Irene Radford

Steampunk's big, brassy, powerful, and sweaty way of looking at the world sideways inspires six stories of the Victorian age of wonder. Irene Radford offers new and old stories that reach from a weapon of mass destruction that could change the outcome of the U.S. Civil War, the truth behind why the ballet Giselle disappeared for nearly fifty years, pirates in Indonesia questioning whether we should control technology or be controlled by it, to a glimpse...

The quest for peace and protection in Britain has passed down from the Merlin and Arthur the Pendragon to the sole survivor, Resmiranda Griffin. Raised in the Christian tradition, she refuses to acknowledge her magical talents or the existence of helpful fairies, until dark forces force her into the complex politics, both mundane and magical, that divides England from their lawful king, John Plantagenet. Inspired by a demon, her distant cousin Radburn...

The axis of the Earth changed its tilt. All the glacial and polar ice melted. Humanity was reduced to a tiny fraction of the once teeming masses. The concussion that robbed Gabby of her memories of the Before times opened her to trance visions through dance. She dances herself to exhaustion to learn Truth. She dances to banish evil spirits, Death, and illness. But Gabby is too young for the role of Shaman, too untrained. When strangers bring new ideas...

The need to hoard gold can be a curse. But what if the gold itself is the curse?On a quest to find and return the Coronnan dragons and save the Commune of Magicians, journeymen magicians Marcus and Robb take shelter from a storm in a long abandoned monastery-only to become ghosts, trapped and invisible inside ruins no one visits, with only mounds of gold for company.Healer Vareena has inherited the ability to care for the ghosts only she can see and...

In Speculative Journeys, Irene Radford extends her short story collections into science fiction and contemporary fantasy with fourteen tales both old and new. Why is time-travel reserved for wealthy tourists and forbidden to historians? Can a spaceship captain keep secrets from her communication officer who speaks every language in the universe-even ones without words? Is a maze cut into solid granite a portal to a safer world…or something else? These...

Aboard the space station First Contact Café, Station Commander General Jake Devlin and Sissy, inexperienced and undereducated High Priestess of Harmony, confront the mystery of an odd eight-limbed stowaway, a mystical refugee who talks in circles rather than reveal the truth, and clues to the origin and genetic breakdown of enemies and allies alike. Together they fight diplomatic protocols to forge a necessary treaty between CSS and Harmony. Their...

The Grand Festival of Highland Arts and Games has descended upon the Whistling River Resort and Golf Course. Glenna McClain, General Manager and part owner of the lodge, has her hands full of bagpipers, dancers, and officious officials. Among them prances the criminal ex-lover of Glenna's security chief Craig Knutsen. He will have to face his carefully guarded secrets once and for all.Glenna bonds with her Scottish ancestral roots and a young girl...

The reason there have been no verified demon sightings in the past fifty years is that they are all hanging out at Science Fiction/Fantasy conventions, winning costume awards.Tess Noncroiré, lost her husband of three months in motel fire. In a fever of grief, she drives blindly into the desert and disappears for a year. She emerges fifty pounds lighter and a Sister of the Celestial Blade Warriors, trained to combat demons. An interdimensional imp,...

Music defines Margot Tremayne's soul. She thinks best when her hands caress a piano keyboard, but all music eludes her since a demon crushed her hands on the eve of winning a prestigious international piano competition.Fifteen years later, she has built a new career in conducting, composition, and teaching.She still feels empty.The job of driving the increasing murderous demon threat back to the netherworld falls to Abigail Fitzwarrn, Director of...

What happens when rival pirate queens take tea together? From the fertile imagination of Irene Radford, author of the classic Dragon Nimbus Series, and the epic Merlin's Descendants Series, come sixteen stories of hope, fun, and poignant sorrow. Fire-breathing hummingbirds, a tavern between humanity and hell, crystal stealing pixies in space, and more, gathered together for the first time in Magical Meanderings.