Freelance journalist Andrew Webber used to feel the same way about junk mail as the rest of us: you look, you recognise its complete irrelevance to your life, you bin it. But the offer to have his details included in the new Galactic Fax Directory seemed unusually irrelevant - not to say bizarre - and maybe worthy of further investigations.

To find out more, Andrew arranges a lunch appointment with the boss of the enterprise. But when he turns up at their offices in Soho, he is understandably perturbed to find the venue has changed. By several zillion miles.

Miraculously transported to the Rimworld on the edge of the galaxy, Andrew finds himself enjoying the hospitality of corporate raider Constantine Parnassus and his amazingly tall, incredibly beautiful assistant Shalimar, seven feet of exotic fantasy fodder.

And while Andrew recovers from shock, Parnassus fills him in on the reasons for this mindbending piece of cosmic kidnapping. For Connie has a plan, a plan promising wealth and excitement, and Andrew is just the chap to help him carry it out…

Brilliant, irreverently inventive and wickedly funny, STAR WARTZ, is the long-awaited new adventure epic from the acclaimed author of The Amtrak Wars.

The date was Friday, the third of August. For some people the day was just beginning. For others it was the end of another perfectly normal day. Then right across the world every ground and airborne radar screen went haywire…

This time it had really happened. An alien spacecraft was in orbit around planet Earth. And nine weeks later civilization was on the edge of a total breakdown more devastating than any nuclear war or natural disaster…

As the "Great Mountain in the West speaks to the Sky with a Tongue of Flame", the Talisman Prophecy is on the verge of fulfillment.

The rulers of the Lone Star Confederation are convinced that Clearwater's child - whose birth coincides to the second with the volcanic eruption - is the Thrice-Gifted One. And they hold both in their power. Cadillac and Steve's kin-sister, Roz, who have combined their formidable powers are determined to free her but Steve, lured by the prospect of a dazzling career within the First Family, is no longer certain who to support or betray.

He has little time in which to decide for, in Ne-Issan, the land of the Iron Masters, a lone woman intent on avenging her dead lover is about to plunge her nation into a civil war that will set the whole continent ablaze.

With the seriously-injured Clearwater now safely in their hands the First Family hatches a plan to capture Cadillac and Mr Snow and annihilate the Clan M'Call; a plan in which Steve is forced to continue his double-role as loyal agent of the Confederation and blood-brother to the Plainfolk.

The First Family is hell-bent on exacting retribution for past defeats and the twice-bloodied House of Yama-Shita, a leading Iron Master family, is also thirsting for vengeance. Both parties blindly pursue their own ends unaware that the final outcome is not governed by force of arms but by the irrevocable power of prophecy.

And Steve Brickman, comes to understand why some among the Clan M'Call, who knew him better than he knew himself, chose to call him "Death Bringer".

With his heart and mind now torn between the opposing worlds of Tracker and Mute, Steve embarks on his most dangerous mission yet; the rescue of Clearwater and Cadillac M'Call, now held captive by the mysterious Iron Masters in the lands by the Eastern Sea.

Disguised as a Mute, he penetrates a closed rigidly-structured society ruled by samurai warriors and attempts to seek out his two friends. He has promised to reunite them with their mentor Mr Snow, Wordsmith and Summoner of the Clan M'Call, known amongst the Plainfolk as "The Storm-Bringer".

Bound to his three friends emotionally and mentally, Steve finds his own life hanging in the balance on more than one occasion as he plans their escape.

His masters in the Confederation, unaware of the extent of his divided loyalties still expect him to complete his assignment and - unknown to Steve - are monitoring every move he makes.

When the Williams family pulls into the township of Gainsville, Kansas, to look up an old friend they quickly find themselved imprisioned in a nightmare scenario as US government forces throw a security cordon around the area.
Something else has arrived in Gainsville.

Escaping from the Clan M'Call, the Mute warrior tribe who have held him as a captive "guest", Steve Brickman reaches one of the way-stations that guard the frontiers of the Confederation.

Steve's arrival and the story he tells is met with disbelief for he is the first Tracker to have survived capture by the Mutes. He is flown back to the Lone Star Federation in chains, charged with desertion and put on trial. Steve cannot defend himself by revealing what he has discovered about the Plainfolk and their "magic" powers because to do so would challenge the wisdom of the First Family, a Code One offence punishable by death.

Seizing the chance to redeem himself as an undercover agent, he find his first assignment is to capture the three gifted Mutes who saved him from a fiery death, nursed him back to health, and gave him a new vision of the world.

After spending the first seventeen years of his life in the under-ground world of the Lone Star Confederation, Steve Brickman, a newly-trained wingman, emerges to join a Trail-Blazer wagon-train selected to make the first deep-penetration strike into the territory held by the Plainfolk Mutes.

The mission is part of a centuries-old conflict for possession of the blue-sky world in which both sides have fought with the utmost ruthlessness. Steve is aware of the dangers but he has no inkling that his arrival has already been predicted by the enemy or that he is destined to embark on a perilous adventure; a test of courage and endurance that will totally change his life and cause him to doubt the truth of everything he has been taught since birth.

What would you do if, through an unexpected twist of fate and time, you came face to face with Jesus of Nazareth? In the flesh. A living, breathing, three-dimensional figure with a disconcertingly casual manner. When you had pinched yourself to make sure that you weren't dreaming and found that he was still there, would you turn your back and walk away - or would you try to find out what he was doing so far from home?

That was the decision facing Leo Resnick, a smart young Manhattan lawyer, and his girl-friend, Dr Miriam Maxwell. Mission is Leo's record of his encounter with The Man. If you've ever looked up at the stars and wondered what it all means, this is the book you've been waiting for. Mission is the nearest you'll get to the Secret of the Universe this side of the Apocalypse.

Steve, Cadillac and Clearwater meet with triumph and disaster as they try to evade the clutches of both the Iron Masters and the disguised hunter/killer squads sent out by the Lone Star Confederation to purge the overground of renegade Trackers and deserters.

Clearwater's earth-magic gets them out of several tight corners but the Iron Masters prove to be tenacious adversaries and the First Family - the sinister oligarchy who rule the Confederation - have no intention of loosening their grip on Steve Brickman.

Despite his apparent treachery, he is a valuable pawn in a game which, if lost, could spell the end of the First Family's dream of reconquering the blue-sky world.