The Night of the Swarm

The Chathrand - The Great Ship, The Wind-Palace, His Supremacy's First Fancy - is the last of her kind - built 600 years ago she dwarves all the ships around her. The secrets of her construction are long lost. She was the pride of the Empire. The natural choice for the great diplomatic voyage to seal the peace with the last of the Emperor's last enemies.700 souls boarded her. Her sadistic Captain Nilus Rose, the Emperor's Ambassador and Thasha, the daughter he plans to marry off to seal the treaty, a spy master and six assassins, one hunderd imperial marines, Pazel the tarboy gifted and cursed by his mother's spell and a small band of Ixchel. The Ixchel sneaked aboard and now hide below decks amongst the rats. Intent on their own mission.But there is treachery afoot. Behind the plans for peace lies the shadow of war and the fear that a dead king might live again. And now the Chathrand, having survived countless battles and centuries of typhoons has gone missing.This is her story.

THE RATS AND THE RULING SEA begins where THE RED WOLF CONSPIRACY ended; Thasha's wedding is hours away. It is a wedding that will both fulfil the promise of a mad god's return and see her murdered. Pazel has thwarted the sorcerer who would bring back the god but both sides now face deadlock. Can Thasha be saved? Can the war between two Empires be stopped?THE RATS AND THE RULING SEA is, once again, focused on the giant ancient ship, the CHATHRAND, but now she must brave the terrors of the uncharted seas; the massive storms and the ship swallowing whirlpools and explore lands forgotten by the Northern world, all the time involved in a vicious running battle with a ship half her size but nearly her match.Robert Redick's new novel takes the reader further into the labyrinthine plots and betrayals that have underscored the trilogy from the beginning. Robert Redick's sequel to the acclaimed THE RED WOLF CONSPIRACY is a masterpiece of plotting and adventure. As each page turns the reader shares with the characters the dawning realisation that nothing is at it seems.

After their adventures on the high seas, Locke and Jean are brought back to earth with a thump. Jean is mourning the loss of his lover and Locke must live with the fallout of crossing the all-powerful magical assassins the Bonds Magi.It is a fall-out that will pit both men against Locke's own long lost love. Sabetha is Locke's childhood sweetheart, the love of Locke's life and now it is time for them to meet again. Employed on different sides of a vicious dispute between factions of the Bonds Sabetha has just one goal - to destroy Locke for ever.The Gentleman Bastard sequence has become a literary sensation in fantasy circles and now, with the third book, Scott Lynch is set to seal that success.

In this new dark Age, myth and legend has become reality; nothing is quite as it seems.The plague came without warning. Nothing could stop its progress: it's first symptom is black spots at the base of the fingers; an agonising death quickly follows. But this is no ordinary disease . . . Caitlin Shepherd, a lowly GP, is allowed to cross the veil into the mystical Celtic Otherworld in search of a cure; her search takes her on a quest to the end of a land of dreams and nightmares to petition the gods. So Caitlin is humanity's last hope, but she carries a terrible burden: a consciousness shattered into five distinct personalities . . . and one of them may not be human.THE QUEEN OF SINISTER is the latest instalment in Mark Chadbourn's riveting 'Dark Age' sequence: a masterful blend of Celtic myth and Arthurian legend in a modern setting.

A fast-paced epic with enormous scope, believable and appealing characters and an impressively imagined world.The Empire of Nar is being torn apart, the balance of power tipped by the sorcerer Tharn's magic. The Emperor wants control of the magic, Tharn wants to rule the Empire and countless thousands of people are caught up in the struggle. And now the love of Prince Richius's life has been spirited away by Tharn. But all is not what it seems. Richius is a flawed hero pursuing a woman he has met just once. The Emperor is greedy and lazy, while Tharn is a dying man touched by the gods and struggling to use his power for good.

Robert Rankin is one of the great British eccentrics, standing alongside Viv Stanshall, Spike Milligan and Neil Innes, amongst others. 'To call Rankin irreverent doesn't begin to describe just how very good he is at playing with the rules', says the MIRROR, while THE DAILY EXPRESS says: 'Everybody should read at least one Robert Rankin in their life' - and it's right. THE INDEPENDENT maintains: 'He is an author best read in large doses. His impressively individual style means that he becomes funnier the more you read him', THE OBSERVER admires ' the stark raving genius of Rankin . . . the plot comes together with alarming and deformed brilliance' and the MAIL ON SUNDAY claims 'Rankin does for England what Spike Milligan does for Ireland. There can be no higher praise'. MAXIM calls him 'Fiendishly clever and joyously funny . . . a brilliant imagination', and SFX think he's 'Oscar Wilde meets Kurt Vonnegut in the genetics lab of classic fantasy humour'. The newest opus from the Master of Far Fetched Fiction will enhance his reputation even further: it's time to stop Rankin being a hidden gem and make him the National Treasure his fans already believe him to be.

Harper Connelly had a lucky escape when she was hit by lightning: she didn't die. But sometimes she wishes she had died, because the lightning strike left her with an unusual talent: she can find dead people - and that's not always comfortable. Everyone wants to know how she does it: it's a little like hearing a bee droning inside her head, or maybe the pop of a Geiger counter, a persistent, irregular noise that increases in strength as she gets closer. It's almost electric: a buzzing all through her body, and the fresher the corpse, the more intense the buzz. Harper and her brother Tolliver make their living from finding the dead, for desperate parents, worried friends . . . and police departments who have nowhere else to look. They may not believe in her abilities, but sometimes the proof is just too much for even the most sceptical of police chiefs to deny. But it's not always easy for someone like Harper, for the dead *want* to be found - and too often, finding the body doesn't bring closure; it opens a whole new can of worms.

A bolt of lightning struck Harper Connelly when she was 15, leaving her with a strange spider web of red on her torso and right leg, episodes of weakness, shakes and headaches - and an ability to find dead people.Harper is summoned to Memphis to demonstrate her unique talent, but there are still plenty of sceptics, even as Harper stands atop a grave and announces there are two bodies buried there. The police are convinced there's something fishy going on when the grave is opened to reveal the centuries-dead remains of a man, which they'd expected (that being his grave, after all) and a dead girl, which no one expected - except Harper, of course. And suspicions are raised even further because Harper had failed to find eleven-year-old Tabitha Morgenstern when she was abducted two years before. Harper and Tolliver need to find the real killer to prove Harper's innocence, especially after their nocturnal visit to the cemetery in hopes that Harper can sense something more is followed by the discovery, the following morning, of a third dead body in the grave ...