Sea Fiction

Eastern Roman Empire, AD 310. In the shadow of Emperor Diocletian’s anti-Christian edicts, Demitria makes a meager living harvesting coral and pearls for a merchant who turns a blind eye to her faith. By night, Demi goes upriver with her brother, Theseus, to obtain provisions for fellow believers in the port city of Myra. While willing to risk her own life to ensure others are safe and fed, Demi lives with a desperate fear for those she loves and carries secret shame over her greatest failure.

Titan is practically a planet in its own right, with a diameter similar to that of Mercury, methane rainstorms, organic soot, and ethane seas. The views from Titan’s Mayda outpost are spectacular, but all is not well at the moon’s remote science base. On the shore of a methane sea beneath glowering skies, atmospherics researcher Abigail Marco finds herself in the middle of murder, piracy, and colleagues who seem to be seeing sea monsters and dead people from the past.

When a druid resurrects her murdered king, she steals the soul of Hugh Cavendish, an English teacher, and takes him back to the land of the dead . . . or is it the land of the living? Hugh finds his killer sitting on his throne and invaders at his shore. He must raise an army and retake his throne or lose his kingdom to a power unseen in a thousand years, an immortal who will put an end to the cycle of living and dying forever. But he soon realizes he wasn't the only one who crossed the well between worlds. Someone has followed him here, and they are set on taking him back.

In 1902, a radical vegetarian and nudist from Nuremberg named August Engelhardt set sail for what was then called the Bismarck Archipelago. His destination: the island Kabakon. His goal: to found a colony based on worship of the sun and coconuts. His malnourished body was found on the beach on Kabakon in 1919; he was 43 years old. Christian Kracht's Imperium uses the outlandish details of Engelhardt's life to craft a fable about the allure of extremism and its fundamental foolishness.

Man has always wanted to travel into the unknown and encounter what he has not, and perhaps cannot, experience in the real world. The early 20th century witnessed an explosion of science fiction literature. Authors studied the wonders of scientific and technological progress and imagined worlds that had developed even greater advances. Jules Vernes' and H.G. Wells' fantastic tales well whetted the public's appetite for adventure tales.

Man has always wanted to travel into the unknown and encounter what he has not, and perhaps cannot, experience in the real world. The early 20th century witnessed an explosion of science fiction literature. Authors studied the wonders of scientific and technological progress and imagined worlds that had developed even greater advances. Jules Vernes' and H.G. Wells' fantastic tales well whetted the public's appetite for adventure tales.