Melissa Scott has 9 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 2★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is Point of Hopes.
Point of Hopes
Summary
Nicolas Rathe is a pointsman, a dedicated watchman in the great city of Astreiant. During the annual trade fair, with a city filled with travelers and merchants, someone is stealing children. The populace is getting angry and frightened and convinced that a foreigner must be to blame. Rathe calls on the aid of both an out-of-work soldier, the handsome Philip Eslingen, and the necromancer Istre b'Estorr. The art of astrology is a very real power in the kingdom and plays as much a role in politics as greed and intrigue. Rathe finds himself struggling to find the children before a major astrological event brings about catastrophe. The first in a series of fantasy novels filled with adventure, intrigue, and gay romance.
©1995, 2012 Melissa Scott (P)2015 Melissa Scott
Five Twelfths of Heaven
Summary
In a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly disenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magi's power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemony's oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of "The Sun-Treader".
©1985 Melissa Scott (P)2012 David Wilson
Point of Dreams: A Novel of Astreiant
Summary
The city of Astreiant has gone crazy with enthusiasm for a new play, The Drowned Island, a lurid farrago of melodrama and innuendo. Pointsman Nicolas Rathe is not amused, however, at a real dead body on stage and must investigate. A string of murders follow, perhaps related to the politically important masque that is to play on that same stage. Rathe must once again recruit the help of his lover, former soldier Philip Eslingen, whose knowledge of actors and the stage, and of the depths of human perversity and violence, blends well with Rathe's own hard-won experience with human greed and magical mayhem. Their task is complicated by the season, for it is the time of year when the spirits of the dead haunt the city and influence everyone, and also by the change in their relationship when the loss of Philip's job forces him to move in with Nicolas. Mystery, political intrigue, floral magic, astrology, and romance - both theatrical and personal - combine to make this a compelling listen. A winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Speculative Fiction! Show Less.
©2001 Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett (P)2014 Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett
A Death at the Dionysus Club
Summary
In the sequel to Lambda Literary Award-winning Death by Silver, metaphysician Ned Mathey and private detective Julian Lynes again challenge magical and murderous threats in a Victorian London not quite the city in our history books. Mathey is recruited by Scotland Yard to assist the new Metaphysical Crimes Squad in the case of a literally heartless corpse. Mathey soon discovers that the magic used to rob the man of his heart and life does not conform to the laws of modern metaphysics and then a second victim turns up. Meanwhile, a minor poet hires Lynes to track down and stop the blackmailer threatening to reveal him as the pseudonymous author of popular romances. When another target of the same blackmailer, a friend of Mathey's assistant Miss Frost, appeals for aid, Lynes and Mathey begin to suspect murders and blackmail are connected. Digging deep into the clandestine worlds of lawless antique magic and the gay demimonde, Mathey and Lynes must uncover the source and nature of a heart-stealing supernatural creature before it can kill them too, even as they face the scandal of exposing themselves as sodomites in order to close the case.
©2014 Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold (P)2015 Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
Silence in Solitude
Summary
In Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence Leigh discovered that she was not only unusual as a female pilot. She was also an impossible thing: a female magus. Her unique abilities make her the only person capable of reaching Earth, humanity's original home, now sealed behind a mysterious barrier. But first she must learn to use her newfound talents. As the Hegemon's men close in on her, her husbands, and her teacher, she must make a dangerous bargain: undertake an impossible rescue mission in exchange for a vital map. If she succeeds, she may be able to save Earth. If she fails...
©1986 Melissa Scott (P)2015 David N. Wilson
The Empress of Earth
Summary
Following Five-Twelfths of Heaven and Silence in Solitude, this is the third and concluding novel in the Silence Leigh series. Silence Leigh now faces the ultimate test of her skills as a pilot and of her powers as a sage. Silence has finally wangled a deal with the Hegemony to use their gear to help them find the lost star roads to Earth. This comes at a price, though, as the credit for this will go to the leader of the Hegemony's family, so that one of his relatives can inherit his position, given that he has no children. The roads are not lost by accident; there is an active group of planets trying to block access to Earth, setting up a final conflict.
©2014 Melissa Scott (P)2015 David N. Wilson
Death by Silver
Summary
His practice newly established, metaphysician Ned Mathey can't afford to turn away any clients. But the latest Londoner to seek Ned's magical aid gives him pause: Mr. Edgar Nevett, an arrogant banker, is the father of the bully who made Ned's life hell at boarding school. Nevertheless, Ned accepts the commission to ensure the Nevett family silver bears no ancient or modern curses, and then prepares to banish the Nevett family to unpleasant memory again. Until Edgar Nevett is killed by an enchanted silver candlestick one of the pieces Ned declared magically harmless. Calling on his old school friend Julian Lynes - private detective and another victim of the younger Nevett - Ned races to solve the murder, clear the stain on his professional reputation, and lay to rest the ghosts of his past. Assisted by Ned's able secretary Miss Frost, who has unexpected metaphysical skills of her own, Ned and Julian explore London's criminal underworld and sodomitical demimonde, uncover secrets and scandals, confront the unexpected murderer and the mysteries of their own relationship. In Death by Silver veteran authors Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold introduce a Victorian London where magic works, influencing every aspect of civilized life, and two very appealing detectives.
©2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold (P)2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold
Point of Knives
Summary
A welcome return to the vividly realized city of Asteiant with its intricate magics and deadly politics. Point of Knives takes place in the interval between the widely praised earlier novels Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams. A fantastical mystery and a rousing adventure, Point of Knives also reveals for the first time the beginning of the romance between Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe and ex-soldier Philip Eslingen. The events of Midsummer have hardly been forgotten by the Fall Balance, and Nicolas Rathe can hardly complain that they've done any harm to his reputation, or to the reputation of the Points in general. However, it has meant that he's more in demand as an investigator, and the increased recognition and workload has made it hard to pursue friendship, or anything more, with Philip Eslingen, his comrade in the rescue of the stolen children. Eslingen is still Hanselin Caiazzo's bodyguard and Caiazzo is involved in any number of questionably legal ventures, and it does neither of them any good to be seen too often in each other's company. When a father and son who are both rumored to have been pirates are murdered on the same night, and Rathe finds Eslingen standing over the son's body, Eslingen proves his innocence easily enough, though he refuses to say exactly what errand he's running for Caiazzo at that hour of the morning. But when the old man's grandson and the son's self-proclaimed wife quarrel over the son's meager belongings, and Caiazzo dispatches Eslingen to represent his interests in the investigation, Rathe begins to wonder if their friendship is going to survive. Or whether they'll survive at all.
©2012 Melissa Scott (P)2014 Melissa Scott
Dreamships
Summary
A thought-provoking examination of the possibility of artificial intelligence. Reverdy Jian, a freelance "dreamspace" pilot based on Persephone (an arid world so hot the population lives underground), and her partners Imre Vaughn and "Red" take on a job flying a custom-made ship for the secretive Meredalia Mitexi. They're to search for Mitexi's lost brother, Venya - an almost legendary designer of the near-sentient computer "constructs" that help human pilots navigate dreamspace - who vanished soon after his claim to have created a true artificial intelligence was suppressed by his corporate employer, Kagami Ltd. Aboard Mitexi's ship, Reverdy works with Manfred, Venya's custom construct, and she grows ever more convinced that Manfred might be sentient. When Reverdy learns that Mitexi plans to turn Manfred over to Kagami on their return, she decides she must protect the construct, though she risks her career and maybe her life.
©1992 Melissa Scott (P)2018 David N. WIlson