Bøger af David Zindell

How many terrible things can a man do in pursuit of good before he falls into a black hole of the soul from which there is no escape?Valashu Elahad rescued the Lightstone from the dark hell of Morjin's underground city of Agarttha only to see his triumph overturned. Once more, the Red Dragon has the sacred golden cup in his hands. He will use it to gain power over all Ea and to free the dark god Angra Mainyu imprisoned on the world of Damoom for a million years. If that happens, the entire universe of Eluru will fall into corruption and irreversible decay.Through the power of the Black Jade - the greatest black gelstei ever forged - Val will seek to understand the darkness inside himself so that he can use evil to fight evil. At the same time, he must sharpen the good inside himself into a bright silver sword that will cut through illusion and point the way to the Maitreya: the one person for whom the Lightstone was meant. Somewhere on Ea, this Lightbringer has been born, and Val must find him.Black Jade is the fourth book of the internationally acclaimed Ea Cycle that began with The Lightstone and Lord Of Lies. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, a startling new cosmology, and an intricately-made world as rich as Tolkien's and with all the magic of an Arthurian romance, you'll love this book. Buy Black Jade now to join in an ancient and timeless quest.

Will humanity find the way to fulfil our great evolutionary potential or will we blow ourselves up?With this intensely moving story of growing up on the planet earth in crazy times, internationally bestselling author David Zindell returns to the great themes of his many novels. Part memoir, part philosophy, and very much an account of the 1960s generation, Splendor begins with Zindell's account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and his dread of being annihilated through nuclear war. That terrible experience moved him to set out on a lifelong journey to discover why a nearly godly race known as human beings seems doomed to destroy the world. To solve this great dilemma, he tried to find a new way of living that he calls splendor. He pursued this elusive quality, like many of his time, through knowledge, adventure, spirituality, success, and love. (And, of course, through sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll). His quest would take him from the terror of death in the Grand Tetons to the wonder of life in the birth of his daughters to writing visionary fiction in celebration of both. Along the way, meetings with Robin Williams, Timothy Leary, Ken Wilber, and others famous, infamous and unknown, helped to shape him in different ways.This is the story of how a writer seeks experience and how that is translated into literature - and how writing itself can be an expression of splendor. It also tells how Zindell's work has been a dialogue with all the hopes, conceits, frustrations, failures, and glories of the true Greatest Generation that some call the Baby Boomers. Whatever one thinks of the millions born beneath the shadow of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Zindell argues, the fate of the earth now lies in their hands - and in those who come after them. For their uncompleted task of overcoming the destructive forces of power, pride, wealth, and war holds a lesson for all of us: that only through returning to the great dream of our youth and reclaiming our essential splendor will we fulfil our destiny to lead the way into an almost unimaginably brilliant future.If you enjoy exploring spirituality, history, culture, and evolution - all intertwined with a gripping personal story - you'll love Splendor. Buy it now.

The price of greater life is death . . . . In an age of exploding stars and other cataclysmic galactic events in which Homo sapiens has long since split into different kinds, Mallory Ringess becomes a pilot of the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame. His quest to find the Elder Eddas - nothing less than the secret of life embroidered in humanity's oldest DNA - will lead him from Neverness's streets of colored ice into the deadly manifold: the "space beneath space" whose topology writhes and twists with hideous complexity like a nest of psychedelic snakes. In his lightship named The Immanent Carnation, Mallory journeys far across the Milky Way and enters the Solid State Entity: a nebula-sized brain composed of moonlike biocomputers analogous to neurons. There he is tested. In the journeys and war that follow, he begins to grasp the infinite possibilities of evolution and what he will need to sacrifice in order save humankind from destruction and change the course of the universe.Neverness is the internationally bestselling novel that introduces the epic Neverness Cycle. If you enjoy big-idea science fiction that explores the possibilities of consciousness, intelligence, technology, and evolution - all wrapped up in a page-turning, great adventure - you'll love this book.Buy Neverness today to join in an ancient quest that continues into the far and unimaginably glorious future.

