Search Worlds Without End

Reality is in the eye of the beholder...

After six years in a maximum-security prison, political dissident and photographer Jude Rowe will take freedom at whatever price it is offered. She's naturally suspicious of the authorities' deal--liberation from the Wards in exchange for her service on the paradise planet of Arkoi. A parallel world to the overpopulated and environmentally depleted Terra, Arkoi has enough open land and raw materials to revitalize a dying Terra, making it a playground for scientists and a resort for the ultra-rich.

The Terran colony spreads like a blight, pushing at its boundaries, subjugating Arkoi's improbably small and seemingly primitive native population, and threatening to destroy a world that has existed unchanged for centuries. Yet, every Terran expedition past the colony's borders has ended in death or insanity, spurring rumors of Others and Dark Powers lurking beyond the ring of mountains called the Guardians.

Now, accompanied only by an enigmatic Arkoi guide, Jude is forced to set out on her own daring expedition. What she discovers about Arkoi, the colony, and herself, will radically alter her mission and the dangerously entwined fates of Terra and Arkoi. What lies outside the mountains has claimed the lives and minds of many, while consumption and conservation clash in the valley below. Do the Guardians protect... or imprison?

Is their survival worth their freedom?

After the Dissolution, life on a dying Earth changed dramatically. Society retreats to enclosed, climate-controlled cities where lawbreakers are expelled to the Outside—the barren and ruinous world beyond the safety of the domes. Yet, the undomed South Pacific island of Tuamatutetuamatu thrives. Some say it is magic, while others cite the isle's geographical isolation—either way, its existence raises many difficult questions about domed living.

Born in the bleak Chicago dome, Gwinn Rhys fantasized about living and creating in the elite domed artist haven of Harmony. Her apprenticeship with a master theatrical set designer—the legendary sceneographer Micah Cervantes—is a dream come true. But beneath the lush, colorful metropolis of Harmony, discord grows. The Closed Door League's push to ban all immigration to the city threatens Harmony's long-standing policy of sponsoring foreign young artists like Gwinn.

When a mysterious troupe of Tuatuan performers known as "the Eye" arrives in Harmony, their mix of mystical realism and ties to anti-dome politics doesn't sit well with everyone. Those made rich by Harmony's status as an exclusive tourist mecca and art-export hub will do anything to protect their interests, setting off a chain of bloodshed and violence that rocks Harmony to its core. The secrets the Eye carry will not only change Gwinn's life, but could obliterate domed society forever.

The year is 2073. Earth's climate is faltering and her ecosystems are breaking down. Her burgeoning populations now rely on food and energy supplies imported from colony worlds.

A routine exploratory mission to the planet Fiix finds a world at war with itself, continuously devastated by unpredictable weather patterns. When storms and flooding ruin the Terran base camp and destroy their power and communication links, the explorers must discover what's causing the weather's behavior, not just for the sake of science, but to ensure the expedition's success and survival.

This is the omnibus edition of the two books in the Lear's Daughters series (The Wave and the Flame and Reign of Fire).

The planet Fiix has a climate of bizarre extremes which defies conventional scientific explanation. An expedition from Earth, expecting to find a desert planet, instead finds itself marooned in the middle of a savage winter. The local population, the Sawls, are small and apparently primitive creatures; but while Emil Clausen - mineral company representative in search of profits from the planet's lithium deposits - and planetologist Tay Danforth are missing, presumed dead, after being caught in ferocious floods, other scientists start to learn that the Sawl's have a complex and surprisingly advanced culture. In particular, linguist Stavros Ibia begins to identify with the Sawl's and determines to protect their planet from commercial exploitation, and to gain an understanding of their theological and historical roots.

A Terran mining expedition to the planet Fiix is jeopardized by violent weather patterns that the Sawl natives believe are evidence of a battle between the goddesses Valla and Lagri.

Sensing that something has gone horribly wrong, Erde, the daughter of a powerful Lord, flees her father's castle to find the dragon called Earth and its mage, the only beings that can save her world from swiftly spreading madness.

The second novel in the tetralogy encompasses the years from 913 to 2013, when the shape-shifting dragon Water summons her ally Earth and his human guide, the girl Erde, on a mission to save the planet from environmental destruction.

The dragons Earth, Water, Fire and Air were raised from the elemental energies at time's beginning to create the World. When they finished their task, they were supposed to sleep until World's End. But long before that time the dragons began to wake....

Now Earth and Water and their human guides, Erde and N'Doch, have been drawn through time to a devastated future America where the dragon guide Paia has been transformed into his high priestess. Yet it is not Fire who has summoned his brother and sister. The call has come from another, and the reason is all too clear. Fire has chosen to become a god instead of a guardian. And the dragon Air is nowhere to be found. Can Earth and Water, Erde and N'Doch force Fire and Paia back to the path they are fate to follow? Can they find and rescue Air? Or will Fire's rebellion doom both the dragons and the world they guard?

Here's an exciting fantasy tetralogy with all the right ingredients: four elemental dragons (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water), each with a human companion. This series takes us from medieval Europe to the distant future, as the world is caught in a war between the forces of greed and fanaticism, and the dragons and their guides and allies who seek to restore the proper natural balance to the planet.