NOVELS OF THE STAR RIGGER UNIVERSE

by JEFFREY A. CARVER

ETERNITY'S END

My newest novel set in the Star Rigger Universe, ETERNITY'S END features the search for the legendary ghost rigger ship Impris and her crew, whose fate is entwined with interstellar piracy, quantum defects in spacetime, galactic coverup conspiracies, and deep-cyber romance. This book took me four years to bring to completion. Epic in length, it's the longest book I've ever written—including THE INFINITY LINK, my previous magnum opus—and it's a book I'm very proud of. It was a finalist for the Nebula Awards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Cover art by Stephen Youll. Tor Books hardcover, ISBN: 0-312-85642-3 Tor Books paperback, ISBN: 0812534433 German edition from Heyne

"It's onward with [a] one-man Light Brigade, straight into the jaws of doom and destiny. He finds true love, cognitive dissonance, divisions among the enemy, ambitious schemes, another mission--this one deeper than anyone has ever gone before into the substrata of the Flux--and a final resolution that leaves the reader both breathless and satisfied." --Analog

"You don't want to wait for the paperback." --Science Fiction Chronicle

"A galactic epic that's much more than space opera, filled with both drama and bold ideas. Who would have thought a futuristic pirate story could be so original and smart?" --David Brin, author of The Uplift War

Read an excerpt!

DRAGONS IN THE STARS

Upon her return to the dragon realm she finds her friend Highwing sentenced to death for his acts of kindness, and her own life declared forfeit if she should try to intervene. But intervene she must, for the sake of a friend who risked his life to save hers.

Cover art by Jael

• Tor paperback, ISBN: 0-812-53303-8
• Science Fiction Book Club Alternate
• SF with resonances of fantasy
• E-book versions now available from Fictionwise and E-reads!
• Sequel -- DRAGON RIGGER

Click for an excerpt from chapters 8 & 9.

Quotes and reviews:

"Carver is a strong SF writer, with a good feel for both the hard SF elements and the people he populates them with. DRAGONS IN THE STARS takes his writing ability one step further, as he shows he is not only comfortable working with fantasy elements, but able to succeed at the tough job of melding them into a science-fictional environment without making the SF aspects of the story lose their sense of realism. A well- written, enjoyable book that will impress the technology-oriented readers as well as social/characterization-oriented readers."
--C. von Rospach, AMAZING STORIES

"An interesting and entertaining blend of genres." --SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE

"Carver's prose effectively lends a spare yet evocative resonance to the draconian realm. Like a good stage performer, this story should leave its audience wanting more." --John Bunnell, AMAZING STORIES

DRAGON RIGGER

Though the Dream Mountain, source of knowledge and life to all dragons, has been captured by the enemy, a single hope burns in the dragons' hearts. Led by Windrush, son of Highwing, the dragons long for fulfillment of the prophecy: the "One" who shall come from outside the realm, the One who shall challenge the darkness. The "One" is Jael LeBrae, human star rigger. Once before, Jael aided the dragons in their struggle. Now she must return to face at last the terrible wrath of Tar-skel.

And according to prophecy, the cost is her own life.

Cover art by Boris.

• Tor hardcover 1993, ISBN: 0-312-85061-1
• Tor paperback 1994, ISBN: 0-812-53323-2
• Sequel to DRAGONS IN THE STARS
• a personal favorite of the author's
• E-book version forthcoming

Click for excerpts from Part One: The Dragons, and Part Two: The Riggers.

Reviews and quotes:

"A most excellent adventure that would make a grand movie if it were not that the special effects budget would surely be quite brutal even in this age of computer animation.... If there is a motto for this novel, it is solidarnosc, solidarity, the power to be gained by sticking with one's friends, even by sacrificing for the good of others...there is immense verve, energy, momentum, and power...the reader stays with Carver all the way." --Thomas A. Easton, ANALOG

"A refreshingly unique setting and excellently realized characters." --PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

STAR RIGGER'S WAY

Only a compatible rigger team, their visions meshed in psychic unity, can safely harness the most turbulent currents of the Flux--and Carlyle's ship is being drawn inexorably toward a deadly maelstrom, the unthinkable stresses of the Hurricane Flume. For even a scant chance at survival, he needs the catlike alien's help. But the price for that help is a complete merging of minds and memories.

And Carlyle, at war with his own past, dreads that union more than death itself.

The novel that introduced the Star Rigger universe to thousands of readers.

Cover art by Bob Eggleton.

• Dell paperback, 1978
• Main Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club
• Revised for Tor edition 1994, ISBN: 0-812-53444-1

Reviews and quotes:

"A novel of character-change, maturation, abandonment of illusions and discovering-of-self...it's an engaging science fantasy and the novel will leave you saying to yourself, 'Yeah!'" --Richard E. Geis, GALAXY

"Learning to communicate, to accept change, to understand the past, to express intimacy become rites of passage for the human Gev Carlyle and his felinoid cynthian crewmate Cephean." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

PANGLOR

Panglor is a good pilot, and never wanted to be part of the nefarious plot that has trapped him. But it's too late for regrets. For he, along with an intriguing female stowaway, has flown his ship through a window in space that leads to a world of impossible terrors, a world that cannot exist, cannot be real...and from which they can never return.

There's only one way out...and that's to escape into sheer madness.

The novel that sets the stage for starship rigging--the discovery that enables the transition from "foreshortening" star travel to the freedom of the Flux, with a most unlikely hero.

Cover art by Alan Gutierrez.

• Dell paperback, 1980
• Revised for Tor reprint July 1996, ISBN: 0-812-53446-8

Click for the introduction to the new edition.

"An original and very charming novel, with a particularly unusual protagonist." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

SEAS OF ERNATHE

Millennia after the skills of starship rigging have been lost, can Seth Perland find the key to rediscovery, on a world of the mysterious sea people, the Nale'nid?

This was my first novel, following soon after the publication of my first two short stories. The first-written novel of the Star Rigger universe, it is chronologically the last in the future history--and while it is about the quest to rediscover starship rigging, there are no actual star riggers in the story. My second story, "Alien Persuasion," had appeared in Galaxy not long before, and was the first tale set among the star riggers. (It later served as the basis for my second novel, Star Rigger's Way).

Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas.

• Laser Books paperback, 1976

Reviews and quotes:

"Jeffrey Carver imagines wonders and allows us to share his vision." --Terry Carr

"A wonderful ability to deal sensitively with the interrelationships of characters and their environments... [Carver succeeds] in creating a race and milieu that is not only a good solution to his mystery, but is emotionally effective and believable, something the reader will remember after finishing the book. Carver is becoming a writer who will demand attention." --GALILEO Magazine