A unique, in-depth approach to creating realistic characters in Maya. Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls' author, Chris Maraffi, has expertise in the field and in the classroom that translates to the knowledge and solid teaching skills needed to make this book a "must-have"! The current trend in computer graphics is greater organic realism. Many of the top-grossing movies today, such as Spiderman, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park 3 , and Star Wars Episode 2, all feature realistic 3D characters. There is a major need in the 3D community for educational material that demonstrates detailed techniques for achieving this organic reality. Maya is one of the main packages used on such cutting-edge films, and has an established toolset for creating believable 3D characters. Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls is designed to take you through the process of designing, modeling, and setting up animation controls for complex 3D characters. The concepts, techniques, and Maya tools used for each step in the process are presented in each chapter, followed by many hands-on exercises. NURBS, polygon, and subdivision surface modeling techniques are shown for creating the character's skin, and skeleton-based animation controls are covered in detail. You will learn how a character's skin should deform when the skeletal joints and muscles move. Advanced MEL scripted animation controls are also covered extensively.
Written by a team of highly qualified Kinetix-certified training specialists, this book is filled with proven, practical examples and exercises that teach novices and experienced users how to make MAX perform amazing animations and special effects, as used in the entertainment industry. Includes CD.
[Here] paddlers will find plans and instructions for building and finishing three new stitch-and-glue designs - a touring kayak, a fast sea kayak, and a flat-water kayak - that are even more elegant, durable, and functional than their forerunners. ..."--Back cover.
Searing new poems from a vital American voice. Ragged Anthem displays the same inimitable voice and unflinching gaze that made Chris Dombrowski a Poetry Foundation bestseller and silver medal winner of Foreword Reviews' Book of the Year Award in poetry. His work has been celebrated by renowned writers such as Jim Harrison and Alicia Ostriker, who have called his books (respectively) "extraordinarily powerful and graceful" and "one of the most beautiful books of poetry I've read in years." As in Dombrowski's previous books, in Ragged Anthem the natural world is as alive and as fully realized as language allows. His comfort with the naming of the world, combined with a life lived intimately with the other species that populate the landscape of home, suggest an authenticity that few can claim. Ragged Anthem is a demonstration in continued poetic growth and expanded terrain. Written from the speaker's midlife, the poems delve into the transformation of family, childhood tragedies, and politics. Dombrowski lifts the veil on the imbecilic bureaucracies—those on Capitol Hill and in the faculty meetings occurring in our own conference rooms—that often help to whittle our fates. The book contains well-placed and evocative allusions to such figures as American painter Mark Rothko and Saint Francis of Assisi, as well as the periodic highlighting of language from contemporary song lyrics. These "borrowings" set forth a conversation between the poet and other artists that evoke the original source while transforming it into something new, proving that words, although artifice, live within our bodies, changing our relationship to place. Ragged Anthem makes a powerful and important contribution to contemporary poetry. Fans of Dombrowski's past works and newcomers alike will bask in the poet's firm yet relaxed approach to the shaping of language.
The San Francisco 49ers entered the 1984 season determined to erase the memory of their three point loss to the Washington Redskins in the NFC Championship Game the year before. Nineteen games later, they had not only won the Super Bowl, they had redefined NFL history by becoming the first team to win 18 games in a single season. Led by Hall of Fame head coach Bill Walsh and future Hall of Fame players Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott, and Fred Dean, the 1984 San Francisco 49ers finished the season with just one defeat. A Nearly Perfect Season: The Inside Story of the 1984San Francisco 49ers chronicles the story of one of the greatest teams in NFL history. Through in-depth research and extensive interviews, Chris Willis details every aspect of this memorable season, from the preseason training camp through Super Bowl XIX. Inside stories from the 49ers are brought to life in colorful detail, including Joe Montana’s penchant for stealing teammates’ bikes during camp, the players’ pre-game superstitions, and what went on in the 49ers’ locker room before Super Bowl XIX. In addition, Chris Willis had complete access to Bill Walsh’s game plans and meeting tapes, revealing the intense preparation the coach and his staff went through to give their team the greatest chance for success on the field. Featuring original interviews with more than 30 players from the team—including Dwaine Board, Roger Craig, Fred Dean, Keith Fahnhorst, Riki Ellison, Guy McIntyre, and Keena Turner—and interviews with the coaches and the general manager, this book provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of a season to remember.
