When Bensin, a teenage slave and martial artist, is falsely accused of a crime and condemned to a gladiator’s fate, he has to use all his skill and courage to survive in the corrupt arena system where life is cheap and freedom is a distant dream. Will Bensin be able to stand up to the brutality of the arena and find his freedom before it's too late? Also available as an audiobook.
A grumpy cyborg weapons master collides with a feisty mechanic from Earth who turns his ordered existence upside down. Abducted from her exploration ship and enslaved on a desert world, mechanic Bellamy Walsh has fought for her survival. She's had to fight for everything in her life, and she doesn't ever expect things to be easy. After being rescued by the tough, deadly cyborgs of the House of Rone, she is shocked to find herself drawn to a grumpy beast of a cyborg. A genius weapons master who prefers his solitude. A man with scars of his own. A man whose brawny arms are the only thing that chase away Bellamy's nightmares. Maxon Shaye likes to be left alone to work. He doesn't mind his fellow cyborg brethren, but he finds people annoying and chaotic. He's disconcerted by his growing need to keep Bellamy Walsh safe, and thinks she's irritating and brash. The woman keeps invading his workshop, getting in his space, and...the even more infuriating thing is that he's actually starting to like her there. What he doesn't like is her burning need to throw herself back into danger. Bellamy is determined to help bring down her captors-the metal-scavenging Edull and their deadly desert battle arena-and that makes her a target. She knows too much and the Edull will stop at nothing to silence her. Maxon will do anything to keep her safe, even if that means threatening the growing bond between them. But in order to destroy the Edull's arena once and for, Maxon and Bellamy will put everything on the line-their desire, their love, their lives.
What is this World? What kind of place is it? "The round kind. The spinning kind. The moist kind. The inhabited kind. The kind with flamingos (real and artificial). The kind where water in the sky turns into beautifully symmetrical crystal flakes sculpted by artists unable to stop themselves (in both design and quantity). The kind of place with tiny, powerfully jawed mites assigned to the carpets to eat my dead skin as it flakes off. The kind with people who kill and people who love and people who do both... "This world is beautiful but badly broken." "I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn't stuck in one place. It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story, a world of surprises and questions to explore. And there's someone behind it; there are uncomfortable answers to the how's and whys and what's. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him were all things made... Welcome to His poem. His play. His novel. Let the pages flick your thumbs."
An analysis of the lives of ancient Rome's gladiators explores how they were both despised and hero-worshiped, chronicling how tens of thousands of gladiators perished publicly over the course of six hundred years.
Decades have passed and Garkoks Dran has grown up. The world has changed and his plans have changed along with it, but his goal remains the same. His training is now complete, and he is ready to spread his wings. The time has come for the Demon Overlord to amass his allies and face his adversaries. With his forces and funds in short supply, will Garkoks Dran be able to take on the world? Will the demons finally be able to return to the World of the Living, and will humanity be set free from slavery? Here begins the reign of history's greatest villain.
When Captain Nova Ardis acquires the services of a dangerous, tattooed gladiator, she knows she's taking a risk-but she would do anything for family. Kove has survived most of his life in the gladiator arena and now, on the eve of winning his freedom, he is sold once again. At least being the captain's bodyguard shouldn't be too hard compared to the bloody life he's lived. ˃˃˃ Danger At Every Turn . When she takes him to the forbidden planet and embarks on a mission to rescue her brother, Kove will have to call upon all his skills to keep himself-and the woman he's falling for-alive. ˃˃˃ The Rise of the Gladiator is a clean, action-packed space opera series that will have you on the edge of your seat!Scroll Up And Grab Your Copy Today!
To master this man, he must fight for his trust... Mikel Vaughn became a slave the night the Boa Visk burned the Grand Library of Amberseth and locked him in chains. The Boa Visk, brutal overlords who have conquered much of humanity, bring the young librarian to Gesh and sell him to the highest bidder. After he's purchased by a Boa Visk noble, Mikel fears he'll be forced to submit to the cruel whims of a vile master. Instead, he's given as a reward to gladiator Bastion Hask for his latest victory in the fighting pits. Mikel is even more outraged to be owned by a human, swearing he would rather die than live as Bastion's bed slave. But the soft-spoken gladiator doesn't seem want a slave at all, much less him. Soon Mikel finds it increasingly difficult to hate an enemy who offers him kindness instead of punishment. Mikel will never trust again until he is free, and yet his new master may not be the one keeping him enslaved after all... Bastion Hask has never lost a match, not even against the twisted monsters he battles at the command of his owner. He's come to accept his life trapped in the arena, doomed to fight and die for the excitement of the crowds. He doesn't need or want the slave his noble-born owner has tossed to him like a scrap of meat. Although the young scholar is handsome enough, he seems too weak to survive in this merciless city. Yet Bastion soon finds himself protecting the other man, even putting himself at risk when for years he's only focused on his own struggle to survive. Mikel's determination to find a way free of his chains shakes Bastion's fatalism and rekindles a yearning for freedom he'd lost long ago. As danger relentlessly closes in, their fight to survive becomes a struggle for love and freedom that cannot be denied. Reader note: contains gay fantasy romance, male male love, and a happily ever after
The second edition of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World updates Donald G. Kyle’s award-winning introduction to this topic, covering the Ancient Near East up to the late Roman Empire. • Challenges traditional scholarship on sport and spectacle in the Ancient World and debunks claims that there were no sports before the ancient Greeks • Explores the cultural exchange of Greek sport and Roman spectacle and how each culture responded to the other’s entertainment • Features a new chapter on sport and spectacle during the Late Roman Empire, including Christian opposition to pagan games and the Roman response • Covers topics including violence, professionalism in sport, class, gender and eroticism, and the relationship of spectacle to political structures
Survival to Jonnath Gri was merely a word droning incessantly in the ancient rites from mother Earth. His parents had been slaughtered by the Star Guards; his fiancee had been abducted; and now Jonath would be forced to fight in the blood-soaked arena for the amusement of the citizens of the Ten Star Complex. Weaponless and naked, he would battle the most treacherous and deadly animals found on 50 worlds...and the most advanced weaponry ever developed. Yet he had one last hope his captors never reckoned on -- the will for revenge!
