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Author: Mark Chadbourn | Website
Published Works & Book Reviews
Destroyer of Worlds
It is the beginning of the end... The end of the axe-age, the sword-age, leading to the passing of gods and men from the universe. As all the ancient prophecies fall into place, the final battle rages, on Earth, across Faerie, and into the land of the dead. Jack Churchill, Champion of Existence, must lead the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in a last, desperate assault on the Fortress of the Enemy, to confront the ultimate incarnation of destruction: the Burning Man. It is humanity's only chance to avert the coming extinction. At his back is an army of gods culled from the world's great mythologies - Greek, Norse, Chinese, Aztec, and more. But will even that be enough? Driven to the brink by betrayal, sacrifice and death, his allies fear Jack may instead bring about the very devastation he is trying to prevent...
Reviewer: A.M. Donovan
Review: May 15, 2012
Genre(s): Time-Travel, Fantasy, Science Fiction
If you have traveled with the whole crew and read the prior book, you have the character you most identify with already in mind. Their strengths and weakness’, loves and hates are pretty clearly defined for you already. If that is the case, you believe you can skip the prologue. I would recommend not skipping it. Even if you have read all the previous books there might be some connections you have missed.
Burning Man
After a long journey across the ages, Jack Churchill has returned to the modern world, only to find it in the grip of a terrible, dark force. The population is unaware, mesmerized by the Mundane Spell that keeps them in thrall. With a small group of trusted allies, Jack sets out to find the two "keys" that can shatter the spell. But the keys are people—one with the power of creation, one the power of destruction—and they are hidden somewhere among the world’s billions. As the search fans out across the globe, ancient powers begin to stir. In the bleak North, in Egypt, in Greece, in all the Great Dominions, the old gods are returning to stake their claim. The odds appear insurmountable, the need desperate . . . This is a time for heroes.
Reviewer: A.M. Donovan
Review: Mar 28, 2012
Genre(s): Time-Travel, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Book 2 picks up where book 1 ends. Luckily for those that haven’t read the first book (or have a short attention span) if you read the first part “The Final Age” you will be caught up on what came before and the entire necessary back story. It doesn’t take long and is very compact, so don’t let the idea of needing to read this part first scare you. Then you get into the meat of the tale.
You get to visit
Jack of Ravens
Jack Churchill, archaeologist and dreamer, walks out of the mist and into Celtic Britain more than two thousand years before he was born, with no knowledge of how he got there. All Jack wants is to get home to his own time where the woman he loves waits for him. Finding his way to the timeless mystical Otherworld, the home of the gods, he plans to while away the days, the years, the millennia, until his own era rolls around again . . . but nothing is ever that simple. A great Evil waits in modern times and will do all in its power to stop Jack’s return. In a universe where time and space are meaningless, its tendrils stretch back through the years . . . Through Roman times, the Elizabethan age, Victoria’s reign, the Second World War to the Swinging Sixties, the Evil sets its traps to destroy Jack.
Reviewer: A.M. Donovan
Review: Mar 28, 2012
Genre(s): Time-Travel, Fantasy, Science Fiction
This is an epic fantasy adventure in the making. In a battle between hope and despair, creation and destruction, this demonstrates that lowly humans can actually affect the ultimate outcome.
It spreads across time and the globe, plus from our world to the Far Lands. It shows that we are all tied together. So, maybe the ultimate question is, since we are all going to die eventually, what would you sell yo
The Scar-Crow Men
The year is 1593. The London of Elizabeth I is in the terrible grip of the Black Death. As thousands die from the plague and the queen hides behind the walls of her palace, English spies are being murdered across the city. The killer's next target: Will Swyfte.
For Swyfte--adventurer, rake, scholar, and spy--this is the darkest time he has known. His mentor, the grand old spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, is dead. The new head of the secret service is more concerned about his own advancement than defending the nation, and a rival faction at the court has established its own network of spies. Plots are everywhere, and no one can be trusted. Meanwhile, England's greatest enemy, the haunted Unseelie Court, prepares to make its move.
A dark, bloody scheme, years in the making, is about to be realized. The endgame begins on the night of the first performance of Dr. Faustus, the new play by Swyfte's close friend and fellow spy Christopher Marlowe. A devil is conjured in the middle of the crowded theater, taking the form of Will Swyfte's long-lost love, Jenny--and it has a horrifying message for him alone.
