What began its life as a short story in Ford Street’s best-selling anthology, Trust Me! has metamorphosed into an action-packed adventure that not unlike The Matrix shines light on all the big questions regarding the nature of reality and the meaning of life.

Thieves Tark and Zyra are surviving on their wits in a world of science and sorcery. Their goal is to acquire enough money to buy them access to Designers Paradise, a place where, for a short while at least, they can escape into another world. After stealing a sword o’ light from Princeling Galbrath, Tark heads for the nearest dragon intent on liberating the creature from its gold. He succeeds, but little does he know that the dragon’s wife Vera, a humanoid robot with appalling dress sense and the tracking ability of a blood hound, is hot on his and Zyra’s trail. Zyra, too, has managed to get fellow thief Cracker, and The Fat Man off-side and so it is with pursuers aplenty the pair...

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In recent years, computer games have gone way beyond the likes of Pacman, Space Invaders and such. These days you can take on an avatar and “live” in Second Life, for example. When I was much younger, you could play Dungeons and Dragons around a table, with other fans. It was very sociable and you collected gold, treasure, skills and weapons at the roll of a pair of dice, going up to higher levels as you went. Now, you can go on-line to do the same thing.

What would happen if the avatars wanted the same thing, only in our world?

Anyone who has read the original short story on which this is based, in the Ford Street anthology Trust Me! will know immediately what’s going on in this novel, so I’m not giving much away. Even if you haven’t read the original, you pick it up fairly speedily.

Teenage thieves Tark and Zyra live in a world in which magic is mixed with technology. You can be using a sword o’light to kill a dragon one moment and...

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What began its life as a short story in Ford Street’s best-selling anthology, Trust Me! has metamorphosed into an action-packed adventure that not unlike The Matrix shines light on all the big questions regarding the nature of reality and the meaning of life.

Thieves Tark and Zyra are surviving on their wits in a world of science and sorcery. Their goal is to acquire enough money to buy them access to Designers Paradise, a place where, for a short while at least, they can escape into another world. After stealing a sword o’ light from Princeling Galbrath, Tark heads for the nearest dragon intent on liberating the creature from its gold. He succeeds, but little does he know that the dragon’s wife Vera, a humanoid robot with appalling dress sense and the tracking ability of a blood hound, is hot on his and Zyra’s trail. Zyra, too, has managed to get fellow thief Cracker, and The Fat Man off-side and so it is with pursuers aplenty the pair...

read more