Family has to be resolved and wrongdoings undone. Love recognised, accepted and returned. Then, only then, can life move forward. Or can it? Baird Drummond is the only one who can help his ancestors correct wrongdoings after Culloden. Now, centuries later, he’s the one who appears to be learning what life has in store for him, and he’s not happy about it at all. A teacher exchange to Wanaka in New Zealand? He’s all for that. Until he gets told the Wanaka Tree is important to his family—but not why. Or why his new landlady isn’t overjoyed to meet him. It’s not that restaurant owner Helena actively dislikes him—she suspects it’s anything but. However, she has enough on her mind without considering whether she might have a future with Baird. Like people appearing in front of her who aren’t really there, youths wondering if she’s worth robbing, and a dishwasher with a mind of its own. With each other’s help, they can thwart the potential robbers and solve the mystery of Baird’s heritage. Then and only then can they look forward to the future.

An original, illuminating history of the northern European Renaissance in art, science, and philosophy, which often rivaled its Italian counterpart.It is generally accepted that the European Renaissance began in Italy. However, a historical transformation of similar magnitude also took place in northern Europe at the same time. This "Other Renaissance" was initially centered on the city of Bruges in Flanders (modern Belgium), but its influence was soon being felt in France, the German states, London, and even in Italy itself. The northern Renaissance, like the southern Renaissance, largely took place during the period between the end of the Medieval age (circa mid-14th century) and the advent of the Age of Enlightenment (circa end of 17th century). Following a sequence of major figures, including Copernicus, Gutenberg, Luther, Catherine de' Medici, Rabelais, van Eyck, and Shakespeare, Paul Strathern tells the fascinating story of how this "Other...

For the writer and anyone else interested in Renaissance England (1485-1649), this remarkable resource covers the day-to-day details: fashions, food, customs, family life, the Royal Court, law and punishment, holidays, city and rural living, seafaring and land occupations, alehouses, marriage, birth and death rituals--and a great deal more, written with authority in a wonderfully readable style. Included are bibliographies and internet addresses for further research. Author Kathy Lynn Emerson has written many historical mysteries and romances set in the Renaissance.

When Cooper Calderon threw his name on the table to be president of the new Nevada charter of the Brazen Bulls MC, he didn't think anyone would take him seriously. He's not exactly known for being serious. But here he is, in a strange town, leading a charter of men he barely knows. He's starting to crack under the pressure. To top it off, his new neighbor already hates him, and he doesn't like her much better. Siena Morgan is at the end of her rope. She's trying to cobble together a life for herself and her younger sister, but the universe keeps dealing them losing hands. The latest set of cards includes a party-boy jerk with an outrageously loud Harley and the world's smuggest smirk as her new neighbor. She knows he's trouble the second she lays eyes on him. Yet another thing she needs to worry about. It's not good for the president of an outlaw MC to be in open war with his next-door neighbor. So Cooper tries to build a...

Hailed as the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind, this work paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

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t's a world of the future where women are the dominant sex and men are forced to wear chemically-treated glasses to keep them in line. Dr. Peter Grayson accidentally discovered the key to his chains: an unnoticeable crack in his rose-colored glasses that liberated him from the tyranny of women.Suddenly Grayson is virile, he is powerful, alive! Women notice him, and want him!!But unknown to him, his liberation is being monitored - by dangerous underground revolutionaries who want to use his powers to help overthrow the secret, extra-planetary masters of the world, the Utt.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that saw an explosion of Black art, music and writing, yet few female creatives are remembered alongside their male counterparts.Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Women of the Harlem Renaissance is edited by Marissa Constantinou and introduced by Professor Kate Dossett.Exploring subjects from love, loss and motherhood to jazz, passing and Jim Crow law, the poems and stories collected in this anthology celebrate the women of colour at the heart of the movement. Alice Dunbar-Nelson parades through New Orleans in 'A Carnival Jangle' whilst Carrie Williams Clifford takes to Fifth Avenue in 'Silent Protest Parade', and Nella Larsen seeks a mother's protection in 'Sanctuary'. Showcasing popular authors alongside writers you might discover for the...

The third book in the popular Blaze of Glory series. "And they lived happily ever after." In fairy tales, that's always how things end. The prince and princess ride away on his white horse and from then on, all's right with the world. But what if it wasn't? What if the prince's life didn't suit the princess? What if she felt stifled by life inside the castle walls? Could she tell him? And if she loved him—really loved him—how could she ask him to give up his kingdom?

