Set in the era of The Hundred Kingdoms, this is the tale of the twin sons of the Duke of Hammerfell, separated as children after the destruction of their home and the killing of their father by Ardrin, Lord of Storn, as a result of an ancient blood feud. Alastair, the elder, is raised by his mother, the leronis Erminie in Thendara, the lowland capital of the Hasturs, while Conn, the younger and gifted with telepathy, is saved by an old retainer and grows up with the mountain people of the Hellers. When the two are reunited as adults, Alastair, contemptuous of his brother as a country bumpkin, sets out to reclaim his heritage, while Conn, viewing his twin as a fop and a weakling, stays behind to protect his mother. Here he falls in love with Alastair's promised wife, Floria, a monitor trained to work in the Towers...

Leonie Hastur has a high degree of laran, the telepathic power of the Comyn caste, and wants to be Keeper of Arilinn Tower, which will give her as much power as her twin brother Lorill, Heir to Hastur. But she has a premonition that something strange and disturbing will come from the sky and change their world forever. She is correct. Ysaye Barnett loves life on shipboard and would happily stay right there, with her beloved computers, forever. Her best friend Elizabeth Mackintosh, a musician and anthropologist, and her fiance, linguist David Lorne, want to marry and have children, which means they need a planet they can settle on and make their lives' work. They are very excited about the new planet, especially when they realize that it's a lost Terran colony. As five young lives and their very different cultures meet, all of them will be changed by the encounter.

After spending her youth in the Terran Empire, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth. There she discovers she has the Alton Gift - forced rapport and compulsion - one of the strongest and most dangerous of the inherited "Laran" gifts of the telepathic Comyn - the ruling families of Darkover. And even as she struggles to control her newfound powers, Margaret finds herself falling in love with the Regent to the royal Elhalyn Domain, a man she has been forbidden to marry, for their alliance would irrevocably alter the power balance of their planet!

The practice of scales need never be monotonous! Scales for Advanced Violists is a user-friendly scale book with each of the twelve keys complete. Dozens of bowings and rhythmic variants are offered to develop and improve evenness, clarity, agility, speed, and intonation. An innovative introduction to double-stops takes the guess work out of this important technique. The Circle of 5ths explains key signatures. The book includes three octave major, melodic minor, harmonic minor, arpeggios, broken 3rds, and chromatic scales. Double-stops in octaves, thirds, sixths, and harmonics are presented in two octaves. This is the only scale book that most violists will ever need!

A feud between the Hammerfell and Stornleads to the murder of the Duke of Hammerfell.

This literary companion surveys the young adult works of American author Marion Zimmer Bradley, primarily known for her work in the fantasy genre. An A to Z arrangement includes coverage of novels (The Catch Trap, Survey Ship, The Fall of Atlantis, The Firebrand, The Forest House and The Mists of Avalon), the graphic narrative Warrior Woman, the Lythande novella The Gratitude of Kings, and, from the Darkover series, The Shattered Chain, The Sword of Aldones and Traitor's Sun. Separate entries on dominant themes--rape, divination, religion, violence, womanhood, adaptation and dreams--comb stories and longer works for the author's insights about the motivation of institutions that oppress marginalized groups, especially women.

In Verity, democracy has been eclipsed. Corporations have carved up the human colonies and reign supreme. MynCorp dominates Earth by exploiting her most valuable resource - the human subconscious. Wiring together the minds of the poor provides limitless computing power, serving MynCorp's multi-global agendas. Humans are adapting to new paradigms - the elite face resurrection and reprogramming, the disenfranchised are enslaved and free thinkers become anti-corporate fugitives. The paranoid and punitive nature of the corporations corrodes ambivalence and creates a new breed of freedom fighters. The status quo is disturbed when an ancient presence emerges from a universe touched by the computing network. Now alien races, rebel consciences, idealist spirits and enslaved souls must find a co-operative path, and convince MynCorp to save human existence. Along the way attraction, rebellion, violence, love and greed bond and repel the main characters.

Since time immemorial, the Kingdoms of Sun and of Night have been at war. Pamina, daughter of the Starqueen, supreme symbol of the Night, and of Sarastro, King of the Royal House of the Sun, must now choose which of her parents' ways she will follow. Together with her love, Prince Tamino, she must face the Ordeals at the Court of Wisdom, of Earth and Air, of Fire and Water. Only if she and Tamino pass all these trials can they have a life together. If this sounds like the plot of the opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), that's because it was one of MZB's favorite operas - and the inspiration for this book.

Based on the award-winning The Elder Scrolls, The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, named 2006 Game of the Year. Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow—for wherever it falls, people die and rise again. And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . .