More by Janet E. Morris
The Sacred Band of Stepsons is a fictional ancient cavalry unit created by Janet Morris and based on the historical Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite strike force of paired lovers and friends that flourished during the fourth century BCE in ancient Greece, where sexuality was a behavior, not an identity. The Sacred Band of Stepsons series of fantasy novels and stories take place in a myth-like milieu that mixes historical places such as Nisibis, Mygdonia and Chaeronea; warriors such as Theagenes (commander of the Theban Sacred Band at Chaeronea); gods such as Enlil, Maat and Harmonia; philosophers such as Heraclitus and Thales; cavalry tactics and customs such as homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece with those that exist only in fantasy. The exploits of the Stepsons are chronicled in eleven short stories and eight novels (as of 2010). In a fantasy context, this series explores the difficulties facing war-fighters in personal relationships and the enduring questions surrounding the military's historical mixing of homosexuals and heterosexuals in combat.
THE SACRED BAND GOES NORTH – TO WAR!
Here is the new, revised and expanded Author’s Cut edition of BEYOND SANCTUARY, the first ever full-length novel to take you BEYOND the notorious Thieves World™ fantasy universe, where gods still stalk the land, warring with demons and human sorcerers and trampling unfortunate humanity underfoot.
If you like stories of bold brave knights employed in meritorious duty, or tales of ladies delicate and fair, be warned. Beyond Sanctuary, set at the foot of notorious Wizardwall, may be too much for your sensibilities. There wizards, bards, and maidens mingle with murderers and thieves, and the fight breaking out at the next table may be the one that ends your life.
The hero of BEYOND SANCTUARY is Tempus, leader of mercenaries and warrior-servant of Vashanka, god of storm and war. With Niko, Cime, and the Froth Daughter Jihan, Tempus faces the archmage Datan and his unholy followers – in a battle for the Rankan Empire’s survival and that of his very soul. BEYOND SANCTUARY is the first novel in Janet Morris’ BEYOND series, followed by BEYOND THE VEIL and BEYOND WIZARDWALL.
The universe called. She answered. Everything you've seen or read till now took you only to the brink . . .Neither pure fantasy, nor straight science fiction, nor earthbound dynastic saga, Dream Dancer is a stunning amalgam of all three. It is a family saga with the epic appeal of Dune and the action and excitement of Star Wars. It is a saga of love, power and treachery that will appeal to men and women equally; full of action, compulsively readable and quite unlike anything being published in the realms of fantasy today.The heroine, Shebat, is a remarkable girl from Earth. She is brought to the vast empire of the Kerrion family by a renegade son; named as its future ruler on a whim of his autocratic father; abducted to the slums where the Kerrions' slaves drug themselves with powerful mystical sorcery; and finally rescued to take part in a great rebellion. She falls in love with one brother but marries another and becomes more Kerrion than some born to the name. A magical seductress of men, passionate in her lust for power, Shebat moves among those who control the destinies of millions, for whom treachery and betrayal are as easy as murder. Set in the timeless future on a primitive, savage Earth and on the sophisticated habitats of deep space, Dream Dancer is the first volume of a three-part saga. "Not since Dune have we witnessed a power struggle of such awesome intensity. Dream, Dancer may well be the I, Claudius of fantasy novels. A literary feast!" -- Eric Van Lustbader, author of The Ninja."Dream Dancer is a fascinating and lyrical story, told with great invention" -- Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story."The pacing is brisk; fascinating concepts abound." -- Booklist
Is this the Lemuria of antiquity, or of times to come? Once you've ridden the storm clouds of heaven from the edge of time, anything is possible.
Demonic hordes threaten to destroy the very fabric of time itself. The fate of all humanity rests on the shoulders of Tempus the Black, Favorite of the Storm God. But even this hero of legend will encounter a challenge he has never faced before . . . present-day New York City.
Estri was a god, and the daughter of Light. Chayin was a god, and the son of darkness. Sereth was hase-enor, the son of all flesh. Lovers and freinds, could they be the prophesied three who would wield the Sword of Severance, Se'Keroth, and bring light out of dark?
She was descended from the masters of the universe. To hold her he challenged the gods...
Epic fantasy, social science fiction, allegorical fiction, anthropological fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction
Wind from the Abyss is the third volume in Janet Morris' classic Silistra Quartet, continuing one woman's quest for self-realization in a distant tomorrow.
Aristocrat. Outcast. Picara. Slave. Ruler ....
She is descended from the masters of the universe. To hold her he challenges the gods themselves.
This Perseid Press Author's Cut Edition is revised and expanded by the author and presented in a format designed to enhance your reading experience with covers designed for these premium editions.
Wind from the Abyss begins with this note from Estri. . .
