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The Ice Company series is the sprawling saga of a future Earth in a new Ice Age. Mankind lives in domed cities, connected by extended rail networks, controlled by powerful companies which effectively rule the world. This new Ice Age was created when the Moon exploded and the resulting debris blocked all of the Sun's light. Civilization collapsed, and after several centuries of barbarism, the age of the Ice Companies eventually arose.

For its scope, complexity, ambition and craftsmanship, The Ice Company ranks with such science fiction masterpieces as Foundation and Dune. It was first published in 1980 and won the 1982 French Science Fiction Grand Prize and the 1988 Apollo Award.

Do you want a jewel worn by Cleopatra, an original Shakespeare folio, or the combined genes of Socrates and Marilyn Monroe? Dr. Zeus can make your dreams come true.

The Company, a powerful corporate entity in the twenty-fourth century, has discovered a nearly foolproof recipe for success: immortal employees and time travel. It specializes in retrieving extraordinary treasures out of the past, gathered by cybernetically enhanced workers who pass as ordinary people. Or at least they try to pass....

One rule at Dr. Zeus Incorporated must not be broken: Recorded history cannot be changed. But avoiding the attention of mortals while stealing from them? It's definitely not in the Company manual.

History awaits, although not quite the one you remember.

Table of Contents:

• The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park - (2012) - shortstory by Kage Baker
• The Unfortunate Gytt - (2005) - shortstory by Kage Baker
• The Women of Nell Gwynne's - (2009) - novella by Kage Baker
• Mother Aegypt - (2004) - novella by Kage Baker
• Rude Mechanicals - (2007) - novella by Kage Baker
• Hollywood Ikons - (2013) - shortfiction by Kage Baker and Kathleen Bartholomew

One of the Burgess 99 Best Novels in English Since 1939. A young man who has never flown a plane steals a small aircraft from London Airport and crash lands it in the thames at the suburban community of Shepperton. He is taken in by the towns people as an apocalyptic figure fascination, and in the few days following his recovery he begins to assume certain supernatural powers that transform both the town and its inhabitants. Tropical flora and fauna appear;daily routine is disrupted by wild pan-sexual celebrations; and in their final climax of liberation, the towns people are taught to fly.

The year is 1919.

The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built the guns that won the Great War before it even began. They built the airships that tie the world together. And, above all, they built Evesden-a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer.

But something is rotten at the heart of the city. Deep underground, a trolley car pulls into a station with eleven dead bodies inside. Four minutes before, the victims were seen boarding at the previous station. Eleven men butchered by hand in the blink of an eye. All are dead. And all are union.

Now, one man, Cyril Hayes, must fix this. There is a dark secret behind the inventions of McNaughton and with a war brewing between the executives and the workers, the truth must be discovered before the whole city burns. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must uncover the mystery before it kills him.

When humans set out to explore the universe, they found a number of planets suitable for colonizing. The one thing they didn't find was intelligent life. And so the terraforming of worlds began, with eager immigrant families temporarily housed in space stations till their new home planets were ready. But the technicians made one all-important mistake by introducing the alien Quill to worlds where they did not belong. The Quill were supposed to be destroyed when the crews finished their work, but some survived, multipled, and mutated till they were no longer harmless. They were deadly.

Suddenly mankind was in retreat, leaving colonists stranded in space. In the ensuing chaos many stations failed. For the surviviors, the only hope lay in finding a way to wipe out the Quill. Earth scientist, Dr. Gail Smith, thought one special human, Aaron Pardell, might hold the answer. Found as a baby and raised by a stationer in the "Outsider" settlement that clung to Thromberg Station, Aaron may have survived Quill contact. Still, finding Aaron and winning his help might be the least of Dr. Smith's problems....

Andrew Birch is a Company Man - a spy, a soldier, a saboteur... a corporate terrorist by any other name. He is one of the top operatives for Astradyne, one of the giant corporations that now rule the irradiated world he lives in. Among his peers, his ruthless efficiency and his love for the company are legendary. Then, on a routine mission, a chance encounter puts an all-too-human face on the consequences of corporate rule. As Birch begins to question the world he has helped build, corporate war breaks out - and he now finds himself a pawn in a game that goes deeper than he ever imagined. And Birch begins to wonder if perhaps he has put his faith in the wrong thing...

