MELISSA SCOTT

Might the path to true knowledge of any great dictator lead through his stomach?What did dictators eat? Sometimes simply obscene amounts of the best their nations could offer, but more often their despots humble origins, or embarrassing medical conditions, or simple lack of interest in or time for food meant their tastes were surprisingly unpretentious ranging from human flesh, to raw garlic salad, to Quality Street...Dictators Dinners is an investigation into what some of the worlds most notorious 20th century despots have enjoyed most at their dinner table, and with whom. Here we learn of their foibles, their eccentricities and their frequent terror of poisoning - something no number of food tasters was ever able to assuage.For a selection of 25 former national figureheads across the world, each section includes: An outline of the dictators history. A short essay on their particular eating habits, table manners, digestive systems. One or two of their favourite recipes.

A thought-provoking examination of the possibility of artificial intelligence. Reverdy Jian, a freelance "dreamspace" pilot based on Persephone (an arid world so hot the population lives underground), and her partners Imre Vaughn and "Red" take on a job flying a custom-made ship for the secretive Meredalia Mitexi. Theyre to search for Mitexis lost brother Venya an almost legendary designer of the near-sentient computer "constructs" that help human pilots navigate dreamspace who vanished soon after his claim to have created a true artificial intelligence was suppressed by his corporate employer, Kagami Ltd. Aboard Mitexis ship, Reverdy works with Manfred, Venyas custom construct, and she grows ever more convinced that Manfred might be sentient. When Reverdy learns that Mitexi plans to turn Manfred over to Kagami on their return, she decides she must protect the construct, though she risks her career and maybe her life.

A Battle of Wizardy From a History Not Quite Our Own...GOD SAVE THE KING OF SCOTLANDThe heavy summer air of 1593 is full of portents for Elizabeth, Englands Queen, and James VI, King of Scotland. A coven of witches secretly controlled by the Wizard Earl of Bothwell has summoned a storm to sink the ship that bears James bride to Scotland. Though the ship made port, the success of their summoning has emboldened them; the coven is now launching wizardly attacks on the King himself and James is terrified.FROM SATANS WIZARD EARLThe King has protectors not least the Queen of England herself but not even Elizabeths secret service and her champion, the redoubtable Sir Philip Sidney, can be on watch every instant. Eventually a trap is sprung, and King James is at the mercy of the satanic Bothwells deadly spells...

In this sequel to Lost Things, when the Gilchrist Aviation team tries to win the money to keep the business going by placing first in a coast-to-coast air race, things get complicated! A stolen necklace, a runaway Russian countess, and a century-old curse seem like trouble enough, but then theres New Orleans, and the unsolved murders of the New Orleans Axeman. But what if the murderer is one of them?This digital Edition features an excerpt from LOST THINGS, the first book in the series, as well as an excerpt form THE PARTING - a Novel of the O.C.L.T. by David Niall Wilson.FIND MORE TITLES by MELISSA SCOTT & Crossroad Press, including Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence in Solitude, The Kindly Ones, and more by searching Melissa Scott and Crossroad Press. Also available Jo Grahams The Ravens of Falkenau, and the unabridged audio of her classic historical fantasy - Hand of Isis, narrated by Gigi Shane.CROSSROAD PRESS offers many SCI-FI and FANTASY books, including the original series properties O.C.L.T., Tales of The Scattered Earth, The DeChance Chronicles, and more.

Melissa Scott, winner of the John W. Campbell Award, twice winner of the Lambda Award for best novel, and author of the cyberpunk classic, Trouble and Her Friends, returns with a hip novel of the media-dominated future, when the internet is filled with Jazz: intentional misinformation and bewildering disinformation that are both an artform and a business.Tin Lizzy, a respected Jazz artist with a checkered past, is a theatrical Web site designer who does backgrounds for Jazz productions. When a nifty new script shows up on the web, Lizzy is surprised to learn it came from a teenage boy named Keyz. It turns out Keyz used his parents access codes to borrow a Hollywood studios editing program- the true, hidden source of the studios success. Now the studio head wants to lock him in jail and throw away the key.So Lizzy rescues him and takes him on the road, across the altered landscape of twenty-first century USA, trying to stay one step ahead of the police and the vengeance of a megalomaniac CEO.The Jazz is a road chase novel of the future, filled with shady characters, close calls, and colorful neat ideas.

