In "Strangely Wonderful," along with his pirate crew, captain Tomaj Balashazy rules the Madagascar coast from his tropical plantation--a fortress built to defend against the enemies he's made cruising the Indian Ocean. But when the American naturalist Dagny Ravenhurst falls into Balashazy's lagoon during an expedition seeking a dreaded and mystical species of lemur, it spells the end of the temporary peace on the island. Ravenhurst is beholden to the French industrialist Paul Boneaux--who enjoys a monopoly over the island's manufacturing and commerce--and needs his patronage to survive. When the two adversaries, Balashazy and Boneaux, are pitted against each other, the island boils with blood, and only one will emerge triumphant. In "The Four Quarters of the World," Abyssinia, 1866. The crazed (some say) but dynamic Christian King of Kings has taken power as Tewodros II. His vision: to reunite Ethiopia under one crown, one God. To that end he moves his massive, gorgeously arrayed army from province to province. But rebellion is continuous and, in the end, he is Emperor of only the remote and inaccessible rock Magdala, where he holds political prisoners, spouses, and relations he's tired of and fifty Europeans. Into the barbaric and breathtaking kingdom comes American adventurer, linguist, and ethnologist, Captain Ravinger Howland. Becoming Tewodros' right-hand man, Ravi is allowed all the privileges of a royal son: concubines, armory, all the raw beef he can eat but not the returned Queen of Sheba. American doctor Delphine Chambliss, Tewodros believes, is the reincarnation of Makeda from who all Abyssinian kings are descended. But even as Ravi begins to question Tewodros' sanity, he falls for the bitterly bereaved Dr. Chambliss. And now, as the kingdom crumbles, Ravi and Tewodros lock horns over the woman in a battle to the death.