The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community is the first and most complete examination of the Inklings and their close literary collaboration. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien met each week with a community of fellow writers at Oxford in the 1930s and 1940s, all sharing their works-in-progress.

Diana Pavlac Glyer invites readers into the heart of the group, examining diary entries and personal letters and carefully comparing the rough drafts of their manuscripts with their final, published work. Her discoveries not only demonstrate a high level of mutual influence, but it also provides a lively and compelling picture of how writers and other creative artists challenge, correct, and encourage one another when they work together in community.

A mysterious man appears aboard the Titanic on its doomed voyage, his mission to save the ship. The result of his efforts is a world where the United States never entered World War I, thus launching the secret history of the 20th Century. April 2012. Joseph Kennedy, relation of John F. Kennedy, lives in an America occupied on the East Coast by the Germans and on the West Coast by the Japanese. He is one of six people who can restore history to its rightful order—even though it will mean his own death.

Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need - food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives.

But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for.

For one of them, it seems, has been hiding a terrible secret from the rest of the company. And when the truth begins to emerge, it soon becomes clear that the war is far from over.

With masterful storytelling, irresistible wit, and extraordinary insight into human nature, K.J. Parker is widely acknowledged as one of the most original and exciting fantasy writers of modern times. THE COMPANY, K.J. Parker's first stand-alone novel, is a tour de force from an author who is changing the face of the fantasy genre.

An uproarious new novel in the tradition of Robert Asprin and Terry Pratchett!

For someone who's immortal, Never Dead Ned manages to die with alarming frequency--he just has the annoying habit of rising from the grave. But this soldier might be better dead than face his latest assignment.

Ogre Company is the legion's dumping ground--a motley, undisciplined group of monsters whose leaders tend to die under somewhat questionable circumstances. That's where Ned's rather unique talents come in. As Ogre Company's newly appointed commander, Ned finds himself in charge of such fine examples of military prowess as a moonstruck Amazon, a very big (and very polite) two-headed ogre, a seductively scaly siren, a blind oracle who can hear (and smell) the future, a suicidal goblin daredevil pilot, a walking tree with a chip on its shoulder, and a suspiciously goblinesque orc.

Ned has only six months to whip the Ogre Company into shape or face an even more hideous assignment, but that's not the worst of his problems. Because now that Ned has found out why he keeps returning from dead, he has to do everything he can to stay alive. . . .

In the Company of Ogres does for fantasy, what A. Lee Martinez's previous novel, Gil's All Fright Diner, did for horror--and elves and goblins may never be the same!

Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead.

Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more....

This omnibus edition comprises The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose.

Marching south after the ghastly battle at the Tower of Charm, the Black Company is hounded by shadowy figures every inch of the way.

The game is on: the Company versus the Shadowmasters, deadly creatures that deal in darkness and sorrow.

When hope dies, there's still survival. And there's still the Black Company.

This omnibus edition collects Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, and The Silver Spike.

"Let me tell you who I am, on the chance that these scribblings do survive...."

"I am Murgen, Standardbearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead, One–Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our present predicament to its inevitable end...."

This omnibus volume comprises the novels Bleak Seasons and She is the Darkness.

"Let me tell you who I am, on the chance that these scribblings do survive...."

"I am Murgen, Standardbearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead, One–Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our present predicament to its inevitable end...."

This omnibus volume comprises the novels Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live.

The soldiers of the Black Company don't ask questions, they get paid. But being "The Lady's favored" is attracting the wrong kind of attention and has put a target on their backs--and the Company's historian, Croaker, has the biggest target of all.

The one person who was taken into The Lady's Tower and returned unchanged has earned the special interest of the court of sorcerers known as The Ten Who Were Taken. Now, he and the company are being asked to seek the aid of their newest member, Mischievous Rain, to break a rebel army. However, Croaker doesn't trust any of the Taken, especially not ones that look so much like The Lady and her sister...

Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hardbitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead.

Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more.

There must be a way for The Black Company to find her...

Crater Trueblood has to rescue his ex-girlfriend... and the entire human race.

