Shaman Fiction

Young Nevare Burvelle is the second son of a second son. Traditionally in Gernia, the firstborn son is heir to the family fortunes, the second son bears a sword and the third son is consecrated to the priesthood. Nevare will follow his father – newly made a lord by the King – into the cavalry; to the frontier and thence to an advantageous marriage, to carry on the Burvelle name. It is a golden future, and Nevare looks forward to it with relish.

Dr. Robert Judson Cole travels from his ravaged Scotland homeland, through the operating rooms of Boston, to the cabins of frontier Illinois. In the wilderness he befriends the starving remnants of the Sauk tribe, who have fled their reservation. In the process, he absorbs their culture and learns native remedies that enrich the classical medical education he received at Edinburgh University. He marries a remarkable settler woman he had saved from illness.

Daniel Mahan, the legendary Shaman of the Barliona game world, has served his sentence in virtual reality. Eleven months of adventures and battles in exchange for eight years in prison isn't a bad trade-off. And yet Barliona refuses to relinquish its grip on the Shaman so easily, erasing the boundary between his two realities. It turns out that it's not so simple to leave the capsule - the Way must be completed....

The Last Shaman is a captivating ride through the jungles of war-torn Africa. Mark Vale, who represents any of us struggling to take consistent ownership of our personal power, takes an unwanted journey to find the last shaman who is responsible for ending the war and saving thousands of lives. All throughout, Mark learns from a colourful array of characters - including a doctor of philosophy exiled in the swamps, a shape-shifting sorceress, and the widow of a tribal scout - who teach him to commit completely to the desires of his soul.

Victor Cavalier has received the phone call every parent dreads: his daughter is lying in a coma after a motorcycle accident and given little chance of survival. But when a mysterious scientist known as the Shaman intervenes to save his daughter's life, Victor decides he must meet this maverick genius.

In this novella set in the World of the Five Gods and four years after the events in Penric's Demon, Penric is a divine of the Bastard's Order as well as a sorcerer and scholar, living in the palace where the Princess-Archdivine holds court. His scholarly work is interrupted when the Archdivine agrees to send Penric, in his role as sorcerer, to accompany a "Locator" of the Father's Order, assigned to capture Inglis, a runaway shaman charged with the murder of his best friend.

The virtual world of Barliona is a place of rest and entertainment - but not for everyone. It has become a survival arena for Daniel Mahan after he was sentenced to eight years in its virtual jail. Mahan has been through it all: the back-breaking work in the mines, betrayal by other prisoners, and finally, the retrial which has released him into Barliona's common world. What more could one want? Mahan could have kept a low profile and enjoyed relative freedom while serving the rest of his time.

What can a game clan accomplish without a castle? The answer is obvious: nothing. Therefore, the main objective of any leader in a game world is to acquire a base of operations. Finding himself in exactly this position, High Shaman Mahan, leader of the Legends of Barliona, accepts an offer from the Emperor and the Dark Lord to vanquish the army of Phantoms that has inhabited Altameda, the phantom castle.

Dan Stone, a contract assassin for the CIA, a man alone with few friends, is sent out on what may be a suicide mission. Dan is dropped into the Chihuahuan desert to assassinate the head of the Sinaloa cartel. His mission suddenly becomes more complex and dangerous. When his extraction is botched, he flees into the desert, where he gets lost and death by dehydration threatens. There, he meets a shaman who shows him the spiritual dimension to life and how Dan is part of a larger story going on - a battle between good and evil, light and darkness.

Upon return to Highkington, 11-year-old Sasharia and her elder brother, Jondarion, try to settle back into day-to-day life. But Toriana, the murderous aunt who killed the rest of their family, has no intention of allowing Sasha or Jon to survive, and will go to any lengths to protect her throne. Setting out for Kimora, the two hold on to a faint hope that Sasha, by wielding her amulet, can overcome her aunt’s magical binding and confront Toriana herself. But even with the help of her companions the task is monumental for a young girl, whose own undeveloped power is still unwieldy.