Soon after Victorian messenger Barnaby Grimes is attacked by a huge beast while crossing London's rooftops, he becomes entangled in a mystery involving patent medicine, impoverished patients, and very expensive furs.
It’s Groundhog Day, 1906. February 2nd is stuck on repeat, and only our intrepid trio appear to have noticed. Emmeline senses the meddling of a higher power - possibly her aunt. Reggie’s sure it’ll be the handiwork of the subterranean horror one least suspects. And Reeves considers it all “most disturbing.” Can our heroes save the world from perpetual winter? And could ending the time loop be just the start of an even thornier problem? This short novel is the sixth Reeves & Worcester Steampunk mystery and is set a few months after The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall. “A fun blend of P.G. Wodehouse, steampunk and a touch of Sherlock Holmes. Dolley is a master at capturing and blending all these elements.” --SF Revu “Another terrific addition to this hilarious series about Reggie and the indefatigable Reeves plus the delightful Emmie, who is as zany as Reggie, facing down a time loop, a squadron of aunts, and don't forget The Mustache.”--Sherwood Smith, author of CROWN DUEL “Chris Dolley's steampunk Reeves and Worcester mystery series is always a delight, but Deja Vu Halloo sets new heights of insane brilliance. Give yourself time to savor the delightful absurdity!”--Patricia Rice, author of the School of Magic series “I love this! It's great fun”-- Jennifer Stevenson, author of Trash, Sex, Magic
U.S.A.F. Chief of Staff 2013 Professional Reading List Selection Nearly forty years passed between the Apollo moon landings, the grandest accomplishment of a government-run space program, and the Ansari X PRIZE-winning flights of SpaceShipOne, the greatest achievement of a private space program. Now, as we hover on the threshold of commercial spaceflight, authors Chris Dubbs and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom look back at how we got to this point. Their book traces the lives of the individuals who shared the dream that private individuals and private enterprise belong in space. Realizing Tomorrow provides a behind-the-scenes look at the visionaries, the crackpots, the financial schemes, the legal wrangling, the turf battles, and--underpinning the entire drama--the overwhelming desire of ordinary people to visit outer space. A compelling story of the pioneers of commercial spaceflight--and their efforts to open the final frontier to everyone--this book traces the path to private spaceflight even as it offers an instructive, entertaining, and cautionary note about its future.
Sam Aquillo – ex-boxer, ex-corporate executive and accidental hero of The Last Refuge – is back in this action-packed, page-turning sequel. All Sam wants to do is hammer a few nails into his ramshackle cottage, drink a great deal of vodka, hang out with his dog, Eddie, and stay out of trouble. But trouble seems to find him anyway. When a car bomb outside a trendy waterfront restaurant kills a prominent financial consultant and injures Sam and his lawyer friend Jackie Swaitkowski, he is drawn into the investigation. Where the police have met roadblocks, Sam makes inroads with his trademark wit, instinct and charm. Also, he just wants to know: Why would someone go to such lengths not only to kill someone, but annihilate them? Set, once again, against the backdrop of Southhampton, Long Island, Two Time is full of moody sunsets, beachfront properties and beautiful people with an extraordinary amount of money and very dangerous secrets.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that “hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel” (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl). Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today The Boston Globe’s #1 Thriller/Mystery of 2024 So Far One of The Washington Post’s Best Books of Summer “Kept me frantically turning the pages and somehow made me cry at the end . . . Brava!”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women “Melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.”—People (Best New Books) 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another. A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.
It's Brent Weeks meets China Mieville in this wildly imaginative fantasy debut featuring high action, elegant writing, and sword and sorcery with a Chinese flare. Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone are a romantic couple and partners in crime. Persimmon is a poet from a well-to-do family, who found herself looking for adventure, while Imago is a thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed, and his body has not aged in nearly seventy years. Together, their services and wanderlust have taken them into places better left unseen, and against odds best not spoken about. Now, they find themselves looking to get away, to the edge of the world, with Persimmon pregnant with their child, and the most feared duo of assassins hot on their trail. However, all is never what it seems, and a sordid adventure--complete with magic scrolls, gangs of thieves, and dragons both eastern and western--is at hand.
