Quintessence

Imagine an Age of Exploration full of alchemy, human dissection, sea monsters, betrayal, torture, religious controversy, and magic. In Europe, the magic is thin, but at the edge of the world, where the stars reach down close to the Earth, wonders abound. This drives the bravest explorers to the alluring Western Ocean. Christopher Sinclair is an alchemist who cares only about one thing: quintessence, a substance he believes will grant magical powers and immortality. And he has a ship.

“Quintessence is an utterly stunning work of imagination, a slipstream counterhistory set in a fourteenth century that is as audaciously imagined as any work of science fiction.”
—Rosemary Edghill, coauthor of The Shadow of Albion

“With Quintessence David Walton proves that winning the Philip K. Dick Award was not a fluke, but a harbinger of things to come.”
—Mike Resnick, Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of the Oracle Trilogy

“Terminal Mind is high-intensity human drama set in a thoroughly imagined and highly plausible future.”
—Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show