Grocery owner Griffin Reed is a little hesitant about renting the apartment next to his to a nineteen-year-old young man with a two-year-old son. But from the moment he sees this blue-eyed, blond-haired angel standing outside his screened-door, Griffin feels maybe he should put his doubt aside and give Charles Martin and his equally angelic son Charlie a chance at a stable home. Charles Martin never knew his parents and grew up in foster care. So when he accidently gets a young woman pregnant, Charles makes a promise to himself to not let his son share his fate of getting passed from one foster family to another because Charlie’s mother thinks they’re too young to be parents. With the help of a social service worker, his best friend’s family, and a kindly landlord, Charles gets the chance to prove he is a responsible human-being. A few months after Charles settles into his new apartment, a devastating epidemic hits the world, forcing Charles and Charlie to hunker down with his landlord, a man he barely knows who has gone out of his way to prove love can conquer all.
"Many of the poems in this volume have been printed in the newpapers of the West; and the kindness accorded them by editors and readers has encouraged me to collect and preserve them in more enduring form." Introduction.
Yip Chi Chuan, a young martial and spiritual ascetic, must flee as the only home he has ever known, the ancient monastery of the Priests of K'un Lun, is destroyed by a newly ascendant extradimensional evil. Cast out and alone, Yip strikes out on a quest spanning the breadth of his home world of Ea'ae and into the greater macroverse beyond in an attempt to unseat an all-consuming Darkness rooted in his once vaunted order's distant past. Will Yip, the last of his kind to walk the wide world beyond his fallen sanctuary, succeed where his mighty brethren failed in ages past? Unfortunately for Yip, the answer appears all too clear... Without the guidance and teachings of his lineage, pursued by malevolent supernatural agents of the Cabal, unable to fully defend himself in a world steeped in magic, his quest may fail before it ever begins. Unfazed by his limitations, guided by his inner vision and direct experience of the energies of life, the radiant chi suffusing and enlivening the world all around, he is determined to triumph where others have faltered. To win forward, he will need help...but first he must survive. A blend of Western fantasy and Eastern martial arts and mysticism, the Chronicles of the Fists is an epic trilogy recounting Yip's adventures against all odds. Edited by Ashley Davis, Priestess of K'un Lun Tags/Related Terms: Coming of age, young adult, ya, trade, fantasy, sff, sf, sf, asian, japan, china, science fiction, magic, martial arts, meditation, religion, war, adventure, alternate history, ancient text, chinese, doctrine, doctrine, gardens, government, hierarchy, hierarchy, high fantasy, invasion, love, martial, mmpb, modern fantasy, morality, mysticism, oriental, philosophical, political, power, religious orders, speculative, speculative fiction, strategy, temple, Shadow's Rise, Shadow's Descent, Lords of Light, Chronicles of the Fists, Joseph J. Bailey, chi, qi, magic, qigong, chi kung, chi gung, fantasy, sorcery, action, adventure, epic, book, books, epic fantasy, high fantasy, sword and sorcery, martial arts, wuxia, internal alchemy, meditation, haiku, ebook, ebooks, writing, writer, author, authors, novel, novels, trilogy, series, magical, humor, satire, nerd, nerds, rpg, rpg's, wizard, wizards, warrior, warriors, evil, geek, self-help, sorcery, mage, mages, fantasy, tropes, memes, roleplaying, sword, swords, comedy, magic, magical, jest, joke, elf, elves, elfs, elven, elfin, fey, mmo, mmorpg, d&d, dragons, dragon, Dwarf, Dwarfs, Dwarves, Dwarven, hero heroes, heros, villain, villains, fun, Gnome, Gnomes, Gnomish, guide, guides, manual, manuals, technowizard, technowizardry, Paratechnology, tinker, tinkering, steampunk, science, clockwork, technology, technological, metaphysical, metaphysics, metaphysicist, monk, monks, kung fu, wu shu, karate, poetry, knight, knights, arcane, divine, abyss, Cabal, tao, Taoism, zen, Buddhism, shaolin, asia, Asian, spell, quest, adventure, mystic, master, alchemy, neigong, nei kung, neigung, nae gong, demon, daemon, shadow, shadows, void, peace, enlighten, enlightenment, realization, kensho, satori, insight, shikanataza, koan, haiku, fiction, literature, novel, novella, paladin, light, holy, holy sword, Light, Indural, Yeren, Dracodaeran, Dracodin, K'un Lun, Priest, Priests, Priest of K'un Lun, Maeth Onai, fang shi, Bor'Banna, Darkness, Tides of Darkness, Return of the Cabal, Ascension of the Four, Ea'ae, seal, seals, extraplanar, planes, dimensions, extradimensional, supernatural, supramundane, Yip, Aroganji, Wrindanneth, Slate, Spreesprocket, beard, mustache, tome, treatise, Fists, Flaming Fists, Four, the Four, the Fists, faerviage, airship, gate, portal, Tellanon, Illdrassil, yuan qi, yuan-chi, yuan chi, celestial, celestial qi, life, energy of life, one light, ka, dalaren ka, Joe Bailey, Joseph Bailey, Joseph J. Bailey
For Beluviel, consort to the Elven High Lord, and Graydon, gryphon and First Sentinel of the Wyr, even the slightest desire for each other is forbidden. But two hundred years ago, after a desperate play to save Beluviel's stepson left them indebted to the cruel Djinn Malphas, they found their fates inexorably linked together-and the hunger between them growing too strong to ignore...
