I need help identifying a fantasy novel that I read in 2005.  I seem to recall it was written by a male author, and I believe it was his first novel (although a trilogy was in the works).   Here is the gist of what I remember:  There was a civilization of people who had floating orb companions; these orbs were conscious beings and each person had their very own assigned orb, which could communicate telepathically with them.  I think the orbs might have had the ability to heal their companions of diseases or injuries, too.    There was a quarantined part of the city, surrounded by a giant Wall, where they kept people who had lost their orbs.  I seem to recall if a person's orb was destroyed, they would become mentally unhinged (due to grief and emptiness) and eventually kill themselves. They were also a threat to others. So these damaged people were kept locked away inside the Wall.  The protagonist was a princess (or someone of noble birth) who was betrothed to somebody she didn't want to marry, of course.  Somehow she decided to "lose" or secretly disguise her orb, so she could venture into the forbidden walled portion of the city... because she was curious....   She had to quickly learn to fight &amp; defend herself against the crazy bloodthirsty people inside.  All the quarantined people had to fend for themselves, because the people outside the Wall didn't want to take care of the sick people inside.  I remember one chapter where they threw rotten food over the Wall, and watched the starving captives fight to the death over it.  At the end of the book, she had somehow managed to establish order inside the Wall, and I think she tapped into some kind of magic to cure people of their mental illness.   I believe they had also been suffering physically, as without their orbs, any injury or disease couldn't be healed and would grow worse??   So in the end, she made some kind of sacrifice to heal the people. That is all I can remember.
7309
I think the main character was a prince or high born person, who one day wakes up and looks in the mirror and his hair is turning white, I think his skin bleaches out too... His servants notice and try to sneak him out, but he ends up being put into a compound with others with the same affliction. Are they dead? There were lots of chases in the novel; running and hiding; learning to survive in the compound... I remember being disappointed with the ending (or maybe just hungry for more) and thinking that there must be another book coming. But I forgot the book title and don't know the author so I can't track down any sequels ;) Read it at least ten years ago. Any help is appreciated!
111605
I am trying to remember a novel that I only read the first one or two chapters of.  It begins on an alien world in the midst of a war.  There were two types of aliens, with different names.  It initially seems to be a war of annihilation; one group has captured a bunch of the others, who are sent to a facility from which none of the captured type ever emerge.  However, in discussion with a (human?) visitor, one of the alien leaders reveals that the two alien groups are only distinguished by whether or not they are infected by a mind-controlling psychic parasite.  The captives being sent to the facility are being cured and coming out again.  The aliens have decided to hunt the parasites to their home world, to wipe them out.  The home world is called Earth.  That's when I stopped reading though.
56503
I listened to this on audiobook and it was great.  The premise was a human ends up travelling to an alien planet. The aliens have a perimeter to their 'base' that is under constant attack from the planet's animals. It is revealed towards the end that there is some sort of signal being transmitted that is making all the animals and plant life attack a certain point on the planet (where the aliens are).   Other major plot points I remember: The human traveller falls in love with an alien. The aliens have a sort of virtual training environment that simulates life outside the perimeter, where plants attack you etc. There is a secondary alien group that the human ends up with, and although they are rivals to other group, they have a trade set up.   Any help much appreciated! Thanks.
