New Releases by Robert Holdstock

This “toothy follow-up to Datlow’s first-rate Blood Is Not Enough” offers “admirably inventive variations on vampirism” (Kirkus Reviews). Featuring stories by Jonathan Carroll, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Robert Silverberg, A Whisper of Blood is a “consistently engrossing anthology” from award-winning editor Ellen Datlow (Publishers Weekly). Continuing to expand the boundaries of the concept of vampirism—as she did in her first collection, Blood Is Not Enough—Datlow has assembled eighteen fascinating stories that range from tales of literal vampires to what she calls “metaphorical bloodsuckers,” who can drain another’s life force without ever sinking their teeth into necks. In “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” by Suzy McKee Charnas, an elderly Jewish woman who’s taken her own life has second thoughts and makes a deal to become a vampire to stay immortal, the only condition being she has to drink blood by request only. An amnesiac operative tries to sort out if a secret government agency is trying to help him regain his memory or is wiping it clean in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Kafkaesque “Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?” And in Jonathan Carroll’s “The Moose Church,” a tourist in Sardinia is literally scarred by asking questions of death in his dreams . . . A Whisper of Blood includes contributions by Suzy McKee Charnas, Karl Edward Wagner, Robert Silverberg, Kathe Koja, Elizabeth Massie, Barry N. Malzberg, Rick Wilber, Jonathan Carroll, Thomas Ligotti, Melissa Mia Hall, David J. Schow, Jack Womack, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Thomas Tessier, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, K. W. Jeter, Pat Cadigan, and Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth.

The Merlin Codex brings together Robert Holdstock''s Celtika, The Iron Grail and The Broken Kings in one superb omnibus. Recounting a young Merlin''s epic story, The Merlin Codex moves through the classical world of Jason (of the Argonauts fame) and his wife Medea. Jealously guarding his gift as every act of magic shortens his life, Merlin weaves his plots across the centuries, showing us echoes of the man and the stories we know from Arthurian legend. Robert Holdstock was unanimously hailed by critics as the best contemporary author of SF and Fantasy. By mixing Greek and Celtic mythologies happily around an immortal character, Holdstock once again touches on the great universal myths as he did so brilliantly in his Mythago Wood saga, going beyond the limits of Fantasy.

From out of the bonds of slavery there arose a warrior...a warrior feared across all lands, a warrior whose blade was stained with the blood of thousands - man and beast - who smiled as she killed, with hair as gold as summer sun, eyes as blue as the heavens, and a body which invited only love yet dealt bloody, merciless death to her enemies. This was Raven, Swordsmistress of Chaos. And so she was chosen; a simple girl plucked from the slavepens of Lyand by the sorcerer-priests and schooled in every art of weaponry until no mere man could defeat her - in any form of physical combat. Together with her mysterious companion, Spellbinder, and the great black bird which watched over them, RAVEN set forth to meet her destiny. Her first quest, to find the Skull of Quez and return it to its rightful owner, for only by so doing could she gain the chance to slaughter Karl ir Donwayne - the depraved monster whose tortures she could never forget...

The unthinkable has occurred. The wall of thoughts, barrier against the unknown, had been breached, unleashing a dark force into the world - the Ghost Lords of Uthganaar. These evil creatures had united the northern tribes of the world heart behind them and were set to conquer the world. Only Raven could stop them. Together with Warlock Spellbinder and the valiant tribesman Silver, she undertook an arduous and perilous journey - to the mysterious obsidian tower to learn the secret of the Ghost Lords and their invincible yellow sword - and beyond the Lost Lands to the worlds end itself.

A slave that became a warrior, the flamboyant Raven is back. And the dreaded mage Belthis stands again in her way. Along with the mercenary Spellbinder, the young woman will try everything to make his plans fail - until an old shadow, which she believed to be gone, resurfaces ...

When Odin''s curse fell upon him, Harald Swiftaxe, the young Norse warrior, lusty in love and battle, was fully human no longer. He was incensed with the animal rage of the god''s devotees, the Berserkers. The snarling ferocious savagery of the bear possessed him. Immune to fire and steel, frenzied by the smell of blood and the sight of torn human flesh, he was driven to the worst of human deeds . . . The stench of fear was meat and drink to him, and cowering women learned of his cruel, insatiable lust. The bear screeched its ecstasy - yet at times the man dimly understood the horror. Could the demon god be killed, the spell lifted...? If there was a way, the price of failure would be high, greater than death itself . . .