A star-flung empire the prize in a deadly war of successionThe Silvertree Empress is dead, the last of her line. The heir named in her will is an impossibility, her favorite, Keira Renault, member of a family deposed and disgraced generations before the man she claimed as the power behind her throne. As the Empires notables jockey for position behind the various claimants, Keira must defeat his rivals in simulation and reality and somehow hold the factions together long enough for the Empire to survive.

Five years after the Manfred riots, the question of machine intelligence is still a dangerous one on Persephone, and the coolie rights organization Realpeace is not prepared to let it go. For conjurer Celinde Fortune and her musician cousin Fanning Jones, the conflict is a distant one until the murder of a popular musician raises the stakes even for the most determinedly uninvolved. And when Fortune acquires a new Spelvin construct to manage her magic actone originally owned by an FTL pilot named Reverdy Jianshe is thrust suddenly into the middle of the problem. Because this construct is something different, and that difference can get them all killed.

In Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence Leigh discovered that she was not only unusual, as a female pilot, but that impossible thing, a female magus. Her unique abilities make her the only person capable of reaching Earth, humanitys original home, now sealed behind a mysterious barrier but first she must learn to use her new-found talents. As the Hegemons men close in on her and her husbands and teacher, she must make a dangerous bargain: undertake an impossible rescue mission in exchange for a vital map. If she succeeds, she may be able to save Earth. If she fails

Five-Twelfths of Heaven - Book I of The Roads of HeavenIn a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly disenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magis power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemonys oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of "The Sun-Treader."Silence in Solitude - Book II of The Roads of HeavenIn Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence Leigh discovered that she was not only unusual, as a female pilot, but that impossible thing, a female magus. Her unique abilities make her the only person capable of reaching Earth, humanitys original home, now sealed behind a mysterious barrier but first she must learn to use her new-found talents. As the Hegemons men close in on her and her husbands and teacher, she must make a dangerous bargain: undertake an impossible rescue mission in exchange for a vital map. If she succeeds, she may be able to save Earth. If she failsThe Empress of Earth - Book III of The Roads of HeavenFollowing "Five-Twelfths of Heaven" and "Silence in Solitude", this is the third and concluding novel in the Silence Leigh series. Silence Leigh now faces the ultimate test of her skills as a pilot and of her powers as a sage.Silence has finally wangled a deal with the Hegemony to use their gear to help them find the lost star roads to Earth. This comes at a price, though, as the credit for this will go to the leader of the Hegemonys family, so that one of his relatives can inherit his position, given that he has no children.The roads are not lost by accident, there is an active group of planets trying to block access to Earth, setting up a final conflict.

In a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly disenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magis power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemonys oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of "The Sun-Treader""Polyamourous alchemical space-opera..." - Jo Walton

Orestes was a cruel world, cold and inhospitable. Its first colonists were castaways from a crash landing, cling to survival through the institution of strict socio political pontrols. Over the generations life grew somewhat easier, but the code of honour remained. Misdeeds and errors were paid for with blood.At one time all miscreants were executed. Now a social death is imposed. Every Oresteian city has colony of "ghosts": ostracised citizens who must survive, somehow, without help from the living.But galactic civilisation is spreading and Orestes is in its path. The old ways are under scrutiny. And though the Oresteian aristocracy will fight for the status quo, they have not reckoned on the power of a thousand ghosts.

In Burning Bright, Scott tells a passionate, colorful tale of love and death, her best yet. Setting her story on the free-port planet of Burning Bright, nexus of trade, politically balanced between the human and Hsai empires in space, and center of virtual reality gaming for all of civilization, Scott weaves a network of intrigue and suspense.When space pilot and ambitious young game developer Quinn Lioe gets shore leave on Burning Bright, determined to play the game at its brilliant center, she becomes enmeshed in the conflict between two great empires, a key figure upon whom the fates of fortune turn.Once again, Scott constructs a brilliantly complex future society and tells a story that involves the mind and the heart. This is science fiction adventure at its classic best.

In The Shapes of Their Hearts, on the planet Idun a computer tape of the uploaded mind of a religious prophet has been allowed to merge with an AI. The result is both a Christian icona godlike being venerated by the faithfuland a powerful religious terrorist in its computer avatars off-planet. This is a god of whom many copies exist. Anton Tsos challenge is to stop the terrorism without killing God.