Can loving the enemy you hate be the only way to defeat him?Valashu Elahad, son of an ancient line of kings, must claim the throne of Mesh if he is to have any hope of defeating Morjin, the fallen Elijin, the great Red Dragon. It seems impossible that he will ever do this. He has endured injustice and disgrace, and has lived as an outcast, practically as an outlaw. He has fled his land in shame to seek the Maitreya: the one person for whom the stolen Lightstone was meant. If he can regain the Lightstone for this great-souled being, then the golden cup might be used to quicken the peoples of the universe of Eluru in a great cosmic event called the Valkariad: the Ardun, the people of the earth, will be raised up as Valari who in turn will become immortal Elijin - even as the Elijin become the great Galadin who can never be killed. And the Galadin will go on to become Ieldra in creating new universes out the substance of their bodies and souls.If Val does not place the Lightstone in the Maitreya's hands, then Morjin will free his master, Angra Mainyu, the Baaloch, once the greatest of the Galadin who has been imprisoned on the world of Damoom for a million years. Through a hole in the earth known as the Skadarak, Angra Mainyu sends a swirling blackness to slay Val. The more Val fights it, the more he hates it, the more power it gains and the more it harms him. So it will be if he faces Morjin in the great battle that has been building for years and ages. Val fears fighting this battle because a great scryer has foretold that: "His fate is yours. If you kill him, you kill yourself." More than death, though, he fears himself. If hate triumphs and Val fails, then Ea will fall and all of Eluru will fall into corruption and irreversible decay, becoming a dark universe that the Ieldra will need to destroy.The Diamond Warriors brings to a magnificent conclusion the internationally acclaimed Ea Cycle that began with The Lightstone, Lord Of Lies, and Black Jade. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, a startling new cosmology, and an intricately-made world as rich as Tolkien's and with all the magic of an Arthurian romance, you'll love this book. Buy The Diamond Warriors today to take part in an epic journey as old as time.

The big, bad, black lies of the worst kind - the ones that bring death and destruction to those we love - are the lies we tell to ourselves.Death and destruction surround the Lightstone in the second book of the magnificent and deeply moving Ea Cycle fantasy epic. Valashu Elahad, Valari knight and seventh son of the King of Mesh, has wrested the Cup of Heaven from the hall of Morjin the Liar, the Great Red Dragon. As Lord Guardian of the Lightstone, Val must find the Maitreya, the one person to whom its secrets will be revealed. Even so, the power of the Lightstone pours through Val like a golden flame. There are many who believe Val himself to be the Maitreya. Val, though, can find no voice of certainty within himself. Three things a Valari warrior is taught: to wield a sword; to follow the Law of the One; and to tell the truth. But what is the truth of Val's destiny? He knows only that if a man proclaims himself falsely to be the Shining One, then he shall become a new Red Dragon, only mightier and more terrible.Then the scryer Kasandra declares a new prophecy that: "You, Valashu Elahad, will find the Maitreya in the darkest of places; the blood of the innocent will stain your hands; a man with no face will show you your own."What is Val's true face? And what could be darker than finding the Lord of Lies inside the cavern of his own heart?Lord Of Lies continues the internationally acclaimed Ea Cycle, which began with The Lightstone. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, a startling new cosmology, and an intricately-made world as rich as Tolkien's and with all the magic of an Arthurian romance, you'll love this book.To be swept away by a story both epic and profound, buy Lord Of Lies now.

What do you do when the soul of your best friend breaks and he threatens to become not only your worst enemy but the destroyer of entire worlds?In Book Two of David Zindell's epic science fiction series, The Neverness Cycle, a young man called Danlo the Wild stumbles out of a frozen wasteland into Neverness: the interstellar City of Light whose maze of streets of colored ice conceals dark secrets from the past as well as the brightest of hopes for the future. Starving, alone, frostbitten and grieving, a spear in his hand, Danlo is the sole survivor of his adoptive tribe, wiped out by a strange and hideous plague. He believes himself to be a misshaped member of the Alaloi people: the first settlers of the planet Icefall who long ago carked their DNA and their bodies into the form of Neanderthal cave-dwellers. Danlo, though, is fully human - and perhaps something more.Seeking answers to the mysteries of his life, Danlo undergoes trials so that he can enter the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame: the ancient brotherhood and sisterhood of pilots, historians, akashics, cetics, and scryers who hold the Civilized Worlds together. At the Order's great Academy, he befriends Hanuman li Tosh, who has fled the oppression of the Cybernetic Universal Church. Long ago, as Danlo discovers, it was a sect of this church that engineered the virus that long ago killed billions in the War of the Faces - the very same virus that destroyed his tribe. He also discovers that the broken Hanuman dreams of engineering a future for the cosmos that will turn out to be vastly more deadly . . . .The Broken God continues the saga of that began with Neverness. If you enjoy science fiction that explores different cultures, history, artificial life, evolution, and the nature of consciousness - along with a tragic story of a friendship gone wrong - you'll want to read this book. It will make hours and days disappear as you lose yourself in its pages. Buy it now.

