Shaman Fiction

The stories in this collection were first published in Analog, a science fiction magazine, between 1990 and 2011. They feature the adventures of eccentric kilt-wearing anthropologist, archaeologist, and xenologist Rhys Llewellyn and his able assistants, Yoshi Umeki and Roderick Halfax. Given my fascination with archaeology, first contact…and all things Scottish, I suppose these stories were inevitable.

Not long ago, Daniel Mahan, known to everyone as Shaman Mahan, thought that he had taken his sixth and final step in the Barliona gameworld. Yet life has other ideas. The Corporation decides to resurrect the Lord of Shadow and his entire host. The Corporation's CEO personally pushes the reset button. Geranika and his Dragon of Shadow spring back to life as, meanwhile, the Corporation makes an offer the Shaman can't refuse.

Lucas Blackfox doesn’t just see dead people; he watches, through the killer’s eyes, as they are being tortured and murdered. He’s tried drowning the visions in copious amounts of alcohol, but nothing will keep them at bay. Now, the visions have grown stronger and he doesn’t just see it; Lucas feels every emotion and sensation the maniac, with whom he has the psychic connection, feels. Not even the whiskey can drown them, and putting a bullet in his own brain seems like his only option. Until he reunites with Emma Reese, a childhood friend.

Marius Winter doesn't walk the road of the shaman-warrior alone. He has powerful allies in the Other Realms and in ordinary reality. His spirit guides are a Lakota war-chief and medicine man, First in Front; Tigre, a powerful feminine spirit who appears as a white tiger; and Burt, a spirit raven who channels an old Jewish bookie from the Bronx. Now, Marius is targeted by a powerful sorcerer. In the battle for the souls of his friends and lover, he must storm the gates of the underworld and fight through the Seven Demi-Demons of Hell to the deepest dungeons to confront Belial himself.

Dan Stone, a contract assassin for the CIA, a man alone with few friends, is sent out on what may be a suicide mission. Dan is dropped into the Chihuahuan desert to assassinate the head of the Sinaloa cartel. His mission suddenly becomes more complex and dangerous. When his extraction is botched, he flees into the desert, where he gets lost and death by dehydration threatens. There, he meets a shaman who shows him the spiritual dimension to life and how Dan is part of a larger story going on - a battle between good and evil, light and darkness.

In the novel that Billie Dean Shoemate III calls his personal best, he brings you the story of Nick Stanley, a special child who believes he has touched the other side...communing with an ancient Native American spirit. As Nick grows up, he comes to a profound realization. The spirit that visited him as a child left something in him...a mark on his soul. It follows him through life, beckoning his heart into a journey that will redefine the world.

The focus of my life as an urban druid is to stand as a guardian of nature. The focus of my life as Fiona Cumhaill to stand as a guardian of my family. Seriously. Don't screw with my family. It's a no-brainer, drop everything, and take up the fight topic for me—If you need me, I will come. So, when darkness conspires to overtake the light and people I love are sucked into the wake of evil, the Toronto crew grabs the go-bags and answers the call.

For over a year, Joanne has been fighting the Master - the world's most abiding evil entity. She's sacrificed family, friendships, even watched potential futures fade away - and now the Master is bringing the final battle to Joanne's beloved Seattle. Lives will be lost as the repercussions of all Joanne's final transformation into her full Shamanic abilities come to her doorstep. Before the end, she'll mourn, rejoice - and surrender everything for the hope of the world's survival. She'll be a warrior and a healer.

Une bonne éducation et le privilège d’intégrer le cercle royal, c’est ce que l’on m’a promis en échange de ma liberté et de mon identité. Cette vie, je ne l’ai pas choisie et je ne m’y sens pas à ma place. Alors que mes camarades quittent le Palais d’Or pour parfaire leur formation, je demeure seule entre ces murs sans la moindre explication jusqu’à l’arrivée d’une affreuse nouvelle. Ce bouleversement remet en cause mes croyances ainsi que mon existence tandis qu’un pouvoir effrayant émerge de mon corps.

