Commander Todd Ingram, commanding officer of the destroyer, USS Maxwell (DD-525) met Soviet Navy officer Eduard Dezhnev in 1942 when the starshiy leytenant (senior lieutenant) was Naval Attaché to the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco. They became close friends, or so Ingram thought, until he discovered Dezhnev was a spy and had directly contributed to his capture by the Japanese in the Philippines while attempting to rescue his wife to-be, Helen. Later that year, Ingram escaped the Philippines with Helen, and returned to San Francisco, and had Dezhnev expelled from the United States, persona non grata.Ingram had put all that out of his mind, when on the last day of the war, the Maxwell suffers a hit from a Kamikaze attack off Okinawa. She puts into Karama Rhetto, a small archipelago off Okinawa, for repairs. News of the war's end comes the next day and Ingram expects to go home with the others on operation Magic Carpet. Instead, an Army buddy from his days on... Views: 29
SUMMARY:
The Kzin were the mightiest warriors in the galaxy, which they were wasting no time in conquering, one star system at a time. Then those feline lords of creation ran into those ridiculous weed-eating pacifistic apes who called themselves humans. And the catlike Kzin found they had their collective tail caught in a meat grinder. When the mighty Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-infested worlds, they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equipment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Kzin heroes into ribbons. And then those underhanded humans gained a faster-than-light drive, and no amount of screaming and leaping could keep the Kzin from losing their first war in centuries of successful conquest. But you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders. Here they come again and those monkey-boys from Earth had better watch their backs. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space! Views: 29
This anthology comprises five of the best plays from VAULT 2016, London's biggest and most exciting arts festival.Eggsis a dark comedy about female friendship, fertility and freaking out, by Florence Keith-Roach, 'rising star of the London theatre scene' (Evening Standard). Two women, living very different lives, are united by their quick wit, love of nineties' dance music and a mounting alienation.In Mr Incredible, Adam is single. He doesn't like it. He misses Holly. He deserves Holly. Doesn't he? A monologue about love and entitlement by Camilla Whitehill, author of Where Do Little Birds Go?, who was described by The Times as 'a writer of huge promise'.The world of the celebrity PA is laid bare in Primadonna. A young first-timer navigates impossible tasks, difficult conversations and fearsome passive aggression in this one-woman play from Rosie Kellett, winner of the VAULT Festival Spirit Award.Mickey and his team of... Views: 29
God's War offers a sweeping new vision of one of history's most astounding events: the Crusades. From 1096 to 1500, European Christians fought to recreate the Middle East, Muslim Spain, and the pagan Baltic in the image of their God. The Crusades are perhaps both the most familiar and most misunderstood phenomena of the medieval world, and here Christopher Tyerman seeks to recreate, from the ground up, the centuries of violence committed as an act of religious devotion. The result is a stunning reinterpretation of the Crusades, revealed as both bloody political acts and a manifestation of a growing Christian communal identity. Tyerman uncovers a system of belief bound by aggression, paranoia, and wishful thinking, and a culture founded on war as an expression of worship, social discipline, and Christian charity. This astonishing historical narrative is imbued with figures that have become legends--Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus. But Tyerman also delves beyond these leaders to examine the thousands and thousands of Christian men--from Knights Templars to mercenaries to peasants--who, in the name of their Savior, abandoned their homes to conquer distant and alien lands, as well as the countless people who defended their soil and eventually turned these invaders back. With bold analysis, Tyerman explicates the contradictory mix of genuine piety, military ferocity, and plain greed that motivated generations of Crusaders. He also offers unique insight into the maturation of a militant Christianity that defined Europe's identity and that has forever influenced the cyclical antagonisms between the Christian and Muslim worlds. Drawing on all of the most recent scholarship, and told with great verve and authority, God's War is the definitive account of a fascinating and horrifying story that continues to haunt our contemporary world.
