Rhymer: Hel

A Wild Chase Through Elizabethan England

Thomas the Rhymer, immortal, shape-changing foe of the diabolical Elf Queen and her merciless Yvag knights, continues his one-man war into the reign of England’s ＂Faerie Queen＂--Elizabeth I. When he learns of an assassination plot against Elizabeth, the Rhymer intervenes, only to find himself the object of the special attention of the Queen’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham.

Walsingham blackmails the Rhymer into joining his intelligence network. Allied with Walsingham’s minions and a mysterious shape-changing stage actress, Thomas finds he must deal with Mary, Queen of Scots, scheming Jesuits, and Italian bankers as well as further Yvag attempts against Elizabeth. He moves in the circles of William Shakespeare, John Dee, Giordano Bruno, and Christopher Marlowe, desperately defeating one conspiracy after another in defense of the throne, leading him to an inevitable final confrontation with the Elf Queen, in which to survive he must destroy the source of her power . . . and to do that, he must enter the mouth of Hel itself.

After all the sacrifice, will the Rhymer find peace? And, perhaps, even love?

Gregory Frost is an American author of science fiction and fantasy, including the Shadowbridge series, Fitcher’s Brides, the Philip K. Dick-ian science fiction novel The Pure Cold Light, as well as two novels derived from the Celtic epic the táin bó cuailnge. His short fiction has appeared in many anthologies and magazines and includes a Best Novelette winner of Asimov’s Science Fiction’s Readers’ Award, ＂Lock Up Your Chickens and Daughters, H’ard and Andy Are Come to Town,＂ collaboratively written with Michael Swanwick. He taught the fiction writing workshop at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, for eighteen years.