Kirjahaku

Leiyatel, the once-invincible power of the vast and ancient castle realm of Dica, has long been weakening, leaving the castle to slumber on through its twilight years. Only the inevitable fall of the realm lies ahead. As the king has lost his mind, who can then be expected to defend it when a wholly unexpected invasion threatens, and when no one can even remember when Dica last had any need of an army?This story follows those idiosyncratically unique characters who rise to the challenge, who seek a solution amidst the vast and convoluted spread of the castle, and in so doing, uncover much about Dica's history and about themselves. They also discover that there may very well be a way of renewing Leiyatel, and so restoring Dica.Their journey proves far from straightforward, though, full of surprising twists and turns, and all within a world rich in the awe-inspiring and the downright weird. From vast vistas to exquisite detail, the castle and its realm are brought vividly to life, as though the reader has walked through its wonders in the company of close friends.Although largely a tale of mystery, it's also laced with constant surprises: the conflict between man and nature, the often wry and ironic clash of monarchy and republic, and the humour, pain and pathos of characters at odds with each other or touchingly close. In a subtle and enchanting way, it explores much of the mystery of life itself.This is most certainly an epic tale, a tale that ineluctably draws to a thrilling, strange, and totally surprising climax. A tale that will enthral, and that will stay with the reader for a long time-a very long time, indeed.

This fifth volume in the Dica series starts out with Prescinda Sodbuster, leaving behind her unhappy marriage and the fishing village of Grayden, on her way back to her old family home of Blisteraising Farm. But before she can board the coachbank, Lord Nephril turns up out of the blue, carrying a mysterious request he's reluctant to explain.It's something to do with the miraculous mirage that's occasionally seen from the viewing gallery at the Scarra Face. That, and the need Falmeard has of Prescinda's unique view on life. But she has no idea that a dangerous journey lies ahead: a race to the discovery of some uncomfortable truths about the Realm of Dica and its people. What they find is a hidden threat within Dica, putting not only the castle and its inhabitants at risk, but the very survival of all of life itself.Can Prescinda, Nephril and Falmeard unearth the threat, then expose it and banish it for ever? And by it, return Dica to its original purpose, as the founding fathers had long ago envisaged through the artist's eye?

It's 1976, and hippie student Colin and his new girlfriend, Kate, begin their life together during that heatwave summer. But something-or someone-intrudes into Colin's mind and won't go away. It leads them to unwind an extraordinary tale, taking them back to events some 500 years ago, to Jusuf, Rodrigo and Gwenna.Who are they, though, and what is their link with Colin and Kate? And what's the sinister mystery at the heart of their story that threatens the very existence of Colin and Kate's own world? A fresh and original time-slip novel of romance, revenge, religion, and redemption, where twentieth-century England's North West and fifteenth-century Cornwall are unforgettably evoked with colour, richness and wit. If you like beautifully engrossing tales of mystery and intrigue, you will love The Forebear's Candle.Created by master storyteller Clive S. Johnson, author of An Handfull of England (Historical Fiction), Solem (Fantasy) and Beyond Ever Blue Skies (Science Fiction), and the six volumes of the Realm of Dica Series (Fantasy).

This second book in the Dica Series, Of Weft and Weave, takes up where Leiyatel's Embrace left off-but nearly two-thousand years into that ending's new future. To a time when an army of Nouwelm has long been overdue setting foot south of the Gray Mountains. A time when the Certain Power, Leiyatel, is again drawing close to her end. And when Lord Nephril's long wilderness years are also set to be drawn to their own end by a strange message delivered by the maverick Galgaverran, Pettar Garradish. Written in the old Bazarran language, no longer remembered by the ancient and ailing Nephril, he and Pettar begin a quest to discover the meaning of the message. This takes them first to the nefarious Bazarral district of Yuhlm, where they search out Nephril's old acquaintance, Melkin Mudark. There, they find Yuhlm to have been greatly changed over recent years-on the cusp of a new mechanicking age, promising a rebirth of the ingenuity of the original ancient Bazarran people. But Nephril is rapidly declining, ill equipped for the rigours of any quest other than the reinvigoration of his own weft and weave of Leiyatel. And so begins a journey of many ambitions, as the tale weaves its way through political upheavals and vested interests, on the way to rediscovering the essential riches of knowledge long ago secreted away beyond the Gray Mountains. Can a way be found to save Leiyatel? To complete Nephril's newfound purpose? To satisfy all the needs of those drawn into the quest's long and arduous travails? Life, though, has a habit of surprising-no less so than in the quite literally wonderful Castle Realm of Dica...and beyond.

