She saw the Temple livery first and woke up quickly, expecting trouble. At first she didn’t know the man—tall and stern-looking, looking down at her with the dawn at his back. His hair was dark with silver streaks, though, and that gave him away: not a true son of the Temple any more than Wall had been; say instead an uncle or grandfather, some older relative who had seen the first stones of the Temple laid down.
“Deffo,” she said. “I’d thought I’d had enough of you showing up like a counterfeit coin. Aren’t you grand high wonder of Temple Ilkand these days?”
He smiled uncertainly, not quite sure how things lay between them. “I’ve found something out. Something you need to know.”
She scowled. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder as though worried about being overhead. “I have news of my brother, Celestaine.”
“Your family,” she observed, “is larger and more troublesome even than mine. Which brother?”
“My favourite brother.” He leant in conspiratorially to say it, and she wanted to hit him. “Come on, Celestaine, which do you think?”
It was the lack of a sword at her waist that informed her, at last. “Wanderer?”
“I know where he went,” the Undefeated whispered.
“And? What’s that to you?” she demanded.
He looked hurt, and perhaps he had a right to. “It gets to you, this hero business,” he told her. “But it wears off quick. They all like me, in the Temple, but the more I sit around, the less I like myself. The more I remember all those times I wasn’t the hero. You know what I mean?”
“Oh, I do, believe me,” she admitted. “What are you saying, Deffo?”
“I want to go find him. Surely you do, too. So you can come help me for once.”
“Where did he go?” She felt a lump in her throat, the memory of that unlooked-for abandonment. What was so important that you just left us?
“Where else?” the Undefeated asked simply. “He went to find the gods and bring them back.”
She stared at him.
“So…?” he prompted. “Gather your allies, come save the world.”
“You’re not doing the old-man-in-a-tavern act now.”
“Come on, Celestaine, please.”
She reflected for a moment that her cousins were starting to get on her nerves, and Nedlam’s arm had healed very well, and, and…
“All right, then.” And she was darting back inside, calling for Nedlam, for Ralas and Heno.
About the Author
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. He subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and has trained in stage-fighting and historical combat. He maintains an interest in history and the biological sciences, especially entomology.
Adrian is the author of the acclaimed 10-book Shadows of the Apt series starting with Empire in Black and Gold published by Tor UK. His other works for Tor UK include standalone novels Guns of the Dawn and Children of Time and the new series Echoes of the Fall starting with The Tiger and the Wolf. Other major works include short story collection Feast and Famine for Newcon Press and novellas The Bloody Deluge (in Journal of the Plague Year) and Even in the Cannon’s Mouth (in Monstrous Little Voices) for Abaddon. He has also written numerous short stories. In 2016 he won the Arthur C Clarke Award, and he has been shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award and the British Fantasy Award.
SCIONS HAVE NO LIMITS
SCIONS DO NOT DIE
AND SCIONS DO NOT DISAPPEAR
Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad – the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war – but something has gone catastrophically wrong.
Now Regan and his men, ill-equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion, and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironcladkiller out there? And how are common soldiers lacking the protection afforded the rich supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?
A new standalone novella by the Arthur C Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time.
www.solarisbooks.com
ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES A MONKEY
Life is good for Ack-Ack Macaque. Every day the cynical, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking monkey climbs into his Spitfire to do battle with the waves of German ninjas parachuting over the gentle fields of Kent. But life is not all the joyous rattle of machine guns and the roar of the engine, as Ack-Ack is about to find out…
Because it is not 1944. It is the 21st century, in a world where France and Germany merged in the late 1950s, where nuclear-powered Zeppelins circle the globe, where technology is rapidly changing humanity, and Ack-Ack has lived his whole life in a videogame.
Ex-journalist Victoria Valois finds herself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who butchered her husband and stole his electronic soul. The heir to the British throne is on the run after an illegal break-in at a research laboratory, and Ack-Ack has been rudely awakened from his game world to find the doomsday clock ticking towards Armageddon…
Two unlikely heroes and one mightily pissed-off monkey come together in a sci-fi trilogy full of action, adventure, bananas and bottles of rum.
Includes the original Ack-Ack Macaque short story and a brand new epilogue, The Last Macaque.
“Arguably the greatest title of all time” – Joe Hill
“Fizzes with wild ideas” – Philip Reeve
www.solarisbooks.com
CHILDREN OF THE GODS!
Born of the Gods, created to be their champions, their names echo in eternity: Theseus, Perseus, Hippolyta, Heracles, Helen of Troy and all their half-mortal ilk. But the Age of Heroes is long past, and no more epics are told of their deeds. Blessed – and cursed – with eternal life, they have walked the Earth for millennia, doing their best to fit in among ordinary humans, taking new names and living new lives.
And one by one, the demigods are meeting terrible, bloody ends.
Now it’s up to Theseus, comfortably ensconced in New York and making his living as a crime fiction writer, to investigate the deaths. His search for the culprit draws him back into the lives of his dysfunctional extended family, and into a world of tragedy and long-held grudges that he thought, and hoped, he’d put behind him.
“A compulsive, breakneck read by a master of the craft, with stunning action sequences and acute character observations.”
The Guardian on The Age of Zeus
“As always, Lovegrove’s style is easy going and draws you in quickly... One of the best series in urban fantasy available today.”
Starburst Magazine on Age of Shiva
www.solarisbooks.com
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