Xenologist Bret Grayson was hired to make contact with one of the indigenous tribes roaming the savannahs on the planet Salamander. He soon finds out the real purpose he is on Salamander. His uncle, the legendary Master Scout Terrex Stonewall, also has a hidden agenda, but even he doesn't know about the secret that lies beneath the original military outpost. It seems every species living in this part of the Galaxy has a sudden interest in Salamander and they are willing to risk a war to keep the secret from falling into human hands. Grayson and Stonewall have no choice but to form an alliance with representatives from the Spiders, the Anorians, and the Accilla. The motley group embarks on a journey that takes them to regions unknown. They face dangers they can only overcome if they set aside their prejudices and work together as one unit.
This firsthand account, never before published in English, details a secret World War II mission in 1944 called Operation Salamander, in which Tadeusz Chciuk (writing as Marek Celt) parachuted into German-occupied Poland with the enigmatic political adviser Dr. Jozef Retinger. The goal of the mission was to persuade the Polish underground forces and political leadership to accept that it was imperative to start negotiating with the Soviets right away, as they were now to be considered Poland's allies and had the full support of the British and Americans. The story culminates in Operation Wildhorn III, in which Chciuk and Retinger were picked up in Poland by a British plane that landed just a short distance from a significant detachment of German forces, and flew them to safety.
Middleburg was established in 1787 by Leven Powell, one of Virginia's founding fathers. Following a long decline after the Civil War, the arrival of foxhunting in 1904 gave the town an international reputation for breeding, showing, and racing Thoroughbred horses. Over the ensuing decades, Middleburg would undertake significant historic preservation, but the town would also be remarkable for its laissez-faire attitude toward the rich and famous. Movie stars and presidents were seduced not only by Middleburg's horses, hounds, and history, but also by its respect for the privacy of its more renowned residents and visitors. In Middleburg, photographs from the collections of local residents Howard Allen and Tyler Gore as well as from the National Sporting Library, the Library of Congress, and other sources were chosen to reflect the character and charm of this historic village.
The cofounder of BET and first African American woman billionaire shares her deeply personal, “highly readable” (Kirkus Reviews) journey through love and loss, tragedy and triumph—an inspiring story of overcoming toxic influences, discovering her true self, and at last finding happiness in her work and life. From humble beginnings as a schoolgirl and a young violinist in Maywood, Illinois, Sheila Johnson rose to become one of the most accomplished businesswomen in America. A cofounder of Black Entertainment Television, she became an entrepreneur and philanthropist at the highest levels. But that success came at a painful personal cost. Sheila grew up in a middle-class family that encouraged her love of the arts and music. But her idyllic childhood ended at age sixteen when her beloved father announced that he was leaving for another woman, an act that shattered her mother and destroyed Sheila’s trust. She vowed she’d never be in her mother’s position—dependent on a man for her sense of self-worth and for financial security. Yet when she was barely out of her teens, Sheila married a man who would take her right down that same unfortunate path. Filled with sharply drawn, emotionally powerful senses, Walk Through Fire traces the hardships Sheila faced in her marriage and her professional life. Despite her skills as a violinist and music teacher, as well as her obvious entrepreneurial talent, she had to fight to overcome self-doubt and fears of failure. Sheila vividly details her struggles, including battling institutional racism, losing a child, suffering emotional abuse in her thirty-three-year marriage, and plunging into a deep depression with her divorce. And yet, out of that pain came renewed purpose and meaning. In the third act of her life, Sheila Johnson has not only made her mark as the founder of Salamander Hotels & Resorts and the only Black female coowner of three professional sports teams, she has also, finally, found true love. Walk Through Fire is a uniquely American success story. And it is the deeply personal portrait of one woman who, despite heartache and obstacles, finally found herself and her place in the world.
