Showing results by narrator "Patty Jansen" in All Categories

Deep under the City of Glass in the frozen southern land, an age-old machine called the Heart of the City radiates a power which locals call icefire. Most citizens are immune to it, but a few, always born with physical disabilities, can bend it to their will. For fifty years, the ruling Eagle Knights, who fly on the back of giant birds, have killed these Imperfects, fearing the return of the old royal family, who used icefire to cut out people's hearts, turning them into ghostly servitors.

Fifteen years ago, a brilliant scientist built a barrier against the dangerous power that radiates from the City of Glass in the southern land, allowing the citizens of Chevakia to live without fear of their lives. Since then, the democracy of Chevakia has prospered, with free-thinking scientists developing steam power and the beginnings of electricity. But the power, which they call sonorics, controls the weather in Chevakia. Senator Sadorius han Chevonian is the country’s chief meteorologist.

Following the destruction of the City of Glass through an explosion of sonorics, huge numbers of refugees have descended upon the Chevakian capital Tiverius. The refugees are mostly members of the rebel group Brotherhood of the Light, supporters of the old royal family. They are injured, scared and hungry, and few speak Chevakian. The young Queen Jevaithi and her lover Isandor are amongst them, safe from the Eagle Knights for now.

Johanna, Roald, Nellie and Loesie have come to Florisheim finding many of their kinsmen there. The survivors from the burning of Saardam who have come here are the nobles who were never great supporters the old king, and it is likely that they won’t support his son either, even if he was normal. They support his marriage to Johanna even less and Johanna’s position as the new king’s wife would be improved immensely if she produced an heir, but so far that’s not happening. Florisheim is alive with evil magic, and that magic is starting to affect the Saarlanders who are unused to it.

Johanna, Prince Roald, Nellie and Loesie have been captured by bandits. Touched by evil magic, Loesie behaves ever stranger and may be a danger to attempts to escape. Every step they take brings them closer to the duke who is said to be the source of evil. Is he the necromancer who has burned all of Saardam?

As the only child of a successful merchant, Johanna has her wits and a sense for business. The royal family is in deep trouble: ever since the crown princess died of illness, the king has attempted to educate his son to become king. However, the prince is "not good in the head" and quite unsuited to the task. In his grief for his daughter, the king has run the coffers dry: he hired dubious magicians for even more dubious tasks. Those magicians circle like vultures waiting for the kingdom to fail. The king must get his son on the throne, preferably supported by a smart and well-off wife.

A prisoner, a secret he can't remember, and the military force that will destroy planets to get their hands on it. When Fabio Velazquez arrives on the secretive military base on Jupiter's moon Io, he knows two things: one, that he's had his memories erased and two, that he has a secret. Except because of point one, he can't remember what point two is. The portents aren't good: he's hated by his fellow soldiers, responsible for "the greatest f ** *-up in military history", traitor and human guinea pig.

Melati escaped New Jakarta Space Station when it fell into Allion's hands. Her family was left behind the enemy lines. She signed up for active duty with the International Space Force in the hope they would liberate the station. Instead, they chose to maintain a crippling siege that has lasted for 10 months.

They came from the poorest cities on Earth. They were promised free food and housing. They didn't know that they, or their children, would never see Earth again. A few years ago, a military doctor walking the corridors of New Jakarta Space Station saved Melati's life. She signed up for the International Space Force to pay back her moral debt to him.

Izramith Ezmi is many things: a member of the feared, all-female Hedron guards, a war veteran recently returned from a pointless and bloody mission, and impatient, angry, and above all, lonely. With her contract about to run out, she may be on her way to becoming a ruthless mercenary, since what she really wants - becoming a mother - is out of the question. Her family carries a gene that causes deeply malicious madness. Her nephew was born with it, and her useless sister has left him in the care of an institute. A baby. Two days old.

Mikandra Bisumar is useless to her father: She carries the curse of infertility that plagues the Endri people of Miran. Forced to work in the hospital to pay her duty to her proud nation, she dreams of becoming a Trader, one of the people who bring great prosperity to Miran. To her surprise Iztho Andrahar, from the city's most prestigious Trading family, has agreed to take her on. That is where her troubles begin.

She is lost on an alien planet. He said he'd help her get home. He lied. Jessica's plane develops engine trouble over the dry Australian inland - and crashes in thick, unfamiliar rainforest. A group she thinks is a search party shows up, but it consists of large-eyed not-quite people who kill all survivors except Jessica and a long-haired hippie named Brian. No one is going to come to rescue her. In fact, they're not even on Earth. While the pair wrestle their way through the forest in search for help, Jessica becomes ever more suspicious of Brian.

Jonathan Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station. He is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when bacteria were discovered on Mars and who are now all making their living flipping burgers because the jobs are few and hard to get. He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane. Or so he thinks.... Gaby Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she keeps secrets.

The last thing Steven remembers was waiting in a prison cell for the results of an appeals trial. His crime: speaking out against unfair treatment of workers. His opinion of his sentence: it's political. Next thing he wakes up on a commercial ship run by the Merlin Company, where he meets Luciane, Rollo and Jack, fellow prisoners of an inconveniently political nature, and the four will be sent down to a planet where a research team has vanished. Everything needed to survive and return is on the abandoned base, and all the company wants is to know what happened to twelve scientists.

On the backwater world of Cayelle, Tina Freeman runs a shop with her son Rex, 15 years old, half-human, half-android with a massive chip on his shoulder about having been born without arms or legs. The shop makes a modest profit, but when a creditor turns up wanting his money back, everything goes pear-shaped. She needs money, and needs it fast.

Ravi has left Tiverius with Dana, who knows far more than she will tell him about the mysterious people who have rekindled interest in the coastal "Gathering" movement. Tylve is an adherent of this movement as her family has been through the generations. She doesn't understand the influx of new people. Since fleeing her village after her home was searched, she has arrived in the City of Glass, where a fateful meeting brings her in contact with a spy. Meanwhile, Kotori has gone to investigate the "lights in the sky" that he's kept secret for over twenty years.

While space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen attend a conference held at a base in the asteroid belt, a man approaches Jonathan in great distress. He's been asked to take over command of a previously commercial research station, but strange things started happening: plants glowing in the dark, lights turning themselves on and off, computers misbehaving. He discovered the cause, but Section Command issues a gag order on the issue. This is strange, because the Force is investing big in research.

Veronica arrives with her class in the spellcraft tower of the Oakhurst School of Magic to teach the bunch of young—and not particularly well-behaved—teenagers about the school's ancient spellbook. But the book has gone missing from the cabinet!

One day when bullied Florian comes home from school, he finds a visitor in the caravan where he lives with his father. The woman, who looks older than time, tells him that his father is king of Celestia and has seven days to renew the spell of protection over the land. But his father has no interest in going back.

Of all the things 10-year-old Cory Wilson expects to do when he moves to Midway Space Station, saving aliens from humans isn't one. An important conference is about to start at the station, not usually the sort of thing kids care about, not even when the conference is between humans and aliens, and half your family is alien.