Winner of the World Fantasy Award "I am placing this entry at the beginning of my edited journal for reasons that will become apparent. Time is very short for me now, the final part of the ritual draws near... I cannot pretend that I am not frightened." There were these two British writers, one lived in the country, the other in the city. The country writer loved to visit the city and partake of brandy and Greek kebabs in the local hostelry. The city writer liked to visit the country and guzzle ale and barbecued steak under the apple trees. The two writers needed an excuse for these indulgences, and so they invented one, and this excuse was called "collaborating on a story" ... It soon emerged that the story was to be about a legendary tree, which they both vaguely recalled from the tales their grandfathers used to tell them of mystery and myth. Soon they were delving with suppressed excitement into old documents at the British Museum and began to come up with some frightening discoveries. The first of these finds was in studying the original text, in Anglo-Saxon, of the Old English poem "The Dream of the Rood". The marrying of the "tree" (crucifixion cross) and the "thorn" (a runic character) was too elaborately regular to be an accident of metre or alliterative language. Other discoveries followed, and the story gradually surfaced, like a dark secret from its burial mound. The Ragthorn: a dark and unsettling World Fantasy Award-winning novella by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth. Also included in this volume, two bonus stories: "The Fabulous Beast" by Garry Kilworth, and "The Charisma Trees" by Robert Holdstock. Robert Holdstock: ''Britain''s best fantasist ... these are the visions of a real artist.'' - The Times ''Our finest living mythmaker. His narratives - intense, exuberant, earthy, passionate, dense with metaphor - are new trails through the ancient forest of our imaginations. An essential writer.'' - Stephen Baxter ''No other author has so successfully captured the magic of the wildwood.'' - Michael Moorcock ''A new expression of the British genius for true fantasy.'' - Alan Garner, on Mythago Wood Garry Kilworth: ''Garry Kilworth is arguably the finest writer of short fiction today, in any genre.'' - New Scientist ''Kilworth is one of the most significant writers in the English language.'' - Fear Magazine ''Probably one of the finest writers of short stories Britain has ever produced.'' - Bookstove Online ''Kilworth is a master of his trade.'' - Punch Magazine

From the vaults of the SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes this republication of a trilogy of early, pseudonymous adventure tales by Robert Holdstock, WORLD FANTASY AWARD-winning author of MYTHAGO WOOD. The Berserker books are raw, primeval stories of a young Norse warrior, cursed by the gods to a life of savage warfare. Possessed by an animal, ferocious rage - implacable, invincible - Harald Swiftaxe fights his way across the Celtic world in search of release from his curse and, finally, peace. The Berserker omnibus contains SHADOW OF THE WOLF, THE BULL CHIEF and THE HORNED WARRIOR.

One man against the monstrous forces of evil. The sixth book in the Nighthunter series.

She looked like an ordinary Indian girl. But within her she carried a burden of evil, a force that yearned to rend and destroy. And she had travelled 3000 miles, crossing plains, seas and mountains, to bring that force to Arachne. Arachne - the obscene occult power that had seized Dan Brady''s wife and children and still held them in its evil clutches. Its strength was growing, its tentacles reaching out to trap and enslave the innocent and the unwary. And now, in a bleak mountain village, Dan Brady, the Night Hunter, prepared to confront a horror that could finally destroy him and all he held dear.

In those days Broceliande was a terrible place, an ancient gloomy forest growing over misty dells, forgotten stones, a place of hidden lakes and strangling thickets. Though the true heart of Broceliande could never be found, the stink of its corruption oozed from the edgewood, shedding ghosts like autumn leaves. This was the forest of legend, where Merlin had come to dream his magic and the enchantress Vivien had come to beguile that magic from him. Martin and Rebecca have long since fled the forest, but when they are forced to return years later for their mother''s funeral, they are at once ensnared in the forest''s net of enchantment, an evil that has held the local villages in a root-strong grip. And when Rebecca gives birth to Daniel, a beautiful child who is deaf, dumb and blind, she finds herself sucked into a twilight world where she can see only strange, mysterious shadows.

