The Matador Series more less
The Matador series chronicles the birth, evolution, victory, and aftermath of a rebellion which overthrows a corrupt and declining interstellar government ("The Confederation") based on Earth. The Matador series features a fictional martial art known as "Sumito" or "The 97 Steps". Many of the non-English words and place names are actually in the Esperanto language.
The Man Who Never Missed
The rebellion proper begins in The Man Who Never Missed, in which Emile Khadaji deserts from the Confederation military after a particularly bloody battle and religious experience, eventually joining up with a bartending martial artist monk named Pen, who teaches Khadaji the art used by his order, Sumito ("The 97 steps"), before setting him on his own path. Khadaji learns economics and politics and military science and eventually decides he has to overthrow the Confederation. This he does by setting up a bar on a planet named Greaves, and while luring soldiers in by day, hunts and paralyzes them by night. Over many months, he paralyzes 2,388 of the 10,000 troops on the planet, only missing with a handful of shots, which he carefully conceals. Eventually, as the first paralyzed soldier awakens, he attacks the commander, is trapped in his bar, and apparently killed.
Afterwards, the Confederation military realize that he apparently knocked out almost 2,400 soldiers without missing a single time, a record which becomes a legend, striking fear into the Confederation military ranks.
Matadora
(From the back cover)
On some worlds, the name of Khadaji is a prayer for resistance fighters...
Khadaji... master warrior, martyr, legend. The one-man resistance to the Confed on Greaves. Known as "The Man Who Never Missed," he only let himself be taken when he'd done what he'd set out to do. With his death, Khadaji became the inspiration and idol of students of martial arts everhwere.
Matador Villa... the training center for the best fighters in the galaxy, disciples of the great Khadaji. A rigorous program of political tactics and psychological warfare, physical discipline and martial force. A mysterious school on the planet Renault... its ultimate motives unknown.
Dirisha Zuri... a dangerous drifter, a dark-skinned beauty, Khadaji's colleague. A ronin, whose expertise in body control and knowledge of the fighting arts drew the attention of Matador Villa. The school wanted her talents... and the galaxy desperately needed her deadly skills.
Matadora The legend of the Man Who Never Missed becomes the incredible mission of a single woman... The Matadora.
The Machiavelli Interface
(From the back cover)
Khadaji started it.He had a vision on a bloody battlefield, a vision of the fall of the brutal Galactic Confederation, and of the new order that would come after. He made himself a legend, and that legend inspired a rebellion that swept across the stars.
The Matadors continued it.In Khadaji's name, they learned, at Matador Villa, skills of body and mind that made them the most valuable - and feared - fighters in the universe.
Marcus Wall tried to stop it.He used his immense wealth and corrupt power to close down the Villa, to outlaw the Matadors, to have their leader thrown into a Confed prison.
Now it is about to end.The Matadors are coming out of hiding. They will move against the Confed. They will destroy Marcus Wall. They will do what has to be done to make Khadaji's dream a reality... No matter what the cost.
The Machiavelli InterfaceThe legend of The Man Who Never Missed.The incredible journey of the Matadora.Now the final battle of The Machiavelli Interface.
The 97th Step
(From the back cover)
MWILI was born on a cruel, desolate planet...and dreamed of the stars.
FERRET was a thief and smuggler on exotic worlds...until his ruin.
PEN was trained by the master warriors, the Siblings of the Shroud, learning the lethal skills that would someday forge a legend...and conquer an empire.
He lived three lives - the mentor and inspiration for THE MAN WHO NEVER MISSED. This is his story.
The Albino Knife
It takes more than death to kill an evil man.
Her father is a hero, a legend, the man who changed the history of the galaxy. The Man Who Never Missed-a man she never met. The Confederation defeated, Emile Khadaji disappeared, and now she must find him.
Her mother is a pawn in a dead man's game, bait in a trap to lure her father out of hiding. Marcus Jefferson Wall died on the day the revolution was won, but technology has given him a terrifying new way for the hand of vengeance to stretch beyond the grave.
She is the Matadors' secret weapon, an Albino Exotic bred for her sensuous beauty-but trained in the deadly arts. She is... The Albino Knife
Black Steel
Honor demands blood.
Kildee Wu is a sensei, a teacher, a master of the martial arts. Her weapon is a 400-year-old black sword forged in secret; her ambition is to find the perfect student, one worthy of her blade.
Sleel is a thief, a poet, a scholar, a soldier-and one of the best of the Matadors, the elite cadre of bodyguards who sparked a revolution. Now, stripped of his honor, forbidden the weapons that set him apart, he must begin again.
Their enemy is hidden in the House of Black Steel, protected by power and money. He has stolen her secret, and his honor, and nearly claimed their lives. Their only hope of survival-and vengeance-lies in the strength of... Black Steel
Brother Death
Characters:Saval Bork (Matador)Tazzimi Bork (Peace Officer, Assistant Chief in Leijona), sister to Saval BorkVeate Bork (Albino Exotic), wife to Saval Bork, mother of Saval Antoon, daughter to Emile Khadaji (Matador, The Man Who Never Missed) and Juete (Albino Exotic, thief)Sleel (Matador), husband to Kee (sensai, bladeswoman)Ruul Oro (Comedian, TV personality), ex-lover to Tazzimi BorkNdugu Kifo (Brother Death, the Unique, Leader of the Few, Temple of Despair, Leijona)Brother Mkono (The Hand, Third among the Nine, main assassin of the Few)Missel (forensics lab technician for the Peace Officers, electronics expert)Noe Teng Bicho (owner of The Oxidized Owl a popular restaurant in Leijona, sex-changer, nicknamed Pickle due to the preservation of her former sexual organ in a jar in her office)
Terror strides across the galaxy
The elite who command the wealth of an entire planet. Each is given a warning of impending assassination. Each is surrounded by bodyguards. But in every case, the death-stroke falls on time...
The veterans of a thousand offworld battles. He is the Matador; she's the quick-draw chief of the local cools. They alone can stop the march of Brother Death...
Against them all stand the Few, the fanatical secret brotherhood. Armed with the secrets of a lost civilization, they revel in their own powers of destruction. And they obey one voice... Brother Death
The Musashi Flex
Follows the development of the 97 steps of sumito as well as the biochemical enhancement later used by Confed soldiers. The protagonist is a professional fighter, Lazlo Mourn, who walks the Musashi Flex, an illegal underground martial arts competition named after Miyamoto Musashi, which features both armed and unarmed combat.
