Soul Catcher (30 page)

Dune: House Corrino
—Fearful of losing
his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor
of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an
alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium
together and that can be found only on the desert world of
Dune.

In subterranean labs on the machine planet
Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a
horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as
amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give
Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.

Three previously uncollected stories set in
the Dune universe by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson,
includes the all-new tale “Wedding Silk,” a story of young Paul
Atreides, as well as “Sea Child” and “Treasure in the Sand.” Bonus
material includes “Dune: Blood and Water” and “Dune: Fremen
Justice.”

by Bill
Ransom

The Ascension
Factor
(with Frank Herbert)

Pandora’s humans have been recovering land
from its raging seas at an accelerated pace since
The Lazarus
Effect
. The great kelp of the seas, sentient but electronically
manipulated by humans, buffers Pandora’s wild currents to restore
land and facilitate the booming sea trade. New settlements rise
overnight, but children starve in their shadows. An orbiting
assembly station is near completion of Project Voidship, which is
the hope of many for finding a better world.

Pandora is under the fist of an ambitious
clone from hibernation called The Director, who rules with a
sadistic security force led by the assassin Spider Nevi. Small
resistance groups, like the one led by Twisp Queets and Ben Ozette,
have had little effect on his absolute power. The Director controls
the transportation of foodstuffs; uprisings are punished with
starvation.

The resistance fighters’ main hope is Crista
Galli, a woman believed by some to be the child of God. Crista
pools her talents with Dwarf MacIntosh, Beatriz Tatoosh, and Rico
LaPush to transcend the barriers between the different species and
overthrow The Director and the sinister cabal with which he
rules.

Book 3 in Herbert & Ransom’s Pandora
Sequence.

A vivid and gritty thriller in the vein of
Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy, BURN takes today’s genetic
research one step into a terrifying future, a “Hot Zone” world gone
mad about a man-made contagion that literally leaves no one
untouched. It is called GenoVax, and the death it brings is
horrifying. It is the most frightening weapon mankind has ever
created, and when it is unleashed, the human race will know what it
is like to burn. . . . From the author of
Jaguar
and
ViraVax
and the coauthor, with Frank Herbert, of
The
Jesus Incident
.

In waking life, he is a combat vet with a
mysterious sleep disorder, confined to a VA hospital bed. When he
sleeps, he roams the plains of another world, invading the minds of
the people as they dream and forcing them to do his will. They call
him . . . Jaguar.

In both worlds, there are those who know the
Jaguar’s secret. They are learning to link their minds across the
void between worlds, following the dreampaths the Jaguar
created—all the way back to where his body lies helpless . . . an
easy target for their justice.

The Jesus Incident
(with Frank Herbert)

A sentient Ship with godlike powers (and
aspirations) delivers the last survivors of humanity to a horrific,
poisonous planet, Pandora—rife with deadly Nerve-Runners, Hooded
Dashers, airborne jellyfish, and intelligent kelp.
Chaplain/Psychiatrist Raja Lon Flattery is brought back out of
hybernation to witness Ship’s machinations as well as the schemes
of human scientists manipulating the genetic structure of humanity.
Sequel to Frank Herbert’s
Destination: Void
.

Book 1 in Herbert & Ransom’s Pandora
Sequence.

The Lazarus Effect
(with Frank Herbert)

In
The Jesus Incident
Herbert and
Ransom introduced Ship, an artificial intelligence that believed it
was God, abandoning its unworthy human cargo on the all-sea world
of Pandora. Now centuries have passed. The descendants of humanity,
split into Mermen and Islanders, must reunite … because Pandora’s
original owner is returning to life!

Book 2 in Herbert & Ransom’s Pandora
Sequence.

In the private laboratory known as ViraVax,
Rico Toledo has uncovered a horrifying truth. In this place, run by
a mysterious group called the Children of Eden, the worst
suspicions of ex-intelligence officer Toledo have been confirmed:
his partner has been genetically programmed for assassination—and
Toledo may have been altered too.

by Kevin J.
Anderson

“Alternitech” sends prospectors into
alternate but similar timelines where tiny differences yield
significant changes: a world where the Beatles never broke up, or
where Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t gunned down after the Kennedy
assassination, where an accidental medical breakthrough offers the
cure to a certain disease, where a struggling author really did
write the great American novel, or where a freak accident reveals
the existence of a serial killer. Alternitech finds those
differences—and profits from them.

Atlas is a struggling colony on an untamable
world, a fragile society held together by the Truthsayers.
Parentless, trained from birth as the sole users of Veritas, a
telepathy virus that lets them read the souls of the guilty.
Truthsayers are Justice—infallible, beyond appeal.

But sometimes they are wrong.

