Jeroun
2 total works
The follow-up to Zachary Jernigan's critically-acclaimed literary debut No Return. At the moment of his greatest victory, before a crowd of thousands, the warrior Vedas Tezul renounced his faith, calling for revolt against the god Adrash, imploring mankind to unite in this struggle. Good intentions count for nothing. In the three months since his sacrilegious pronouncement, the world has not changed for the better. In fact, it is now on the verge of dying. The Needle hangs broken in orbit above Jeroun, each of its massive iron spheres poised to fall and blanket the planet's surface in dust. Long-held truces between Adrashi and Anadrashi break apart as panic spreads. With no allegiance to either side, the disgraced soldier Churls walks into the divided city of Danoor with a simple plan: murder the monster named Fesuy Amendja, and retrieve from captivity the only two individuals that still matter to her—Vedas Tezul, and the constructed man Berun. The simple plan goes awry, as simple plans do, and in the process Churls and her companions are introduced to one of the world's deepest secrets: A madman, insisting he is the link to an ancient world, offering the most tempting lie of all... Hope. Concluding the visceral, inventive narrative begun in No Return, Shower of Stones pits men against gods and swords against civilization-destroying magic in the fascinatingly harsh world of Jeroun.
Staring into the night sky, the inhabitants of Jeroun call the glittering string of objects they see stretching before the moon the Needle. It’s actually a collection of iron spheres made by the god Adrash, his threatening ultimatum to the people on the planet below:
Prove yourselves worthy, or be destroyed.
Vedas is a member of the Black Suits, an order of men and women who show their opposition to Adrash by staging battles in the streets. After witnessing the death of a child in his care and knowing himself to be responsible, he sets off on a journey to the decennial fighting tournament in Danoor.
Traveling with him across the continent are Churls, a mercenary haunted by the ghost of her daughter, and Berun, a constructed man made of modular spheres possessed by the soul of his creator. Both come to understand that Vedas's victory would start an all-out religious war.
Unbeknownst to these three travelers, the aristocratic outbound mage Ebn and her protégé Pol are using powerful alchemy to travel into space, with plans to engage Adrash in ways that threaten to bring the god’s wrath down upon the world.
No Return combines the mythic inventiveness of early Roger Zelazny and Samuel R. Delany, the dark weirdness of China Mieville, and the epic scope of George R. R. Martin, creating a literary science fiction novel that defies easy categorization and resulting in one of the most critically acclaimed debuts of 2013.
Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
Prove yourselves worthy, or be destroyed.
Vedas is a member of the Black Suits, an order of men and women who show their opposition to Adrash by staging battles in the streets. After witnessing the death of a child in his care and knowing himself to be responsible, he sets off on a journey to the decennial fighting tournament in Danoor.
Traveling with him across the continent are Churls, a mercenary haunted by the ghost of her daughter, and Berun, a constructed man made of modular spheres possessed by the soul of his creator. Both come to understand that Vedas's victory would start an all-out religious war.
Unbeknownst to these three travelers, the aristocratic outbound mage Ebn and her protégé Pol are using powerful alchemy to travel into space, with plans to engage Adrash in ways that threaten to bring the god’s wrath down upon the world.
No Return combines the mythic inventiveness of early Roger Zelazny and Samuel R. Delany, the dark weirdness of China Mieville, and the epic scope of George R. R. Martin, creating a literary science fiction novel that defies easy categorization and resulting in one of the most critically acclaimed debuts of 2013.
Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.