From Publishers Weekly This is likely to replace Steven Runciman's 50-year-old History of the Crusades as the standard work. Tyerman ( England and the Crusades ), lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, demolishes our simplistic misconceptions about that series of ferocious campaigns in the Middle East, Muslim Spain and the pagan Baltic between 1096 and 1500. Abjuring sentimentality and avoiding clichés about a rapacious West and an innocent East, Tyerman focuses on the crusades' very human paradoxes: "the inspirational idealism; utopianism armed with myopia; the elaborate, sincere intolerance; the diversity and complexity of motive and performance." The reader marvels at the crusaders' inextinguishable devotion to Christ even while shuddering at their delight in massacring those who did not share that devotion. In the end, Tyerman says, what killed crusading was neither a lack of soldierly enthusiasm nor its failure to retain control of Jerusalem, but the loss of Church control over civil societies at home and secular authorities who felt that religion was not sufficient cause for war and that diplomacy was a more rational method of deciding international relations. God's War is that very rare thing: a readable and vivid history written with the support of a formidable scholarly background, and it deserves to reach a wide audience. 16 color illus.
Review Christopher Tyerman has crafted a superb book whose majestic architecture compares with Runciman's classic study of the Crusades…He is an entertaining as well as reliable guide to the bizarre centuries-long episode in which Western Christianity willfully ignored its Master's principles of love and forgiveness. --Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Thomas Cranmer: a Life
This is a magisterial work. In God's War , the Crusades are not just emblematic episodes in a troubled history of Europe's encounter with Islam. Tyerman shows that they are, with all their contradictions—tragedy and tomfoolery, idealism and cynicism, piety and savagery—fundamentally and inescapably human. --Paul M. Cobb, Associate Professor of Islamic History, Fellow of the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame
Tyerman's wonderful book is contemporary medieval history-writing at the top of its game. It is also the finest history of the Crusades that anyone has ever written, fully informed by its predecessors and by the excellent scholarship of the past half century. Trenchantly written on the grand scale and full of vivid detail, clear argument, and sharp judgment, God's War shows how the entire apparatus of crusade became tightly woven into European institutional and social life and consciousness, offering a highly original perspective on all of early European history and on European relations with non-Europeans. It shows no patience with ignorant mythologizing, modern condescension, or cultural instrumentalism.. In short, it constitutes a crusade history for the twenty-first century—and just in time. --Edward M. Peters, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
At a time when interest in the Middle East and the Crusades has reached a new height, Christopher Tyerman has made a significant contribution to the ever-growing shelves of books devoted to this subject. Tyerman's well-written book focuses heavily on the development of ideas about holy war from antiquity onward and on the crusade to the East from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. It is based on a careful reading of both primary and secondary sources and will prove an important resource for a broad audience of scholars, students, and general readers. The comparison with Runciman's history leaps out from the pages of this large volume and the temptation to address it will no doubt seduce others, but this volume is Tyerman through and through. --James M. Powell, Professor Emeritus of Medieval History, Syracuse University
This is likely to replace Steven Runciman's 50-year-old History of the Crusades as the standard work. Tyerman, lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, demolishes our simplistic misconceptions about that series of ferocious campaigns in the Middle East, Muslim Spain and the pagan Baltic between 1096 and 1500... God's War is that very rare thing: a readable and vivid history written with the support of a formidable scholarly background, and it deserves to reach a wide audience. Challenging traditional conceptions of the Crusades, e.g., the failure to retain Jerusalem, Tyerman believes that it was the weakening of papal power and the rise of secular governments in Europe that finally doomed the crusading impulse. This is a marvelously conceived, written, and supported book. --Robert J. Andrews Views: 29
