Congratulations on your acceptance to the Apprentice Academy, one of the world’s finest institutions for knightly education. Your course of study here will prepare you for a career as a knight, samurai, Viking, or really any type of sword-swinging warrior. Swinging a sword is inherently dangerous, but this guide will help you complete your education while minimizing the twin risks of 1. getting maimed and 2. working too hard. Learn how to: • Fight people! • Fight dragons! • Fight monsters! • Fight everything else! • Die honorably! • And more! Please follow all instructions carefully. If you go off on your own and try something silly, and then get your head chopped off or your body bitten in two, don’t start drafting a letter of complaint. You had fair warning.

The Dou-Jin Apprentice of Monsters and Men is about a young boy who lives on a farm and avoids being kidnapped by the evil Roda-kian evil order of mystical warriors, mages, and assassins that want Stephanous, the boy, for their own nefarious deeds to bring down the Dou-jin empire. Stephanous, at the age of fourteen, is taken in by the Dou-jin, who are the good and enlightened people of Theara. They are the guardians of the good and the law and order. They help protect the people of Theara from the monsters of Thearathe real and the mythical. Unbeknownst to Stephanous, he has a great power in the spirit and has attracted the vile power of the second-most-powerful demon of the underworldLilith. She wants to turn him into Roda-ki, and when he dies, she wants to harvest his soul to a soul cube to have forever. Lilith wants to break the eighteen seals that hold the entire demonic forces in the deep and her lover, Luciferous. She will do anything to free him, and that means anything. She spends her time invading Stephanouss dreams and life, trying to kidnap him. The Roda-ki, Crimson Sanhedrin, and monsters are set against Stephanous and his friends, but his friends turn out to be more than a match for whatever comes up against them.

Falina is the apprentice to the greatest wizard of her world, the Crystal Realm, but her talents in magic is nothing legendary. When her teacher, Lord Cristar, mistakenly hands her the wrong errand Falina goes out to do the impossible; dragging along a very reluctant swordsman, Kilian, on the adventure. But this tale isn't about the end-results as much as it is about the journey along the way, infallible faith, and friendship. Can Falina find a way to enter the ever-moving, existent/non-existent Eternal Door to the Kingdom of Forgotten Realms? Or will she and Kilian wander aimlessly in vain hope? Will Kilian go insane from the ridiculous mission, or from the equally ridiculously goofy Falina? Will YOU join them on the Impossible Mission, or wander and wonder what might have been...'

What secret does the Shroud of Turin contain to justify murder? When scientists uncover a Vatican plot to discredit the Shroud of Turin, they risk their lives to find out why. Unbeknownst to all but a few people, the pope has authorized a dangerous experiment: clone Jesus. Not only are church authorities unprepared for what Jesus would say, they are less prepared for what Jesus would look like. Giving their secret project urgency is a similar experiment by a neo-Nazi cult with cloning ambitions of its own: splice the DNA of Jesus to that of Adolf Hitler.

For Rayshell and her best friend Trish, senior year of high school is going to hell in a handbasket. The feud between Celestine and Daeva is bleeding into their world. When a mysterious visitor infiltrates her dreams, Rayshell is thrust into a realm of profound, otherworldly secrets. Together, Rayshell and Trish uncover the unbelievable—they are the living vessels for two banished Celestine guardians. Amidst mystical recollections and a wondrous magic system that shatters the veneer of their everyday lives, the two friends embark on a journey against time to connect with the Celestine guardians' allies in hopes of freeing them from their imprisonment. Simultaneously, the shadows cast by Daeva darken. The notorious outlaw, Merisek, has positioned himself to claim dominion over the Order of Existence—a trio of powerful artifacts capable of reshaping reality. Armed with two of these relics, Merisek races against the emergence of the Celestine guardians to claim the third. The stage is set for a showdown that will determine the fate of existence itself. Rayshell and Trish are all that stand between Merisek and his unhinged desire to twist the fabric of reality into his making. As the threads of destiny unravel, the question looms: who will be the author of existence, and what profound truths will be unveiled in the final, decisive act?