That night Marlowe is murdered, and Swyfte embarks on a personal and brutal crusade for vengeance. Friendless, with enemies on every side and a devil at his back, the spy may find that even his vaunted skills are no match for the supernatural powers arrayed against him.
Reviewer: Cgrotpeter
Review: Mar 27, 2011
Genre(s): Fantasy, Fae / Elves
Set in Elizabethan England, The Scar-Crow Men is a new take on the plague, and the political turmoil of the age.
I have to admit that it took a few chapters for me to really get into this book. The characters were fine but the story itself seemed to take a bit to really build up and grab me. That being said once I got into the story I had a hard time putting it down.
My favorite character in The Scar-Crow
The Hounds of Avalon
The Hounds of Avalon are coming...
For these are the twilight days, when eternal winter falls and the gods destroy themselves in civil war... when an invasion force of ghastly power threatens to eradicate all life.
Humanity's last chance lies with two friends, as different as night and day, but bound together by an awesome destiny.
Hunter: a warrior, a rake, an assassin; Hal: a lowly records clerk in a Government office. They must pierce a mystery surrounding the myths of King Arthur to find the dreaming hero who will ride out of the mists of legend to save the world.
But time is running out, for when the Hounds of Avalon appear, all hope is lost...
Reviewer: Sharon
Review: Oct 11, 2010
Genre(s): Sci-Fi / Fantasy
The Hounds of Avalon by Mark Chadbourn is the third book in the Dark Age trilogy. After cataclysmic event where technology waned and magic ruled, England is recovering though. The Earth has godlike beings using it as a battleground in their civil war to determine who will win the fight on whether humanity will live or die. Now with the arrival of eternal winter the gods continue to destroy themselves in civil
The Queen of Sinister
After the Age of Misrule comes the Dark Age!
A new Dark Age has falled across Britain. With the sudden return of magic, our modern, technological society has crumbled. Cities lie in ruins, communications are limited. Gods and monsters walk the land. In this new time, myth and legend has become realtity; nothing is quite as it seems.
The plague came without warning. Nothing could stop its progress: not medicines, not prayer. The first sign of the disease is black spots at the base of the fingers; an agonizing death quickly follows. But this is no ordinary disease....
Caitlin Shepherd, a lowly GP, is allowed to cross the veil into the mystical Celtic Otherworld in search of a cure; her search takes her on a quest to the end of a land of dreams and nightmares to petition the gods. Caitlin is humanity's last hope, but she carries a terrible burden: a consciousness shattered into five distinct personalities ... and one of them may not be human. The Queen of Sinister is the latest installment in Mark Chadbourn's brilliant new sequence: exciting, evocative, terrifying, and awe inspiring.
Reviewer: Sharon
Review: Jun 2, 2010
Genre(s): Sci-Fi / Fantasy
The Dark Age: The Queen of Sinister by Mark Chadbourn continues the story from The Devil In Green returning to the post apocalyptic England where a terrible plague forces a doctor to seek a cure in the Celtic Otherworld. Not only is the doctor in a race against time to find the cure, but she has to deal with her burden of having five distinct personalities and one may not be human.
This story
The Devil in Green
After the Age of Misrule comes the Dark Age! Humanity has emerged, blinking, from the Age of Misrule into a world substantially changed: cities lie devasted, communications are limited, anarchy rages across the land. Society has been thrown into a new Dark Age where superstition holds sway. The Tuatha De Danaan roam the land once more, their terrible powers dwarfing anything mortals have to offer. And in their wake come all the creatures of myth and legend, no longer confined to the shadows. Fighting to find their place in this new world, the last remnants of the Christian Church call for a group of heroes: a new Knights Templar to guard the priesthood as they set out on their quest for souls. But as everything begins to fall apart, the Knights begin to realize their only hope is to call on the pagan gods of Celtic myth for help....
Reviewer: Sharon
Review: May 25, 2010
The Devil In Green: Dark Age book 1 by Mark Chadbourn is a fantasy novel that focus on what would happen if all the old rules regarding the Christian Church no longer work in a world where the old gods have re-awakened.
Mallory, a knight of the Templar is on a mission for the Church. On the way he finds himself in a court of the Otherworld and learns of his new destiny to help restore the balance of our worl
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