Their world assaulted by an extradimensional invasion of life-devouring Shadow, Yip and his companions must find a way to halt the incursion before the Cabal and their loathsome allies drain the living energies of their planet, destroying all life and potential on Ea’ae. Aided by Aroganji the Fang Shi, master of the elements of change, Wrindanneth Priest of Maeth Onai, wielder of divine and arcane magics, and Slate the Dwarven axe-wielding Bor’Banna, imbued by the powers of the All-Father’s first forge, Yip ventures to Taerris’thule, the City of the Fallen Gods, in an effort to restore the seal of Eldre’gheu, one of the fourteen seals protecting Ea’ae from extraplanar intrusion. Shadow’s Descent is the second book of the Chronicles of the Fists, an epic fantasy trilogy recounting Yip and his friends’ adventures against the forces of Darkness. Revised second edition edited by Ashley Davis, Priestess of K’un Lun. Tags/Related Terms: Coming of age, young adult, ya, trade, fantasy, sff, sf, sf, asian, japan, china, science fiction, magic, martial arts, meditation, religion, war, adventure, alternate history, ancient text, chinese, doctrine, doctrine, gardens, government, hierarchy, hierarchy, high fantasy, invasion, love, martial, mmpb, modern fantasy, morality, mysticism, oriental, philosophical, political, power, religious orders, speculative, speculative fiction, strategy, temple, Shadow's Rise, Shadow's Descent, Lords of Light, Chronicles of the Fists, Joseph J. Bailey, chi, qi, magic, qigong, chi kung, chi gung, fantasy, sorcery, action, adventure, epic, book, books, epic fantasy, high fantasy, sword and sorcery, martial arts, wuxia, internal alchemy, meditation, haiku, ebook, ebooks, writing, writer, author, authors, novel, novels, trilogy, series, magical, humor, satire, nerd, nerds, rpg, rpg’s, wizard, wizards, warrior, warriors, evil, geek, self-help, sorcery, mage, mages, fantasy, tropes, memes, roleplaying, sword, swords, comedy, magic, magical, jest, joke, elf, elves, elfs, elven, elfin, fey, mmo, mmorpg, d&d, dragons, dragon, Dwarf, Dwarfs, Dwarves, Dwarven, hero, heroes, heros, villain, villains, fun, Gnome, Gnomes, Gnomish, guide, guides, manual, manuals, technowizard, technowizardry, Paratechnology, tinker, tinkering, steampunk, science, clockwork, technology, technological, metaphysical, metaphysics, metaphysicist, monk, monks, kung fu, wu shu, karate, poetry, knight, knights, arcane, divine, abyss, Cabal, tao, Taoism, zen, Buddhism, shaolin, asia, Asian, spell, quest, adventure, mystic, master, alchemy, neigong, nei kung, neigung, nae gong, demon, daemon, shadow, shadows, void, peace, enlighten, enlightenment, realization, kensho, satori, insight, shikanataza, koan, haiku, fiction, literature, novel, novella, paladin, light, holy, holy sword, Light, Indural, Yeren, Dracodaeran, Dracodin, K’un Lun, Priest, Priests, Priest of K’un Lun, Maeth Onai, fang shi, Bor’Banna, Darkness, Tides of Darkness, Return of the Cabal, Ascension of the Four, Ea’ae, seal, seals, extraplanar, planes, dimensions, extradimensional, supernatural, supramundane, Yip, Aroganji, Wrindanneth, Slate, Spreesprocket, beard, mustache, tome, treatise, Fists, Flaming Fists, Four, the Four, the Fists, faerviage, airship, gate, portal, Tellanon, Illdrassil, yuan qi, yuan-chi, yuan chi, celestial, celestial qi, life, energy of life, one light, ka, dalaren ka, Shadow's Rise – Return of the Cabal, Shadow's Descent – Tides of Darkness, Lords of Light – Ascension of the Four, Joe Bailey, Joseph Bailey
Browning's Beginnings was first published in 1980. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Browning's Beginnings offers a fresh approach to the poet who, among major Victorians, has proved at once the most congenial and most inscrutable to modern readers. Drawing on recent developments in literary theory and in the criticism of romantic poetry, Herbert F. Tucker, Jr., argues that Browning's stylistic "obscurity" is the result of a principled poetics of evasion. This art of disclosure, in deferring formal and semantic finalities, constitutes an aesthetic counterpart to his open-ended moral philosophy of"incompleteness," Browning's poems, like his enormously productive career, find their motivation and sustenance in his optimistic love of the future—a love that is indistinguishable from his lifelong fear that there will be nothing left to say. The opening chapters