What is the most human thing a human being can do?The question of what it means to be human lies at the heart of these stories of inner and outer adventures of the human spirit. In Shanidar, a restless, overly civilized man tires of the oppressive existence of the trillions of citizens of the Civilized Worlds spread across the stars. Goshevan seeks a different way of living, a way to be new. His quest takes him to the world of Icefall, home to the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame (and also the topological nexus of the galaxy). In the city of Neverness, whose streets are colored ice, he finds cutter who carks his body into the shape of the Neanderthal-like Alaloi who have long ago peopled the frozen islands west of Neverness. For the Alaloi, like Goshevan, have their own dreams of how human beings should live in a deadly and incomprehensible universe.In The Dreamer's Sleep, some of the same Elidi birdmen who dwell in Neverness have been enslaved and made to work in a mine. They, too, are dreamers; in fact, without the dreams of the one who tells them stories of flying free across open, blue skies, they cannot survive. In Caverns, survival is not the problem, but the scientist Richard Stone faces the cruelest of decisions: should he remain human for the sake of the woman he loves or should he become something incomprehensibly more? When The Rose Is Dead puts the survivors of war in the Endless City through the hell of memory and forgetting - and explores the possibilities of overcoming death through remembering those we love.Shanidar And Other Stories opens the gateway to Neverness, the internationally bestselling novel that introduces the epic A Requiem For Homo Sapiens trilogy. If you enjoy big-idea science fiction that explores the possibilities of radical transformation, transcendence, and explorations of consciousness, memory, and evolution - all wrapped up in page-turning stories - you'll love this book.Buy Shanidar And Other Stories today to join in the ancient quest to discover what it means to be human.

If you were a thirty-foot long orca blessed (and cursed?) with superhuman intelligence, what would you say to the human beings who were slaughtering your people? In this epic quest for a new way of life on earth, told by an orca, Arjuna of the Blue Aria Family encounters three signs of cataclysm. He leaves his home in the Arctic Ocean to seek out human beings and ask us why we are destroying the world. But the whales' ancient Song of Life is beyond our understanding, and we know nothing of the Great Covenant between our kinds. Arjuna is captured, starved, tortured, and made to do tricks in a tiny pool at Sea Circus.His love for a human linguist gives him hope, even as he despairs that other people twist his words and continue the worldwide slaughter. As the whales' beloved Ocean turns toward the Blood Solstice, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance: for if Arjuna gains the Voice of Death he could destroy mankind. But if understanding can prevail, he may, through the whales' mysterious power of quenging, create a new Song of Life and enable human evolution to unfold. With The Orca's Song, David Zindell returns to the grand themes of Neverness in a uniquely moving tale. If you enjoy exploring the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and evolution - all wrapped up in an intensely personal story - you'll love this novel. To read what is quite simply the best book about a whale since Moby Dick, buy The Orca's Song now.

A born warrior who cannot bear to go to war, a master of the sword who cannot kill his enemies without feeling the pain of death himself . . . .Valashu Elahad, seventh son of a king and a descendent of the Valari Star People who settled the world of Ea long ago, comes to manhood in late in the Age of the Dragon. It is a dark time of war and the dashed dreams of long-lost ages. The peoples of Ea have forgotten their purpose of becoming immortal Elijin, who, in turn, through disciplines of the body and spirit, evolve into the Galadin: great, luminous beings who can never be killed. They have also mostly forgotten how to use the lost gelstei jewels that power the interstellar civilization they know little of. Val, who is blessed (or cursed?) with empathy for all living things, would like nothing more than to become a great scholar, play his flute, and learn of these matters. But once again Morjin, the fallen Elijin, is seeking the way to free Angra Mainyu, the Lord of Lies imprisoned on the world of Damoom for a million years. Once again, the free peoples of Ea will be called to fight to the death if they do not want to see their world destroyed.Strangely, though, it is also a time of light. For the earth and sun have once again entered the Golden Band and Ea's greatest king has called a quest to find the Lightstone: the great golden gelstei that can restore the ruined civilization that Ea has become. Fate impels Val to set out with his companions into the heart of darkness in order to recover the Lightstone. Greatness of soul is needed in order even to perceive the golden cup, and this Val must achieve before fighting the most desperate of fights. First, though, he must recover the silver gelstei, the silver sword Alkaladur, for "the silver points the way to the gold." This will not be easy. For Morjin seeks all the gelstei, the golden cup most of all, and he hounds Val all across Ea. Val knows that he must someday face the fallen angel in battle, but he is afraid because a great scryer has foretold that: "His fate is yours. If you kill him, you kill yourself . . . . " The Lightstone: Part Two: The Silver Sword is the second volume of Book 1 of the internationally acclaimed Ea Cycle. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, a startling new cosmology, and an intricately-made world as rich as Tolkien's and with all the magic of an Arthurian romance, you'll love this book. Buy The Lightstone today to join in an ancient and timeless quest.