Few sporting records capture the imagination quite like that of the highest individual score in Test cricket. It is the blue riband record of batting achievement, the ultimate statement of stamina and skill. From Charles Bannerman, who scored 165 for Australia against England in the inaugural Test match in 1877, to Brian Lara, who made 400 not out for West Indies against England in 2004, the record has changed hands ten times. Chris Waters' The Men Who Raised the Bar charts the growth of the record through nearly one hundred and fifty years of Test cricket. It is a journey that takes in a legendary line of famous names including Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Leonard Hutton, Sir Garfield Sobers and Walter Hammond, along with less heralded players whose stories are brought back into the light. Drawing on the reflections of the record-holders, Waters profiles the men who raised the bar and their historic performances.
Though boasting a smaller student body than most other Southeastern Conference schools, Vanderbilt University’s spirit and passion is without bounds—and with good reason. This book highlights several Vandy sports programs whose teams have shined over the course of the school’s athletic history and the players and coaches who have been a part of them. Much of Vandy’s recent athletic success has come from the football team. Under coach James Franklin, the Commodores had their first sold-out season opener since 1999. In 2012, the squad tied the school record for most wins and finished in the top 25 poll, en route to a bowl game for the second straight year, and followed that with another bowl game in 2013. The men’s basketball team has also offered a lot of excitement of late. In 2011–2012, the squad boasted the top two scorers in the conference in John Jenkins and Jeffrey Taylor, both of whom were drafted to the NBA. The team won the SEC Tournament title that season, beating conference rival Kentucky. On the women’s side, the team made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2013, marking the 11th time in as many seasons that coach Melanie Balcomb has led the team to at least 20 wins and an NCAA berth. The Commodores have also had something to cheer about on the baseball field, winning or sharing three SEC titles since 2007. In 2012, alumnus David Price received the American League Cy Young Award. Pedro Álvarez, also an alumnus and an infielder on the Pittsburgh Pirates, was a member of the 2013 National League All-Star team. In this latest addition to the Tales From series, Chris Lee highlights these athletes and coaches and so many others who have become part of Commodore lore. It’s perfect for the fan of the black and gold! Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
This is the first study of the interaction between warfare and national religious practice during the British Civil Wars. Using hundreds of neglected local documents, this work explores the manner in which civil conflict, invasion and military occupation affected religious practice. As Churches elsewhere in Britain and Ireland were dismantled and the country was invaded by a foreign English army, mid-seventeenth-century Scotland provides an important, yet neglected, point of entry in exploring the intersection between early modern warfare and religious practice. The book establishes a fresh way of looking at the conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century. No other study has explored how soldiers were quartered or marched in close proximity to parish worship, how their presence affected worship patterns and how the very idea of conflict in the mid-seventeenth century impacted upon the day-to-day lives of worshippers. Using the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 as its starting point, this perspective emphasises flexibility in religious practice and the dialogue between local communities, religious leaders and troops as a critical element in the experience of war.
Chris Taylor has had a very successful career as a Royal Navy officer, helicopter pilot, test pilot, instructor and as an internationally acclaimed civil certification test pilot. His first book, Test Pilot, concentrates on anecdotes and incidents from the most recent phase of his career. This book is the prequel and is his account of his ten yearsâ service as an experimental test pilot, from 1994 until 2004, at MoD Boscombe Down, the UKâs tri-Service home of military aircraft testing and evaluation. In this book, Chris explains what led to his passion to be a test pilot and how, with tenacity, he plays the cards he was dealt as well as he could. The story captures the difficulties and challenges associated with being selected for the single annual place at the Empire Test Pilotsâ School (ETPS) and the dedication required to then complete the very demanding twelve-month course. Chris was one of only three helicopter experimental test pilots posted to the Experimental Flying Squadron (EFS). It was there that he worked with scientists from the defense Research Agency (DRA) at Bedford and Farnborough on a number of cutting-edge technologies, specializing in ship/helicopter interface testing. In addition to flying the Westland Wessex, Lynx and Sea King, Chris was able to act as an evaluation pilot in the Hunter, Jaguar, Andover, Hawker Siddeley HS748, and the Comet. During his time as an active test pilot, EFS was merged into three platform squadrons which gave Chris the chance to play a full part in conventional ârelease to serviceâ activities in a wide variety of rotorcraft. Asked to take on the role of a flight test instructor (FTI), Chris served at ETPS where he made sweeping changes to the syllabus, acquired a new helicopter type and had to deal with a number of students who could not cope with the rigors of the course. In his first year he suffered a âflame outâ in a Hawk jet, an engine failure during his first flight in the twin-engine Basset and crashed the schoolâs Westland Scout helicopterâ all of which are fully discussed. Following four successful years teaching helicopter flight test, Chris was recruited to manage the ETPS short course portfolio. This required the design, sale and delivery of numerous flight test courses, while also introducing innovative teaching methods and the use of civil registered aircraft. In this new, exciting and rewarding role Chris taught both fixed wing and rotary wing students and the book explains the difficulties of learning the additional skills and flight test techniques required of a fixed wing test pilot. This autobiography explores the military flight test career of an individual who is arguably one of the best qualified and most experienced test pilots working today anywhere in the world.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that “hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel” (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl). Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today The Boston Globe’s #1 Thriller/Mystery of 2024 So Far One of The Washington Post’s Best Books of Summer “Kept me frantically turning the pages and somehow made me cry at the end . . . Brava!”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women “Melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.”—People (Best New Books) 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another. A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.