Maria Medaris is the 21-year-old matriarch of the most powerful family on the moon--gorgeous, powerful, and high-maintenance. When she is kidnapped by green-lipped, gene-splicing scientists, Maria's only hope turns out to be the very man she once spurned: Crater Trueblood.

Crater and the Lunar Rescue Company must rescue Maria before she joins forces with the lunatics who have taken her hostage and aim to make her queen.

Turns out more than Maria is at stake: the planet Earth, majestically hanging over the lunar horizon, is in the crosshairs of an asteroid engineered by Maria's abductors. If Crater can't stop it, humanity on Earth will be destroyed.

The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance... and the clock is ticking.

Behold Demetrios!

With the same rich imagination and dazzling insights that won him the International Fantasy Award, Edgar Pangborn weaves a magical tapestry set far in man's future.

It is a time when man, struggling to rise above the ashes of nuclear holocaust, has returned to the simpler values and lifestyle of medieval times. And in this society, Demetrios the storyteller is revered among men for his captivating tales of the Old Time, with its miraculous Telephones, and Jet Planes, and TV, and Automobiles. But Demetrios is also feared - for one storyteller with a head full of ancient truth can be dangerous.

So Demetrios is forced to flee, with six compatriots, and together they embark on a journey full of unexpected sorrows, and unimagined delights, a journey through realms of fantasy, philosophy, and rich human possibility, which the reader will be delighted and privileged to share.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Silver Gryphon (2003), edited by Marty Halpern and Gary Turner. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 9 (2004), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and The Time Traveler's Almanac (2014), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. The story is included in the collection Gods and Pawns (2007).

This collection brings together the early Company stories in one volume for the first time with three previously unpublished works, including 'The Queen in Yellow', written exclusively for this compilation. In these tales sci-fi fans follow the secret activities of the Company's field agents -- once human, now centuries-old time-travelling immortal cyborgs -- as they attempt to retrieve history's lost treasures. Botanist Mendoza's search for the rare hallucinogenic Black Elysium grape in 1844 Spanish-held Santa Barbara, facilitator Joseph's dreamlike solicitation of the ailing Robert Louis Stevenson in 1879, and marine salvage specialist Kalugin's recovering of an invaluable Eugene Delacroix painting from a sunken yacht off the coast of Los Angeles in 1894 are included.

These eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company. The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. "Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten's role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. Other stories include "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in eighteenth century England. Gods and Pawns is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts.

Table of Contents

• To the Land Beyond the Sunset - (2007) - novella
• The Catch - (2004) - novelette
• The Angel in the Darkness - (2003) - novella
• Standing in His Light - (2001) - novelette
• A Night on the Barbary Coast - (2003) - short story
• Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst - (2003) - novella
• Hellfire at Twilight - (2007) - novelette

This novelette originally appeared in the collection Gods and Pawns (2007). It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Fast Forward 1 (2007), edited by Lou Anders. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 13 (2008), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Space Opera (2014), edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

The year is 1934, the scene is a Wood Near Athens -- temporarily relocated to the environs of the Hollywood Bowl, as German theater impresario Max Reinhardt attempts to stage his famous production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fortunately for Reinhardt, he has immortal assistance in the person of Literature Specialist Lewis, a cyborg working undercover for Dr. Zeus Incorporated, masters of time travel. Lewis is tasked with preserving Reinhardt's promptbooks for future Company profits at auction. Unfortunately for Reinhardt, there are complications... For Joseph, Lewis's fellow cyborg, is on the case as well, attempting to salvage a botched mission of his own. It involves the lost treasure of the Cahuenga Pass, a missing diamond, a third-century pope, burglary, disguises, car chases, and a legendary Hollywood party spot. All of which interact, more or less disastrously, with Lewis's mission and Reinhardt's Shakespearean extravaganza. Will the show go on?

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1999. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), edited Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Sturgeon Award winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella.

There were three Empresses of Mars. The first one was a bar at the Settlement. The second was the lady who ran the bar; though her title was strictly informal, having been bestowed on her by the regular customers, and her domain extended no further than the pleasantly gloomy walls of the only place you could get beer on the Tharsis Bulge. The third one was the Queen of England.

The story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2003 and appeared as a chapbook later that year. It is included in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan. It was later expanded into the novel The Empress of Mars (2009).

