Ice Music: A Tale of the Qalupalik (Systema Paradoxa)

There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky-or unlucky-few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community.

These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, and some from other worlds, and others have always been with us-watching us, fearing us, hunting us.

These are the cryptids, and Systema Paradoxa tells their tales.

***

Federal Agent Chimalis Burton has defeated many demons in her day, both figuratively and literally. But when a senator's daughter goes missing in the wilds of Alaska, reportedly pulled beneath the water by a creature out of folklore, she is forced to confront dark secrets rooted in her own past, secrets she has shared with no one.

As more children go missing, the case the senator wanted kept quiet suddenly becomes high-profile. Additional forces are pulled in and the chase grows hot. Cornered, the creature lashes out and several agents fall victim, some fatally.

Can Burton put her fears to rest in time to prevent more deaths? Or will she lose even more than she realized was at risk?

Robert E Waters is a technical writer by trade, but has been a science fiction/fantasy fan all his life. He's worked in the computer and board gaming industry since 1994 as designer, producer, and writer. In the late 90's, he tried his hand at writing fiction, and since 2003, has sold over 7 novels and 80 stories to various on-line and print magazines and anthologies, including the Grantville Gazette, Eric Flint's online magazine dedicated to publishing stories set in the 1632/Ring of Fire Alternate History series. Robert's first 1632/Ring of Fire novel, 1636: Calabar's War, (co-authored with Charles E Gannon), was recently published by Baen Books. Robert has also co-written several 1632 stories, including the Persistence of Dreams (Ring of Fire Press), with Meriah L Crawford, and The Monster Society, with Eric S Brown.Robert is the author of The Mask Cycle, a Baroque fantasy series which includes the novels The Masks of Mirada and The Thief of Cragsport (Ring of Fire Press). For e-Spec Books, Robert has written several stories which have appeared in the widely popular military science fiction anthology series, Defending the Future. All seven of his stories which appeared in the series were recently collected into one volume titled Devil Dancers. Robert currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife Beth, their son Jason, and their two precocious little cats, Snow and Ashe.

Although Jason Whitley has worn many creative hats, he is at heart a traditional illustrator and painter. With author James Chambers, Jason collaborates and illustrates the sometimes-prose, sometimes graphic novel, The Midnight Hour, which is being collected into one volume by eSpec Books. His and Scott Eckelaert's newspaper comic strip, Sea Urchins, has been collected into four volumes. Along with Box Mountain's Cryptid series, Jason is working on a crime noir graphic novel. His portrait of Charlotte Hawkins Brown is on display in the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum.