What if you could not only travel any location in the world, but to any possible world? We can all imagine such “other worlds”—be they worlds just slightly different than our own or worlds full of magic and wonder—but it is only in fiction that we can travel to them. From The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Tower, from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a rich tradition of this kind of fiction, but never before have the best parallel world stories and portal fantasies been collected in a single volume—until now.
Eight short speculative stories of gay men celebrating love and lust in worlds vastly different from our own. Contains the stories: Escape: When a prison ship crash-lands, Delta-23 replicate Davin jumps at the chance to meet someone different. A prisoner onboard, Trace uses the crash as an opportunity to escape, but the last thing he expects is to meet a replicate eager to get up close and personal with a natural-born. Navigator's Log: Tylar Daire is the navigator on a space mission whose focus is to discover a cure for a mysterious illness killing colonists on Terra. The crew consists of the captain, a soldier for protection, a scientist to study the virus, Tylar himself, and hot-shot ace pilot Rion Z'ev. From the moment Tylar and Rion meet, sparks fly. Parking Lot Hero: It's the weekend of the Super Bowl. Vic is looking forward to a quiet Saturday with his lover, Matt. But when a trio of ruffians terrorize their landlady in the parking lot of the local grocery story, Vic finds the superhero in him called to action. Star-Crossed: On the night of his graduation from the Betelgeuse Flight Academy, Reth finally managed to corner the flamboyant Xan Anders. But what he hoped would be a tender moment that might lead to something more was interrupted when Xan slipped away. Seven months later, Reth is surprised to find all the old feelings still remain when he runs into Xan again. The Bard's Song: Taurin is the king's knight, but he has a weakness for song. When he hears of a new bard performing at Jeanty's Inn, he has to go see the half-elf flautist for himself. Quim's music is captivating, and Taurin returns to the Inn a second night. The knight's interest is evident to the bard, who invites Taurin to his room for a private performance. The Fall: Gabe fell in love with Luce the moment they met. Unfortunately, love is a forbidden emotion among angels, and their sin costs one of them his wings. VR Palace: In a future where pleasure is bought in virtual reality parlors, one man creates the perfect lover. Spun from binary code, everything he could want in a boy except real ... or is he? World Enough and Time: The world is coming to an end. Allan is pretty sure that’s the only explanation for the rain of salt that’s been falling for days, killing people in the streets and bringing Armageddon on a bit sooner than everyone expected. Then he meets Ricky.
Christopher White points to ways that both spiritual practices and scientific speculation about multiverses and invisible dimensions are efforts to peer into the hidden elements and even existential meaning of the universe. Creatively appropriated, these ideas can restore a spiritual sense that the world is greater than anything our eyes can see.
In this first novel in his epic fantasy masterpiece, Stephen King introduces readers to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger... Roland is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own. In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, he encounters an alluring woman named Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black. Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is unlike anything you've ever read. Here is Stephen King's most visionary piece of storytelling, a magical mix of fantasy and horror that may well be his crowning achievement.
When Huston Diehl began teaching a fourth-grade class in a "Negro" elementary school in rural Louisa County, Virginia, the school’s white superintendent assured her that he didn't expect her to teach "those children" anything. She soon discovered how these low expectations, widely shared by the white community, impeded her students' ability to learn. With its overcrowded classrooms, poorly trained teachers, empty bookshelves, and meager supplies, her segregated school was vastly inferior to the county's white elementary schools, and the message it sent her students was clear: "dream not of other worlds." In her often lyrical memoir, Diehl reveals how, in the intimacy of the classroom, her students reached out to her, a young white northerner, and shared their fears, anxieties, and personal beliefs. Repeatedly surprised and challenged by her students, Diehl questions her long-standing middle-class assumptions and confronts her own prejudices. In doing so, she eloquently reflects on what the students taught her about the hurt of bigotry and the humiliation of poverty as well as dignity, courage, and resiliency. Set in the waning days of the Jim Crow South, Dream Not of Other Worlds chronicles an important moment in American history. Diehl examines the history of black education in the South and narrates the dramatic struggle to integrate Virginia's public schools. Meeting with some of her former students and colleagues and visiting the school where she once taught, she considers what has--and has not--changed after more than thirty years of integrated schooling. This provocative book raises many issues that are of urgent concern today: the continuing social consequences of segregated schools, the role of public education in American society, and the challenges of educating minority and poor children.
Three dazzling stories of magic, fantasy, and romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—together in one volume for the first time. Dragonswan Only one man can decipher the symbolism of Channon’s legendary Dragon Tapestry: Sebastian, a battle-scarred shapeshifting dragon trapped between two worlds. And Channon has no choice but to follow him into a realm of magic, danger, and adventure. Fire and Ice By running from her past, Livia meets her future—Adron, an ex-assassin brutally scarred by a mission gone wrong. And only Livia has the courage to heal his emotional scars and change both their lives forever. Knightly Dreams Betrayed by her boyfriend, Taryn no longer believes in being swept away—until an unlikely hero literally steps out of her paperback novel and into her heart. Is her mind playing beautiful tricks? Or has her fantasy become a reality?
Is there a future after death and what does this future look like? What kind of life can we expect, and in what kind of world? Is there another, hopefully better world than the one we live in? The articles collected in this volume, all written by leading experts in the field, deal with the question how ancient Jewish and Christian authors describe “otherworldly places and situations”. They investigate why various forms of texts were created to address the questions above, how these texts functioned, and how they have to be understood. It is shown how ancient descriptions of the “otherworld” are taking over and reworking existing motifs, forms and genres, but also that they mirror concrete problems, ideas, experiences, and questions of their authors and the first readers.
For the first time ever as a complete ebook series, all of Stephen King’s eight Dark Tower novels—one of the most acclaimed and popular series of all time. Special bonus: The ebook boxed set now includes The Complete Concordance, a user’s guide to the Dark Tower world. Set in a world of ominous landscape and macabre menace, The Dark Tower series features one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations—The Gunslinger—a haunting figure who embodies the qualities of the lone hero through the ages, from ancient myth to frontier Western legend. As Roland crosses a desert of damnation in a treacherous world that is a twisted image of our own, he moves ever closer to the Dark Tower of his dreams—and nightmares. This stunning, must-have collection includes: The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger; The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three; The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands; The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass; The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole; The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla; The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah; and The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower. The perfect keepsake for Stephen King fans, The Dark Tower 8-Book Boxed Set is the most extraordinary and imaginative cycle of tales in the English language from “the reigning King of American popular literature” (Los Angeles Daily News).
"The less known the real world is, the more plausibly your marvels can be located near at hand." As the creator of one of the most famous "other worlds" of all time, C.S. Lewis was uniquely qualified to discuss their literary merit. As both a writer and a critic, Lewis explores the importance of story and wonder, elements often ignored or even frowned upon by critics of the day. His discussions of his favorite kinds of stories--children's stories and fantasies--includes his thoughts on his most famous works, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. "A must for any collection of C. S. Lewis." --Choice
