A seventeen-year-old has found a huge heart of gold hidden beneath a lake high in the Sierra Nevada. It is the mother lode. But can he keep it? Dain King is a ruthless killer who captures Petr and sends him down the river in an old Indian canoe to scare him into revealing the location of his gold. The canoe goes over a waterfall where Petr is rescued by Paiutes. He falls in love with the Indian medicine woman, Minoah. A bad Indian kidnaps Petrs little sister and uses her to lure Dain King and his men into a trap. The Indians are killed, including Minoahs father. Now love turns to hatred, and Petr ventures to San Francisco to make a beautiful gift, the Falcon Heart, for Minoah. There, he will remember the secrets of gold shaping. There, he will discover the terrible price of finding gold.
This mesmerizing fantasy features two narrators--an outcast princess and a rebellious storyteller---set in a convincing and beautifully realized world featuring elements of Celtic folklore.
This is an epic story (four books) about a boy in Gold Rush California who finds the entrance beneath a lake to a vast motherlode of gold followed by the devastating results of sudden wealth. His dreams of doing good--building his father a steam-powered lumber mill, a beautiful white house with blue shutters for his mother, and a fine speedy horse for his little sister--all are shattered when the king of the mountains comes after him demanding a kings share of the gold. Rumors of California gold ran wild. Rivers of solid gold lay hidden in mountain valleys and could be harvested with a pick and shovel. Indians would trade chunks of gold for a pretty scarf or a few beads. Somewhere is a secret lake of gold. On his seventeenth birthday Petr Valory finds Gold Lake high and hidden in a valley protected by the Indians for centuries, a place that is a test of courage, a sacred place for dreaming. Far beneath the lake is a hidden chamber and a pharaohs wildest dreams of gold. Petr finds a fortune and his life turns into chaos. No man should see what lies beneath Gold Lake.
2020 Best Indie Book Award for Epic Fantasy and 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist In the sequel to his award-winning novel Gift of the Shaper, D. L. Jennings once again brings to life an epic tale of war and chaos as earthly armies fight for otherworldly prizes. Ancient powers lying dormant must be called upon, bringing strength to those who need it and conquest to those who seek it; battles will rage and cities will fall, but only the most desperate or reckless would seek to awaken the three. Beyond the Wastes of Khulakorum, a storm is rising. The Shaper of Ages is gone, and along with her, the Breaker -- yet gods are not the only threat to the peace of the living. Aldis Tennech, the once-great general of the armies of Gal'dorok, finds himself in exile. His only hope of reclaiming glory lies in the hands of a self-proclaimed emperor, and the unearthly powers that put him there. Meanwhile, improbable alliances are forged in the north as unexpected enemies rear their heads and threaten ruin-with a single thread connecting them all. “Awaken the Three is an epic fantasy tale of creation and destruction, of gods and mortals...high drama and suspense.” - Foreword Reviews Awaken the Three is a stand-alone, action-filled mytho-fantasy epic, and those who sense and savor its deftly woven story strands will doubtless rush to read the earlier book in the Highglade series and excitedly await the next installment. - Feathered Quill Book Reviews
The Forelands are at war. The magic-wielding Qirsi and their Eandi masters have mobilized their forces. The Eandi have had to look beyond past differences to make alliances for the sake of the future, praying it isn't too late for them to change the outcome of the war. Tavis, an Eandi prince who was framed for murdering the princess to whom he was pledged, and endured torture before winning his freedom, has at last avenged her death. Still, the murder and its aftermath have brought war to the Forelands just as the Qirsi conspirators who bought his love's blood had intended. Now Tavis and Grinsa, a Qirsi shaper with more powers than he reveals, who saved Tavis when nobody else would believe his innocence, venture across the Forelands, risking death to help save the land they love . . . A powerful Qirsi weaver has brought this terrible war to the land, bending the minds of those he controls and of his enemies in an effort to forge alliances and mobilize forces to destroy the Eandi. His powerful magical ability estranges lovers, betrays leaders, and wreaks murder and death throughout the land. But even with his powerfully malign intelligence, he underestimates the mettle of his opponents. In a psychological duel with Grinsa, the Weaver's formidable powers are sorely tested. Grinsa withstands the Weaver's most powerful attacks at nearly the expense of his own life, and in the process discovers the Weaver's identity. Will Grinsa's challenge to the Weaver spell the end of the Weaver's reign of doom? Or has Grinsa's discovery come too late to help the Eandi cause? The answers lie in the growing war that may sunder the Forelands forever.