On the planet Aeran, the original colonists have undergone a drastic change: under the influence of some strange psychic force they have forgotten their identity and created a new culture - an exact reconstruction of the Stone Age society that flourished in Ireland 6,000 years ago. Has some strange racial memory been awakened? Or are both cultures the product of a social blueprint implanted throughout the cosmos by a long-vanished race?

Below London, a lost river flows through the ruins of an ancient temple. A group of children unleashes its unholy secret and falls prey to the gruesome wrath of its guardian. But for Dan Brady, their sinister discovery may be a clue to the location of his missing wife and children. Hexed by evil forces, he is prepared to fight to the death. He is . . . the Night Hunter.

Deep in the sounds, scents and shifting rhythms of the Amazon forest, a family have lost their seven-year-old child, stolen by the mysterious ''Invisible People'', the tribe which has never been seen. Through ten years their agonised search for him takes them beyond the world''s last great natural frontier into the cruel beauty of the Brazilian jungle. When at last father and son do meet - in a dramatic and terrifying encounter - it is in the emerald forest, a place where the mythical and magical powers of primal existence must clash with the cold-hearted greed of modern man.

There is a landscape between reality and dreams, a strange and primitive country that exists upon the edge of our waking world. Michael Whitlock knows that country well. His best friend lives there... It beings with a scatter of earth, thrown over the infant by unseen hands, a haunting attack that is repeated day after day, culminating with an explosive fall of mud that nearly kills the boy. And found in those tons of raw, wet earth: flints, chalk artefacts, and remains of a primitive shrine and the dismembered carcase of a hunting dog. The Whitlocks'' house, in the Kentish Weald, stands near a chalk-pit, and it is here that their son, Michael creates his preculiar imaginary world, making his camp by the pile of grave-earth from that early attack. Unaware of what is happening to him, the boy touches and uses the strange force that now ebbs and flows in the pit, And when the haunting returns, this time it is more subtle, almost wonderful in its secutive nature. Torn between a fear of the supernatural and greed for the results of Michael''s power, his adoptive parents are helpless. It is left to Françoise Jeury, a psyhic investigator, to piece together the bizarre truth of th epit and the shrine and the oddly silent boy.

From The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal sample introduction to the fantastic work of Robert Holdstock, one of modern fantasy''s most original and influential voices. Holdstock''s Mythago Wood, winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel, is regarded as the definitive treatment of the wildwood, and his Merlin Codex trilogy is one of the few truly original takes on the Arthurian legend. This omnibus contains two of his early SF novels: Earthwind and Where Time Winds Blow and a collection of his highly-acclaimed short fiction, In the Valley of the Statues.

The Fear - mysterious, unstoppable, this deadly plague is slowly wiping out humanity. And only one world seems to offer hope of sanctuary - Ree''hdworld, home of the only other intelligent beings in the universe. But Ree''hdworld is not as safe as it seems. For something has been happening to the natives - both the friendly Ree''hd and their more primitive kinsmen, the Rundii. And only three people stand any chance of discovering and surviving the danger that the humans of Ree''hdworld will soon face: Kristina, an Earthwoman who is slowly "going Ree''hd"; Maguire, a blind man who should have died centuries ago and who, living, has seen all the secrets of the universe; and Zeitman, a brilliant scientist who holds the key to salvation on Ree''hdworld in his mind - if only he can discover it in time¿

Wondrous beings inhabit these woods - creatures born of mythic fable and the mortal subconscious: a snow woman beckons; a scientist succumbs to an age-old madness, tale-tellers weave extraordinary yarns of terrifying primal power. Explore a dark and secret place where daemons roam, where conjurers work their awesome pagan magic in eight stunning short stories of exhilarating imagination by the acclaimed author of Lavondyss and the World Fantasy Award-winning classic Mythago Wood.

''A planet where eerie time displacements, like winds, can dump alien artefacts from the past and future into now, or sweep things away from now into anywhen.'' ''A planet that attracts both scientists and fortune hunters, rummaging among the strangenesses, risking oblivion, carrying with them their own hang-ups, desperations, odd urges and searches. ''You won''t easily forget this haunting, fully-realised world.'' TRIBUNE.