trace the workings of Browning's art of disclosure with extensive and original interpretations of the unduly neglected early poems, Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello, and place special emphasis on Browning's attitudes toward poetic tradition and language. A chapter on Browning's attitudes toward poetic tradition and language. A chapter on Browning's plays identifies dynamics of representation in Pippa Passes, Strafford,and King Victor and King Charles. Tucker discusses the pervasive analogy between Browning's ideas about poetic representation and about representation in its erotic and religious aspects, and shows how the early poems and plays illustrate correlative developments in poetics and in the exploration and dramatic rendering of human psychology. The remaining chapters follow the poetic psychology of Browning to its culmination in the great poems of his middle years; exemplary readings of selected dramatic lyrics and monologues suggest that the ways of meaning in Browning's mature work variously bear out the sense of endlessness or perpetual initiation that is central to his poetic beginnings. Tucker thus contends that the "romantic" and the "Victorian" Browning have more in common than is generally supposed, and his book should appeal to students of both periods. Its discussion of general literary issues - poetic influence, closure, representation, and meaning - in application to particular texts should further recommend Browning's Beginnings to the nonspecialist reader interested in poetry and poetic theory.
Forever Summer begins in the present as Kathryn visits the homestead farm that has been in her family for generations. The first night she finds an old journal and discovers that it was written almost one hundred years ago by a girl named Katie. The pages of the daily dairy transport her back to the farm as it was in the early 1900's. She actually becomes Katie, and life on the farm becomes her reality as it explores food, chores, holidays, and relationships of daily life. Many of the author's own experiences have been woven into this enchanting tale of two girls living in very different worlds.
In the tradition of Blue Highways and Silent Spring, Chasing Spring follows nature's season of renewal even as it shows how the delicate mechanisms of spring are increasingly endangered by climate change. Seeking to revive his body and soul following heart surgery, acclaimed nature writer Bruce Stutz set out on a three-month journey through the unfolding of an American spring. Driving across the country in a twenty-year-old Chevy sedan, Stutz shows readers that spring is not so much a progression as an arousal; each added minute of the lengthening days and lingering sun brings yet another transformation in the greening landscape as well as in the human spirit. Beginning with the season's southernmost stirrings along the Gulf of Mexico, Stutz sees the first blooms and partakes in the season's festivals -- celebrations with ancient origins that still speak to our wonder at nature's annual rebirth. He follows the migrations of birds northward, the return of life to the forests, and the quickening of snowmelt in the Rockies. He moves across the southern desert, encountering the explosion of cacti and wildflowers and the violence of tornadoes on the drought-stricken Great Plains. He then travels north through the national parks of the West, finally celebrating his journey's end by basking at the solstice amid the beauty of the Alaskan Arctic's twenty-four hours of daylight. Along the way, he accompanies scientists into the field to study the season's changes and meets farmers, Arctic natives, and even migrant mushroom pickers whose livelihoods depend on the coming of spring. In each location, as he observes the sensitive interplay of light and warmth that draws animals, plants, water, and even the soil itself into the biological ballet that makes for the profound stirring we call spring, he also finds that climate change now threatens the basic pro-cesses of nature. A moving and thought-provoking record of the year¹s most invigorating season, Chasing Spring is a timely reminder that as trees bud and flowers bloom, the human spirit reawakens as well. Anyone who has ever marveled at spring¹s wondrous transformations from a first garden blossom to a world in full flower will find in Chasing Spring a journey to savor.
