemental Earth Spirit, helps her to impersonate a famous Russian ballerina and achieve the success she's been dreaming of.

With the demon dactyl and its foul minions defeated, the war-weary citizens of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear wish only to begin rebuilding their broken lives. Yet the specter of civil war haunts the ravaged land - and a specter more fearsome still. For the demon, though defeated, was not destroyed. And now its vengeful spirit has found an unholy sanctuary. The elf-trained ranger Elbryan Wynden presses north to reclaim the savage Timberlands from retreating goblin hordes.

The epic historical saga of the most powerful nation in the realms... Cormyr has been ruled by the Obarskyr family since its inception one and a half millennia ago. Now its king, Azoun IV, lies on his deathbed, and the vultures are circling, hoping to usurp the throne for their own. Against this crisis of state, the history of the Forest Kingdom unfolds, relating the previously untold story of a nation, its rulers, and its wizards. Cormyr: A Novel is the epic historical saga of the most powerful nation in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, as told by the world's co-creators.

Almost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, the three Navarone heroes are parachuted into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of partisans and fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden even from their own allies.

The Pyrates is all the swashbucklers that ever were, rolled into one great technicoloured pantomime - tall ships and desert islands, impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines, buried treasure and black spots, devilish dons and ghastly dungeons, plots, duels, escapes, savage rituals, tender romance and steaming passion, all to the accompaniment of ringing steel, thunderous broadsides, sweeping film music, and the sound of cursing extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialogue.

After two decades of training in the Heartforge Realm, Cha Ming’s soul is finally on the mend. He and his friends have advanced to the second phase of the Heartforge Trials, where they must defend a dying world from fiendish invaders. Yet it isn’t just his friends who have come, but his enemies as well. When two aggressive neighbors start to nibble away at his territory, Cha Ming volunteers to buy his allies time. His actions instigate an all-out war between three regions, and countless innocents are dragged into the conflict.

It is the summer of 839. Brave and beautiful Brynn Dharielle sets out on a daring mission to free her beloved homeland from tyrannical rule. But she cannot imagine the depth of chaos, corruption, and betrayal that seethes amid a ruthless sect of warrior priests, led and manipulated by an evil chieftain who conceals a dark age-old secret. For Brynn and her trusted elven companion, the way to Behren turns into a fierce and illuminating voyage beneath the Belt-and-Buckle mountains.

Within the world of Aadilor sits the hidden Thief Kingdom, a land overflowing with magic and mayhem. There the Mousai, a trio of deadly sorceresses, serve the reclusive Thief King, delivering punishment and pleasure to the masses. Arabessa Bassette is the leader of the Mousai, conducting their powerful gifts with unyielding precision. But behind her mask of control burns a desire to forge her own path—along with a tumultuous relationship with Zimri D’Enieu, her father’s right hand and the man who’s held her heart since they were children.

Whistling Tor is a place of secrets: a mysterious, wooded hill housing the crumbling fortress belonging to Anluan - a chieftain whose name is spoken throughout the region in tones of revulsion and bitterness. A curse lies over Anluan's family and his people, and the woods themselves hold a perilous force whose every whisper threatens doom. Then the young scribe Caitrin appears in Anluan's garden, admiring the rare plant known as heart's blood. Retained to sort through entangled family documents, Caitrin brings about unexpected changes.

From the end of the 18th century, Americans traveled west to find new homes and new lands. They brought with them the magics of plain people. It is from these roots of the American dream that award-winning writer Orson Scott Card has crafted what the Charlotte Observer called "a uniquely American fantasy." Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled a continent, and the beliefs of the tribes who were here before them, Card has created an alternate frontier America.