Showing results by author "S. M. Stirling" in All Categories

Years after their groundbreaking journey into the past, Artorius and his team stumble upon a devastating revelation: the Chinese government has dispatched five time-travelers and a trove of advanced technology back to 165 CE, during the waning days of the Han dynasty. While believing they were guiding Rome toward a new era of modernization and unity, the emergence of Chinese influence threatens to unravel everything they have fought for.

Rudi Mackenize, now Artos the First, High King of Montival, and his allies have won several key battles against the Church Universal and Triumphant. But still the war rages on, taking countless lives, ravaging the land once known as the United States of America. Artos and his Queen, Mathilda, must unite the realms into a single kingdom to ensure a lasting peace. If the leaders of the Changed world are to accept Artos as their ruler, he will need to undertake a quest to the Lake at the Heart of the Mountains....

On a planet that was once part of a vast interstellar civilization, humans survive on the edge of barbarism amid the ruins of the once-great empire.

It's Change Year 25, a generation after high-energy technology died in a catastrophe most of the human race didn't survive. The children born after the Change are now starting to take center stage - and Whoever or Whatever was behind the Change itself may be taking a hand in their rivalries. An expedition has travelled to Nantucked across a strange and hostile continent to find some answers.

The Lord Protector of Portland has continued to press his rule into every corner of the Willamette. Both Juniper and Havel know that war is coming, but their allies in the Free-state of Corvallis are less convinced. Sir Nigel continues his escape from mad King Charles with the aid of his new found Tasmanian allies, having to out race the legendary sailing ship the Cutty Sark and battle pirates off the coast of Africa.

Rudi Mackenzie has journeyed far across the land that was once the United States of America, hoping to find the source of the world-altering event that has come to be known as the Change. His final destination is Nantucket, an island overrun with forest, inhabited by a mere two hundred people who claim to have been transported there from out of time.

In the years since the Event, the Republic of Nantucket has done its best to re-create the better ideas of the modern age. But the evils of its time resurface in the person of William Walker, renegade Coast Guard officer, who is busy building an empire for himself based on conquest by technology.

When Walker reaches Greece and recruits several of their greater kinglets to his cause, the people of Nantucket have no choice.

Rudi Mackenzie has been abducted by the forces of the Portland Protective Association, whose forces have pushed the Bearkillers and Mackenzie’s to the edge of defeat. Will aid arrive in time or will Mike Havel and his family be defeated by Norman Arminger and his mad grab for power? What of the secret plan now afoot between the Mackenzie’s and the forces at Mount Angel? Will the Abbot Dmwoski and his forces be able to break the siege of their monastery in time to come to the aid of Lady Juniper and her Witch Army?

In The Sword of the Lady, Rudi Mackenzie's destiny was determined. Now he returns to Montival in the Pacific Northwest, where he will face the legions of the Prophet. To achieve victory, Rudi must assemble a coalition of those who had been his enemies a few months before and forge them into an army that will rescue his homeland. Only then will Rudi be able to come to terms with how the Sword has changed him, as well as the world, and assume his place as Artos, High King of Montival.

Gwendolen Ingolfsson, hurled into a parallel Earth filled with billions of unaltered, antique humans when the molehole experiment she was working on malfunctioned, is very clear where her duty lies. As a member of the Draka, genetically engineered to dominate crude, unmodified humans, her task is to build a molehole device in this universe and establish a bridgehead for the Race to come through. It had been some time since the Draka last had such an opportunity for conquest....

Princess Orlaith, heir to Rudi Mackenzie, Artos the First, High King of Montival, now wields the Sword of the Lady - and faces a new enemy. Fortunately, she also has a new ally in Reiko, Empress of Japan. To combat their mutual foe, Orlaith and Reiko embark on a quest to find the fabled Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword, one of the three great treasures of the Japanese Imperial House - but they'll face great peril along the way.

Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States of America. His destination: Nantucket, where he hopes to learn the truth behind the Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.

Ten years ago, the 20th century and the Bronze Age were tossed together by a mysterious Event. In the decade since, the Republic of Nantucket has worked hard to create a new future for itself, using the technological know-how retained from modern times to explore and improve conditions for the inhabitants of the past

Rising from the ashes of the computer and industrial ages is a brave new world. Survivors have banded together in tribal communities, committed to rebuilding society. In Oregon's Willamette Valley, former pilot Michael Havel's Bearkillers are warriors of renown. Their closest ally, the mystical Clan MacKenzie, is led by Wiccan folksinger Juniper MacKenzie.

After the collapse of the galactic Web, civilizations crumbled and chaos reigned on thousands of planets. Only on planet Bellevue was there a difference. There, a Fleet Battle Computer named Center had survived from the old civilization. When it found Raj Whitehall, the man who could execute its plan for reviving human civilization, he and Center started Bellevue back on the road leading to the stars; and when Bellevue reached that goal, Center sent copies of itself and Raj to the thousands of worlds still waiting for the light of civilization to dawn.

A generation has passed since the Change that rendered technology inoperable around the world, and western Oregon has finally achieved a degree of peace. But a new threat has risen in Paradise Valley, Wyoming. A man known as the Prophet presides over the Church Universal and Triumphant, teaching his followers to continue God's work by destroying the remnants of technological civilization they encounter - and those who dare use them.

Two generations after the Change, Crown Princess Orlaith struggles to preserve the hard-won peace her father brought to Montival - the former Western US. But the Change opened many doors, and through them, powers strong, strange, and terrible walk once more among humankind. With her fire-forged friend and ally Japanese Empress Reiko, Orlaith must take up her sword to stop the spread of the mad malignancy behind the Yellow Raja that has imprisoned her brother, Prince John.

The spirit of Prince John, the brother of Crown Princess Orlaith, has fallen captive to the power of the Yelolow Raja and his servant, the Pallid Mask. Prince John's motley band of friends and followers, led by Captain Pip of Townsville and Deor Godulfson, the bard and master of magic, must lead a quest through realms of shadow and dream to rescue Prince John from a threat far worse than death. Meanwhile, Reiko and Orlaith muster their kingdoms for war, making common cause with the reborn Kingdom of Hawaii.

Rudi Mackenzie has won the battle that expelled the enemy from the new High Kingdom of Montival. Now he must free the people who live in the state once known as Idaho from occupation by the legions of the Church Universal and Triumphant and pursue them to their lair over the mountains. There he will finally confront the forces behind the Church - the Powers of the Void.

For five years Raj Whitehall has led his men across the face of the planet Bellevue. With saber and bayonet he has conquered one barbarian nation after another. Now his greatest enemy is his own overlord, Barholm Clerett, who’s so paranoid of Raj’s victories that he is reduced to only one thought: Raj Whitehall must die.