If techno-shaman Olivia Lawson thinks a trip to the Hopi mesas is the escape she needs, she is gravely mistaken. Abducted from her tour, Livvy quickly discovers that all is not as it seems in the quiet villages. Formidable shamans draw her into a bitter and centuries-old conflict. While Livvy struggles to do what's right, she can't help but pursue an unexpected chance to be with the man she loves.

Even for a techno-shaman, a kachina in the bedroom isn't exactly part of the drill. When Olivia Lawson wakes to find one towering over her, she panics. A Hopi god visiting the real world isn't just wrong - it's impossible. Or is it? Soon Olivia learns that the kachina is the least of her worries. As she struggles to save her clients, clashes with other shamans, and fends off the attacks of real-world vigilantes, Olivia finds herself in the destructive path of a malevolent ancient force intent on leaving the spiritual realm to conquer this one.

As Livvy struggles to hold on to loved ones, her past and future unexpectedly collide. Caught between the multiverse and the real world, and saving herself or doing right, Livvy learns a final truth: the real measure of love isn't fighting for someone, it's dying for them.

Patients with fractured souls, clients threatened by deadly ancestor spirits, and now the paparazzi - it’s all in a day’s work for techno-shaman Olivia Lawson. Livvy has rocketed to the top of the shaman world, bringing old friends with her but also attracting new enemies. Even as her career soars, her personal life spirals downward. Broken bonds and lost love finally force her to confront the terrible secret of her beginning in shamanism.

In the heartland of the ancient Maya, techno-shaman Olivia Lawson isn't just an oddity, she's an outcast. Despite having trekked through the jungle to find shamans thought to be extinct, Livvy finds the ultra-clandestine group not just closed but downright hostile. To her surprise though, their interest in SK borders on obsession.

Sheri Lambert is the classic New York workaholic: driven ad exec, financially successful, emotionally empty. Searching for meaning in her life, Sheri becomes a single mother. From the start, her son, Zig, displays strange behavior. He recalls people and places he couldn't possibly know and leads Sheri to a startling discovery of a hidden ancestry she never knew existed. With Zig, the past alters the present and reality merges with the fantastic.

When young Neddie Wentworthstein is accidentally left behind by his family at a train stop in the Wild West, he suddenly finds himself at the center of a whirlwind adventure involving sinister villains and extraordinary new allies - all seeming to revolve around a little jade turtle given to him by a mysterious shaman.

After he was killed and unceremoniously dumped into what he thought was a digital world, life has thrown Frank one curve after another. Now, he is starting to have questions about what is real and what isn't. He will have to walk his way between the worlds of adventurers and monsters, both of whom want things from him. His feelings run amok as he tries to figure out what hybrid intelligences dream about. Hopefully, along the way he can figure out what is happening, and learn to resist integration into the system by a mysterious AI (...which may not even be an AI at all).

The groundbreaking series that Publishers Weekly said "could easily open a fresh new world of urban fantasy". Even for a techno-shaman, a kachina in the bedroom isn't exactly part of the drill. When Olivia Lawson wakes to find one towering over her, she panics. A Hopi god visiting the real world isn't just wrong - it's impossible. Or is it?

The Soulless is free from his centuries-long imprisonment. Now, he lurks in the Dead Wood recovering his strength, while Sirscha and her allies journey east to the shaman empire of Nuvalyn. Everyone believes she is a soulguide - a savior - but Sirscha knows the truth. She’s a monster, a soulrender like the Soulless, and if anyone discovers the truth, she'll be executed. But there’s nothing Sirscha won’t risk to stop the shaman responsible for the rot that’s killing her best friend.

Novoe pogruzhenie v mir Barliony - odnogo iz luchshih mirov proekta LitRPG! Chto mozhet sdelat' igrovoj klan bez zamka? Otvet ocheviden - nichego, pojetomu glavnoj zadachej ljubogo lidera v igrovom mire javljaetsja poluchenie sobstvennogo mesta obitanija. Ishodja imenno iz takoj pozicii, Mahan - Verhovnyj Shaman, glava klana "Legendy Barliony", prinjal predlozhenie Imperatora i Vlastelina po unichtozheniju armii Prizrakov, poselivshihsja v Al'tamede - Prizrachnom zamke.