Book description
A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style
world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Rise of the Iron Moon.
The isolated island of Jago is the only place Hannah Conquest has ever
known as home. Encircled by the magma ocean of the Fire Sea, it was once
the last bastion of freedom when the world struggled under the tyranny
of the Chimecan Empire during the age-long winter of the cold-time. But
now this once-shining jewel of civilization faces an uncertain future as
its inhabitants emigrate to greener climes, leaving the basalt plains
and raging steam storms far behind them.
For Hannah and her few friends, the streets of the island's last
occupied underground city form a vast, near-deserted playground. But
Hannah's carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian,
Archbishop Alice Gray, is brutally murdered in her own cathedral.
Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop,
and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer
believes that Alice passed the knowledge of it onto her ward before her
saintly head was separated from her neck.
But it soon becomes clear that there is more at stake than the life of
one orphan. A deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago, involving rival
factions in the senate and the island's most powerful trading partner.
And it's beginning to look as if the deaths of Hannah's archaeologist
parents shortly after her birth were very far from accidental. Soon the
race is on for Hannah and her friends to unravel a chain of hidden
riddles and follow them back to their source to save not just her own
life, but her island home itself. Praise for 'The Court of the Air':
'An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels' Lisa
Tuttle, The Times
'The characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement
is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London … the depth and
complexity of Hunt's vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages' Guardian
'Wonderfully assured … Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it
to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension' Time Out
'Rich and colourful … keeps you engrossed … a confident, audacious
novel' SFX
'Like a magpie, Stephen Hunt has plucked colourful events from history
and politics and used them for inspiration … Hunts tells his
full-blooded tale with lip-smacking relish, revealing a vivid, often
gruesome imagination … T'he Court of the Air' brims with originality
and, from the first, its chase-filled plot never lets up' Starburst
Stephen Hunt has worked as a writer, editor and publisher for a number
of magazines and national newspaper groups in the UK. He is also the
founder of www. SFcrowsnest. com, one of the oldest and most popular
fan-run science fiction and fantasy websites. Born in Canada, the author
divides his time between the UK, North America and Spain. His interests
include computer programming, the graphic arts and collecting comics.
One day he hopes to have a library large enough to house all of his
books.