Listen to the author read this story at Green Man Review.

This short story originally appeared in the collection Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (2002). It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Futures Past (2006), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.

This novella originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2003. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Gods and Pawns (2007) and The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Growing up anywhere is hard, but it may be hardest of all on Mars. Bill is twelve Earth years old. He was the third boy born on the red planet. Ford is six Mars years old. He was the second.

This novella originally appeared in the anthology Escape from Earth: New Adventures in Space (2006), edited by Jack Dann and Garnder Dozois, and was published as a standalone limited-edition chapbook by Subterranean Press (2013). It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois, Best Short Novels: 2007, edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year's Best Science Fiction (2019), edited by Gardner Dozois.

In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. She is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden.

But while there, she meets Nicholas Harpole, with whom she falls in love. And that love sounds great bells of change that will echo down the centuries, and through the succeeding novels of The Company.

Facilitator Joseph has outlasted entire civilizations during his twenty-thousand years of service to Dr. Zeus, the twenty-fourth century Company that created immortal operatives like him to preserve history and culture. The year is 1699 and Joseph is now in Alta California, to imitate an ancient Native-American Coyote god, and save the native Chumash from the white Europeans.He has the help of the Botanist Mendoza, who hasn't gotten over the death of her lover Nicholas, in Elizabethan England.

Lately though, Joseph has started to have a few doubts about The Company. There are whispers about the year 2355, about operatives that suddenly go missing. Time is running out for Joseph, which is ironic considering he's immortal, but no one ever said that it was easy being a god.

In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life, for profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth century Hollywood in the days of D.W. Griffith, and then Mendoza is in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man that looks disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.

Mendoza is a Preserver for The Dr. Zeus Company, living in the past to collect species for the future. But when she kills six people in California in 1863, The Company makes her disappear.

Joseph, a senior Preserver, loves Mendoza as the daughter he never had. Drunk on chocolate and fueled by rage, he's determined to find her however long it takes. Being an indestructible, immortal cyborg gives him an unlimited well of patience.

What begins as a rescue mission uncovers a conspiracy stretching across fifty centuries of recorded history. Behind it lie genocide, graveyards filled with Company agents, and the roots of the ominous Silence that falls across the world in 2355.

From idea to flesh to myth, this is the story of Alec Checkerfield: Seventh Earl of Finsbury, pirate, renegade, hero, anomaly, Mendoza's once and future love.

Mendoza is a Preserver, which means that she's sent back from the twenty-fourth century by Dr. Zeus, Incorporated - the Company - to recover things from the past which would otherwise be lost. She's a botanist, a good one. She's an immortal, indestructible cyborg. And she's a woman in love.

In sixteenth century England, Mendoza fell for a native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. He died a martyr's death, burned at the stake. In nineteenth century America, Mendoza fell for an eerily identical native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. When he died, she killed six men to avenge him.

The Company didn't like that - bad for business. But she's immortal and indestructible, so they couldn't hurt her. Instead, they dumped her in the Back Way Back.

Meanwhile, back in the future, three eccentric geniuses sit in a parlor at Oxford University and play at being the new Inklings, the heirs of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Working for Dr. Zeus, they create heroic stories and give them flesh, myths in blood and DNA to protect the future from the World to Come, the fearsome Silence that will fall on the world in 2355. They create a hero, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality.

"Now," stranded 150,000 years in the past, there are no natives for Mendoza to fall in love with. She tends a garden of maize, and she pines for the man she lost, twice. For Three. Thousand. Years.

Then, one day, out of the sky and out of the future comes a renegade, a timefaring pirate, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality. This is the beginning of the end.

Take a ride through time with the devil. In the sixth book of the Company series, we meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus. He's used his immortal centuries to plot a complete takeover of the world since he was a young god-figure in Sumeria.

In a meditative mood, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion of the Company black project ADONAI. He considers also Aegeus, his despised rival for power, who has discovered and captured a useful race of mortals known as Homo sapiens umbratilis. Their unique talents may enable him to seize ultimate power.

Labienus plans a double cross that will kill two birds with one stone: he will woo away Aegeus promising protege, the Facilitator Victor, and at the same time dispose of a ghost from his own past who has become inconvenient. The Hugo-nominated novella Son Observe The Time, telling that part of the story, is included here in its entirety. Fans of the series will love this book, and new readers will be enthralled.

