If the looming war between the Aurelian Empire and Thracian barbarians goes unchecked, inexorable tyranny will tip the balance of world order and confront the world. Torn apart by rebellion, organized crime, and supernatural forces, three defending factions must join forces if the country is to survive prior to the Thracian god of war reaching Aurelia.

"There could not be a fitter time or place for the publication of this great prison novel than today's United States." --H. Bruce Franklin, The Nation

In this text Angel details the party fight within Allen County Democratic Party in the 1980s and 90s that led to his ascent to the chairmanship, and describes the period of turmoil, counterplotting and dissension that followed. He offers insights into the people who made up the party at the time.

Moses Porter, son of Experience Porter and Abigail Safford, was born in 1738 in Mansfield, Connecticut. He married Sarah Kilham (1742-1843), daughter of Phineas Kilham and Thankful Hill and the widow of Joseph Park, in 1765 in Preston, Connnecticut. They had seven children. He died in 1803 in Pawlet, Vermont.

The knowledge of ecology and epidemiology of rhizomania is particularly useful to understand the means and practices able to limit or avoid its further diffusion. Some promising methods of biological control using coexisting and non-pathogenic organisms could potentially help improve the action of the not completely effective genetic resistances. This integrated protection would be valuable, especially in the even more frequent development of resistance–breaking strains in the BNYVV, where the known types of resistance, alone or in combination, seem to have lost part of their original ability to protect the crop. Therefore, further efforts will be needed to discover new traits likely still present in the wild species of the genus Beta. The availability of large collections of germplasm stored in the International Beta gene-banks should ensure the enhanced efficiency of genetic resistance by means of conventional and marker-assisted selection methods. Some almost immune transgenic varieties seem already to be waiting for release where and when it will be possible. The introduction chapter describes briefly the sugar beet crop, the more common diseases, and the damage caused by rhizomania. The following chapters discuss biological properties of the causal virus, BNYVV, and its vector, Polymyxa betae, and their interactions with the environment and the host-plant. In particular, the great advances in research of the molecular biology of BNYVV should be noteworthy, which have been established by a wide range of the most modern methods. Recent work focused on the genetic diversity and evolution of BNYVV is moving forward our understanding of the dramatic worldwide epidemics of rhizomania. Newly developed molecular techniques also lead to practical applications, such as quantification of inoculum in ecological and epidemiological research.