The mystery is heating up quickly. The Alien Immigration and Integration Department monitors activities of aliens living on Earth while hiding their presence among us. Junior A.I.I.D. agent Lauren Sage is unexpectedly thrust into the biggest case the Department's had in years. She's sent to work undercover as the assistant on Kerr Dracos's stage act. He's created a home for displaced aliens from all over the galaxy, recreating an old-fashioned sideshow in the Grotesquerie. Humans think it's an illusion, remaining unaware the "freaks" in the show are actually aliens living among them. But someone is using the show as a way to sell illegal and dangerous alien technology. Kerr's brother has been implicated, and he wants the truth to clear Kex. She wants to solve the case and stop dangerous weapons from getting into the hands of amoral thugs. The partnership leads to more than either expected, but the threat of alien technology is growing, and when someone targets Lauren, she begins to wonder if she?ll survive long enough to identify who is moving the dangerous tech. ÿ Please note this is a revised version of a SFR title that?s been modified to remove most of the adult content besides some tension and fade-to-black moments and is more SF than SFR. If you?d prefer the original spicy version, look for ?Fire Lord?s Assistant.?

Four classic works that explore the lives and contributions of some of the greatest minds in classical music—essential reading for any classical music fan. In Legend of a Musical City, renowned Austrian music critic Max Graf shares his recollections of life with Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and other immortals of the music world. Bringing to life some of the most iconic figures in music as well as the city of Vienna itself, Graf recounts a charming, personal, and highly educational story of Austria’s musical legacy. Jan Holcman’s The Legacy of Chopin is a comprehensive study of the great composer’s views on music, including pianism, composition, pedagogy, criticism, and more. Drawing on extensive research from a wide range of sources, Holcman provides essential historical and musicological context for Chopin’s references and concepts, making his more esoteric ideas accessible to the general reader. In Schoenberg and His School, noted composer, conductor, and music theorist René Leibowitz offers an authoritative analysis of Schoenberg’s groundbreaking contributions to composition theory and Western polyphony. In addition to detailing his subject’s major works, Leibowitz also explores Schoenberg’s influence on the works of his two great disciples, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. In Shostakovich: The Man and His Work, Ivan Martynov presents a compelling and intimate biography of this pioneering legend. Martynov draws on extensive research, including interviews and conversations with Shostakovich himself, as well as his own expertise in the field of musicology.

Welcome to Richard Gavin's "grotesquerie," where fear and faith converge in eerie and nightmarish tales of transcendent horror from a truly visionary writer. The highly anticipated new collection of macabre delights, that explores dark realms of the fevered, fecund mind, and visits strange landscapes and vistas. These are grim and grotesque tales of terror -- modern Mysterium Tremendums -- that open new doors of perception and reality. "Gavin's writing serves as a testament that great masters once crafted great stories .. .and as evidence that they shall do so again." -- Thomas Ligotti

Matt Richter won't let a little thing like death keep him from cracking his latest case. But there's a new evil power rampaging through the streets of Nekropolis. The last battle has begun.

Exploring how the depiction of otherness or alterity during the Middle Ages became problematic in the aesthetics of the Romance epics written during the centuries of the Crusades, this book offers a vital contribution to the growing interest in the way foreign women are presented in the texts of the Latin West and will be of consuming interest to students in women's studies, cultural studies, and medieval literature.The texts considered are written in the major European languages of the time and range from the Song of Songs through Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria Nova to such epics and romances as Erec et Enide,Doon de Maience, Fierabras, La Prise d'Orange, Ars Versificatoria, The Sowdone of Babylone, and Parzifal.

They invaded the wrong planet! In the near future, Tarsans took Earth in such a short time there was barely any chance to prepare or resist. The Tarsans have crippled most of the human men and genetically modified the women to bear their offspring, but Kendall and her group refuse to accept that. She is one of the few remaining enemy combatants, with her cell tasked with guerilla warfare and fomenting rebellion. When she has the chance to execute the general of Sector Seven, she takes it, thwarted at the last moment by an act of heroism from his prot‚g‚. To buy her people time to escape, she confesses to being the sniper. She expects to be killed for her crime, but Tarek imposes an unthinkable sentence instead. He takes her as his consort, deeming she?ll give a life for the life she took by providing him with a son. She can escape, but she decides to stay, hoping to find a way to bring down the Tarsans with access to a part of the city-ship rebel spies have never obtained. Her espionage pays off as she forms connections and a plan to level the playing field and force the Tarsans to engage instead of enslave but it all comes at great personal cost. ÿThis alien invasion military SFR is perfect for fans of Jessie Mihalik, Jenny Schwartz, Jennifer Estep, and T.A. White. Please note this is a revised version of a SFR title that?s been modified to remove most of the adult content besides some tension and fade-to-black moments and is more SF than SFR. If you?d prefer the original spicy version, look for ?Alien General?s Rebel Consort.?

This book interprets the handling of costume in the plays of the ancient Greek comic playwright Aristophanes, using as evidence the surviving plays as well as vase-paintings and terracotta figurines. This book fills a gap in the study of ancient Greek drama, focusing on performance, gender, and the body.

This book provides a wide-ranging discussion of realism, postmodernism, literary theory and popular fiction before focusing on the careers of four prominent novelists. Despite wildly contrasting ambitions and agendas, all four grow progressively more sympathetic to the expectations of a mainstream literary audience, noting the increasingly neglected yet archetypal need for strong explanatory narrative even while remaining wary of its limitations, presumptions, and potential abuses. Exploring novels that manage to bridge the gap between accessible storytelling and literary theory, this book shows how contemporary authors reconcile values of posmodern literary experimentation and traditional realism.