‘All of my best lines are accidents', Chris Price writes in this book, and proceeds to prove that she has the knack of putting herself in harm's way and the skill to build from there. Beside Herself plays with character, and with language, and with the way the one works on the other. Pronouns and personae shift and dance in this book in the same way that meanings do – ‘After the expected, the unexpected. / After the unexpected, the formal handrail / and the overflow.' Price has always been attentive to the unlooked-for delights of language – she is a master of the riddling word-play poem – and uses this play in the service of something larger, an exploration of character and persona and perspective: ‘I am every character – every, every character'. These characters appear from a variety of times, places and fictions – Richard III, Hamlet, three readers (one a writer), Richard Nunns and Miss Bethell – from contemporary Wellington to medieval England. The longer sequence ‘The Book of Churl' is the narrative of medieval everyman; another long poem, ‘Beside Yourself', is both a battle against the relentless first-person pronoun and a celebration of it, in ramshackle poem-diary form. A selection of beautifully crafted, riddling poems of persons and personae, truths and falsehoods, frank identities and masked selves, Beside Herself is a playful, shape-shifting performance.
Two young men enlist in the Maryland Militia during the Revolutionary War in this action-packed tale based on the lost story of “America’s 400 Spartans.” On a marshy Brooklyn battlefield on August 27, 1776, four hundred men from Baltimore, Maryland assembled to do battle against a vastly superior British army. Seemingly overnight, these young soldiers had matured from naïve teenagers to perhaps the most important, yet most forgotten, citizen soldiers in all of American history: “America’s 400 Spartans.” Saving Washington follows young Joshua Bolton and his childhood friend Ben Wright, a freed Black man, as they witness British tyranny firsthand, become enraptured by the cause, and ultimately enlist to defend their new nation in a battle that galvanized the American nation on the eve of its birth. Chris Formant’s gripping tale blends real-life historical figures and events with richly developed fictional characters in a multi-dimensional world of intrigue, romance, comradeship, and sacrifice, transporting us two-and-a-half centuries back in time to the bustling streets of Baltimore and the bloody, smoke-filled carnage of battle in Brooklyn. Praise for Saving Washington “An extraordinary and riveting read from cover to cover, Saving Washington is a skillfully crafted and original novel by an author with a distinctive and thoroughly engaging narrative storytelling style.” —Midwest Book Review “Meticulously researched. . . . This is among the finest period pieces ever to chronicle the events that gave birth to American independence. A pitch-perfect study of the grit that defined a fledgling America and a historical thriller extraordinaire.” —BookTrib
The mission is electrifying, but danger can be twisted … For tornado chaser Jack Andreas, an invitation to a lightning study means double the danger. As he sees it, what’s not to love? He’s intrigued by the job and fascinated by pilot Maribeth Lisbon, who must fly a research plane into the zap zone. Maribeth suspects he’s trouble, especially when his charms set off all her alarms. In their way are scheming TV chaser Brad Treat and down-on-his-luck adventurer Aurelius Zane, intent on filming a wedding in front of a twister. The eccentric billionaire who funds the study has a secret agenda. And a mystic with a food truck tests them all. As fearsome storms put them in mortal peril, Jack and Maribeth find their toughest challenge may lie within. The sequel to TORNADO PINBALL, ZAP BANG continues Chris Kridler’s Storm Seekers trilogy with action, drama, humor and romance.