The third book in the Dica Series, Last True World, continues some thirty years after Of Weft and Weave concluded, when Lord Nephril's decision at the Farewell Gap to leave Leiyatel to waste away has brought hard times to the realm. Nephril's belief in the mysterious ancient poem, the Aoide tar Degan, may have convinced him that Dica should be returned to Nature's balance, and with it a welcome end to his immortality, but there are those who firmly believe he was wrong.A way to return a vigorous Leiyatel, and so save the realm, comes to light, but it requires her remains to seed her replacement, something only one man can set in motion - Nephril himself. Can he be persuaded? Against his firm belief that Leiyatel has become a monster, and with the prospect this would bring of his continued immortality, can he be brought to deny Nature's right to repossess the once mighty Realm of Dica?What unfolds is a series of revelations, not just about how the realm and its idiosyncratic characters have reached where they are, but a frightening realisation of what the castle realm and its mountain location really are, and their place in a far greater purpose.

This fourth volume in the Dica series continues Falmeard's tale, some six years after Last True World finally saw the realm seemingly made safe. But he begins to lose his memory, and his and Geran's idyllic life together at Blisteraising Farm comes under threat.Little does Geran's sister Prescinda know, but this is the first sign of something the ancient engers considered so implausible that the idea only survived in an obscure verse. It seems that this age-old poem is to prove an omen: that the days of the Cold Angel have now come upon the realm; a dire threat to its very future.Prescinda sets out to help save Falmeard and Geran's love from falling apart, eventually finding herself at a strange tower, where she meets an even stranger man. She's drawn inexorably into the heart of a mystery that ultimately threatens to destroy Falmeard himself. Now, a painful dilemma is set before Prescinda: to weigh the only love her sister has ever known against a duty to save the realm.

This sixth and final volume of the Dica series joins Stella, daughter of Falmeard and Geran, as an acolyth starmaker; creating new stars, and thereby order in the greater world, from the top of the Star Tower. But Stella has grown up harbouring a secret: a view of the world seen from beyond Castle Dica's walls, a view that everyone else refuses to see. When she resolves to find out why, there begins another enthralling, and this time concluding, episode in this much loved created-world's turbulent history. Stella, though, could never have envisaged what she was about to uncover; about herself, her own Sodbuster family, and the true nature of Leiyatel: the realm's ancient protector. Nor could she have anticipated the mortal threat to her life that then unfolds before her. Nor the finding of rare love in the most unexpected of places. But what ultimately drives her on is her passion to deliver freedom to the realm's inhabitants, even at the cost of her own freedom - and as it brings her life to hang by a thinner and thinner thread. And what of Nature and her ineluctable drive towards chaos? Can Stella balance all these conflicting demands in her challenge to the realm's established order, when she's only one young woman set against the might of the Certain Power of Dica?

The world of The Green forbids demons. They have always been sent away whilst still young children, over the river to an unknown fate...until Janeen. Ignorant of her true nature, she unwittingly bewitches the folk of her forest village until, on the cusp of womanhood, the inevitable finally happens. As a young woman demon, she soon brings chaos to the ordered ways on the other side, and with it profound consequences not only for herself, but for her previously unchanging world. She may not know what she really is, but the wonder that makes her a demon finally brings back something long lost to the preservation of a fragile Earth; something far vaster than anyone could ever have imagined.

Morgan is a lecy-eng, one of an elite group that has responsibility for maintaining the vital systems of Rundkern. When a circuit in Agri-Prod is suspected of being responsible for a valuable crop's sickening state, Morgan gets to discover more about the lowly agri-engs than he ever imagined.His tale becomes one of intrigue, love and an unexpected but frankly unbelievable discovery. But before Morgan knows it, he's committed himself to agri-eng Stephanie and her own people's long-held hopes about a place that seems to him little more than a pie-in-the-sky dream. Can there really be a "Promised Land", and if so, will it ultimately snatch Stephanie from him? For the Promised Land is somewhere to which no lecy-eng can ever journey. But then, nor can Morgan be left behind alive in Rundkern knowing of its existence. A gripping SF story from a master storyteller, author of the SF/Fantasy novels "Solem" and the six volumes of the "Realm of Dica" series: all "Beautifully written books with deep, rich and unexpected tales told so engrossingly well".