Sequel to Mythago Wood - When Jack''s sister Yssobel disappears one winter''s night, he senses that she is in great jeopardy - He must make the long journey from deep in the wildwood to the real world to save her.

Argo, the ancient ship, has returned and hides beneath Urtha''s fortress in Alba. Jason and the Argonauts are aboard her, enchanted into sleep. Niiv is still Merlin''s lover, still seeking magic and mysteries, still a delight and torment to him. Something is wrong in Alba. An unknown force is affecting the land. The omens are frightening. The feckless Sons of Llew arrive, having stolen their uncle''s chariot and horses once again. They bring news of hostels, gateways between the worlds of the living and the dead. An enormous gathering of the Shades, of the dead and the unborn, are being drawn to them. Meanwhile, Kymon and Munda, Urtha''s son and daughter, are coming of age. Kymon is angry, boastful, ready to fight the Shades of Heroes, and violently annoyed by his father''s diplomacy. Munda, on the other hand, is possessed of the Sight and welcomes the new, strange force in the land. She breaks taboo to visit one of the hostels. She comes back speaking of the Killer of Kings, the son of Jason. And as Merlin walks in and out of time, clinging to his magic and the remains of his youth, the forces set in motion will determine the fate of kings and kingdoms alike. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Back in print after a decade, a novel of the classic Mythago cycle

"The first is a man who needs you and will use you. He will weaken you dangerously. The second is a man you betrayed, though you believe otherwise. He wishes to kill you and can do so easily. The third is a ship that is more than a ship. She grieves and broods. She will carry you to your grave." These three warnings greet Merlin on his return to Alba, the future England, to the deserted fortress of Taurovinda---the Hill of the White Bull. He is not the only one making the journey: Urtha, High King of the Cornovidi, is coming home to reclaim his stronghold, and Jason is sailing in on the Argo to seek his younger son, hiding somewhere in the kingdom. But Urtha''s fortress has been taken by warriors from Ghostland; they claim it as their own. There will be war against the Otherworld. In this sequel to Celtika, Robert Holdstock weaves myth and history into a fabulous tale of honor, death, and magic. At its center, moving along his never-ending path, is Merlin himself, an enchanter in the prime of his life, reckless, curious, powerful, yet a stranger to his own past---a past that is catching up with him. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Back in print after over a decade, the haunting sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winning Mythago Wood

Plusieurs siècles avant de rencontrer Arthur, Merlin erre sur les chemins du monde, immortel et jeune, à la recherche du Savoir. Devenu l''ami du héros grec Jason, il se lance avec lui dans la quête de la Toison d''or. Mais les sortilèges de la magicienne Médée transforment cette aventure en cauchemar... Sept cents ans plus tard, Merlin découvre que l''esprit tourmenté de son ancien ami vit toujours, noyé au fond d''un lac avec son navire mythique, l''Argo. Commence alors une extraordinaire épopée où s''entrechoquent la vengeance d''un roi celte, l''amour d''une chamane nordique pour Merlin, l''invasion de la Grèce par une armée barbare et la quête désespérée de Jason pour retrouver ses enfants. Mais qui est réellement Médée ? Pourquoi s''acharne-t-elle contre Jason et Merlin ? Et que signifient ces étranges souvenirs qui surgissent parfois, laissant l''enchanteur abasourdi ? Des glaces du Grand Nord aux sanctuaires grecs en passant par les forêts brumeuses de la future Angleterre et les fleuves sacrés de Germanie, ce premier tome d''une trilogie pleine de bruit et de fureur nous entraîne à travers toute l''Europe, dans le sillage d''un Merlin à la recherche de ses origines. Entre le vacarme des batailles et le souffle des légendes, Robert Holdstock - grand maître de la fantasy anglaise, couronné par de nombreux prix - brosse l''univers fascinant, tragique mais plein d''humour, des mémoires de Merlin.

A son searching for his father in a British forest discovers a world teeming with live mythological characters. One of them is a Celtic princess-warrior and he falls in love with her.