68445
I read a book when I was younger, that started off with a man directing a play. When it was over, he went to a party with his cast and came out of his drunken stupor in the lap of some woman, drunk and missing his wife, so he goes back home to be with her. As the story progresses you find out this man was somehow sucked into this world from Earth, likely in a previous book. I remember the book specifically describing him having cotton mouth. Weird thing to recall. But there it is. I also think his wife is pregnant.  I don't recall much. I remember he has a friend that sort of resembles a monkey. He has an older friend who guides him, I think some sort of mage. He lives in a city that's somewhat/somehow important in this world. His quest in this book is somehow supposed to save this city or the world. He has to sail to wherever he's off to.  In one scene he's in a port city and two ruffians in a bar challenge him. He fights them but gets beat up bad. They congratulate him for standing up for himself and his little monkey-like friend, and buy him drinks.  At some point he meets some living rock creatures and befriends them. I don't recall how it happens exactly, but when those creatures are broken the new shard has an ego all its own while the original part stays as the original ego. I think when you meet them there's just one. Then he gets broken and then has a "brother".   At some point there's a goblin cave... thing. Like a mountain range with a ton of goblins in it. I remember picturing in my head as being a ton of cave mouths densely packed. I don't remember if this was their destination, but I think they had to go into it.  There was magic in this world but I don't think it was overly prominent. I remember the cover sort of making me think of clockwork or Leonardo-type machinations. I don't mean to say it had machines on it. It just made me think of that period and that sort of innovation.  Any help would be appreciated!
37010
Can someone remind me of the name of the author, the name of the hero and the name of the series if any? Adventure Sci-Fi books, short by today's epic standards ( = about same length as Heinlein's shorter youth books), probably published late 50s?, early 60s? by Bantam? or Del Rey? I think at least 30, possibly more than 40 books in the series. Not comic books. The author is not a well-known writer. At least, I don't remember seeing the name on any other books, ever.   Subject: a man who can move and respond to threats extremely fast learns about a secret potion that allows a person to change bodies with someone else and thus control them. A powerful organization does not want the secret to be known, because they use the potion to control politicians on many planets. The organization's goons are people who had surgeries to remove their emotions, and function like organic computers. They can communicate over interstellar distances and follow and murder anyone who learns the secret. I remember the following detail about the potion: there are two nearly identical molecules that have to be assembled in a certain sequence. Two of the components had to be switched around and that determined who would be dominant and who would be controlled during the mind switch / body swap.   Every book finds the hero on another planet with new adventures, and usually taking another deep-sleep-passage to another world, fleeing his pursuers. The background story about the secret potion is dished out little by little in each book.  One book in the series starts like this: hero is on very hot planet, diving for valuable marine life, catches a deadly fungus disease and is rescued last moment in exchange for his catch...  One of the themes that returns often is that the hero is an excellent knife fighter.  Of course he's a womanizer. In the second (or close to 2nd) book in the series, he's involved with a woman who rules a planet.  To travel to another world, he usually takes the cheapest dead-sleep passage, and there's always a 10-25% risk you won't wake up from that.
29920
I'm trying to find the title of an old fantasy book I read at least 20 years ago, but I have very little to help identify it.  Obviously I don't remember the author name, I think it was written in the 80s or late 70s.  It was a classic premise with a modern day man from our world, transported to a fantasy setting. The world I remember was on the brink of an Ice Age and the main character and  wizard mentor found a keep to save the human race.  In the keep they found ancient machinery to produce light, warmth and food.  The magic in this world was glyph based, using the true meaning of word to change reality. Obviously the main character becomes a magician even if not really that skilled.  I think there was also a triangle with the main character, a princess and a dead husband who was not so dead after all, but it's all really foggy.  There were at least two books in the series.
90738
I'm looking for a fantasy novel I read in the 90s. Heroine begins the story overweight and has to go on a long quest (don't remember why). Along the way she acquires a group of animal/spirit? sidekicks, including a smartass pig, I think. By the end of her quest she has lost weight - not the main point of the book of course, but it's a detail that sticks out.   I think she developed magical powers during her quest, which she may have been surprised to discover? That's about all I can come up with. Cover was a girl walking in typical fantasy/forest scene with the animals, as I recall.It was a humorous, lighter fantasy. Any ideas?
93043
I was reading this book that was like a sci-fi hunger games thing. Basically this human from earth gets captured from his boat, and then he is taken to the alien's spaceship where he is thrown into jail.   All of the other prisoners are from other planets - they have a crocodile man, a small frail girl called Doe who can read minds. All of the aliens have some translation thing inserted into them so they can understand each other. So in the human's example, all of them translated into English.   There's a lot of things that go on, they train for the final fight(I think, I may be getting this confused with the Hunger Games), the human sleeps with another alien girl there, the small girl Doe reads his mind and he gets embarrassed that she knows that he slept with the alien girl, and eventually they get released into an arena or something where they are hunted by the hunter aliens who captured them.  A lot of stuff happens and Doe dies in the end. What is this book's name?
