New Releases by Mary Gentle

After being freed by the King, Ilario decides to journey to Roma to apprentice as a painter. Along the way he stops at Visigothic Carthage, which lies under the penitence. Ilario is quickly sold back to slavery. Maintaining a healthy attitude, he is determined to regain freedom and finish his journey to Roma.

1476. Gênes est à feu et à sang. Les Carthaginois et leurs golems maléfiques ont envahi le sud de l''Europe afin de détruire l''empire de Frédéric de Habsbourg. Une nuit éternelle les accompagne. Rien ni personne ne semble en mesure de les arrêter. Pourtant, une femme de dix-neuf ans, capitaine d''une troupe de mercenaires, va se dresser sur la route de l''envahisseur. L''histoire a oublié cette guerrière au visage couturé et aux cheveux trop blonds. Elle s''appelait Cendres, et la légende dit qu''elle était plus farouche que le lion et guidée par la voix d''un saint. Avec les quatre volumes du Livre de Cendres, récompensé par le British Science Fiction Award et le Sidewise Award, Mary Gentle nous invite à découvrir une Europe médiévale transformée en un gigantesque champ de bataille. Cette fresque brutale, mais aussi d''une grande sensualité, est d''ores et déjà considérée en Angleterre et aux États-Unis comme un des classiques du genre.

The White Crow, one-time Soldier-Scholar of the Invisible College and a practioner of Hermetic science and magic, and Baltazar Casaubon, architect and lover, a man not too particular about his personal hygiene, are two of Mary Gentle¿s finest creations. The worlds they stride across range from the Renaissance city where aristocratic rats rule the human servant class, to a near-future London where chaos is come again. They are two of the most powerful players in the games of magic and politics, and the most colourful. This volume brings together three brilliantly imaginative, powerful and disturbing tales - Rats and Gargoyles, The Architecture of Desire and Left to His Own Devices - and the linked short fiction and confirms Mary Gentle as one of the foremost writers of dark and visionary fantasy.

The distant world of Orthe is littered with spectacular remnants of the Golden Empire, an ancient and technologically advanced civilisation extinct for two thousand years. Now their Orthean descendants have turned away from the technology which nearly destroyed them, and from their ancestors, the Golden Witchbreed. Then Earth envoy Lynne de Lisle Christie arrives and, all too quickly, finds herself the victim of intrigue and conspiracy, embroiled in a conflict that threatens to explode into war ¿ and which puts her own life in deadly peril . . .

This is a landmark anthology of four original novellas by the reigning masters of alternate history. Set in different eras, different places, and different times, these forays into "what might have been" showcases the stunning breadth and far-reaching possibilities the genre represents.

Ash, a mercenary warrior, launches a desperate defense to save Dijon from the demonic Wild Machines and the merciless soldiers of the Visigoth Empire, as the fate of all Europe hangs in the balance.

As the armies of the Visigoths plunder and ravage Europe, Duke Charles of Burgundy holds out in Dijon, a city under siege by the brutal Faris, Ash''s dark twin. Original.

The fate of Western Europe and Africa lies in the hands of a female warrior named Ash, who alone holds the key to stopping the undefeated legions of Carthage that rage across the lands of Europe, by destroying a mysterious and living stone idol possessing an awesome power

There is more than one history of the world . . . In the mid-fifteenth century there was Burgundy, the jewel of Europe-opulent and powerful, the undisputed center of an uncivilized world. In an epoch of war and madness there was Ash. A girl born in mud and dung, she slew her first men while only eight. Scarred and ravaged, but still beautiful, she rose up to lead a great mercenary army before the age of twenty--and followed a sacred voice wise in the bloody ways of battle to a pinnacle unattainable to even the most potent of legends. In a time when empires and alliances shifted like sand--when Mithras the bull was worshipped freely alongside the Christ--a great cloud arose out of Africa to darken the sun. The Visigoths came with their terrible machines-powered by magic or a science unknown to this day--and aimed their irresistible might toward the rich Burgundian prize, wrenching the wheel of civilization in an unknown and unexpected direction. And with their coming, one incomparable warrior raised on Destiny''s ash heap became more that anyone thought one woman could ever be.

When the ebullient genius, Baltazar Casaubon, re-enters her life, Valentine knows that it doesn''t bode well. It is only when he reveals that he has invented a program that can transfer a person''s memory directly to a computer, that she realizes just how much trouble he''s in.

This is the first story collection by the fantasy author of Golden Witchbread. The collection includes two previously unpublished novellas - Beggars in Satin and The Knot Garden.