Iceworld, a savage planet of rugged mountains, vast plains, wild forests, and myriads of long, wide rivers snaking through flat lands to empty their turbulent waters into huge lakes. It is a world plagued by vicious thunderstorms, hurricanes, and torrential rains in the summer and by violent snowstorms in the long winter. One would think that nothing could survive on such a planet, but it is inhabited by ferocious beasts and a race of savages, the Sras. The Sras are not the only inhabitants. Explorers from a race of space-faring aliens became stranded 1,000 years before humans set up their research station. Their descendants grew in numbers and spread across the planet. They are the Jnaar, and they have become nearly as savage as the Sras. Both races live much of the time below the surface of Iceworld. Thirty-five humans reside inside the research station. When one of the scientists, Regina Seagul, is abducted by a group of Jnaar, three men enter the dark tunnels in search of the missing woman. The subterranean world holds the secret to the future of the humans. When Cameron meets the entity the Jnaar call Dark Goddess, he discovers a terrible truth.
A group of archaeologists has gone missing on Aregon. Aregon is not part of the Ventairian Empire, but it is controlled by Ventairian interest groups. There are rumors about a star-portal on Aregon and the Coalition is willing to risk everything to gain control over the portal and make certain is doesn’t fall into the hands of the Crows. Even though there is a Scouts Base in Sirrissi, the capital of Aregon, information about the planet is sketchy. The Union sends Colonel Ronald Madigan of the Solar Union Special Forces, Major Anton Moretti of the Scout’s Special Forces, and Captain Lea Belancher of Solar Intelligence to find out what happened to the scientists. However, their real mission is to locate the star-portal. The team has to endure sand storms and freezing nights as it travels across an unforgiving desert, battle bands of renegades and at the same time try to get along with each other. Once the location of the portal is known, the Coalition will execute a sinister plan to gain control over the star-portal. Madigan does not agree with that plan, but he has to follow orders or face the consequences, to be court marshalled being only one of them.
Aregon, 447 lightyears from the Solar System, a peculiar planet populated by varied races, some of them living under primitive conditions while some have reached a level of technology similar to that of the middle ages on Earth, has aroused the interest of the Solar Union. The Coalition sends a team of highly trained agents to discover the location of the star-portal that is rumored to exist on Aregon. The official reason for the team being on Aregon is to search for a group of archaeologists that has disappeared. After they are captured by a band of Apovians, shapeshifters from the other side of the portal and then freed by Swrendii soldiers, the agents are back on their way to Skeout where they hope to find the missing scientists. To discover the location of the star-portal may also be within their grasp. When another band of Apovians captures the team, Salabet, a Spider in a human body, and her Spider soldiers intervene and kill the ambushers. Salabet joins the team.
Aurora, an unimportant planet far away from the regular trade routes. The human colonists had turned their back on technology and chosen to live the way people lived in the Dark Ages of Earth. Major Jeremy Falcon and his Accilla partner, Alita, were sent to Aurora to investigate the rumors that giant Ants were abducting people and were possibly getting ready to invade the planet. Traveling on horseback from town to town, they faced prejudice and religious zealots. They began to wonder if the rumors about giant ants had been exaggerated. What they found was much more sinister and shocking. They raced against time trying to avert an incident that could spark a war between the Osirian Empire and the Solar Union. The discovery they made suddenly drew the interest of all the major races that lived on this side of the galactic wheel.
The metaphor of contagion pervades critical discourse across the humanities, the medical sciences, and the social sciences. It appears in such terms as 'social contagion' in psychology, 'financial contagion' in economics, 'viral marketing' in business, and even 'cultural contagion' in anthropology. In the twenty-first century, contagion, or 'thought contagion' has become a byword for creativity and a fundamental process by which knowledge and ideas are communicated and taken up, and resonates with André Siegfried's observation that 'there is a striking parallel between the spreading of germs and the spreading of ideas'. In Contagious Metaphor, Peta Mitchell offers an innovative, interdisciplinary study of the metaphor of contagion and its relationship to the workings of language. Examining both metaphors of contagion and metaphor as contagion, Contagious Metaphor suggests a framework through which the emergence and often epidemic-like reproduction of metaphor can be better understood.
This newly updated compendium of facts, observations, discoveries, reviews, serendipities, humor, experiences, and more is not only for the road traveler, but the armchair traveler as well. It reads not as a phone directory but more as a shared diary of discoveries along America's highways and byways. Unless otherwise noted, the author has visited every place mentioned, from Bud's Discount Center in Jasper, Alabama to the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Even if you never get in the car and discover such wonders for yourself, you will enjoy this vicarious journey to places both sublime and ordinary as the author makes her way from Maine to Florida and west to the Mississippi River.