Author's Note
Since, at the beginning of this tale, I did not recollect myself nor retain even the slightest glimmer of such understanding as would have led me to an awareness of the significance of the various occurrences that transpired at the Lake of Horns then, I am adding this preface, though it was no part of my initial conception, that the meaningfulness of the events described by "Khys' Estri" (as I have come to think of the shadow-self I was while the dharen held my skills and memory in abeyance) not be withheld from you as they were from me.
I knew myself not: I was Estri because the girl Carth supposedly found wandering in the forest stripped of comprehension and identity chose that name. There, perhaps, lies the greatest irony of all, that I named myself anew after Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, who in reality I had once been. And perhaps it is not irony at all, but an expression of Khys' humor, an implicit dissertation by him who structured my experiences, my very thoughts, for nearly two years, until his audacity drove him to bring together once more Sereth crill Tyris, past-Slayer, then the outlawed Ebvrasea, then arrar to the dharen himself; Chayin rendi Inekte, cahndor of Nemar, co-cahndor of the Taken Lands, chosen so of Tar-Kesa, and at that time Khys' puppet-vassal; and myself, former Well-Keepress, tiask of Nemar, and lastly becoming the chaldless outlaw who had come to judgment and endured ongoing retribution at the dharen's hands. To test his hesting, his power over owkahen, the time-coming-to-be, did Khys put us together, all three, in his Day-Keeper's city -- and from that moment onward, the Weathers of Life became fixed: siphoned into a singular future; sealed tight as a dead god in his mausoleum, whose every move brought him closer to the sum total, obliteration. So did the dharen Khys bespeak it, himself. . . .
She had the power to create planets.
The sixty carved bones of the Yris-tera
foretold her ancient fate.
Her heritage of power took her beyond
time and space and stole from her the
one man she loved.
Enslaved on the planet Silistra tomorrow's
most beautiful courtesan unleashes the
powers of the gods.
Her sensuality was at the core of her world, her quest beyond the civilized stars. Aristocrat. Outcast. Picara. Slave. Ruler.
"The amazing and erotic adventures of the most beautiful courtesan in tomorrow's universe" - Frederik Pohl
"Engrossing characters in a marvelous adventure." - Charles N. Brown, Locus Magazine
"The best single example of prostitution used in fantasy is Janet Morris' Silistra series." - Anne K. Kaler, The Picara: From Hera to Fantasy Heroine
The art of dragon killing: Dragons have been eating humans for centuries. Now heroes throughout history stalk their legendary foe. Learn how to hunt, kill, and eat the wild dragon. Never before has revenge tasted so good. A literary feast for the bloody-minded.
In Janet Morris' anthology on the art of dragon killing, seventeen writers bring you so close to dragons you can smell their fetid breath. Tales for the bold among you.
HEROIKA 1: DRAGON EATERS
, an anthology of heroic fiction edited by Janet Morris, features original stories by Janet E. Morris, Chris Morris, S.E. Lindberg, Walter Rhein, Cas Peace, Jack William Finley, A.L. Butcher, Travis Ludvigson, Tom Barczak, J.P. Wilder, Joe Bonadonna, Milton J. Davis, M. Harold Page, William Hiles, Beth W. Patterson, Bruce Durham, Mark Finn.
New blood and old warriors face unforeseen challenges as one war ends in triumph and another conflict looms. Stories you'll love to hear again and stories you've been hoping to hear for the first time in a brand-new Sacred Band anthology that takes the Stepsons where they've never been before...
Tales of risk and glory, past, present and future, among the Sacred Band of Stepsons cavalry in The Fish the Fighter and the Song-girl, the second Sacred Band
Tempus and his Sacred Band won the battle of their dreams, but now the time has come to count the cost and face the consequences in fifteen tales, old and new, of the iconic Sacred Band of Stepsons, including the last six classic Sacred Band stories from the million-copy bestselling shared universe of Thieves' World® and nine new adventures.
An adventure like no other. Two Sacred Bands, united for the first time. The Sacred Band of Thebes lives on, a world away, in this mythic novel of love in war in ancient times. In 338 BCE, during the Battle of Chaeronea that results in the massacre of the Sacred Band of Thebes, the legendary Tempus and his Stepson cavalry rescue twenty-three pairs of Theban Sacred Banders, paired lovers and friends, to fight on other days. These forty-six Thebans, whose bones will never lie in the mass grave that holds their two hundred and fifty-four brothers, join with the immortalized Tempus and his Sacred Band of Stepsons, consummate ancient cavalry fighters, to make new lives in a faraway land and fight the battle of their dreams where gods walk the earth, ghosts take the field, and the angry Fates demand their due.
From palace coups in the lost city of Hattusas to treachery in the Egyptian court of Tutankhamun, I, the Sun, the saga of the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, rings with authenticity and the passion of a world that existed fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. They called him Great King, Favorite of the Storm God, the Valiant. He conquered more than forty nations and brought fear and war to the very doorstep of Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt, but he could not conquer the one woman he truly loved.