Showing results by narrator "Patty Jansen" in All Categories

The tyrant Alexandre is gone from Saardam, but a new menace has come: the eastern traders in a ship of metal that is said to have been forged with dragon magic. They bring a chest of gold to buy an office in the city. The people don't want them in their town. The Church of the Triune, which forbids magic, has increased its hold on the population, despite the Red Baron's efforts to stamp it out.

Queen Johanna's position in Saardam is fragile. The barons and kings of the countries in the hinterland are not happy that she helped the royal family to survive and is now about to ensure the next generation. They vow to teach this little upstart country a lesson for once and for all. Johanna knows that if it came to a fight Saardam could never survive, so she has invited all the heads of state and other important people for talks to invest in the city's shattered infrastructure for the benefit of all.

En route to a job in the asteroid belt, the transport ship that Jonathan and Gaby are travelling on is required to give assistance to a space station in trouble. Astoria Station stopped responding to everything except automated messages. Jonathan and Gaby, familiar with disease and habitat collapse, offer to help. But not even they are prepared for what they find, or the efforts by some to sweep it under the carpet.

Johanna, Roald, Nellie, and Loesie return undercover to the devastated city of Saardam. In the months since they fled, the Fire Wizard Alexandre has ruled the town with campaigns of death and fear, focused on the eradication of the Church of the Triune, the former state church of Saarland that doesn't allow magic and that is more popular with the common people than with nobles. Johanna meets up with underground members of the church, even though her little gift of magic makes her feel ambivalent about it.

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.

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.

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.

Self-published authors are coming to realize that a stable career is about a backlist of titles and keeping that backlist selling. But how do you do this? Invariably, advice given by other authors includes holding promotions and lowering the price of the first book in series, or even making it free. However, few people mention one of the most powerful ways to keep your backlist selling: the author mailing list.

You intend to self-publish or have published a book or two. You’re not selling very well and wonder why not. You feel you should be doing something, but the thought of “marketing” gives you nightmares. You don’t want to become one of these people shouting “buy my book” on Twitter. But you would still love to start selling some books and pay some or even all of your bills with your writing income.

An army of 7000 artificial soldiers accidentally received the same brain implant. A space fleet with 7,000 artificial human marines hurtles through space at near-light-speed to an interstellar war...Dr. Charlotte West, the neuro-technologist responsible for the soldiers’ artificial brains, travels in the support fleet. Two months before the arrival at the war site, the marines start fighting each other and disobeying commands. When they are brought in for tests, Charlotte finds that someone has made a mistake that endangers the entire space fleet. They're all in love with her.

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.