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    Personal Paradise
    Personal Paradise
    Personal Paradise
    Ebook68 pages57 minutes

    Personal Paradise

    By Barbara Hambly

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    About this ebook

    Sequel to the Windrose series. The Personal Paradise Secure Community Corporation specializes in producing tiny enclave universes as vacation homes for the rich and famous. Unfortunately, something goes wrong with their Void technology and all these enclaves - and everyone in them - lose touch with the corporation’s central control. Exiled wizard Antryg Windrose and his partner, computer programmer Joanna Sheraton, are hired to find out what the problem is, and to bring the enclaves back, before the enclaves themselves collapse (killing everyone in them). And Joanna suspects that the corporate representatives have not told her and Antryg the whole truth of what the enclaves are, or how the problem appeared.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarbara Hambly
    Release dateJun 28, 2015
    ISBN9781310321849
    Personal Paradise
    Author

    Barbara Hambly

    Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.

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      Book preview

      Personal Paradise - Barbara Hambly

      PERSONAL PARADISE

      by

      Barbara Hambly

      Published by Barbara Hambly at Smashwords

      Copyright 2014 Barbara Hambly

      Cover art by Eric Baldwin

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please include this license and copyright page. If you did not download this ebook yourself, consider going to Smashwords.com and doing so; authors love knowing when people are seeking out their material. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author!

      Table of Contents

      Personal Paradise

      About The Author

      The Further Adventures

      PERSONAL PARADISE

      by

      Barbara Hambly

      The men at the door were definitely corporate suits.

      They looked exactly like Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Patrick Swayze and Harrison Ford, and Antryg, stepping into the living-room as Joanna stood – considerably startled – in front of the door she had just opened, exclaimed admiringly, "That’s very good!"

      Joanna, who for that first instant had been wondering how the hell the agents of those four film heart-throbs had managed to negotiate having them together on the same porch, much less her porch, understood that this was an illusion.

      And if this was an illusion, that meant that she and Antryg – lover, friend, room-mate and exiled wizard (But I don’t have magic in this world, he would always explain to bemused new acquaintances) – were probably already in a lot of trouble. She just didn’t know what kind yet.

      The one who looked like Tom Cruise said, Thank you. He held out a business card. Antryg Windrose?

      Very much so. This is Joanna Sheraton, my partner. He put an arm around her shoulders, propped his thick-lensed spectacles more firmly onto the bridge of his long nose with his free hand, and took the card. He seemed, as he generally did, relaxed, genial, and slightly daft, as if the appearance of reasonable facsimiles of the four biggest-name actors in Hollywood on his front porch were no big deal or even much of a surprise – but she noticed that as he’d come into the living-room behind her he’d laid his sheathed samurai sword inconspicuously on the coffee-table. He could make it to the weapon in one long stride if he had to. She was careful not to be in his way.

      You were referred to us by the Council of Wizards in Ferryth. Cruise-Alike took a folded paper from the breast pocket of his Armani suit. Joanna recognized the elaborately curliqued syllabary of the Old High Tongue still taught among the wizards of that realm – separated from the prosaic summer heat of Granada Hills, California in 1987 by the shimmering gulfs of the Void – as Antryg unfolded it and read.

      Joanna said, Please come in, and stepped aside from the doorway. If these men had been sent by the Council to murder Antryg – always a possibility, given Council politics – they’d had their opportunity to do so, and by the way Antryg ambled to the couch after them there was evidently no problem with this courtesy. She did notice that he scooped up his sword with the air of a man simply moving ornamental impedimenta out of the way of guests, and did not return it to the wall-rack where their unsharpened training katana hung between classes.

      Still with that slightly absent-minded appearance of carelessness, he propped the weapon against the arm of the chair where Joanna sat, and said, Can I get you gentlemen something? Wine? Coca-cola? They make some extremely nice beers here… What do you make of this, my dear? He handed her the letter as she stood—

      I’ll get the beer, she offered. Is that really a letter from the Council?

      Antryg licked a corner of the paper. It appears to be. He sniffed the business-card, held it up to the light of the window, then handed both to her and disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Spock, the smaller (and friendlier) of the two cats, uncurled himself from the back of the couch where he’d been doing his usual imitation of a shadow with eyes, and hopped onto Ford-Alike’s lap, which for some reason made Joanna feel better about the visitors.

      Thank you very much for your hospitality, said Swayze-Alike, and leaned across from the couch to shake her hand. My colleagues and I are representatives of Personal Paradise.

      Joanna looked doubtful, and he smiled, understanding that not everyone in the universe had heard of it, but pitying them for this deprivation.

      I’m Jeltan Hiros; this is Corflan Dix, Marus Ormagnos, and Galviddian Ceragn the Third.

      I’m very pleased to meet you. Not only were the duplications of the most popular variations of masculine good looks molecule-perfect, the suits, shoes, and matte monotone silk ties matched the general impression: We’re REALLY important and have lots of money. She wanted to congratulate their Outfitting Department. "Though Antryg’s been good enough to extend the Spell of

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