Showing results by narrator "John Banks" in All Categories

The Cadian Gate is broken, and the Imperium is riven in two. The might of the Traitor Legions, kept shackled for millennia behind walls of iron and sorcery, has been unleashed on a darkening galaxy. Among those seeking vengeance on the Corpse Emperor’s faltering realm are the Death Guard, once proud crusaders of the Legiones Astartes, now debased creatures of terror and contagion.

War rages in the Caradryad Sector. Worlds are falling to madness and rebellion, and the great war machine of the Imperium is moving to counter the threat. Amongst its agents is Inquisitor Covenant. Puritan, psyker, expert swordsman, he reserves an especial hatred for those of his order who would seek to harness the power of Ruin as a weapon. Summoned to an inquisitorial conclave, Covenant believes he has uncovered such a misguided agent and prepares to denounce the heretic Talicto before his fellows.

A meteor-like alien object lands on Earth, spearheading an apocalyptic chain of events. Earth has been watched, and now the aliens have landed and their intent is conquest and war...H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, the first story to speculate about the consequences of aliens (from Mars) with superior technology landing on earth, is one of the most influential science fiction books ever written.

It begins with just a few people falling ill. Another flu virus that spreads around the globe. And then the reports begin that people are dying.... When most of the world's population is wiped out, a handful of survivors are left to pick up the pieces. Cities become graveyards. Technology becomes largely obsolete. Mankind must start again....

The third novel in the highly acclaimed Books of Babel series, set in a labyrinthine world of menace and wonder. On the orders of the mysterious Sphinx, Thomas Senlin and his crew are dragged ever further into the Tower's conspiracies. Meanwhile, the hods climb the Black Trail in darkness and whisper of their king.  

Darkness approaches Dominicus Prime, a literal Season of Night that brings with it portents, madness and strange happenings. Standing alone as a beacon against the darkness is the Monastery of the Last Candle, a temple to the holy light of the Emperor. As the bishops and the cardinals vie for power and influence, a crisis looms among the Pilgrim Drift who are starving in their droves. Discord is rife, and there are whispers of a rising cult, one committed to blood and horror.

King Uthar has been defeated in the Frozen Continent. Wounded, he retreats to Norghania to regroup his forces and shield himself behind the walls of the capital. Lasgol and his friends will try to pass the fourth and final year of instruction and graduate as Rangers on their own merits. To do this they will have to take part in deeply dangerous missions and help the king against the invaders.

The Snow Panthers will have to take on their biggest challenge yet. One that can kill them and half the continent. A new powerful enemy is trying to return to the world of the living after a thousand years in an ice prison. This one is not like any other enemy that the Panthers have confronted. This enemy is a Dragon. An immortal king. Will they manage to survive this new and incredibly powerful enemy? Will they save Tremia from it?

In the age of the Dark Imperium, Primarch Guilliman’s Primaris Ultramarines are a shining beacon in the darkness of war. On the Imperial Hive World of Ikara IX, Chaplain Kastor and Apothecary Polixis, brothers in blood as well as in battle, stand firm against the endless Greenskin horde. But a threat is looming. An invasion like no other assaults the broken city of Shebat, as the crazed warlord Urgork arrives to lay waste to the Imperial forces and capture a Primaris Marine for his own twisted ends. 

Forced by necessity into a life of piracy, Senlin and his eclectic crew struggle to survive aboard their stolen airship as the hunt for his lost wife continues. But the Tower of Babel is proving to be as difficult to re-enter as it was to escape.

Hopeless and desolate, they turn to a legend of the tower, the mysterious Sphinx. But help from the sphinx doesn't come cheaply and, as Senlin knows, debts aren't always what they seem in the Tower of Babel.

The successor Chapters of the Space Marines number in the hundreds, founded to fight for the survival of the Imperium. Across 13 short stories by 10 different authors, discover the history, customs and stories of 12 different successor Chapters, from famed warriors to unsung heroes.

Greymane believed he'd outrun his past. With his school for swordsmanship in Falar, he was looking forward to a quiet life, although his colleague Kyle wasn't as enamored with life outside the mercenary company, the Crimson Guard. However, it seems it is not so easy for an ex-Fist of the Malazan Empire to disappear, especially one under sentence of death from that same Empire.

The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyers apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire. Niccolo Rising, book one of the series, finds us in Bruges, 1460. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett's hero rises from wastrel to prodigy in a breathless adventure.

In the western sky, the bright emerald banner of the Visitor descends like a portent of annihilation. On the continent of Jacuruku, the Thaumaturgs have mounted another expedition in a bid to tame the neighbouring wild jungle. Yet this is no normal wilderness. It is called Himatan, and it is said to be half of the spirit realm and half of the earth. And it is said to be ruled by a powerful entity whom some name the Queen of Witches and some a goddess: the ancient Ardata.

Only the best have access to the Elite Specializations of the Rangers. Will the Snow Panthers make it? The war goes on in Norghana. The East supports the new King, while the West supports Arnold Olafstone, the legitimate heir to the crown. In the North the Wild of the Ice claim their lands. In the midst of the war, Lasgol and his teammates have graduated as Rangers.

January 1474, in the deep cold of an ice-bound Danzig: a man is spending a frivolous winter not facing up to his responsibilities.... It is the merchant Niccolo, diviner, soldier, banker to kings; shunned by all who know him after revelations of his murderous mischief-making. But his talents are too great to be squandered, and a subtle political dance ensues as rivals in Poland, Venice, and Persia bid for his services in trade and war and diplomacy. Niccolo has lost his family, but he will discover a new purpose in life....

A restless menace threatens the town of Wyrmditt. Stirred from his grave by fell magic, Sabrodt, the Shrouded King, seeks dominion over the kingdom he failed to claim in life. So great is the terror inflicted upon the lands by Sabrodt and his nighthaunts that Sigmar, God-King, sends a retinue of his warriors most skilled in the art of Azyrite magic to liberate the town. The Stormcast Eternals of the Sacrosanct Chamber are warrior-wizards, imbued with arcane knowledge and the power to wield the energies of the storm in battle.

In the ancient city of Guerdon, three thieves - an orphan, a ghoul and a cursed man - are accused of a crime they didn't commit. Their quest for revenge exposes a perilous conspiracy, the seeds of which were sown long before they were born. A centuries-old magical war is on the verge of reigniting, and in the tunnels deep below the city, a malevolent power stirs. Only by standing together can the three friends prevent a conflict that would bring total devastation to their city - and the world beyond.

While Lasgol and his comrades carry out their duties as Rangers, a shadowy danger gathers strength in the Frozen Territories and threatens the kingdom. Thoran sends his Ice Magi and his armies to fight against it. The Snow Panthers are summoned to carry out a risky and complicated mission to obtain an object of power that will help destroy the evil that is on its way across the northern mountains to the capital. This is not the only danger our friends will have to face, since the Dark Rangers and the Zangrians continue to pose an ever-present threat, both to the realm and the Panthers.

The Snow Panthers will have to protect the future queen of Norghana. Not a pleasant job and a very dangerous one. There are political interests at stake, and some kingdoms and factions do not see the new alliance between Norghana and Irinel with good eyes. There are those who want the Druid Queen not to reach the throne. As if that weren't enough, another, greater danger looms over Norghana and all of Tremia. A danger of enormous dimensions that threatens to descend from the skies and destroy entire kingdoms.