Ophidian's Gaze By: Bill Tabor In a small 1970s Appalachian coal town, residents find themselves embroiled in mystery and uncontrolled rumor. A lethal menace has found its way onto sleepy Main Street where it quickly claims two victims then quietly slips away. As town officials deal with unexplained death, a local drug dealer becomes frantically fearful of capture and begins to act irrationally. Amid violent acts and uncertainty, local law enforcement must quell townsfolk’s fear. Add to all this an interfering federal agent from some unknown government agency and you have Ophidian’s Gaze.
This two-volume publication offers an in-depth analysis of ophidian symbolism in Eastern Africa, while setting the topic within its regional and historical context: namely, with regards to the rest of Africa, ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greek world, ancient Palestine, Arabia, India, and medieval and pre-Christian Europe. Through the ages, most of those areas have connected with Eastern Africa in a broad sense, where ophidian symbolism was as “rampant” and far-reaching, if not more so, as anywhere else on the continent, and perhaps in past civilisations. Much as in the wider context, snakes were held to be long-lived, closely related to holes, caverns, trees, and water, life and death, and credited with a liking for milk. Even though ophidian symbolism has always been developed out of the outstanding biological and ethological features of snakes, the process of symbolisation, which plays a crucial role in the elaboration of cultural systems and the shaping of human experience, was inevitably at work. This first volume deals with snakes as a zoological category; snake symbolism as perceived by encyclopaedists and psychologists; and ophidian symbolism as it occurred in ancient civilisations. It explores the traditional African scene in general with a view to set the scene for a more proximate baseline for comparison. The divide between animals and humans was porous, and snakes had a more or less equal footing in both the animal realm and the spiritual world. Key features of snake symbolism in traditional Eastern Africa are then examined in detail, especially phantasmagorical snakes, the rainbow serpent, snake-totems, and snake-related witches and ritual leaders, among others. In Eastern Africa, the meanings attributed to snakes were multifaceted and paradoxical. Overall, the two volumes of this publication show that African snake symbolism broadly echoed the diverse representations of ancient civilisations. The widely acknowledged assimilation of snakes to death and Evil is therefore unrepresentative, both historically and culturally.
Doomed Valley… a place of legend and death where most who enter never escape. Kaylia and Brokk are determined to uncover the mysteries of the Valley and retrieve the crudue vine necessary to save Lexi’s life. They’re prepared for the worst, but they’re not ready for the many horrors of the Valley, the undeniable attraction rising between them, or the whispers haunting their journey. Whispers that will bide their time before unleashing their deadly truth. Return to the Shadow Realms. A world where vampires feast, lycans love deeply, dark fae seduce, witches cast their spells, dragons rule the skies... and treachery lurks around every corner. ***Due to sexual content, violence, and language, this book is recommended for readers 18+ years of age.***
When the President of the United States appoints Admiral Tom Wilson to dismantle a corrupt and powerful international organization known as OPHIDIAN, Wilson's adult daughter is kidnapped. Shocked to discover that, thirty-four years earlier, he sent the people behind OPHIDIAN to prison for the attempted murder of his sister-in-law, he fears OPHIDIAN is going to even the score'OPHIDIAN will kill his daughter.
From the riotous days of Prohibition and the Jazz Age to the brutal awakening of Pearl Harbor, one man ruled the fate of America's most dangerous criminals. He was Lewis E. Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison, the Big House up the river, who believed that no man was beyond redemption. Warden Lawes couldn't banish the electric chair (though he tried) but he knew that humanitarian care and good morale provided better security than the stoutest walls. Lawes befriended the Hollywood greats, Charlie Chaplin and Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy and Harry Warner, opening Sing Sing to the movies and exposing prisoners to the glamour of the silver screen. He brought Babe Ruth to Sing Sing, fielded a winning football team called The Black Sheep that brought gridiron glory to the circuit known as the Big Pen, and ran training shops, school classes and culture programs. Truly, Warden Lawes made Sing Sing sing. But Lawes was no pushover. He brought law to Sing Sing, a tale that comes alive in the hands of prize-winning New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal. He killed on orders from the state, consigning 303 condemned men and women to the electric chair. But he crusaded fiercely against the death penalty as useless and preached that every man deserved a second chance, even if, in the end, he faced a terrible betrayal. Lawes taught the nation that a jail was a lockup but a prison was a community. With his perfect name and flawless eye for fashion, Lawes took over as the ninth warden in eight years -- at 39, the youngest man to lead the century-old institution, then overflowing with more than a thousand hardened criminals and luckless youths. Vice was rife -- bribery, alcohol, drugs and sex. The political bosses held sway, swinging deals for favored inmates. Enemies accused him of coddling prisoners but he ridiculed the charge. No one was coddled on a food budget of 18 cents a day. Lawes lived with his wife and daughters in a Victorian mansion abutting the cellblock, where he was shaved each morning by a prison barber convicted of slashing a man's throat, the household cook was a murderer, and his youngest daughter's favorite babysitter was serving twenty-five years for kidnapping. Lawes tamed the tyrannical Charles E. Chapin who had terrorized generations of reporters as the editor of Joseph Pulitzer's Evening World before murdering his wife and winding up as Lawes's favorite horticulturist, the Rose Man of Sing Sing. Lawes championed the advent of radio and used it to inspire his prisoners and educate the public on penal reform. He wrote film scripts and radio plays and dramas and best-selling books. But in the end, his finest tribute came not from the mighty but a lowly prisoner in the yard who muttered, to no one in particular, "There was a right guy."
Even the Hunters of Infinity are splintered when faced with the greatest battle in the Daharian galaxy’s history. . . Jessop has proven herself to be an unstoppable force from Aranthol to Azgul, inarguably the fiercest warrior the Hunters have ever seen. And her abilities only seem to strengthen as her rage grows. With the two men she holds dear by her side—one good-souled, one with a treacherous past, and both deadly with a sword—she prepares to enter the most important fight of her life, with the most personal stakes yet . . . Armies are divided and reforged, and battle lines are drawn. Blind loyalty drives some while others are sworn to protect the galaxy at all costs. Bonds will be tested. Lives will be lost. Consequences will be devastating. “This thrilling, action-packed debut ties together strong characters with a building story line that will have readers clamoring for the next volume in this new series.” —Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW, on The Glass Blade