61901
I remember starting, and losing, a book in the late 80s, early 90s, that I have been trying to  remember for a while now.  It's not much to go on, I realise, but the main crux of the plot, until I left the book in a phone booth :/, was an ice age (either implied or stated, I can't recall) was starting, and a (I think implied) glacier was moving closer to the main castle or walled city of the novel.   The setting was not specifically High Fantasy, but a medieval style setting.  The interesting thing I always remember about the book was that the antagonist appeared to be the ice itself, slowly, but inexorably, getting closer.
118156
I'm trying to track down a novel I read in my junior high days, which would put it at mid-to-late 80s. I don't remember the overall plot of the novel, but I remember the protagonist ended up matching wits against Death in various games - including a bowling match, of all things. The kid was being helped by a group of weird characters &amp; creatures, and the rules of the world he was in were all screwy. It definitely had a fantasy genre bent to it - wasn't sci/fi or drama. It also wasn't a "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" book, which I absolutely loved at the time - it was a regular novel with a linear plot.  I was a big fan of AD&amp;D at the time, so I'm thinking it might have been set in the Planescape "universe", which would have explained all the weird characters &amp; rules of reality. I've had no luck finding it based on that, however. I've also had no luck searching for "bowling" + "death"... all I get are a bunch of weird news reports about people dying while bowling.  Does the "bowling with death" thing ring a bell for anyone?
63234
I was reading  and was strongly reminded of a series I remember reading in my teens.  This would have been a series of novels (possibly just one), published in English, and likely before 1980 - I read it in the 90s and it was fairly old, a used book.  I do not think it is the same as the linked question, which is why I'm asking this separately.  It was definitely a fantasy, not sci-fi.  Plot:  At least two girls (and possibly also some boys/other girls) are transported from modern Earth into a fantasy world.  I think they're a group of friends, possibly with some romantic pairings, and are in the 16-25 age range.  The first significant scene I remember is two of the girls ending up in a city, where they are taken in by an older female artist (might have been a different creative type, like a sculptor/actress).  She's lesbian/bisexual.  At some point she attempts to give one of the girls a love potion, but they reverse it on her, so instead the artist falls in love with the girl and accompanies her for the rest of the books.  Twist: It's later revealed that the artist's friends recognized the love potion and removed it.  She pretended to be in love and went along because she thought it would be interesting.  At some point at least one of the girls ends up basically being a magical sex slave/prostitute.  I remember her being tattooed or painted - I think in blue - and also possibly given some magical jewellery/piercings that ensure her obedience/love of her owner.  I do not remember much of the over-arching plot, just a few disjointed pieces:  The world has chaos/wild magic storms.  The books might have called them something else.  Anyone or anything caught by these storms is transformed into something else entirely, so different objects or species.  These show up throughout as minor plot encounters.  I think they can be defended against with a special material.  Near the very end, a large storm engulfs a major city, giving it entirely new architecture and transforming the inhabitants into green, hermaphrodites with a centaurish body structure.  I am not 100% sure this was the same novel, but I recall a secondary character with a secret - at night he turns into a woman (not just his body, but an entirely different person).  At some point it's revealed that the woman was his lover, and he saved her life by sharing his body with her - of course, now they can never meet/touch again.
29494
While waiting to get onto a computer booked at the local library about 2 years ago, I picked up a sci-fi novel whose name and author I cannot recall and began reading.  Elements of the opening part of the book that I can recall.   A small squadron is trying to penetrate the defenses of an enemy power. It is mentioned they are traveling at an altitude of NN mm (which seemed odd at the time) They are swamped by autonomous flying defenders that hone in on the approaching craft and attack them (mostly by physically disassembling them in-flight). The pilots have a conversation in which it is revealed that this is not the first time they've attacked, and the defenses have improved over time. As each of the attacking craft are swamped the situation becomes more hopeless, until the last of the attackers is destroyed. It then turns out the pilots of the attack vehicles were at a far distant point, remotely operating micro/nano-machines..   That was mostly in the first chapter, as far as I read.  I'd guess it was written within the last 10 years (15 at the outside).  Can anyone identify this book &amp; author?
