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Overview
SCIENCE AND SORCERY DO NOT MIX-EXCEPT ON GRAMARYE
Skeptical, cynical Rod Gallowglass is a spacefaring man of science who does not believe in magic. He's also an operative of the agency SCENT, tasked with finding lost colony planets, then guiding them toward democracy and eventual membership in the galactic community.
But when he stumbles across the strange new planet Gramarye, he's shocked to discover a medieval society full of witches and warlocks, elves and monsters. How is it even possible? Worse, Rod's advanced technology quickly gets him labeled a warlock, despite his constant denials.
Moreover, the Kingdom is in political turmoil, with a young girl-queen on the brink of civil war with her rebellious lords. Rod slowly discovers off-world organizations are behind the unrest, trying to subtly corrupt Gramarye away from democratic rule. His mission is threatened at every turn by fascists, anarchists, and double-dealing royalists playing vicious political power games for the future of the most unique-and perhaps most important-planet in the galaxy.
Aided only by a coven of teenage witches, a ragtag army of beggars, and his epileptic robot horse Fess, Rod decides the only way to thwart these destructive influences-both native and off-planet-is for him to become a part of the local fabric and lead Gramarye as one of their own. But to do so, Rod Gallowglass must put aside his own convictions and beliefs, and become a warlock, in spite of himself.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781953215734 |
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Publisher: | Stasheff Literary Enterprises |
Publication date: | 11/27/2023 |
Series: | Warlock of Gramarye , #1 |
Pages: | 260 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The asteroid hurtled in from Capricorn, nosed around a G-type sun, swerved off toward the fifth planet. Such a trajectory is somewhat atypical for asteroids.
It slapped into the planet’s gravity net, swooped around the globe three times in three separate orbits, then stabbed into atmosphere, a glorious shooting star.
At a hundred feet altitude it paused, then snapped to the surface—but only to the surface. No fireworks, no crater—nothing more drastic than crushed grass. Its surface was scarred and pitted, blackened by the friction-heat of its fall; but it was intact.
Deep within its bowels echoed the words that would change the planet’s destiny.
“Damn your bolt-brained bearings!”
The voice broke off; its owner frowned, listening.
The cabin was totally silent, without its usual threshold hum.
The young man swore, tearing the shock webbing from his body. He lurched out of the acceleration chair, balanced dizzily on the balls of his feet, groping till his hand touched the plastic wall.
Steadying himself with one hand, he stumbled to a panel on the other side of the circular cabin. He fumbled the catches loose, cursing in the fine old style of galactic deckhands, opened the panel, pressed a button. Turning, he all but fell back to the chair.
The soft hum awoke in the cabin again. A slurred voice asked, with varying speed and pitch, “Izzz awwl (Hic!) sadizfagtoreee …. M’lorrrr’ Rodney?”
“All the smooth, glossy robots in the galaxy,” muttered Milord, “and I get stuck with an epileptic!”
“Ivv ut bleeezz m’lorr’, thuh c’paider c’n be—”12
“Replaced,” finished Rodney, “and your circuits torn out and redesigned. No, thank you, I like your personality the way it is—except when you pull off a landing that jars my clavicles loose!”
“Ivv m’lorrd will vorgive, ad thuh cruzhial momend ovvv blanetfall, I rezeived zome very zingular radio waves thad—”
“You got distracted, is that what you’re trying to say?”
“M’lorrrd, id was imerative to analyze—”
“So part of you was studying the radio waves, and part of you was landing the ship, which was just a wee bit too much of a strain, and the weak capacitor gave …. Fess! How many times do I have to tell you to keep your mind on the job!”
“M’lorrd egzbressed a wizh to be like thuh—”
“Like the heroes of the Exploration Sagas, yes. But that doesn’t mean I want their discomforts.”
Fess’s electronic system had almost recovered from the post-seizure exhaustion. “But, m’lorrd, the choncebt of heeroizm imblies—”
“Oh, forget it,” Rodney groaned. Fess dutifully blanked a portion of his memory banks.
Fess was very dutiful. He was also an antique, one of the few remaining FCC (Faithful Cybernetic Companion) robots, early models now two thousand years out of date. The FCC robots had been programmed for extreme loyalty and, as a consequence, had perished in droves while defending their masters during the bloody Interregnum between the collapse of the ancient Galactic Union and the rise of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra.
Fess (a name derived from trying to pronounce “FCC” as a single word) had survived, thanks to his epilepsy. He had a weak capacitor that, when overstrained, released all its stored energy in a massive surge lasting several milli-seconds. When the preliminary symptoms of this electronic seizure—mainly a fuzziness in Fess’s calculations—appeared, a master circuit breaker popped, and the faulty capacitor discharged in isolation from the rest of Fess’s circuits; but the robot was out of commission until the circuit breaker was reset.
Since the seizures occurred during moments of great stress—such as trying to land a spaceship-cum-asteroid while analyzing an aberrant radio wave, or trying to protect a master from three simultaneous murderers— Fess had survived the Interregnum; for, when the Proletarians had attacked his masters, he had fought manfully for about twenty-five seconds, then collapsed. He had thus become a rarity—the courageous servant who had survived. He was one of five FCC robots still functioning.