The stories in this collection were first published in Analog, a science fiction magazine, between 1990 and 2011. They feature the adventures of eccentric kilt-wearing anthropologist, archaeologist, and xenologist Rhys Llewellyn and his able assistants, Yoshi Umeki and Roderick Halfax. Given my fascination with archaeology, first contact…and all things Scottish, I suppose these stories were inevitable.

After he was killed and unceremoniously dumped into what he thought was a digital world, life has thrown Frank one curve after another. Now, he is starting to have questions about what is real and what isn't. He will have to walk his way between the worlds of adventurers and monsters, both of whom want things from him. His feelings run amok as he tries to figure out what hybrid intelligences dream about. Hopefully, along the way he can figure out what is happening, and learn to resist integration into the system by a mysterious AI (...which may not even be an AI at all).

The dimensions are falling one by one. Nothing can stand against Devians. They are the demons beneath the beds, the dark demented ones that are feeding on our souls. The new bodysnatchers, they are here and there's nothing we can do will stop them. The police won’t believe you, your own family will drug and institutionalize you if you tell them. Even though it is hopeless. Even though no one can kill a Devian. Even though they grow more powerful every moment. Even though it is absurd to think about standing against them. One man will.

Lucas Blackfox doesn’t just see dead people; he watches, through the killer’s eyes, as they are being tortured and murdered. He’s tried drowning the visions in copious amounts of alcohol, but nothing will keep them at bay. Now, the visions have grown stronger and he doesn’t just see it; Lucas feels every emotion and sensation the maniac, with whom he has the psychic connection, feels. Not even the whiskey can drown them, and putting a bullet in his own brain seems like his only option. Until he reunites with Emma Reese, a childhood friend.

As Livvy struggles to hold on to loved ones, her past and future unexpectedly collide. Caught between the multiverse and the real world, and saving herself or doing right, Livvy learns a final truth: the real measure of love isn't fighting for someone, it's dying for them.

In the heartland of the ancient Maya, techno-shaman Olivia Lawson isn't just an oddity, she's an outcast. Despite having trekked through the jungle to find shamans thought to be extinct, Livvy finds the ultra-clandestine group not just closed but downright hostile. To her surprise though, their interest in SK borders on obsession.

In the novel that Billie Dean Shoemate III calls his personal best, he brings you the story of Nick Stanley, a special child who believes he has touched the other side...communing with an ancient Native American spirit. As Nick grows up, he comes to a profound realization. The spirit that visited him as a child left something in him...a mark on his soul. It follows him through life, beckoning his heart into a journey that will redefine the world.

Patients with fractured souls, clients threatened by deadly ancestor spirits, and now the paparazzi - it’s all in a day’s work for techno-shaman Olivia Lawson. Livvy has rocketed to the top of the shaman world, bringing old friends with her but also attracting new enemies. Even as her career soars, her personal life spirals downward. Broken bonds and lost love finally force her to confront the terrible secret of her beginning in shamanism.

Even for a techno-shaman, a kachina in the bedroom isn't exactly part of the drill. When Olivia Lawson wakes to find one towering over her, she panics. A Hopi god visiting the real world isn't just wrong - it's impossible. Or is it? Soon Olivia learns that the kachina is the least of her worries. As she struggles to save her clients, clashes with other shamans, and fends off the attacks of real-world vigilantes, Olivia finds herself in the destructive path of a malevolent ancient force intent on leaving the spiritual realm to conquer this one.

Gelda is dead. With her death, the mantle of shaman is passed to Fia, her apprentice, and the youngest shaman the Goblins of the Iffell Moors have ever known. Eager to prove her worth and ability, she puts too much trust in a trickster goddess when her clan is threatened by the race of Men. A costly mistake that leads to the annihilation of her clan, and her capture by raiders who force her into bondage and a life of servitude. After she is sold to the wealthy and powerful nobleman, Lord Roshemont, Fia finds little comfort in the other goblin slaves at Roshemont Keep.