En route to a job in the asteroid belt, the transport ship that Jonathan and Gaby are travelling on is required to give assistance to a space station in trouble.Astoria Station stopped responding to everything except automated messages. Jonathan and Gaby, familiar with disease and habitat collapse, offer to help.But not even they are prepared for what they find, or the efforts by some to sweep it under the carpet.

When Perrin was so desperate that he applied for a job with the Bureau of Magic Abuse, there were two things he didn't realise. One, that he might actually get the job and two, that it would involve working with magic sniffers. And what an annoyance the creatures are. They keep him up at night, need to feed on expensive fresh fruit and cause him embarrassment. A new inn opens in town and patrons flock to it. Perrin checks it out for forbidden magic, finds none but something doesn't add up. Is it the stranger, clearly a wizard, who makes little effort to cover up his illegal activities? Is it the owner of the new inn, who can't possibly have accumulated enough money to buy the place? Or is it the unfailingly raving reviews? Something fishy is going on, and his boss at the Bureau doesn't even want him to investigate. But Perrin has never let that stop him.

Veronica arrives with her class in the spellcraft tower of the Oakhurst School of Magic to teach the bunch of young—and not particularly well-behaved—teenagers about the school's ancient spellbook. But the book has gone missing from the cabinet! Only a few people have the key to the tower, and very soon, the town's mayor will need the book to bless the start of the new council year. Who has stolen the book? Is it Barnaby the caretaker, and has he sold it on the black market? Is it Jasper Bloom, a fellow teacher, and did he want to find a love spell? Is it the cranky teacher Mr. Stone, who hates the mayor and would gladly make the council's life difficult? And what can Veronica do if the truth potion she gives these people only complicates matters, backfires spectacularly and makes them say outrageous and embarrassing things?

Ravi has left Tiverius with Dana, who knows far more than she will tell him about the mysterious people who have rekindled interest in the coastal "Gathering" movement. Tylve is an adherent of this movement as her family has been through the generations. She doesn't understand the influx of new people. Since fleeing her village after her home was searched, she has arrived in the City of Glass, where a fateful meeting brings her in contact with a spy. Meanwhile, Kotori has gone to investigate the "lights in the sky" that he's kept secret for over twenty years. One fell down to the surface and he desperately needs to justify why he's never said anything about his suspicions before. He's the Aranian court astrologer and if his suspicions are right, literally everything he's been taught—and he's told others—about the stars and star signs is wrong. Milena from the "Hive" and six others were abroad the capsule that crashed to the surface of the...

On the backwater world of Cayelle, Tina Freeman runs a shop with her son Rex: fifteen years old, half-human, half-android with a massive chip on his shoulder about having been born without arms or legs. The shop makes a modest profit, but when a creditor turns up wanting his money back, everything goes pear-shaped. She needs money, and needs it fast. Another creditor is impossible to find. That leaves her one option: to return to the world she fled fifteen years ago and Kelso Space Station, where her spaceship has languished for over fifteen years, and finally sell the thing. Tina worked as scientific officer in the Federacy Force's top secret Project Charon, and was forced out when she rang alarm bells about particles that escaped out of a rift to another universe. As it turns out, the alien dust has been infecting people in her absence, causing profound changes in human behaviour. When Tina re-surfaces at Kelso, her presence is a threat to...

Cory has made several commitments to members of the Asto inner circles. He needs to spend time with Thayu's son. He has also been asked to give a favour to a boy of the Azimi clan. What better to do with a couple of pre-teens than to visit the theme parks that are historic relics from the 21st century on Earth? Of course he has a hidden agenda. On a previous trip to the south of Barresh, Cory and his team found disturbing evidence that people from the former Southern California Air Corps made it to Ceren about fifty years ago. He needs to find out about them. Except this is 2125, and the former city of Los Angeles is in Mexico, and the interesting places are across the heavily guarded and impenetrable border in America Free State. While he's investigating, while he's being shadowed and occasionally threatened, while the kids are having old-fashioned fun going on rides and starting rebellions (oops), something is about to come to a spectacular crash. It's not that the highly armed rebels of America Free State want to take back land that they consider theirs, although they do. It's not the fact that Nations of Earth president Simon Dekker hates Cory and the fact that he's poking around in what Dekker considers his territory, although he does. It's that the Southern California Air Corps is about to pull a very large and nasty surprise. **

The worst possible things arrive at the worst possible time.Cory is not the only person who dislikes the new president of Nations of Earth, Simon Dekker. Many people at gamra and even within Nations of Earth have similar issues. In fact, the discontent was so bad that there was talk to unseat the president.Then war arrived from space in the form of the rogue and highly organised SCAC, and people are looking to their leaders for guidance. But can a mistrusted leader provide protection?Dekker is aligned with the north American countries, who are not members of Nations of Earth and may even support SCAC.But when Cory decides that it's probably best not to wait for Nations of Earth to sort itself out to officially ask for help from gamra—after all, he's done this before—that's when the proverbial hits the fan. Because Cory's decision assumes that Earth will eventually come into line behind gamra. Or that Asto's massive army can defeat the...

Epub v5One brave woman's struggle against magical forces.  Queen Johanna's position in Saardam is fragile. The Barons and Kings of the countries in the hinterland are not happy that she helped the royal family to survive and is now about to ensure the next generation. They vow to teach this little upstart country a lesson for once and for all.  Of course it is not so much about petty rivalry, but about access to the sea port that connects the hinterland with the lucrative ocean trade.  Johanna knows that if it came to a fight Saardam could never survive, so she has invited all the heads of state and other important people for talks to invest in the city's shattered infrastructure for the benefit of all.  As a congregation of royal families gathers such as the lowlands have never seen, the magicians travelling with the esteemed guests prepare the final and most insidious attempt to get control of the upstart little country and its usurper, commoner queen: through her baby daughter. 

Epub v5The tyrant Alexandre is gone from Saardam, but a new menace has come: the eastern traders in a ship of metal that is said to have been forged with dragon magic. They bring a chest of gold to buy an office in the city.  The people don't want them in their town. The Church of the Triune, which forbids magic, has increased its hold on the population, despite the Red Baron's efforts to stamp it out.  Newly-crowned queen Johanna is staring into the empty coffers after the extravagant spending by her husband's father before his death. King Roald is off in the garden to catch frogs, and she faces condemnation by the church in the knowledge that Saarland will need both money and magic to defeat the Red Baron's army.