A born warrior who cannot bear to go to war, a master of the sword who cannot kill his enemies without feeling the pain of death himself . . . .Valashu Elahad, seventh son of a king and a descendent of the Valari Star People who settled the world of Ea long ago, comes to manhood late in the Age of the Dragon. It is a dark time of war and the dashed dreams of long-lost ages. The peoples of Ea have forgotten their purpose of becoming immortal Elijin, who, in turn, through disciplines of the body and spirit, evolve into the Galadin: great, luminous beings who can never be killed. They have also mostly forgotten how to use the lost gelstei jewels that power the interstellar civilization they know little of. Val, who is blessed (or cursed?) with empathy for all living things, would like nothing more than to become a great scholar, play his flute, and learn of these matters. But once again Morjin, the fallen Elijin, is seeking the way to free Angra Mainyu, the Lord of Lies imprisoned on the world of Damoom for a million years. Once again, the free peoples of Ea will be called to fight to the death if they do not want to see their world destroyed.Strangely, though, it is also a time of light. For the earth and sun have once again entered the Golden Band and Ea's greatest king has called a quest to find the Lightstone: the great golden gelstei that can restore the ruined civilization that Ea has become. Fate impels Val to set out with his companions into the heart of darkness in order to recover the Lightstone. Greatness of soul is needed in order even to perceive the golden cup, and this Val must achieve before fighting the most desperate of fights. For Morjin seeks the golden cup, too, and he hounds Val all across Ea. Val knows that he must someday face the fallen angel in battle, but he is afraid, for a great scryer has foretold that: "His fate is yours. If you kill him, you kill yourself . . . . " The Lightstone: Part One: The Ninth Kingdom opens the internationally acclaimed Ea Cycle. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, a startling new cosmology, and an intricately-made world as rich as Tolkien's and with all the magic of an Arthurian romance, you'll love this book. Buy The Lightstone today to join in an ancient and timeless quest.

Why are the stars of the Milky Way exploding into supernovas, and how can the destruction of the galaxy be stopped?Along with ten elite lightship pilots seeking the answer to this question, Danlo wi Soli Ringess sets out into the blasted, burned-out region of space known as the Vild in Book Two of David Zindell's epic science fiction trilogy, A Requiem For Homo Sapiens. Although the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame has sent him, Danlo has more personal reasons for making this quest: Do the Architects of the Cybernetic Universal Church, who engineered the virus that killed his tribe, know of a cure for the terrible plague that promises to wipe out the rest of his people? And did his father, Mallory Ringess, die during the first mission to the Vild or did he become a god?In his epic journey into the unmapped regions of the galaxy, he faces many challenges. A warrior-poet named Malaclypse Redring, charged with killing all potential gods, pursues him across the stars. The immensely powerful Solid State Entity creates a replica of Old Earth and tests his ability to discern the real from the unreal. In order to survive the strange mathematical spaces of the manifold and other surrealities, he must master the cybernetic senses of iconicity, syntaxis, and gestalt, as well as fractality, fugue, and fenestration. And on a lost world in the heart of the Vild, he must call upon all that he has learned in order to look into the blinding supernova of his own consciousness and so win the admiration of his enemies and gain a godly power - either that or die . . . .The Wild continues the saga that began with Neverness and The Broken God. If you enjoy science fiction that explores transcendent technologies, religion, cosmology, and evolution - along with a thrilling quest for the true Holy Grail of the mastery of consciousness - you'll need to read this book. It will keep you up at night turning its pages. Buy it now.

