The Hugo Award-winning author of Cyteen presents the sequel to Rider at the Gate, set on a distant planet where humans must depend on a breed of horses for protection against the native inhabitants.**

WE DIDN'T KNOW—WE ONLY BELIEVED—NOW YOU'VE COME BACK "Does it seem reasonable to you that a Regency continues—into an Emperor's thirtieth year " "No, m'lord," Shoka said. "Not to us, either. Not to many of us. We were ready to make that objection—when lord Gitu overran Yijang and Hua.... Assassinations, elsewhere. Hired killers. Bands of mercenaries traveling under imperial orders. The Emperor's seal, and the Regent's orders. How do we stop such a thing How do we prevent it—when every lord able to lead is apprehended, assassinated, when they strip us of men, even boys out of the fields—go to Saukendar, some said. Go to Saukendar. They urged me to send to you. This time he has to listen, they said. But if I had sent—and Ghita had known—you understand—" Reidi gave an uncomfortable twitch of the shoulders. His horse shifted again. "I had no true hope that you'd come. You'd indicated to the villagers—that you had no wish to hear from anyone. That you would refuse any such petitions—" "You were watching me." "It's my village, m'lord—as the Regent pointed out to me again and again, and threatened my life should you leave that mountain. Of course the word came to me. I tried to get a messenger down the road to you when I knew you'd left Mon.... We believed you'd come back to deal with Ghita and his partisans." Shoka felt cold, cold all the way to the bones. "There are men ready to follow you, lord Saukendar. There are men who've committed their lives to this— We didn't know the hour. We only believed. Now you've come back ..." At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "It's gripping drama, tightly focussed and inexorable as Taizu herself. Read The Paladin and you'll never settle for another ordinary sword-wielding female." —Faren Miller LOCUS

The twenty-first book in the beloved Foreigner saga continues the adventures of diplomat Bren Cameron, advisor to the atevi head of state.The overthrow of the atevi head of state, Tabini-aiji, and the several moves of enemies even since his restoration, have prompted major changes in the Assassins' Guild, which has since worked to root out its seditious elements—a clandestine group they call the Shadow Guild. With the Assassins now rid of internal corruption, with the birth of Tabini's second child, and with the appointment of an heir, stability seems to have returned to the atevi world. Humans and atevi share the space station in peaceful cooperation, humans and atevi share the planet as they have for centuries, and the humans' island enclave is preparing to welcome 5000 human refugees from a remote station now dismantled, and to do that in unprecedented cooperation with the atevi mainland. In general Bren Cameron, Tabini-aiji's personal representative,...

Every story has a beginning. Every friendship has a meeting. Every job has a first day. This is Bren's.

 A Rusalka--the spirit of a maiden drowned by accident or force--will return as a ghost to haunt the river and woods where she met her death. The locale for this fantasy by SF writer Cherryh ( Downbelow Station ) is pre-Christian Russia. Two young men flee the village of Vojvoda--Pyetr, accused of killing a wealthy noble, and Sasha, an accessory to his escape. They are making their way to Kiev when, in the middle of a forest, they become involved in the search for the wizard Uulamets's dead daughter Eveshka, a Rusalka and a wizard herself. Uulamets wants to resurrect her, but evil forces oppose him, among whom may be Kavi Chernevog, Uulamets's former student, and a suspect in Eveshka's death. Cherryh fills her story with myriad magical creatures from Slavonic mythology. A richness of detail and characterization enliven this drama about the human (and unhuman) greed for power and the redemptive power of love. 

Book Two of the Chronicles of Morgaine Scanned by BW-SciFi; proofed by Cress; reproofed and formatted by Nadie.

They were the mri-tall, secretive, bound by honor and the rigid dictates of their society. For aeons this golden-skinned, golden-eyed race had provided the universe mercenary soldiers of almost unimaginable ability.But now the mri have faced an enemy unlike any other-an enemy whose only way of war is widespread destruction. These "humans" are mass fighters, creatures of the herb, and the mri have been slaughtered like animals.Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a warrior—one of the last survivors of his kind; a priestess of this honorable people; and a lone human—a man sworn to aid the enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world that first gave them life?

The Faded Sun Trilogy Book 3