The Bard settled in and stowed his malleable leather bag under the seat in front of him. He was handsome, from the Clan O'Donnell, with dark hair and light blue eyes. He listened as the flight attendants ran through the safety procedures for the short spaceflight between Los Angeles and the Moon. As the flight attendants prepared for departure, he looked over at the lovely woman seated beside him. 
 
Her hair was an irresistible, fiery red, but she was buried in the latest pulp-fiction rocket-book on compact crystal and obviously the digital text was more interesting than O'Donnell. He wondered if she had any idea where all that technology had even come from, or how it came into being.

These two short introductory paragraphs set the scene for the introduction of one the truly great twenty-first century SF characters/organisations.  Since 1433 the mystical and secretive Bardic Guild have been the keepers of all knowledge - everything from the latest technological advance to the complete back issue collection of Mad Magazine - and the driving force behind all mankind's great advances.  Of course Bill gates denies this, he would wouldn't he!

In this first short story we begin to discover their true power through the lascivious approaches of one Bard to an attractive young woman on the flight from Earth to the Moon.  But then maybe he is not quite what he seems...
 

The Silence of Roanoake  Colonies #3 page 8

When O'Donnell the Bard discovers he has given away the existence of the Guild to a journalist he sets out to erase her recording before the Guild find out.  But Elle MacKabe knows her job and uses the information to learn more about a much larger mystery - the disappearance of Roanoake, one of the early Martian Colonies.  Suddenly they are both under fire, but is it from a Guild assassin or somebody trying to stop them uncovering the truth about Roanoake.
 

Mining Secrets  Colonies #4 page 25

Elle took two steps forward, staring at the parchment as if she'd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls or something, and grinned.  That's when all hell broke loose.

As the journalist goes in search of secrets we learn more about the Guilds techno-toys as Bard O'Donnell dons a Spider-Cloak which refracts light in such a way as to make him effectively invisible, and trails Elle MacKabe to watch her back (and make sure she is not holding out on him).
 

FIONA AVERY is a US based professional writer who has been published widely in science fiction magazines.  She was also reference editor on Babylon 5 and Crusade.  Her tales of the Bard have become very popular with Colonies readers and are now to serialized by Bookface.com.  Other credits include an upcoming episode in Earth: Final Conflict and two radio drama adaptations for Scifi.com's Seeing Ear Theatre.

If you would like to see the Bards stories as a completed Book please email us to let us know.

"A coincidence is two seemingly unconnected events about which the Guild chooses to remain silent."--
       Anonymous
 

"Live your life in such a way that everything would still make sense even if the Guild did not exist."--
       From a sermon delivered in the Church of the Rock - Ceres
 

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