“We are matter and long to be received by an Earth that conceived us, which accepts and reconstitutes us, its children, each of us, without exception, every one. The journey is long, and then we start homeward, fathomless as to what home might make of us.” —from The River You Touch When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as “a classic” (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated All of It Everywhere with a question as timely as it is profound: “What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?” He answers this fundamental question of our time initially by listening lovingly to rivers and the land they pulse through in his adopted home of Montana. Transplants from the post-industrial Midwest, he and his partner, Mary, assemble a life based precariously on her income as a schoolteacher, his as a poet and fly-fishing guide. Before long, their first child arrives, followed soon after by two more, all “free beings in whom flourishes an essential kind of knowing [...], whose capacity for wonder may be the beacon by which we see ourselves through this dark epoch.” And around the young family circles a community of friends -- river-rafting guides and conservationists, climbers and wildlife biologists -- who seek to cultivate a way of living in place that moves beyond the mythologized West of appropriation and extraction. Moving seamlessly from the quotidian -- diapers, the mortgage, a threadbare bank account -- to the metaphysical -- time, memory, how to live a life of integrity -- Dombrowski illuminates the experience of fatherhood with intimacy and grace. Spending time in wild places with their children, he learns that their youthful sense of wonder at the beauty and connectivity of the more-than-human world is not naivete to be shed, but rather wisdom most of us lose along the way -- wisdom that is essential for the possibility of transformation.
One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational. . . This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart." -- Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Boys Will Be Boys and The Bad Guys Won In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois, playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats, defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to represent the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There the Ironmen would play against a Chicago powerhouse in a dramatic game that would change their lives forever. In this gripping, cinematic narrative, Chris Ballard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet: a hippie, dreamer, and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966, bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era. Beloved by students but not administration, Sweet reluctantly took over the ragtag team, intent on teaching the boys as much about life as baseball. Together they embarked on an improbable postseason run that buoyed a small town in desperate need of something to celebrate. Engaging and poignant, One Shot at Forever is a testament to the power of high school sports to shape the lives of those who play them, and it reminds us that there are few bonds more sacred than that among a coach, a team, and a town. "Macon's run at the title reminds us why sports matter and why sportswriting has such great power to inspire. . . [It's] one hell of a good story, and Ballard has written one hell of a good book." -- Jonathan Eig, Chicago Tribune
From being inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013, to serving in an executive role on the Detroit Red Wings, and signing on to become an NHL analyst for Fox Sports 1, Chris Chelios has proven himself to be a man of many talents and here he tells his story. Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in 1981, Chelios enjoyed a long career in the NHL, playing for 26 seasons for the Canadiens as well as the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings, two diehard hockey markets in which he has become a beloved figure. From the 1992 Stanley Cup final to the 2006 Winter Olympics team, Chelios shares his achievements on the ice while providing new information on his life off it to readers, making this autobiography a must-have not only for Chelios fans, but anyone who loves the game of hockey.
Over 2 million copies sold of the bestselling series! Discover the Kidd family's action-packed, funny, danger-filled adventures—together for the first time in this incredible nine-book gift set! Follow the Kidd siblings—Bick, Beck, Storm, and Tommy—from their first solo treasure hunt to the stunning finale, as the stakes get higher and the treasures more epic. Their travels will take you down the Nile and around the Egyptian pyramids, beyond the Great Wall of China into the underbelly of Berlin, to the frosty Arctic and across the Australian Outback. Each book is packed with action, humor, fascinating facts, and fun illustrations. Kids will race through the pages as the Treasure Hunters adventures unfold, then reach for the next book in this unmissable series.
In book two of the House of Robots series, it's 'bot brains versus 'bot brawn in an all-out war! Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez and his "bro-bot" E are making new friends every day as E works as his bedridden sister Maddie's school proxy. But disaster strikes when E malfunctions just in time to be upstaged by the super-cool new robot on the block-and loses his ability to help Maddie. Now it's up to Sammy to figure out what's wrong with E and save his family!
Amid swirling allegiances and changing loyalties at the outer reaches of the Confederation empire, the Lost Legion struggles to keep the peace and prevent the planets from falling to a ruthless dictator. Protector Alena Redruth will stop at nothing to add the dual system of Larix and Kura to his holdings. And the Legion’s intelligence officer, Njangu Yoshitaro, will let nothing get in his way of infiltrating the system’s upper echelons of government. Within the delicately played game of spying, there are plots within plots within plots . . .