This companion volume to The Fold-O-Rama Wars at the Blue Moon Roach Hotel centers around outsiders, artists, and freaks (be they natural-born or self-made); three of the stories are interconnected, but they're also designed to stand alone. Each includes an afterword to shine additional light on both the works and their cultural personal inspirations. Here are four novelettes (three of them original to this book) set in a bizarrely fantastic, near-future America, filled with tattoo artists and other creative types, as well as the Hikikomori's Cartoon Kimono, the Twijfelen challenge of the Pi Zi, and the showdown between the Unnatural-Born Chimera and the Shadowfox Griefer! No one uncovers the naked, bleeding soul of modern American culture better than A. R. Morlan.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A TROUBLED MAN The world of Chimeras is very like our own. But for one difference. In Christopher Evans' evocatively portrayed land, some people have an incredible gift. They can create dazzling works of art from the nothingness of the space before them. Moving statues of incandescent gold shimmer into life, literally out of the air. The very best artists conjure wonderful pageants of soldiers glorious in battle or rich Lords helping the common man. They bring a little magic into the drudgery of the peasants' lives - and re-write history into the bargain. Chimeras tells the story of Vendavo, the greatest artist of them all. He's the man sought after by Jormalu, the new leader of the ruthless Hierarchy, to produce images, statues and public performances in his honour. Vendavo agrees - it is prestigious work. But there are rumblings of discontent in the land and rumours of revolution. If it succeeds, Vendavo might be compromised.

Lauren Miller Griffith and Jonathan S. Marion introduce the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage to help explain why performers travel to places both near and far in an attempt to increase both their skill and their legitimacy within various genres of art and activity. What happens when your skill-level surpasses local training opportunities, whether in dance, martial arts, or other skills and practices? Apprenticeship Pilgrimage provides a new and exciting model of apprenticeship pilgrimages—including local, regional, opportunistic, and virtual—that practitioners undertake to develop embodied knowledge, skills, and legitimacy unavailable at home. For most people, there is a limit to how much training is available from the teachers and classes at home. As skill and know-how increase, the resources and training opportunities available become limits on one’s learning. Similarly, a practitioner’s legitimacy may be suspect without exposure to appropriate cultural context, such as ties with the homeland of certain dance forms or martial arts. Whether for skill alone, or activity-specific legitimacy, individuals may feel compelled to travel for training. Such travelers see themselves quite differently from other tourists, and the seriousness with which they pursue their journeys makes it appropriate to call them pilgrims. Given the goal of learning from and developing their own skills by training with experts at their destinations, apprenticeship pilgrims is even more appropriate. Rather than focus on specific geographic regions or genres of apprenticeship, this book builds a robust theoretical framework for understanding the role of travel for developing expertise in embodied genres. This book links and expands on the existing scholarship concerning anthropologies of education and tourism, but takes new strides in exploring the global circumstances wherein skill development requires travel. Throughout, the authors use apprenticeship pilgrimage as a robust new framework for considering the interrelated roles of going, learning, and doing for identity construction within contemporary globalization. For more information, check out A Conversation with Lauren Griffith and Jonathan Marion

You are motherless, neglected, abused, poor. You are a child.You are dyslexic, borderline autistic, contemptuous of authority in any form, and asocial. Life is a cruel reality made by others, and a surreal fantasy made by you. Do you ever learn to tell the difference?Do you conquer, or be conquered by, loss, envy, hatred, prejudice, cruelty, violence, apathy, and greed?This is a story about love, sensuality, sexuality, spirituality, innocence, caring and empathy.This is a story about someone growing and trying to transcend his surroundings, and comprehend a priori concepts such as truth and beauty.This novel is in the "Unreliable Narrative" genre of literature, and is a unique blend of classic literary styles ubiquitously meshed with modern pop culture, and a playfully irreverent handling of the modern English language.

ROYAL HARLEY IS DRIVEN TO SEEK ABSOLUTION for the evil he has committed, and approval from his dead father whom he never could please. He marries deplorably innocent young Tilda Ullmann and soon she understands the terrible mistake she has made. Royal, all charm and magnetism, is also an abuser. He finds he is unable to make a union with his bride because in his skewed mind she is saintly, unlike other women whom he sees as craven. It is at the turn of the last century when America went to war with Spain. To achieve his goal, Royal volunteers to join Teddy Roosevelt and his band of cowboys and playboys in Cuba, but finds himself instead serving in the Philippine Islands. Tilda joins him there and incites Royal's fury when she meets young Lieutenant Evan Winslow who soon declares his love for her. Royal doggedly pursues his quest to find redemption by some deed of valor, which ultimately takes him deep into the untamed Cordelliera jungle of Luzon where his hideous act of betrayal finally forces him to face himself and see what is there. Tilda comes to believe that she has found a way out of her entrapment.