Showing results by author "Patty Jansen" in All Categories

When Perrin was so desperate that he applied for a job with the Bureau of Magic Abuse, there were two things he didn't realise. One, that he might actually get the job and two, that it would involve working with magic sniffers. And what an annoyance the creatures are. They keep him up at night, need to feed on expensive fresh fruit and cause him embarrassment.

The royal family is in deep trouble: Ever since the crown princess died of illness, the king has attempted to educate his son to become king. However, the prince is "not good in the head" and quite unsuited to the task. In his grief for his daughter, the king has run the coffers dry: He hired dubious magicians for even more dubious tasks. Those magicians circle like vultures waiting for the kingdom to fail. The king must get his son on the throne, preferably supported by a smart and well-off wife.

Cast out from the palace, Nellie survives in the streets of Saardam with the poor and destitute and a dragon whose behavior she can't control but is the key to finding the last member of the royal family. The pompous Regent is hell-bent on finding the person who has killed his court advisor, and he has decided the dragon is guilty. If he doesn't find a culprit, his main source of money is at stake. The guards comb the city. It's only a matter of time before they find Nellie.

Preparations are underway for the society wedding of the year and Perrin gets the unenviable task of checking the kitchens for illegal magic. In the midst of the frantic preparations, Frida, his most experienced magic sniffer, gets upset. If a magic sniffer is upset, there is magic.

One day when bullied Florian comes home from school, he finds a visitor in the caravan where he lives with his father. The woman, who looks older than time, tells him that his father is king of Celestia and has seven days to renew the spell of protection over the land. But his father has no interest in going back.

Of all the things 10-year-old Cory Wilson expects to do when he moves to Midway Space Station, saving aliens from humans isn't one. An important conference is about to start at the station, not usually the sort of thing kids care about, not even when the conference is between humans and aliens, and half your family is alien.

Lana han Chevonian is one of the world’s brightest minds on the brink of making a huge discovery. There is only one problem: she is stuck as prisoner in the harem of the Aranian king. She could try to escape and run the risk of getting re-captured or getting killed on the very long and difficult road back home to Chevakia, or she could win the favour of the king, beg to be allowed to use the famed library and promise Arania credit for her work.

The world is under increasing threat from as-yet undiscovered sources of icefire, but all the people who have answers are cut off from the authorities, kings, or councils with the power to mobilize the scientists and armies to keep the world safe. Young meteorology student Javes is stuck in the remote desert of the north. The area bristles with technology of an ancient past, but he cannot tell anyone about it because roads and telegraph lines have been cut by bad weather and invading bandits. No one is watching the skies. No one is tallying up the disasters.

Tina and her crew finally arrive on Olympus, the world that holds the Federacy Assembly. Her initial plan was to go there to present the data left in a locker on Kelso Station 15 years earlier, but many things have changed. For one, rather than wait for someone else to do it, she and the scientists collected at Aurora Station have been working on a cure for the infection that turns people into gray-skinned mutant pirates. Secondly, they're bringing a stricken war ship and a few of its remaining crew members who were rescued from pirate captivity. Little has gone to plan.

An ancient machine that produced icefire was destroyed 20 years ago, but the deadly magic is again on the increase. No one understands why or where it’s coming from. King Isandor sends his Eagle Knights to investigate a concentration of icefire in the mountains at the border. It appears that the neighbouring country Arania wants revenge for a defeat in a war forty years ago, and is using icefire as weapon. The evil power source must be eradicated.

Melati escaped New Jakarta Space Station when it fell into Allion's hands. Her family was left behind the enemy lines. She signed up for active duty with the International Space Force in the hope they would liberate the station. Instead, they chose to maintain a crippling siege that has lasted for 10 months.

Tina had no choice but to escape Aurora Station on board the Starfighter Manila: The ship was about to blow up and would have killed the entire station. But they're in deep trouble. They have less than half the crew number necessary to fly the ship safely, the engines are damaged and Tina's travel companions are on a different ship. Aurora Station fell into pirate hands, so returning is not an option and the ship isn't safe to fly long distances. On top of that, several crew members may have been exposed to genetic treatment by the pirates.

They came from the poorest cities on Earth. They were promised free food and housing. They didn't know that they, or their children, would never see Earth again. A few years ago, a military doctor walking the corridors of New Jakarta Space Station saved Melati's life. She signed up for the International Space Force to pay back her moral debt to him.

After having escaped from Kelso Station, Tina and her crew run low on supplies. Both stations they can visit are in pirate hands. They have to make a toss-up decision on which would be the safest. They choose the bigger station. But while they’re in the dock, trying very hard not to be noticed until they can negotiate the ridiculous supply wait times before they leave again, Tina finds out that her daughter, Evelle, is a prisoner at the station.

On the backwater world of Cayelle, Tina Freeman runs a shop with her son Rex, 15 years old, half-human, half-android with a massive chip on his shoulder about having been born without arms or legs. The shop makes a modest profit, but when a creditor turns up wanting his money back, everything goes pear-shaped. She needs money, and needs it fast.

As Cory takes a well-earned rest and finally submits to proper weapons training, he and a couple of people from his household go on a hunting trip in the marshland between Barresh and the turquoise sea. A bad storm has come through recently and on a deserted beach, Cory finds something Earthly that doesn’t belong there: A message in a bottle, a piece of paper with "HELP" scratched on it with a sharp object. In Isla. Cory has a list of all humans in Barresh: It’s very short and no one is missing.

Verona Rupes, on the ice moon Miranda, is the tallest cliff in the solar system. If you jump off the top, it takes 700 seconds to reach the bottom. What can you do in the most important 700 seconds of your life? Jonathan and Gaby arrive at the ice moon Miranda to work with a local researcher and find that adventurists have snuck into an area infected with alien bacteria and have gotten themselves in trouble. Do these people have to be stopped because they're about to spread a bacterial infection to the human settlements or are there other factors at play?

If Miran had princesses, Ellisandra Takumar would be one. Smart, pretty, engaged to a high-profile man, everything a high-class Mirani woman should be. But things are not well in Miran. Many years of boycotts have taken their toll on society, and the regime becomes more desperate to keep its citizens under control. Revolt is brewing. As director of the state theatre, Ellisandra has been asked to stage a violent traditional play which stands stiff with threatening political messages for the populace.

Izramith Ezmi is many things: a member of the feared, all-female Hedron guards, a war veteran recently returned from a pointless and bloody mission, and impatient, angry, and above all, lonely. With her contract about to run out, she may be on her way to becoming a ruthless mercenary, since what she really wants - becoming a mother - is out of the question. Her family carries a gene that causes deeply malicious madness. Her nephew was born with it, and her useless sister has left him in the care of an institute. A baby. Two days old.

Queen Johanna's position in Saardam is fragile. The barons and kings of the countries in the hinterland are not happy that she helped the royal family to survive and is now about to ensure the next generation. They vow to teach this little upstart country a lesson for once and for all. Johanna knows that if it came to a fight Saardam could never survive, so she has invited all the heads of state and other important people for talks to invest in the city's shattered infrastructure for the benefit of all.