Galactic domination first. Fudge brownies later.
Coming April 14, 2010: A Wizard of Mars
It's not scientists who find the first signs of life on Mars. It's wizards.
Young wizards Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan become part of an elite team investigating the mysterious, long-sought "message in a bottle" that holds the first clues to the secrets of the long-lost inhabitants of Mars. But not even wizardry is enough to cope with the strange events that start to unfold when the "bottle" is uncorked and life emerges once more to shake the Red Planet with its own perilous and baffling brand of magic.
The good news is that the Martians seem friendly. The bad news is that now they're free to pick up where they left off on a long-dormant plan that could change the shape of more than one world… and they don't mind using their well-intentioned rescuers to achieve their goals. Kit’s long-standing fascination with all things Martian unexpectedly enmeshes him in a terrible, age-old conflict -- turning him into both a possible key to its solution, and a tool that in the wrong hands shortly threatens the whole human race.
Only Kit has a shot at defusing the threat. But when he vanishes unexpectedly from the Mars of here and now, his fellow wizards are left uncertain of where his true loyalties lie. Nita’s determination to find the truth – and Kit – soon sends her into battle against an implacable enemy who may not be conquerable except by violating wizardry’s most basic tenets. As the shadow of interplanetary war stretches ever more darkly over both worlds, Kit and Nita must fight to understand and master the strange and ancient synergy binding them to Mars and its last inhabitants… or the history that left Mars lifeless will repeat itself on Earth.
A Wizard of Mars will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
on April 14th, 2010.
You can preorder your copy from Amazon.com
by clicking on the widget above.
The launch party and premiere signing for A Wizard of Mars will be held at Books of Wonder in New York City on April 24, 2010 (time to be announced). Check here for more details as they become available!
DD's podcast for the 365 Days of Astronomy, 2009: "Dancing In The Dark"
December 24, 2009: DD's podcast for the International Year of Astronomy project, 365 Days of Astronomy, has now been posted at the project website. The title is "Dancing in the Dark: Deities, Celebrations, and the Bottom of the Year."
There’s something about the end of the year that makes people a little crazy… maybe because the Winter Solstice and the dark days surrounding it have presented human beings with numerous problems over the millennia that people have been building calendars and trying to run their lives by them. Will the days get longer again by themselves, or do we need to give the Sun a helping hand? Should this be our god’s birthday, or would Spring be better? Is this a bad time to end the year, or a good one? And when it does end… where’s the party?
Click here to read a transcript or download the podcast.
If you've already heard the podcast or read the transcript and are looking for the supplementary materials, click here for the additional-info link page.
"Dig we must..."
The website is continuing its complete update / upgrade during early 2010. Please note that the site will occasionally be unavailable during early February as we continue our implementation of the new version of the Drupal CMS software. Thank you!