Kage Baker's trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to The Life of the World to Come.

Mendoza was banished long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are "dealt with." Now her past lovers: Alec, Nicholas, and Bell-Fairfax, are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec's body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.

The Kage Baker novel everyone has been waiting for: the conclusion to the story of Mendoza and The Company.

In The Sons of Heaven, the forces gathering to seize power finally move on the Company. The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters.

Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha-Omega, vital to the mortals’ survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants. And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr Zeus.

Filled with great climaxes, wonderful surprises, and gripping characters many readers have grown to love or hate, The Sons of Heaven is a triumph of SF.

When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get. Outcasts, misfits and dreamers emigrated in droves to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold red planet--only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn't turn a profit on Mars.

This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It's the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan, of the denizens of the Martian Motel, and of the machinations of another Company entirely, all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. But Mary and her struggles and triumphs is at the center of it all, in her bar, the Empress of Mars.

Based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same name, this is a rollicking novel of action, planetary romance, and high adventure.

Listen to the author read the novella version of this story at Green Man Review.

Recently returned from war, young Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax is grateful to be taken under the wing of the Gentleman's Speculative Society. At the Society, Edward soon learns that a secret world flourishes beneath the surface of London's society, a world of wondrous and terrible inventions and devices used to tip the balance of power in a long-running game of high-stakes intrigue. Through his intensive training Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, unwanted and lonely boy, becomes Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, Victorian super-assassin, fleeing across the Turkish countryside in steam-powered coaches and honing his fighting skills against clockwork opponents.

As Edward travels across Europe with a team of companions, all disguised as gentleman dandies on tour, he learns more about himself and the curious abilities he is gradually developing. He begins to wonder if there isn't more going on than simple international intrigue, and if he and his companions are maybe part of a political and economic game stretching through the centuries. But, in the end, is it a game he can bring himself to play?

Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, the idealistic assassin. Perhaps the most dangerous man alive.

First in an epic, gritty trilogy from the hottest new voice in British fantasy.

It is a time of darkness. The last magic of the dead gods is on the wane. Demons and half-formed monsters plague the land as the final barriers between the realms begin to fail. The jealous Magelords of three great cities sit in their towers of stone and brood over the scant power that remains...

It is not a time of heroes. Their songs are long forgotten, their deeds go unwritten.

But, even now, some few still nurse a spark of hope, an unlikely fellowship, united against the tyranny of their immortal overlords - THE GRIM COMPANY.

It is the Age of Ruin, a time in desperate need of heroes. But heroes are in short supply. The only candidates - a motley company at best - are scattered to the four winds.

Former rebel Sasha has now become an unwilling envoy between the powerful. Eremul the Halfmage languishes in disgrace, his warnings of approaching war falling on deaf ears. Yllandris, sorceress of the High Fangs, servant to a demon lord, has become that which she most despises. Davarus Cole, assassin of the immortal, lies on the brink of death. The legendary champion Brodar Kayne carves a bloody path towards his enemy of old in search of the woman he thought dead...

In this, the second blistering instalment of Luke Scull's critically acclaimed trilogy THE GRIM COMPANY, past and present collide, plunging the Age of Ruin further into darkness...

In the City of Towers, former rebel Sasha and her comrade Davarus Cole struggle to keep the peace between the warring mages who vie for dominion. But when the White Lady sends Davarus south to the Shattered Realms to seek allies among the fallen kingdoms, he finds that his hardest battle may be one fought within. The godly essence now residing within him offers power that could be used against the Fade--but with every death that feeds It, Cole risks losing a part of himself.

An association with a Fade officer grants the Halfmage Eremul a position of privilege among Dorminia's new masters. He witnesses firsthand the fate that awaits humanity. But with his magic pitiful in the face of the Fade's advanced technology, the Halfmage must rely on his wits alone to save whom he can...

And in the frozen north, the legendary warrior Brodar Kayne fights a desperate battle for his people. He is running out of time: an ancient evil sealed beneath the mountains is about to break free, an evil that is older than humanity, older than the Fade, older even than the gods--and it will not stop until the entire world is drowned in blood...