How can you live with yourself when you've taken a vow to harm no living thing and you must go to war?In the triumphant close of The Neverness Cycle, which began with Neverness, The Broken God, and The Wild, Danlo must return to Neverness to face the demons and ghosts of his past. Behind him travels the armada of the Architects of the Cybernetic Universal Church, who intend to use their morrashar to blow up the stars. A fleet of lightships led by Danlo's friend Bardo also converges on the City of Light. And Danlo's best friend, Hanuman li Tosh, who has unleashed a new, cybernetic religion called Ringism upon the Civilized Worlds, will do all that he can to convert Danlo to his terrifying dream of transforming the universe - either that or to kill him.Danlo must somehow prevent the worst of the coming war. To do that, though, he must understand the Elder Eddas that his father Mallory Ringess discovered: the secret of life encoded in the human genome and perhaps in the very structure of matter itself. No one knows how to make sense of this deep wisdom and to use this Grail to restore the wasteland that the Milky Way galaxy is becoming. That renewal awaits the Asarya: the one who can say "yes" to the purpose of the universe in both its beautiful and terrible aspects - and thus grok the universe so deeply and completely that he can will it to evolve toward its natural splendor. But how can anyone say yes to all the killing, insanity, and sickening suffering of the age-old and eternal War In Heaven? This masterwork brings to a cataclysmic finale the most amazing and awe-inspiring journey in modern science fiction. If you appreciate the ultimate in space adventure, along with philosophy, mathematics, spirituality and superbly-drawn characters, this novel will linger in your memory like a living light. Buy it now.

'David Zindell is one of the finest talents to appear since Kim Stanley Robinson and William Gibson - perhaps the finest' Gene Wolfe

An epic masterwork of science fiction, Neverness is a stand-alone novel from one of the most important talents in the genre.

A galactic search for the truth fires this magnificent epic of war and discovery on both a human and cosmic scale.The Wild: a chaotic place where ten elite lightship pilots dared to venture. A place where one of those pilots, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, will learn the fate of his father. Did Mallory Ringess die during that first expedition to the Wild? Or did he become a god? Opinions vary, but Danlo's search is focused on one objective: the truth. It is a truth that will not only reveal his father's assassin, but could also lay bare the secret to a killer virus that only Danlo survived.

A triumphant close to The Requiem for Homo Sapiens - an epic tour de force that began with The Broken God and was followed by The Wild.Danlo wi Soli Ringess now has the greatest mission of his life to complete. With Bertram Jaspari's evil Architects terrorising the universe with their killing star - the morrashar - and Hanuman's Ringists intent on converting the rest of humanity to the Way of Ringess, Danlo must somehow try to prevent War in Heaven.Behind him travels an army of lightships, commanded by the ever-larger-than-life Bardo, falling from fixed-point to fixed-point throughout the deep, dark spaces of the Vild, ready to do battle, if they must, with the Ringists' fleet, lying in ambush for them beyond the Star of Neverness.War in Heaven brings to a cataclysmic finale the most amazing and awe-inspiring journey in modern science fiction, combining the ultimate in space adventure with philosophy, mathematics, spirituality and superb characterization. It is truly the greatest romantic epic of modern sf.

Quite simply the best book about a whale since Moby Dick.The Idiot Gods is an epic tale told by an orca. David Zindell returns to the grand themes of Neverness in this uniquely moving book.An epic tale of a quest for a new way of life on earth, told by an orca.When Arjuna of the Blue Aria Family encounters three signs of cataclysm, he leaves his home in the Arctic Ocean to seek out the Idiot Gods and ask us why we are destroying the world. But the whales' ancient Song of Life is beyond our understanding, and we know nothing of the Great Covenant between our kinds. Arjuna is captured, starved, tortured and made to do tricks in a tiny pool at Sea Circus.His love for a human linguist gives him hope, even as he despairs that other people twist his words and continue the worldwide slaughter. As the whales' beloved Ocean turns toward the Blood Solstice the fate of humanity hangs in the balance: for if Arjuna gains the Voice of Death he could destroy mankind. But if understanding can prevail, he may, through the whales' mysterious power of quenging, create a new Song of Life and enable human evolution to unfold.

From the author of 'Neverness' comes a powerful epic fantasy series, the Ea Cycle, as rich as Tolkien and as magical as the Arthurian myths. This is the climactic final volume.