Soul of the City

Janet Morris · C.J. Cherryh

Jul 2022 · Thieves' World® Book 8 · Open Road Media

About this eBook

Dark magical forces are afoot in the eighth entry of the shared-world fantasy series.

An ominous black storm from hell rages down on the city of Ranke. Its streets are full of lethal hail, and its walls are coated with ash. As the new Emperor and his mercenary Tempus wonder what can be done to stop it, a shade manifests before them on behalf of the gods with a decree: Travel to the city of Sanctuary and destroy the globes of the Nisibisi power . . .

Meanwhile, Sanctuary is riddled with crime, blood feuds, and warring factions. An army of mercenaries is all that stands between the city and chaos. And the witch once known as Death’s Queen, Roxane, lives in a hovel by the river. She no longer holds as much power as she once did, but even she can sense that trouble is on its way . . .

Brace yourself for adventure in this shared-world anthology featuring six stories by three of fantasy’s best authors: Lynn Abbey, Janet Morris, and C. J. Cherryh.

About the author

Lynn Abbey, ex–New Yorker, ex-Michigander, and ex-Oklahoman, moved to Florida in 1997, which she says is nice, but she misses snow. Her first novel, Daughter of the Bright Moon, was published in 1978. Since then, she has published more than two dozen novels, most of them fantasies. She has been called the “Godmother of Shared Universes” for her part in creating, editing, and writing the Thieves’ World® series of anthologies, novels, and games. Abbey says she writes fantasies because when her imagination gets going, it is full of magic, intrigue, and the colors of a stained-glass window. If science fiction is the fiction of possible futures, then fantasy is the fiction of possible histories.
 
Robert Lynn Asprin grew up in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. After serving in the army, he got a job as a cost accountant and saw nothing wrong with making a career out of arranging numbers, until he and a few friends wandered into a Society for Creative Anachronism event, where he quickly realized he had a perfect trifecta of talent: disruption, organization, and storytelling. Asprin put these talents to work to found the Great Dark Horde within the SCA, and the Dorsai Irregulars within the science-fiction fandom. The life of a cost accountant had lost its allure, but he had a family to support, so he decided to tell stories for money. Asprin’s first two books, The Cold Cash War and Another Fine Myth, demonstrated that he could write tragedy or comedy, science fiction or fantasy, with equal finesse. Then he got the idea for Thieves’ World® and changed the way authors, publishers, and readers thought about anthologies. Though Asprin died in 2008, the Great Dark Horde, the Dorsai Irregulars, and Thieves’ World® continue to this day.