88862
I seek some help identifying a short book I read in my childbook. It was a science fiction book about a society where due to scarcity of resources, you were allowed a certain life span depending on your achievements and contributions to society. If you exceed the amount before doing something that causes you to get promoted to a higher life span, you will be taken in the night by some sort of police and vanish.   For extraordinary achievements the highest status you could achieve was immortality (I seem to dimly remember the usage of the word amaranth for those people).   The protagonist of the novel was someone who had once been granted immortaility but then had it stripped away from him again due to some misdeed or mistake. Now he tries to get that status again (maybe under a fake identity?), but one of the immortal people is suspicious of him so he murders her. She gets revived later, because that's part of the immortality package.    It ends with him being apprehended, but society decides to invest heavily into space again so that hopefully in the future there is space for everyone to be immortal. The book ends with the protagonists being sent of an explorer into space alone.
48000
I read this book many years ago. It is set on a double planet with a shared atmosphere. The people on the planet have a caste system, they are either military or thinkers. There are giant trees on the planet, which are used for almost everything, building materials as well as an energy source from the crystals the trees form.  There are also poisonous bubbles that float around. The inhabitants were able to destroy them with ranged weapons, but the bubbles became more dangerous which forced the mass migration of the inhabitants to the adjoining planet via balloons made from and powered by the giant trees.  There is also a sequel where the main character from the first book travels through space to another planet in the system using a more advanced rocket based off the trees.
3923
I read a book as a teenager and I am searching for it. (from around the 90's)  Things I remember:   I remember that one of the players was in a wheelchair and he played a dwarf, Also remember when the wizard woke up in the game world, he set off a lightning bolt and exploded most of their gear.    I wish I could give you more, I read it and it inspired me to start playing D&amp;D. Want to revisit it.
121011
I don't have much info about this, I can only remember 2 scenes and I'm not entirely certain they're from the same book (only about 95%).   One scene has a man (possibly with a woman with him) attacked on a hill by what I think was a pack of wolves. I remember them riding the same horse, and he's got a sword. I'm pretty sure that this attack was communicated somehow to another person (telepathically or by some kind of magical viewing) who was trying to reach the man to help.   The other scene is of a young gypsy woman who I think got her wagon from her grandmother. She makes potions and see things (I don't remember how she sees). I think she is somehow in danger but I'm not sure how, it may have been for practicing magic.   The book was set in a historical period, possibly early 1800s or before in a British type area. I think it was part of a series and that the author was female. I read the book around 10 years ago. Also I believe it was a paperback copy.  Thanks for any suggestions, this has been driving me crazy for a couple of years!
94674
I'm looking for the name of a series of space opera novels I read some time ago, probably between 2003 and 2010.    It may have been published quite a few years before I read it, I don't think it was new at the time. I borrowed the novels from the local library, but I can't find them in its catalogue. I think the covers were fairly dark and plain, though there may have been some artwork on them. There was a totalitarian empire that controlled most planets, possibly ruled by a queen. There was no mention of Earth, the solar system or other real planets, the setting was completely fictional. There were people with psychic/psionic powers, referred to as something like "psi". These people were second-class citizens or slaves. Spaceships were used to travel between worlds. I'm not sure what kind of FTL technology they had, if any. Beyond the edge of the empire was some kind of "dark space", where there was no light. There were some horror themes: When travelling in dark space in one of the novels, a ships crew experienced strange thoughts and hallucinations. I remember finding this quite scary at the time.   Does anyone know which series this could be?  This isn't a duplicate of , since the two questions are about different parts of the same series (the first and second episodes).