For Nonnie and Francois, both on the brink of adulthood, a thousand-mile trip across Africa's Kalahari Desert becomes a pilgrimage of self-discovery.

The Monster Squad is back and this time they are battling one of Leery's biggest creations - Mega Mantis. The giant mantis has returned to Riddle and he brought all of his insect friends with him. Now it's up to the Monster Squad to squash this bug for good! But how do you kill a bug that's four times bigger than a house?

"Poetry about cool insects with accompanying facts"--

Driven by the ghosts of the Darakyon, Achaeos has tracked the stolen Shadow Box to the marsh-town of Jerez, but he has only days before the magical box is lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the forces of the Empire are mustering over winter for their great offensive, gathering their soldiers and perfecting their new weapons. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather what allies they can before the Wasp armies march again, conquering everything in their path. If they cannot throw back the Wasps this spring then the imperial black-and-gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end. In Jerez begins a fierce struggle over the Shadow Box, as lake creatures, secret police and renegade magicians compete to take possession. If it falls into the hands of the Wasp Emperor, however, then no amount of fighting will suffice to save the world from his relentless ambition.

Science fiction, fantasy, comics, romance, genre movies, games all drain into the Cultural Gutter, a website dedicated to thoughtful articles about disreputable art-media and genres that are a little embarrassing. Irredeemable. Worthy of Note, but rolling like errant pennies back into the gutter. The Cultural Gutter is dangerous because we have a philosophy. We try to balance enthusiasm with clear-eyed, honest engagement with the material and with our readers. This book expands on our mission with 10 articles each from science fiction/fantasy editor James Schellenberg, comics editor and publisher Carol Borden, romance editor Chris Szego, screen editor Ian Driscoll and founding editor and former games editor Jim Munroe.

An all-new original novel in which the most powerful hero in the Marvel Universe must free Inhuman slaves imprisoned on a distant world. Carol Danvers--Captain Marvel--narrowly stops a spacecraft from crashing. Its pilot Rhi is a young Inhuman woman from a group who left for a life among the stars. Instead they were imprisoned on a planet where an enslaved Inhuman brings her owner great power and influence. Horrified by the account, Carol gathers a team--including Ant-Man, Mantis, and Amadeus Cho--and they set out to free Rhi's people.

A man working in his garden finds a delicate worm, a beetle in shining armor, and a leaf-green mantis and shares these treasures with his young daughter. "Lovely double-page, impressionistic oil paintings...provide a picturesque setting for this simple, straightforward description of a special parent/child outing."--School Library Journal.

"One of the precious gifts of my father's legacy was his insistence that people can turn beliefs into knowns, finding out for themselves through direct experience that they are indeed more than their physical bodies. In that spirit, this book is a fine example of another explorer's journey into profound self-discovery, and particularly to the realization that "love is the only thing in life that counts." --Laurie A. Monroe, President, The Monroe Institute This book was written specifically for those people for whom the question of "what is real" is the most important thing in life. It is for those who have a hard time concentrating on career or family--or anything--for fear it will turn out to be illusory. It is for anyone whose life is haunted by lack of meaning. The entire point of Muddy Tracks is that the author went out searching. He trusted, and sincerely looked, and found that his trust was rewarded. And, he says, as his trust was rewarded, so will yours be. Muddy Tracks tells some of the things that happened to him, and at every step he says to you, "Here's a resource; try this. Here's a resource; try that. When I did this, this happened. When I did that; that happened." Keeping strictly to what he has experienced, DeMarco shows how many aids we may find in life. He shows how his life was enriched by selected reading, and by dream analysis, and by interaction with friends and so-called strangers. He describes some of the unusual resources he has discovered and used, particularly in connection with out-of-body explorer Bob Monroe and The Monroe Institute. More intimately, he tells of some of the nearly unbelievable things he has learned to do--things, he points out, that are natural human abilities, available to all. As noted British author Colin Wilson says in his introduction, "Frank's experience has been in many ways remarkable, and he has a natural gift for making it come alive." The net result is to provide the reader with firsthand, informed reassurance that we all have our own internal guidance, which is reliable and is willing and able to come forth when welcomed. DeMarco cites his own experiences to argue that if you come to the quest in faith, the faith will be rewarded. The meaning of your life can be found, but it can only be found by you yourself. And, having found it, you will find it meaningful precisely because it will be your meaning, and not someone else's. The age of gurus is over. It is time for us each to come into our own. Muddy Tracks will help you--and encourage you--to learn to do that.

This is a story of an almost vanished Africa; a world of myth and magic in which the indigenous peoples of the continent lived for uncountable centuries before the Europeans came to shatter it. The main character is a boy who has a relationship with this Africa not unlike Kipling's Kim with the antique world of India. François Joubert, whose Huguenot ancestors settled in Africa three hundred years ago, lives as a solitary child on his father's farm. 'Hunter's Drift'. Here, in the far interior of Africa, he experiences the wonder and mystery of an ageless, natural primitive life, his perception of it heightened by the influence of three people in particular - his Bushman nurse, the head herdsman of the local Matabele clan (his father's chosen partners in the pioneering of Hunter's Drift), and a hunter of legendary fame, now the chief ranger of a vast game reserve nearby. François' meeting with an untamed Bushman, Xhabbo, whose intuitive teaching nourishes his spirit; his strange pilgrimage to the distant krall of a powerful witch-doctor; his dramatic encounter and relationship with the daughter of a retired colonial governor; all are examples of African point and European counterpoint, in a highly original theme, moving to a strangely presaged and omened climax.