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Step up, as close as you dare… …to a place at the edge of sanity, where cicadas scritch across balmy summer nights, at the edge of town, where the cellphone coverage is decidedly dodgy, at the edge of space, where a Mimbinus argut bounds among snowy rocks, at the edge of the page, where demon princes prance in the shadows, at the edge of despair, where 10 darushas will get you a vodka lime and a ring side seat, at the edge of the universe, where time stops but space goes on… From the brink of civilisation, the fringe of reason, and the border of reality, come 23 stories infused with the bloody-minded spirit of the Antipodes, tales told by the children of warriors and whalers, convicts and miners: people unafraid to strike out for new territories and find meaning in the expanses at the edge of the world. Compiled by award-winning editing team Dan Rabarts and Lee Murray, and including a story by Arthur C. Clarke finalist Phillip Mann and foreword by World Fantasy Award winner Angela Slatter, At the Edge is a dark and dystopic collection from some of Australia and New Zealand’s best speculative writers. Note: This is an anthology of short stories for adults, not children. My story is Little Thunder, check it out on Page 211! ISBN: 978-0473354152 -
27 New Zealand and American authors delve into the strange, the unexpected, and the downright terrifying things that kids say in this collection of all new flash fiction for adult readers. From the mouths of babes come 37 stories, from the haunting to the hilarious to the horrific.Leave the lights on tonight. So you’ll see them coming.
ISBN: 978-0473256883 -
Feeling homesick is horrible. The new place is exciting but it isn't as good. The food is different, nothing is familiar, and people talk funny. It was like that when I moved to Wisconsin: I missed New Zealand so much! I missed my friends, the beach, rugby games, driving on the left-hand side, even food like Marmite and mince pies. Then I discovered Wisconsin's intriguing animal-shaped effigy mounds, ancient sites with no known purpose. I imagined these mounds were secret portals to other places and if I found the right one it would whisk me home to New Zealand. But people say you can never go home. Things change while you are away: new buildings go up, new roads develop, and people move on. So when I wrote Annie's adventure I thought I might explore this idea, while also drawing on my experience of trail running on forest tracks. I sent Annie back to a time when Moa and Te Hōkioi dominated the wild New Zealand bush. Eventually, I came to love Wisconsin with its red barns, yellow school buses and blue, blue lakes. I loved the sound of my shovel in the snow, cheesy bagels, fall leaves, sledding, and the lovely friends I made there. Perhaps it's time I looked for a New Zealand portal, so I can pop back for a visit! -
Four science-fiction and fantasy novellas for young adults. At Conclave Manor, land-trapped Mermaid Thala Tellurian struggles to accept her privileged life while battling her self-obsessed Uncle in any petty way she can. Isolated and forbidden to delve into her family’s bloody past, Thala longs for change. So, when visitors from a rival pod reveal a hidden agenda, Thala dives straight in. But it’s not until she’s face to face with her family’s lifelong enemy that she realises she’s in terrifyingly unfamiliar waters. Rowan knew nothing about the secret in his DNA until he found himself on the Terrean team bound for Conclave Seven, the universal Games held every millennia. But on the eve of the Games, knowing he’s a direct descendant of the warrior Spartacus is looking less like a gift and more like a death sentence… Born into captivity, Doze has spent his life behind the Fence, so when staying there is no longer an option, he takes a chance to see if another life is possible. An experiment on the loose from ConClave Corporation, Doze helps his travelling companions to avoid capture, and discovers that there is no sacrifice too great for freedom. On the Conclave Pacifica, a spaceship in a fleet heading to a new world, Peach forges an online friendship with Araxi, who is travelling on another ship. But, wildly off course and under pressure for resources, the future of the Conclave Pacifica looks uncertain. Could Peach’s new friend be the answer to her survival? ISBN: 78-0473281984 -
No longer content to rumble in anger, the great mountain warriors of New Zealand’s central plateau, the Kāhui Tupua, are preparing again for battle. At least, that’s how the Māori elders tell it. The nation’s leaders scoff at the danger. That is; until the ground opens and all hell breaks loose. The armed forces are hastily deployed; NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his section tasked with evacuating civilians and tourists from Tongariro National Park. It is too little, too late. With earthquakes coming thick and fast and the mountains spewing rock and ash, McKenna and his men are cut off. Their only hope of rescuing the stranded civilians is to find another route out, but a busload of prison evacuees has other ideas. And, deep beneath the earth’s crust, other forces are stirring.“INTO THE ASHES is a kick-ass thriller with twists you will never see coming! Lee Murray serves up a nail-biter of a weird-science action adventure. Brava!” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of DEEP SILENCE and V-WARS