Book One of the classic on-line story finally available in print. Justin Ackeman learns that the end of the world is the beginning of a new one for him as he sets off on a path of self-discovery. Able to shape reality with the power of his mind, he learns that there are always terrible consequences for unbridled power.
Book Two of The Goldfinder series. A seventeen year old has found a huge heart of gold hidden beneath a lake high in the Sierra Nevada--it's the Motherlode. But can he keep it? Dain King is a ruthless killer who captures Petr and sends him down the river tied in an old Indian canoe to scare him into revealing the location of his gold. The canoe goes over a waterfall where Petr is rescued by Paiutes. He falls in love with the Indian medicine woman, Minoah. A bad Indian kidnaps Petr's little sister and uses her to lure Dain King and his men into a trap. The Indians are killed including Minoah's father. Now love turns to hatred and Petr ventures to San Francisco to make a beautiful gift, The Falcon Heart, for Minoah. There he will remember the secrets of gold shaping. There he will discover the terrible price of finding gold.
People have designed cities long before there were urban designers. In Shapers of Urban Form, Peter Larkham and Michael Conzen have commissioned new scholarship on the forces, people, and institutions that have shaped cities from the Middle Ages to the present day. Larkham and Conzen collect new essays in "urban morphology," the people-centered predecessor to contemporary theories of top-down urban design. Shapers of Urban Form focuses on the social processes that create patterns of urban forms in four discrete periods: Pre-modern, early modern, industrial-era and postmodern development. Featuring studies of English, American, Western and Eastern European, and New Zealand urban history and urban form, this collection is invaluable to scholars of urban design and town planning, as well as urban and economic historians.
The experience of growing up in the U.S. is shaped by many forces. Relationships with parents and teachers are deeply personal and definitive. Social and economic contexts are broader and harder to quantify. Key individuals in public life have also had a marked impact on American childhood. These 18 new essays examine the influence of pivotal figures in the culture of 20th and 21st century childhood and child-rearing, from Benjamin Spock and Walt Disney to Ruth Handler, Barbie's inventor, and Ernest Thompson Seton, founder of the Boy Scouts of America.
Explore twenty-four imaginative tales crafted by some of today’s best writers of science fiction and fantasy, all guests on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers during its second year, and including several international bestsellers and winners of every major award in the field, as well as newer authors just beginning what promise to be stellar careers. A woman seeking the power to see the evil hiding within others regrets receiving it. Letters written by a wizard in the past threaten a queen’s reign in the present. Competing for Earth, a human wrestler faces an alien shapeshifter in an interstellar tournament. A guide in Tibet must weigh the good of his people when asked to lead a westerner to the fabled realm of Shangri. An activist imprisoned for illegal genetic modification works with the materials at hand and the threads of the multiverse to make the world—a world, at least—a better place. A demonic agent sent to help a human turns the tables on his summoner. Like the “cabinets of curiosities” created by collectors of the sixteenth century, Shapers of Worlds Volume II displays a varied array of thought-provoking delights: tales of humour and sorrow, darkness and light, and hope and despair that are full of adventure, full of life, and sometimes full of regret. There are stories set in alternate histories, in possible futures, near and far, and in the here-and-now, taking place on Earth, on distant planets, or in fantastic realms. All arise from the innate need of human beings to create, to imagine . . . to shape worlds. Praise for Shapers of Worlds Volume I: “One of the most wide-ranging volumes I’ve encountered in terms of sub-genre. It’s rather like a speculative fiction buffet, offering steampunk, fantasy, military fiction, magic, space opera, post-apocalyptic, hard science fiction, and others . . . Inventive and varied, the collection has a lot to offer for those seeking an interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking read.” – Lisa Timpf, The Future Fire
