Duane Vore
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Duane Vore (1953- ) has been writing for as long as he can remember. One of his most prized Christmas presents was, at the age of 13, a typewriter. It wore out. His first concerted effort to write a novel came about ten years later: The Seal of Inheritance, which is unfortunately lost, as was that second typewriter upon which it was written. Since then, his imagination has spanned millions of years, thousands of galaxies, and fantasy worlds by the dozen, and the ideas never stop coming. Gradually, his backlog of completed works is at last making it into the public eye.
When not writing, he functions satisfactorily as a software engineer, electronics engineer, web developer, and physical chemist, three out of those four offering fodder for science fiction stories.
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The Lastchild
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Epic Fantasy
Lad Oxley is no hero. He is just a typical farm boy who likes to read, a rather useless habit encouraged by a crazy old bookseller in town who teaches him imaginary languages like Elfin. But those dreamy pursuits become suddenly urgent one day on the road home from Caithrill when his life takes a turn for the bizarre: a shadow that walks upright and that releases burning coals when stabbed, a funny little man who calls himself a dwarf, and three greenish gargoyles with broadswords and the odor of garbage. Within minutes, running for his life, he is through a magical portal into another world where magic is a way of life and Elfin is real. As the only person at hand who can read Old Elfin, he is plunged into a profound and dangerous mystery. Gargolyes are gaining in might, magic is crumbling, words written in Old Elfin fight with anyone bold enough to try to read them, and an ancient evil is yearning to awake. Joined by unlikely companions, Lad finds himself unwillingly launched on a quest to unravel a puzzle 5000 years old, one that threatens to destroy not only the world of elves and dwarfs but his own as well. His road takes him into forgotten catacombs, among seats of lethal evil power, to remnants of the dimmest past. Do the answers lie with the enigmatic Obelisk at Shalomar’s Lookout? With the even more bizarre Watcher in the Well of Shadows, where hundreds have disappeared already? With the terrifying evil wizard Kazluc? Or something worse? In a split second, at the climax of history, the worlds will be either saved or destroyed, and that fate rests upon Lad’s shoulders. Can he solve the mystery before it is too late?
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Korvoros: Book One in the Saga of Banak-Zuur
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Science Fiction
Upstairs, in the middle of the night, a green glow penetrates 19-year-old Timothy Sauger's bedroom window. Downstairs, something enters through the patio doors. By morning, he is on his way to an alien society 59 light-years from Earth. His anticipated escape from boredom fulfills its promise more spectacularly than he had planned. Circumstances arranged before his birth plunge him immediately into mysteries older than human civilization, and a race for his life against pirates that are more than pirates and cryptic forces that are more than forces. Accompanied by Wendy Miller, the only other living human to know of the Free Space Alliance, he embarks on a desperate journey across half the galaxy, delving into puzzles that were old when Neanderthals roamed the earth. They struggle to stay a step ahead of a terrifying, lingering consciousness that is pushing him forward into the Dead Zone, from where no one returns. There is scant consolation in knowing that those things -- or beings -- he fears are themselves afraid of something even older and more mysterious. Can he find the bravery within himself and discover the missing links from the foggiest past before it is too late to save himself, his new friends, and the Alliance? Can he halt the formidable new threat that has appeared? And how is he himself connected to it all? Content advisory: Language, sexual situations, space-battle violence.
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A Hierarchy of Gods: Book Two in the Saga of Banak-Zuur
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Science Fiction
Aw! What an adorable pair of little girls! NOT! Hold onto your fusion reactor! It was only freak timing that got college student Lesley Kellerman roped into an intergalactic feud that has lasted 70,000 years. Now, the only way out of the predicament seems to be to follow through with an unlikely — possibly insane — plan: steal a deep-space ship from the World Academy, outfit it with technology that does not yet exist on Earth, and secretly launch it to the stars. Right! But all the while, they must keep a step ahead of powerful forces. Despite the secrecy, Lesley and his friends stimulate the greed of an ambitious scientist, earn the wrath of a sadistic sociopath, and become the targets of the dangerous and mysterious Special Operations Division. But they must steer clear not only of the enemies they make on Earth, but the infinitely more dangerous ones that follow the "little girls" from 200,000,000 light-years away. During his budding friendship with the aliens, he learns of civilizations scattered throughout the universe -- Shiiskituuk, Kria-Ki, Trarsa, the unnamed enemy, Kyatton, and the probability of an even greater one -- each more powerful than the one before, each looking like gods to a lesser civilizations. A whole hierarchy of them. Whatever is at the top? It might be that their plan, as unlikely as it is, is simply part of a bigger one that was fashioned before humans invented fire. How can they succeed against impossible odds when death and stranger things are following close behind? And is it possible that, for the first time in the history of the universe, an interspecies romance could be in the works? Content advisory: Guns, graphic violence, language, sexual language and situations.
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Quantum Incoherence: An Anthology of Fantasy and Science Fiction
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Science Fiction/Fantasy
A collection of short stories (and one novella) written over a period of almost 30 years. They span from the eerie threshold of urban fantasy to deep space adventure on the far side of the galaxy, from the light-hearted to the grim, from the short to the long. A 13-year-old must choose between the world and hell in a battle with a dead wizard. A murdered CIA agent sets a trap for his killer. A high-tech scarecrow discovers that Phantoms aren't what he supposes they are. A parent discovers the shocking limits of his "pathologically good" children. A young elf girl with a futuristic weapon battles a band of goblins who have stolen a nuke from our world. And more. Content advisory: Violence, language, space battles.
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Nemesis
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Child rapists all. Yesterday, they were secure, satisfied, smug, and below the radar of both Special Victims and Child Welfare. Today, they’re dead.
Each one executed professionally with three precision shots, one to send a message and the others to send death. There are no signs of forced entry or struggle, and no clues left behind other than a hand-lettered calling card that says, “Nemesis.” Even more mysteriously, the killer has gotten the victims to decrypt the child porn on their computers so there is no doubt about their guilt. It has to be a highly trained mercenary, but that leaves the motive up in the air. It has to be someone the victims knew and trusted, but no two of them ever knew the same people. It has to be someone who can sneak in and out invisibly under the watchful eyes of stake-out crews. If detectives Wickham and Starr are stymied by the lack of evidence and conflicting facts, they are even more stymied by how the perpetrator is able to locate child molesters that the police had never heard of, and to do it fast and efficiently, sometimes two or three a day. When Special Forces/S.W.A.T consultant Evelyn Sowolski suggests a shocking and terrifying possibility, no one suspects that even she falls far short of the truth. And now they face competition. No longer is it just the police seeking the executioner; the surviving child molesters are starting to fight back, and their agents will use any method available. 
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The White Shamitz (The Saga of Banak-Zuur Book 3)
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Science Fiction
Following a freak catastrophe aboard Jupiter Station, a pair of young people accidentally invoke the Red Shamitz and find themselves on a world at least millions of light-years from Earth. There, they discover the entire Shamitz system, technology left by a vanished race, technology so advanced that humans can’t begin to comprehend it. There are six Shamitzen on Shraka, but a seventh, the enigmatic White Shamitz, a primary control system for the other six, is on its way, and once it achieves cohesion, it will have virtually unlimited power to create and destroy. Unfortunately, it seems to have something against them and is making their lives miserable. Telepathy, artificial consciousness, an interstellar empire, and a non-human little girl with no voice but monumental courage. Brad and Kristy explore hundreds of worlds — and romance — before they finally discover the dazzling secret of the White Shamitz. 
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