The Sorceress of Karres

As Captain Pausert had often had occasion to observe, life just wasn’t fair! Hadn’t he (with the help of the notorious witches of Karres, of course) outmaneuvered the deadliest of space pirates and eliminated the threat of the Worm World (as told in The Witches of Karres), after which, at the least, he deserved some time off. No such luck, though, as the Empress herself sent him on a secret mission to stop the nanite plague, but an enemy had somehow convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, so after a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs all three of them joined an interstellar traveling circus (don’t ask!) in order to save the galaxy once again (as told in The Wizard of Karres).

Time for a vacation? Don’t be ridiculous—there’s a new urgent mission that has Captain Pausert’s name on it! This new novel finds the long-suffering Captain and the two young Karres witches—Goth, who vows she will marry him when she grows up, and her younger sister The Leewit—being sent off to investigate mysterious and ominous events in the notorious Chaladoor region of space. Goth soon becomes aware that unknown but surely inimical forces are tracking them, and in order to foil them she takes a desperate route to travel back in time and meet Pausert as a young boy. Meanwhile, the Captain and the Leewit find themselves in the middle of their own desperate situation in the Chaladoor.

Whoever it was who said that a change was as good as a vacation never met any of the Witches of Karres—nor experienced their amazing talent for getting Captain Pausert into trouble.

Eric Flint is the author/creator of the New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series. With David Drake he has written six popular novels in the Belisarius series, including the new novel The Dance of Time, and with David Weber collaborated on 1633, and 1634: The Baltic War, two novels in the Ring of Fire series, and on Crown of Slaves, a best of the year pick by Publishers Weekly. Flint received his masters degree in history from UCLA and was for many years a labor union activist. He lives in East Chicago, IL, with his wife and is working on more books in the best-selling Ring of Fire series.

Dave Freer is an ichthyologist turned author living in a remote part of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with his wife and chief proof-reader, Barbara, four dogs and four cats, and two sons Paddy and James. His first book—The Forlorn (Baen)—came out in 1999. Since then he has co-authored with Eric Flint (Rats, Bats and Vats, The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly, Pyramid Scheme, and Pyramid Power) and, with Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint (The Shadow of the Lion, This Rough Magic, The Wizard of Karres) as well as writing another solo novel, A Mankind Witch, and various shorter works. Besides working as a fisheries scientist for the Western Cape shark fishery he has worked as a commercial diver, and as a relief chef at several luxury game lodges. His other interests are rock climbing (he's still good at it), diving, flyfishing (he's still bad at it), fly-tying, wine-tasting and the preparation of food, especially by traditional means—smoking and salting, all the good unhealthy things.