« The Wizard Hunters » Martha Wells

Ile–Rien faces the grim specter of its own imminent demise. Once a fertile and prosperous land, it is now under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious army whose storm–black airships appear from nowhere to strike without warning. Every weapon in the arsenal of Ile–Rien’s revered wizards has proven useless — their magic quickly identified by the enemy and rendered instantly impotent, their conventional arms spontaneously and inexplicably exploded. And the last hope of a magical realm under siege rests within a child’s plaything.

The tiny sphere was created for Tremaine Valiarde’s amusement when she was a child of twelve, presented to her by her uncle Arisilde, the greatest of all sorcerers. But the mage — among the first to identify the impending Gardier threat, along with Tremaine’s notorious father, Nicholas, and one of the first to die because of it — secreted a power within the orb capable of defeating the invaders. And now, years later, it falls to a young woman lacking any magical knowledge and abil–ity to release it.

Tremaine’s initial attempts have disastrous consequences, transporting her to a strange world far removed from anything she has ever experienced or imagined. In this terrible and wondrous place — where primitive magic cultures lag far behind Ile–Rien’s sophisticated sorcery, where noble warriors clash with dark wizards, where starving demons prowl for prey and the Gardier prepare their assaults — Tremaine must somehow unlock the sphere’s powerful secrets … before the slow and monstrous awakening of a hideous …