Fearless counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp finds himself directly in the line of fire in the latest riveting political thriller from New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn.For years, Mitch Rapp's bold actions have saved the lives of countless Americans. His battles for peace and freedom have made him a hero to many, and an enemy to countless more. In the tangled, duplicitous world of espionage, there are those, even among America's allies, who want to see Mitch Rapp eliminated. They have decided the time has come.Now, the powerful father of a dead terrorist demands vengeance in its simplest form -- an eye for an eye, and Rapp instantly becomes the target of an international conspiracy. This time, he must use all of his vigilance and determination to save himself before he can turn his fury on those who have dared to betray him.Consent to Kill takes listeners behind the headlines and catapults them to the front lines of the global war on terror. It sizzles "with inside information, military muscle, and CIA secrets" (Dan Brown). Vince Flynn mixes military technology with his exclusive knowledge of Washington politics to create a hero that Americans will wish existed outside the realm of fiction. Views: 29
When 22-year-old Lilibet Snellings moved to Los Angeles on a whim, she unintentionally became a slash" to keep her head above water—a writer/waitress/actress/Box Girl. One night each week, Lilibet would go to The Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, don a pair of white boy shorts with a matching tank, touch up her lip gloss, and crawl into a giant glass case behind the front desk. There, she could do whatever she wanted—check email, catch up on reading, even sleep—as long as she ignored the many hotel guests who would point and ask the staff, Is she allowed to use the bathroom?" (Yes.)Dog-paddling through her twenties, Snellings resisted financial bailouts (for the most part) from her sweet Southern mother and business-oriented dad, while pondering her peculiar position as a human art installation. Was she a piece of art or a piece of ass? Was she allowed to read both Walt Whitman and US Weekly as she lounged in an oversized, waterless... Views: 29
From BooklistStarred Review Horror veteran Masterton delivers one of his best efforts. During World War II, American James Falcon traveled across Europe, hunting vampires for the Allied forces. Now it's the late 1950s, and the cold war is hitting its stride. Falcon is called out of retirement and sent to London, where an old enemy has resurfaced. He quickly discovers that, to beat the bloodsucker, he must confront some frightening secrets from his own past. This is a hugely entertaining novel, at once completely loopy and entirely plausible (once you accept vampires, of course). Masterton's exploration of the nature of vampires (what makes them tick, so to speak) is engrossing and scary as hell, and his descriptions of the violent confrontations between good and evil are unsettlingly graphic. On the other hand, the love story, between Falcon and his partner (a beautiful dog handler), is touching and surprising. Putting down the book before you've finished is not an option. David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedReview“Hugely entertaining. Engrossing and scary as hell!” –Booklist (Starred Review)“Graham Masterton is the living inheritor to the realm of Edgar Allan Poe.” —San Francisco Chronicle“One of the true masters for the horror genre.” —James Herbert, author of The Others“Masterton remains a mesmerizing storyteller.” —Publishers Weekly“Horror’s most consistent provider of chills.” —Masters of Terror Views: 29
The Queen’s Blade faces a challenge for his title of Master of the Dance during Jondar’s last days, as two armies converge on the doomed city. The young Queen Minna-Satu prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice and save her kingdom by placing the daughter of the Cotti King on the Jashimari throne. The Princess’ life is in danger, and Blade seeks a painless death as his enemy approaches… Views: 29
Review"Joanne Rock's heroes capture and conquer in just one glance, one word, one touch. Irresistible!" -- USA Today Bestselling Author Julie Leto"Sizzling chemistry with a splash of seductively intense suspense – fabulous Joanne Rock always delivers a page-turning read!" -- RITA Award winner Catherine MannFrom the AuthorDear Reader, Brace yourselves! I took a dive into darker terrain for the second book in my WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL series as detective Vanessa Torres (remember her from Silk Confessions, Harlequin Blaze #171?) takes center stage. Who knew the tough-talking detective had so many secrets up her sleeve? I hope you enjoy my most suspenseful—and possibly hottest—Harlequin Blaze release yet. I fell for Alec right along with Vanessa, even though he’s hardly a charmer. What is it about those brooding Alpha males that can turn a girl’s head? Even Vanessa had to pay attention… once she brought him down a notch or two! There’s more to come in WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL, which will be an ongoing Harlequin Blaze miniseries.Until then, please keep an eye out for Love Me Tender, an anthology of Elvis-themed stories with offerings from Stephanie Bond, Jo Leigh and me, coming to Harlequin Signature Select in August 2005. Happy Reading, Joanne Rock Views: 29
