Welcome to Argylle, where the ruling family - a brilliant, flighty, civilized and occasionally dangerous clan of nearly-immortal warriors and magicians - are hoping for a few years of relative peace. True, their Father Gaston has vanished, leaving both throne and family while he pursues some unexplained errand. His absence has stretched into years. True as well that their powerful Uncle Dewar has also wandered off without leaving a forwarding address, and hasn't been heard from for a worrisome length of time. It's a bad habit of running off that this family's elders have. But now young Prince Gwydion's been stuck with ruling the Dominion of Argylle, and with any luck, life can go back to being a satisfactory mixture of intrigue, gossip and viniculture, periodically enlivened by amateur theatricals and the odd quest or two. Yet Gwydion is finding this arrangement uncomfortable. Strange things keep turning up. A plague of monsters appears out of nowhere, attempting to take up residence in the local barns and forests. These are trumped by the arrival of a ravenous Great Dragon - ancient, sorcerous, profoundly cunning - so big you can see it thirty miles away. Meanwhile, a mysterious young woman has shown up, claiming to be Gwydion's long-lost - indeed, quite unexpected - sister. And then there are the high-tech aliens, who say they just want to conduct a legal investigation. It's enough, Gwydion thinks, to make a ruler want to find some nice long errand that'll take him away from his homeland for a spell... The Well-Favored Man is a courtly, complex, bloody-minded fantasy for those who love Roger Zelazny's Amber, Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and the fantasy adventures of Steven Brust.
A powerful fantasy novel in its own right, set in an expansive and complex fantasy universe, The Price of Blood and Honor brings to a grand climax the tale, begun in The Well-Favored Man and A Sorcerer and a Gentleman, of the kingdoms of Landuc, Noroison, and Phesaotois. The bitter, centuries-old feud between Emperor Avril and his wizardly brother, Prospero, has broken into open warfare, and events and armies are unstoppably on the move. In the midst of all this, Prospero's two grown children - staunch, unworldly Freia, and her urbanely sorcerous half-brother, Dewar - find themselves thrust into the very heart of the action. The Price of Blood and Honor is a rich, complex, and splendidly high-handed work, full of epic tragedies and comedies of manners, wars and romances, primal acts of creation, gritty military details, intricate espionage capers, talking animals, mythic beasts, ducks, and a great deal more besides, in the story that is the climax and completion of this series.
Once there was only the land of Phesaotois, with a cold and baleful Stone at its magical heart. Much later came the land of Pheyarcet, younger and hotter, with its Well of Fire inextricably bound up with its ruler, the great Panurgus. Then Panurgus died, touching off a bitter struggle between his sons that ended with Avril on the throne and Prospero, mightiest of the sorcerers, in permanent exile. All that was an age ago. Now Prospero, grown ancient and subtle, has found a new, third land: bright Argylle, with its primal Spring of clear water. Argylle is a fair realm in its own right; but the children of Panurgus never forgive and never forget. And so Prospero decides it is an auspicious time to seize the throne of Phesaotois from Avril - thereby setting in motion a vast tale of romance and espionage, of talking animals and mythic beasts, of metaphysics and primal creation, of mannerly drama and gritty military detail: an epic that can only end in a conflagration of blood and honor.
Footprints of the Soul is an experimental guide that will help to deepen ones connection to Divine presence through a wide variety of prayer forms and helping to develop a uniquely personal spiritual practice. Readers will learn to quiet their minds and listen more closely to Divine guidance as well. This book includes journal pages and a CD with fifteen guided meditations. Footprints of the Soul is an important resource for those who are looking for ways to reflect on the spiritual journey of life.
Members of the ruling Phesaotois clan must put aside winemaking and family intrigue when their realm is invaded by plagues of monsters and some high-tech aliens show up asking questions.
Fame is notoriously fickle. Her methods are many and varied, and all do not receive a like treatment at her hands. The names of those who have done the most, by laborious and scientific pursuits, alike injurious to their health and happiness, to smooth the thorny paths of their fellow-creatures, are perhaps allowed to lapse into utter oblivion. While others, whose claim to immortality rests on a more slender base, are celebrated among their posterity. Lady Holland’s claim to renown rests upon the later years of her life. She is known to the readers of memoirs and historical biographies of her time as the domineering leader of the Whig circle; as a lady whose social talents and literary accomplishments drew to her house the wits, the politicians, and the cognoscenti of the day. She is known as the hostess who dared to give orders to such guests as Macaulay and Sydney Smith, and, what is more, expected and exacted implicit obedience. As yet, however, little has been written of her earlier years, and on these her Journal will throw much light. It is a record of the years of her unhappy marriage to Sir Godfrey Webster; and after her marriage with Lord Holland the narrative is continued with more or less regularity until 1814. The chief point which at once strikes home in reading the account of her younger days is an entire absence of any system of education, to use the words in their modern application. Everything she learnt was due to her own exertions. She did not receive the benefit of any course of early teaching to prepare her to meet on equal terms the brightest stars of a period which will compare favourably with any other in the annals of this country for genius and understanding. ‘My principles were of my own finding, both religious and moral, for I never was instructed in abstract or practical religion, and as soon as I could think at all chance directed my studies.... Happily for me, I devoured books, and a desire for information became my ruling passion.’ Her own words thus describe how she gained the general knowledge which was subsequently of such use to her. Lectures on geology, courses of chemistry with the savants whom she met on her travels, and hours of careful reading snatched whenever practicable, seem to have been the solace and the recreation of those early years of her married life. By her own efforts she thus became fitted, with the aid of undoubted beauty and a natural liveliness of disposition, to take her place in Whig society, into which her marriage with Lord Holland had thrown her. Without the same opportunities, her salon in later days succeeded and far surpassed in interest that presided over by the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Thus said Charles Greville: ‘Tho’ everybody who goes there finds something to abuse or to ridicule in the mistress of the house, or its ways, all continue to go. All like it more or less; and whenever, by the death of either, it shall come to an end, a vacuum will be made in society which nothing can supply. It is the house of all Europe; the world will suffer by the loss; and it may be said with truth that it will “eclipse the gaiety of nations.”’ But her sway over her associates was the rule of fear, not of love; and with age the imperiousness of her demeanour to her intimates grew more marked. Each one of her visitors was liable to become a target for the venom of her wit or the sharpness of her tongue.
The Elizabeth Stories serves as a legacy of Alfred Baroody's wife, Elizabeth--the author--who previously published several articles, short stories, and books. This is a collection of ten short stories and two novelettes compiled into one book. These are stories about adventure, action, mystery, and so much more.
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