Falsely accused of murder, Troy Boren trusts
the young Truthsayer Kalliana . . . until, impossibly, she convicts
him. Still shaken from a previous reading, Kalliana doesn’t realize
her power is fading. But soon the evidence becomes impossible to
ignore. The Truthsayers’ Veritas has been diluted and someone in
the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. Justice isn’t blind—it’s
been
blinded
.

From an immortal’s orbital prison to the
buried secrets of a regal fortress, Kalliana and Troy seek the
conspiracy that threatens to destroy their world from within. For
without truth and justice, Atlas will certainly fall. . . .

They were prisoners, exiles, pawns of a
corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek’s
adin
,
surgically transformed beings who can survive new lives on the
surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to
breathe Earth’s air. And they are still pawns.

For the
adin
exist to terraform Mars
for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they
will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate,
adin
leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to
sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a
glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel
Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race
she created.

A chilling story cowritten with
Rush
drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. A rock drummer bicycling through
the African wilderness encounters a village that makes very special
drums. This one will make your heart skip a beat. Includes essays
by Neil Peart and by Kevin J. Anderson.

Alien Landscapes
1

Collection of four science fiction tales
from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction
by the author. Includes: “Landscapes,” “Fondest of Memories,”
“Controlled Experiments,” and “Human, Martian—One, Two, Three.”

Alien Landscapes
2

Four science fiction tales from the mind of
Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author.
Includes: “Collaborators” (written with Rebecca Moesta), “Good Old
Days,” “Job Qualifications,” and “Prisoner of War.”

Dark Labyrinth
1

Four dark fantasy tales from the mind of
Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author.
Includes: “Final Performance,” “Special Makeup,” “Much at Stake,”
and “The Sum of His Parts.”

Dark Labyrinth
2

Four dark fantasy tales from the mind of
Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author.
Includes: “New Recruits,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Get You,”
“Splinter” (written with Rebecca Moesta), and “Redmond’s Private
Screening.”

Fantastic Realms
1

Four fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J.
Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes:
“Loincloth” (written with Rebecca Moesta), “Frog Kiss,” “Short
Straws,” and “Technomagic.”

Fantastic Realms
2

Four fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J.
Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes:
“The Old Man & the Cherry Tree,” “The Ghost of Christmas
Always,” “Sea Wind,” and “Sea Dreams” (written with Rebecca
Moesta).

Gamearth
—It was supposed to be just
another Sunday night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone,
Scott, and Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become
so real that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres,
panther-folk, cyclops—now had existences of their own. And when the
four outside players decide to end their game, the characters
inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few
remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from
vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own
magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from
the evil that the players created to destroy their entire
world.

Gameplay
—It was written in the Rules:
Save the World! Over the past two years, a group of four players
had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed
a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all
had come alive. And now there is an odd connection between the
gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine
the fate of the Game itself and both the inside and the outside
worlds.

Game’s End
—It’s all-out war between
the players and characters in a role-playing game that has taken on
a life of its own. The fighter Delrael, the sorcerer Bryl, and
famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein, use every trick in the
Book of Rules to keep the world of Gamearth intact while the
outside group of players does everything possible to destroy
it.

Gamearth Trilogy
1:
Gamearth

It was supposed to be just another Sunday
night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone, Scott, and
Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become so real
that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres,
panther-folk, cyclops—now had existences of their own. And when the
four outside players decide to end their game, the characters
inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few
remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from
vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own
magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from
the evil that the players created to destroy their entire
world.

Gamearth Trilogy
2:
Gameplay

The Gamearth Trilogy continues. It was
written in the Rules—Save the World! Over the past two years, a
group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world
that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors,
sorcerers, thieves—all had come alive. And now there is an odd
connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into
factions to determine the fate of the Game itself and both the
inside and the outside worlds.

Gamearth Trilogy
3:
Game’s End

The finale to the Gamearth Trilogy. It’s
all-out war between the players and characters in a role-playing
game that has taken on a life of its own. The fighter Delrael, the
sorcerer Bryl, as well as famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein,
use every trick in the Book of Rules to keep the world of Gamearth
intact while the outside group of players does everything possible
to destroy it.

An original, standalone story in the TERRA
INCOGNITA universe: A prester in search of penance accepts an
assignment to the rugged Soeland Islands, but he must confront his
faith after he is cast overboard and then rescued by a mythical
creature that the Scriptures tell him cannot exist. BONUS: Also
contains the complete story and lyrics (written by Kevin J.
Anderson & Rebecca Moesta) for the two TERRA INCOGNITA
crossover rock CDs performed by
Roswell Six
.

In the future, the dead walk the
streets—Resurrection, Inc. found a profitable way to do it. A
microprocessor brain, synthetic heart, artificial blood, and a
fresh corpse can return as a Servant for anyone with the price.
Trained to obey any command, Servants have no minds of their own,
no memories of their past lives.