Following "Five-Twelfths of Heaven" and "Silence in Solitude", this is the third and concluding novel in the Silence Leigh series. Silence Leigh now faces the ultimate test of her skills as a pilot and of her powers as a sage.Silence has finally wangled a deal with the Hegemony to use their gear to help them find the lost star roads to Earth. This comes at a price, though, as the credit for this will go to the leader of the Hegemonys family, so that one of his relatives can inherit his position, given that he has no children.The roads are not lost by accident, there is an active group of planets trying to block access to Earth, setting up a final conflict.

IF AT FIRST YOU DONT SUCCEED HIRE IT DONE!What does a big corporation do when a job is too dirty and dangerous for its own employees? Why hire a freelancer, of course. Thats how salvage operators Gwynne Heikki and her sidekick Sten Djuro find themselves commissioned to make their way to the surface of an undeveloped planet where they are to find and return a lost cargo. Dangerous, maybe, and dirty certainly, but the job seemed simple enough with just enough complication to make it "interesting": the fact that the cargo locators had failed in the crash; that the place swarmed with dangerous animals; that the worst of those animals was of almost human intelligence and more than human ferocity But there were a few problems that the company didnt tell them about It was almost as if their employers wanted them to fail and to die in the process.

Kelly 2/1 Ista is an apprentice hypothecary, learning to work with the quasi-living computer programs that live and breed in virtual space. She is also a foundling, the only survivor of a disaster on one of the Night Sky Mining Companys mining platforms, and without a real identity, she will never be able to leave the station. When a second platform is attacked and abandoned in much the same way, she joins forces with a pair of off-station investigators in the hope that she will find her true identity but there is far more danger waiting for her in both the real and virtual worlds than she had even begun to imagine."Mature, balanced, absorbing work, with a richly detailed, enchanting backdrop: something of a breakthrough in overall technique, and Scotts best so far." - Kirkus Reviews"Scott explores the ramifications of virtual life through the very human eyes of her principals; this is most artful cyberpunk, told with heart." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

1994 Lambda Literary Award-Winning Novel for Lesbian and Gay Science Fiction and FantasyIndia Carless, alias Trouble, managed to stay one step ahead of the feds until she retired from life as a hacker and settled down to run a small network for an artists co-op. Now someone has stolen her pseudonym and begun to use it for criminal hacking.So Trouble returns. Once the fastest gun on the electronic frontier, she has been called out of retirement for one last fight. And its a killer.Less than a hundred years from now, the forces of law and order crack down on the world of the Internet. It is the closing of the frontier. The hip, noir adventurers who got by on wit, bravado, and drugs, who haunt the virtual worlds of the shadows of cyberspace are up against the edges of civilization. Its time to adapt or die.

Danger, trust, desire, loveonly Astreiants stars know the outcome.Nicolas Rathe and Philip Eslingen, the heroes who saved Astreiants children mere months before, are back, drawn together from opposite sides of the law to investigate a series of murders whose impact stretches deep into Astreiants underworld. Eslingen is now a professional knife working for a prominent crimelord while Nicolas Rathe is an Adjunct Point, sworn to uphold the citys laws. By rights, they should be wary foes, but instead they find themselves sharing an investigation as well as a bed as their search takes them into the heart of Point of Knives and at its center, the Court of Thirty-two Knives, the hub of Astreiants underworld.They will need all the allies they can find to navigate the labyrinth of conflicts and alliances that stand between them and catching a killer before they strike again. A single misstep could be disaster, a single doubt, the end of all their hopes.Book 2 of the Astreiant Series

Magic, murder and danger in Astreiant.Rumors are swirling among the boatmen that the Riverdeme, the ancient spirit of the river, once bound by the magic of the citys bridges, is back and hunting handsome young men. The broadsheets are full of dire predictions and Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe has been handed a case that involves a murdered tea trader, a death that implicates a prominent merchant family in the crime. Philip Eslingen, now a captain in the City Guard, is assigned to assist him in navigating city politics and rivalry between the Points stations, as well as finding the killer. But there are tales from the riverside about extortion and violence and one murder follows another. Philips stars are bad for water and the Riverdeme is on the prowl