Cal, Letty, Tony, Opi, and Sasha were kidnapped by the Molethian civilization and trained to fight against The Horde—the greatest threat in the Milky Way galaxy. They rise quickly through the ranks of the space service and accept increasing responsibilities that fit their talents.
While his friends take on leadership positions closer to home, Cal disappears on a mission to The Horde galaxy and is presumed dead.
Horde invasion fleets roam the Milky Way, looking for Alliance home planets.
Unfortunately, Earth is not yet ready to join the Alliance. When Letty tries to persuade them to join by meeting with one of its recalcitrant countries, she suddenly goes missing.
Meanwhile, a huge Horde Fleet shows up on the outskirts of our solar system, apparently planning a deadly attack against Earth. With Cal and Letty both missing, Tony, Opi, and Sasha rally together to lead Alliance forces into what may be their final battle!
A remarkable collaboration that is unprecedented in its scope and realization, this exquisitely wrought novel represents an artistic project between the bestselling science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson and the multiplatinum rock band Rush. The newest album by Rush, Clockwork Angels, sets forth a story in Neil Peart’s lyrics that has been expanded by him and Anderson into this epic novel.
In a young man’s quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life.
The mind-bending story is complemented with rich paintings by the five-time Juno Award winner for Best Album Design, Hugh Syme.
Clockwork Lives
A steampunk Canterbury Tales, and much more.
In Clockwork Angels, #1 bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and legendary Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart created a fabulous, adventurous steampunk world in a novel to accompany the smash Rush concept album of the same name. It was a world of airships and alchemy, clockwork carnivals, pirates, lost cities, a rigid Watchmaker who controlled every aspect of life, and his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist who wanted to destroy it all.
Anderson and Peart have returned to their colorful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imagination. Marinda Peake is a woman with a quiet, perfect life in a small village; she long ago gave up on her dreams and ambitions to take care of her ailing father, an alchemist and an inventor. When he dies, he gives Marinda a mysterious inheritance: a blank book that she must fill with other people’s stories—and ultimately her own.
Clockwork Lives is a steampunk Canterbury Tales, and much more, as Marinda strives to change her life from a mere “sentence or two” to a true epic.
After unknown aliens destroy the Hoo-Lii penal colony, the once-decadent world of Hool, under the leadership of the upstart Hive-Mother, Suh-Joh, seeks to reestablish its former heights. Suh-Joh’s scientists detect a faint electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of a fusion weapon, which originates in the Solar System. Believing this is the world responsible for bombing their penal colony, Suh-Joh sends a ship to investigate.
The ship jumps through a space-time gate and enters the Solar System near Pluto and then blunders into a space battle between the humans and the Qu’uda. A laser blast breaches the Hoo-Lii ship’s hull, causing it to lose all of its water and much of its air. The humans attempt to establish communications and give the Hoo-Lii water, which they regard as a symbol of submission. The Hoo-Lii depart, promising to return and “lead them.”
In these nine stories of determination, seemingly ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances as they confront their fears and embrace their challenges on a near-future Earth or an alternate history past or even on a far distant alien world.
• A single parent with a Down syndrome daughter considers what his life and career might have been as a parent and a pro football player in some alternate reality.
• A young girl on an isolated Florida island discovers that her quirky grandparents are even stranger than she thought.
• A high school basketball player confronts the ghosts of her past.
• A young woman struggles to make peace with the horrors of her forgotten childhood.
• An elderly woman slides into dementia even as she finds some essential truths that were lost in the hazy mists of her memory.
• A baseball player becomes a spy during an alternate history version of World War II, where he plays a pivotal role in stopping the Nazi war machine.
A powerful and poignant collection of memorable stories from an award-winning storyteller, Rambunctious: Nine Tales of Determination is charming, action-packed, frightening, and thoughtful by turn.
X Marks the Spot: An Anthology of Treasure and Theft
Set sail on the high seas with this collection of twenty-one unforgettable short stories featuring dashing rogues, daring rebels, and wily pirates searching for treasures of all kinds, including a forgotten journal, a heavenly sword, a young girl’s lucky sock, and even the Fountain of Youth.
Some pirates are familiar—complete with parrots, peg legs, and eye patches—but most are unique: a twelve-year-old computer hacker, a heroic rabbit on an unusual quest, a clump of cancer cells, and an alien setting sail among the stars.
X Marks the Spot: An Anthology of Treasure and Theft is about those men and women who live on the fringes of society, who are beholden to no man, no law, and who always have one eye on the horizon.
So grab your map and set your headings. There are adventures to be had, mateys, and treasures to be found.
This anthology is the fifth volume produced by the alumni of the Superstars Writing Seminars, and all royalties benefit the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Neil Peart 
