Praise for Elizabeth Hand: "Fiercely frightening yet hauntingly beautiful."—Tess Gerritsen, author of The Silent Girl "A sinful pleasure."—Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love No one is innocent, no one unexamined in award-winner Elizabeth Hand's new collection. From the summer isles to the mysterious people next door all the way to the odd guy one cubicle over, Hand teases apart the dark strangenesses of everyday life to show us the impossibilities, broken dreams, and improbable dreams that surely can never come true. Elizabeth Hand's novels include Shirley Jackson Award–winner Generation Loss, Mortal Love, and Available Dark.

In this epic fantasy from the acclaimed author of The Grey Bastards, a knight’s valor is tested as he keeps a closely guarded secret from evil forces. Only the most resolute are chosen to join the ranks of the Knights of the Valiant Spur. Bantam Flyn, hot-headed squire and wielder of the renowned sword Coalspur, yearns to be one of them. When Flyn returns to the ancestral stronghold of the chivalric order, he finds the castle under siege from within by malevolent skin-changers in search of a changeling Flyn would die to protect. Suddenly Flyn finds himself on a quest to keep dear Pocket’s location secret. By his side, Deglan Loamtoes, a gnome herbalist with an acerbic wit, and the brilliant but excruciatingly awkward Ingelbert Crane. Venturing into the unforgiving cold of the island of Middangeard, the trio find themselves close to the historical forces that shaped the very world. Hindered by giants, trolls, bands of berserkers, throngs of restless dead, and haunted by the howling phantoms of his own barbaric past, Flyn must face an ancient horror that threatens not only his life, but the fate of his entire race. “An addictively readable—and undeniably cool—fantasy masterwork.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on The Grey Bastards

This book, first published in 1967, is a comprehensive study of knight-errantry in Chinese history and literature from the fourth century BC to the twentieth century. It discusses the social and intellectual backgrounds of knight-errantry, historical knights and the development of the theme in poetry, fiction and drama.

What happens between book 9 and book 10 of the Young Wizards series? Diane Duane answers the question in this volume, collecting together the three canonical works that constitute a "transitional trilogy" between books 9 and 10.

Xiang Kairan, who wrote under the pen name “the Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang,” is remembered as the father of modern Chinese martial arts fiction, one of the most distinctive forms of twentieth-century Chinese culture and the inspiration for China’s globally popular martial arts cinema. In this book, John Christopher Hamm shows how Xiang Kairan’s work and career offer a new lens on the transformations of fiction and popular culture in early-twentieth-century China. The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang situates Xiang Kairan’s career in the larger contexts of Republican-era China’s publishing industry, literary debates, and political and social history. At a time when writers associated with the New Culture movement promoted an aggressively modernizing vision of literature, Xiang Kairan consciously cultivated his debt to homegrown narrative traditions. Through careful readings of Xiang Kairan’s work, Hamm demonstrates that his writings, far from being the formally fossilized and ideologically regressive relics their critics denounced, represent a creative engagement with contemporary social and political currents and the demands and possibilities of an emerging cultural marketplace. Hamm takes martial arts fiction beyond the confines of genre studies to situate it within a broader reexamination of Chinese literary modernity. The first monograph on Xiang Kairan’s fiction in any language, The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang rewrites the history of early-twentieth-century Chinese literature from the standpoints of genre fiction and commercial publishing.

This tale takes place in Sixth-Century England in Camelot where King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table live. Hank Morgan finds himself there after he is mysteriously transported there from his home in Nineteenth-Century New England. Although this story is very funny, it still hits on serious topics like; white slavery , prejudice, confiscation of property in event of suicide, and the influence of the Church on the people. Please Note: This book has been reformatted to be easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.

This is a complete resource for scholars and students of Tolkien, as well as avid fans, with coverage of his life, work, dominant themes, influences, and the critical reaction to his writing. An in-depth examination of Tolkien’s entire work by a cadre of top scholars Provides up-to-date discussion and analysis of Tolkien’s scholarly and literary works, including his latest posthumous book, The Fall of Arthur, as well as addressing contemporary adaptations, including the new Hobbit films Investigates various themes across his body of work, such as mythmaking, medieval languages, nature, war, religion, and the defeat of evil Discusses the impact of his work on art, film, music, gaming, and subsequent generations of fantasy writers