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When NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his squad are tasked with escorting a bunch of civilian contractors into Te Urewera National Park, it seems a strange job for the army. Militant Tuhoe separatists are active in the area, and with its cloying mist and steep ravines, the forest is a treacherous place in winter. Yet nothing has prepared Taine for the true danger that awaits them. Death incarnate. They backtrack toward civilisation, stalked by a prehistoric creature intent on picking them off one by one. With their weapons ineffective, the babysitting job has become a race for survival. Desperate to bring his charges out alive, Taine draws on ancient tribal wisdom. Will it be enough to stop the nightmare? And when the mist clears, will anyone be left? -
On leave, and out of his head with boredom, NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna joins biologist Jules Asher, on a Conservation Department deer culling expedition to New Zealand’s southernmost national park, where soaring peaks give way to valleys gouged from clay and rock, and icy rivers bleed into watery canyons too deep to fathom. Despite covering an area the size of the Serengeti, only eighteen people live in the isolated region, so it’s a surprise when the hunters stumble on the nation’s Turehu tribe, becoming some of only a handful to ever encounter the elusive ghost people. But a band of mercenaries saw them first, and, hell-bent on exploiting the tribes’ survivors, they’re prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. As a soldier, McKenna is duty-bound to protect all New Zealanders, but after centuries of persecution will the Turehu allow him to help them? Besides, there is something else lurking in the sounds, and it has its own agenda. When the waters clear, will anyone be allowed to leave?
“Murray pretty much nails small unit tactics.” Justin Coates, author of The Apocalypse Drive “A fantastic blend of military fiction, a very real primordial monster, and powerful mythology.” Paul Mannering, author of Hard Corps, Hell’s Teeth, and Eat.
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A desperate odyssey through a dystopic future
Mika Tāura arrives in New York in the middle of a storm, where she accidentally kills a motorist and lands herself with an injured child. What’s more, she’s missed her rendezvous. Stan has problems of his own. Several of them just broke into his apartment and tried to kill him, which may explain why he hitching a ride in Mika’s armoured waka seems like a good idea. Besides, her business is taking her across to the West Coast, and so – conveniently – is his. On the run, Mika, Stan and the girl flee across the country to Stan’s reservation home, where they encounter a couple who may be the key to Mika’s mission. But time is running out, for the travelers and for those they left behind. -
Dream cars have no registration plate. One evening, just before tea, Adam’s mum pops out for the milk and doesn’t come back, launching a frantic nationwide search. After weeks with no leads, the television crews drift away, the police start asking hairy questions, and Adam’s dad starts seeing someone else. Adam’s life is falling apart. But perhaps it was already unravelling and Adam just hadn’t seen the signs? He’s spending so much time in the counsellor’s office, he’s beginning to think he’s a head-case. Then he meets Skye, who it seems has misplaced a parent too, and things start to look up. That is, until a body is found… A poignant coming of age story from award winning author, Lee Murray. -
Six science fiction and fantasy novellas from Aotearoa New Zealand
Interdimensional forests, atomic ghosts and future tech gone horribly wrong abound in this collection of six works by acclaimed New Zealand sci fi and fantasy writers. Tim Jones explores desperation and betrayal on New Zealand’s shores in his climate refugee novella, Landfall AC Buchanan tells a story of creatures and people displaced in time and space in Bree’s Dinosaur Grant Stone’s tale of jealous muses and musical prodigy: The Last. Lee Murray and Piper Mejia’s sci-fi adventure Mika throws the reader into an odyssey through a dystopic USA. A husband with a secret in IK Paterson-Harkness’ Pocket Wife. Grief, ghosts, and atoms: Octavia Cade explores Ernest Rutherford's discoveries of loss in The Ghost of Matter. From award-winning boutique publisher Paper Road Press.
Like spiders we spin yarn from deep within