A mysterious figure appears to Amalric Antero, who's grown old before his time, and issues a challenge: find the real Far Kingdoms - the Kingdoms of the Night.
Young, pampered Amalric Antero cared only for real places and possible dreams. The time had come to find his trade wind, to make the traditional journey seeking out new lands, new riches, and new customers as his merchant father, and his father's father, had done before him. Original.
It's Brent Weeks meets China Mieville in this wildly imaginative fantasy adventure featuring high action, elegant writing, and sword and sorcery with a Chinese flare. At the end of The Scroll of Years, the poet Persimmon Gaunt and her husband, the thief Imago Bone, had saved their child from evil forces at the price of trapping him within a pocket dimension. Now they will attempt what seems impossible; they will seek a way to recover their son. Allied with Snow Pine, a scrappy bandit who's also lost her child to the Scroll of Years, Gaunt and Bone awaken the Great Sage, a monkeylike demigod of the East, currently trapped by vaster powers beneath a mountain. The Sage knows of a way to reach the Scroll -- but there is a price. The three must seek the world's greatest treasure and bring it back to him. They must find the worms of the alien Iron Moths, whose cocoons produce the wondrous material ironsilk. And so the rogues join a grand contest waged along three thousand miles of dangerous and alluring trade routes between East and West. For many parties have simultaneously uncovered fragments of the Silk Map, a document pointing the way toward a nest of the Iron Moths. Our heroes tangle with Western treasure hunters, a blind mystic warrior and his homicidal magic carpet, a nomad princess determined to rebuild her father's empire, and a secret society obsessed with guarding the lost paradise where the Moths are found -- even if paradise must be protected by murder.
Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, high-stacking his way across the rooftops of his city in search of adventure and mystery. In each tale, he encounters a supernatural force and must battle the horrors that await him. In this new adventure, Barnaby finds himself in the fiercely competitive world of early photography, where the rewards are immense but so are the risks. After an experiment goes disastrously wrong, Barnaby is on the trail of a mad chemist with a talent for disappearing into thin air. . . .
Catherine Ross rallies her neighbors to openly resist the mass evictions, which empty the glens of her people and replace them with sheep. Constable Ian Macgregor finds duty conflicts with his love for Catherine.
“Signs, wonders, and witchcraft beset 17th-century France” in this “grim but spellbinding” novel of a mother searching for her son inspired by true events (Kirkus Reviews). France, 1673. A young woman from the country, Charlotte Picot must venture to the fearsome city of Paris in search of her last remaining son, Nicolas. Either fate or mere coincidence places the quick-witted charlatan Adam Lesage in her path. Adam is newly released from the prison galleys and on the hunt for treasure. But Charlotte, believing him to be a spirit she has summoned from the underworld, enlists his help in finding her child. Charlotte and Adam―comically ill-matched yet essential to one another―journey to Paris, then known as the City of Crows. Evoking pre-revolutionary France with all its ribaldry, superstition, and intrigue, “Womersley weaves a haunting tale of the drastic lengths people will go to achieve their deepest desires” (Publishers Weekly). “A gothic masterpiece.” ―Better Read Than Dead
The author characterizes the book as a memoir, entitled, Notable Encounters. As such, he has diligently documented his recollection of dozens of memorable special people that he enjoyed the unique opportunity of meeting over the years of his professional experiences. Many of the names of those whom he had the pleasure of meeting are easily recognized, while others are introduced to the reader for the first time. Beyond identifying and characterizing his meeting opportunities and the interaction with those encountered, he has for the benefit of the reader, provided an in-depth biographical background summary of each personage. As such, his treatise serves also to recall history, significant times and events in many instances. A number of those whom he had the pleasure of meeting became friends for life, while other introductions were the first and last. An interesting perspective that he also introduces in the opening of his writing is one of the history and importance of the handshake. He characterizes that virtually every encounter, greeting, or meeting between two people is initiated with a handshake. The handshake, a practice that has existed in some form or another for thousands of years, most often engaged upon an initial meeting or greeting. The purpose of clasping hands""to convey trust, respect, balance, and equality. Join Chris Adams in encountering, exchanging handshakes and engaging some noteworthy and incredible personalities along his life's journey.
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