The Outcast Blade

Venice stands victorious. It has beaten back the German emperor's army and the Byzantine navy. The Duchess Alexa's party at court is strong again. Her niece, Lady Giulietta, will be the next Regent, and possibly the next duchess. Giulietta's lover, Lord Tycho, will sit beside her. But no one is prepared for the fury of Prince Alonzo, exiled regent and traitor to his city. No one is prepared for the harshest winter Europe has ever known. As the canals of Venice freeze and wolves cross the ice from the north, Alonzo's plotting brings the Venetian empire to the very edge of destruction. With the Millioni family at war with itself, Lord Tycho, once a slave and a trained assassin, has to ask himself the only question that matters. How much is he prepared to sacrifice to keep Lady Giulietta's city safe?

Elusive and fantastical, Venice is a many-layered confection of history. The writers here have captured what is most important to them in pieces ranging from the city's foundation up to the present time. The voices, entirely diverse, are both international and native: here we meet Hans Christian Andersen, Paolo Barbaro, Bernard Berenson, Mary Braddon, Casanova, Chekov, Thomas Coryate, Gabriele D'Annunzio, John Evelyn, Hans Habe, Hermann Melville, Claude Monet, Margaret Oliphant, Ezra Pound, Rainer Maria Rilke, Francesco Sansovino, Frances Trollope and Elio Zorzi.Variously a City of the Soul, The Watery City, The Merchant City, City Afloat, City at Play, The Cruel City, City of Courtesans, City of Arts, City of Flavours, The Haunted City and City of the Future, Venice is captured here in all her moods.

Al Morris is a private investigator. Actually, he's lots of private investigators. For he lives in a world in which every person, every day, can be in any number of places at the same time. It's the world of dittos. It is our world. Welcome to the future.In a business where information is the currency, Al's dittos are loaded. And with a number of cases on the go at once, it is crucial that Al keeps track of what's going on. What he doesn't know is that he is about to be drawn into a plot that could throw this delicately balanced world into chaos. It seems that the technology has been developed for dittos to replicate themselves. It seems that real people may no longer be necessary. And, suddenly, it seems that mankind's dream of immortality could turn into a nightmare.Look out for more information about this book and others at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

A new queen has usurped the throne and is leading Cenaria into disaster. The country has become a broken realm with a threadbare army, little food, and no hope. Kylar Stern plans to reinstate his closest friend Logan as King, but can he really get away with murder?In the north, the Godking's death has thrown Khalidor into civil war. To gain the upper hand, one faction attempts to raise the goddess Khali herself. But they are playing with volatile powers, and trigger conflict on a vast scale. Seven armies will converge to save - or destroy - an entire continent.Kylar has finally learnt the bitter cost of immortality, and is faced with a task only he can complete. To save his friends, and perhaps his enemies, he must assassinate a goddess. Failure will doom the south. Success will cost him everything he's ever loved.

I'm a short story addict, both reading and writing them, and I always keep hoping for the perfect story.' (Janet Frame to Tim Curnow, January 1984)THE DAYLIGHT AND THE DUST is the most comprehensive selection of Janet Frame's stories ever published, taken from the four different collections released during her lifetime and featuring many of her best stories. Written over four decades, they come from her classic prize-winning collection THE LAGOON AND OTHER STORIES, first published in 1952, right up to the volume YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE HUMAN HEART, published in the 1980s. This new selection also includes five works that have not been collected before. Janet Frame's versatility dazzles. Her themes range from childhood to old age to death and beyond. Within the pages of one book the reader is transported from small town New Zealand to inner-city London, and from realism to fantasy. This volume offers the most comprehensive collection of Janet Frame's unique and powerful writing.

When ex-priest Tom Shaman, jaded from years in the LA ghetto, decides on a last-minute trip to Venice, he gets much more than the break he'd been hoping for. A brutal killer is on the loose and Tom finds himself catapulted into a series of ritualistic killings unlike anything Venice has ever seen. Enlisted by the Italian police, Tom teams up with investigator Valentina Morassi to dig deep into the city's darkest history, stretching from an ancient civilisation in 700 BC and the sexual decadence of 18th century Italy to the gritty underworld of modern-day Venice. As Valentina and Tom trace the killings through the centuries, they uncover a deadly secret, a secret that generations have killed to protect: a priceless Etruscan mosaic known as the Gates of Hell...

When Fernando spots her in a Venice cafe and knows immediately that she is The One, Marlena de Blasi is caught off guard. A divorced American woman travelling through Italy, she thought she was satisfied with her life. Yet within a few months, she quits her job as a chef, sells her house, kisses her two grown-up kids goodbye, and moves to Venice. Once there, she finds herself sitting in sugar-scented pasticcerie, strolling through sixteenth-century palazzi, renovating an apartment overlooking the seductive Adriatic Sea, and preparing to wed a virtual stranger in an ancient stone church.As this transplanted American learns the hard way about the peculiarities of Venetian culture, we are treated to an honest, often comic view of how two middle-aged people, both set in their ways but also set on being together, build a life. A THOUSAND DAYS IN VENICE is filled with the foods and flavours of Italy and peppered with recipes and culinary observations. But the main course here is about a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, and finally finds the home she didn't know she was missing.

Kylar has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces an impossible choice. He could give up the way of shadows forever, and find peace with his young family. Or Kylar could succumb to his flair for destruction, the years of training, to save his friend and his country - and lose all he holds precious.