The ship is only a memory, but the drama unfolds.... The U.S.S. Excalibur has been obliterated. Its captain, Mackenzie Calhoun is gone. Now the surviving crew members are dispersed throughout the galaxy, seeking to forge new lives in the wake of the Excalibur's destruction. For Dr. Selar, the ship's former medical officer, that means facing a very personal crisis. Following the birth of her child, the Vulcan doctor returned to her homeworld, determined to raise the child exclusively in the way of logic. But the child's father, the Hermat Lieutenant Commander Burgoyne, has hir own views regarding their offspring's future, and s/he intends to fight for hir paternal rights, even if it means appealing to the highest authorities of two worlds! Elsewhere in the Alpha Quadrant, Lieutenant Robin Lefler and her enigmatic mother travel to the pleasure planet Risa where they encounter a genuine Starfleet legend....

Amazon.com ReviewIt speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. From Publishers WeeklyUsing only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and "a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity." Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Leonardo da Vinci's scientific explorations were virtually unknown during his lifetime, despite their extraordinarily wide range. He studied the flight patterns of birds to create some of the first human flying machines; designed military weapons and defenses; studied optics, hydraulics, and the workings of the human circulatory system; and created designs for rebuilding Milan, employing principles still used by city planners today. Perhaps most importantly, Leonardo pioneered an empirical, systematic approach to the observation of nature-what is known today as the scientific method.Drawing on over 6,000 pages of Leonardo's surviving notebooks, acclaimed scientist and bestselling author Fritjof Capra reveals Leonardo's artistic approach to scientific knowledge and his organic and ecological worldview. In this fascinating portrait of a thinker centuries ahead of his time, Leonardo singularly emerges as the unacknowledged “father of modern science.”From the Trade Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyCapra, author of the classic The Tao of Physics, makes the case in this fascinating intellectual biography for the great artist Leonardo being the unsung father of modern science. Drawing on approximately 6,000 pages and 100,000 drawings surviving from Leonardo's scattered notebooks, Capra explores the groundbreaking research of this quintessential Renaissance man. Illegitimate, born in a Tuscan village in 1452, Leonardo did not receive a classical education, a fact that, Capra notes, later freed him from the intellectual conventions of his time and allowed him to develop his own holistic, empirical approach to science. Apprenticed with Verrocchio in Florence around the age of 15, Leonardo became an independent artist when he was 25, but his intellectual appetites demanded more. He taught himself Latin and began the famous notebooks, a record of his artistic and scientific explorations. The recurring patterns he saw in nature led him to create what Capra calls a science of wholeness, of movement and transformation. Capra expresses his own intellectual kinship with Leonardo's multidisciplinary perspective on science, one that recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all natural phenomena—a view he sees as particularly relevant today. Illus. (Oct. 30) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“Minutely researched, vividly written, and endlessly fascinating, The Science of Leonardo opens up a realm which has never been adequately appreciated.” —Dr. Oliver Sacks“Illuminating and impassioned . . . . A profound and clear exploration of Leonardo's scientific thought.”—The San Francisco Chronicle“A delight . . . . Lucid and spirited, it sparks a whole series of ideas and questions for further investigation.”—American Scientist“A fascinating glimpse of the road not taken by Western Science. Capra makes a compelling case that the science of the future may look a lot more like Leonardo's than Bacon's or Descartes -- a science of systems, non-reductive and akin to an art.” —Michael Pollan, author of Botany of Desire and Omnivore's Dilemma“Vivid and compelling. . . . Leonardo himself would have nodded in approval of this book, because for the first time it crystallizes the entire body of his work into a coherent, unified whole.” —Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the ImpossibleFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

Embark on a captivating journey through time with our Renaissance Bride Anthology, where tales of love and destiny unfold against the rich tapestry of the 15th and 16th centuries. Delve into the stories of Princesses and Noble women, bound by the age-old tradition of arranged marriages to strangers. Venture alongside the daughter of a prominent backer as she forsakes societal expectations, embarking on an adventure fueled by love. The anthology takes you further, weaving in narratives from the pre or during colonization era in the United States and the European Renaissance. Experience the cultural diversity with Native American stories, adding a unique and evocative dimension to this anthology. Each story unfolds in an era where love and courage are tested against the backdrop of history, inviting readers to witness the timeless resilience of the human spirit.

A biography of Vittoria Colonna, confidante of Michelangelo, scion of one of the most powerful families of her era, and a pivotal figure in the Italian RenaissanceRamie Targoff's Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist's best friend—the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy—but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d'Este, among others. Vittoria was the scion of an immensely powerful family in Rome during that city's most explosively creative era. Art and literature flourished, but political and religious life were under terrific strain. Personally involved with nearly every major...

A biography of Vittoria Colonna, a confidante of Michelangelo, the scion of one of the most powerful families of her era, and a pivotal figure in the Italian Renaissance Ramie Targoff's Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist's best friend--the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy--but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d'Este, among others. Vittoria was the scion of an immensely powerful family in Rome during that city's most explosively creative era. Art and literature flourished, but political and religious life were under terrific strain. Personally involved with nearly every major development of this period--through both her marriage and her own talents--Vittoria was not only a critical political actor and negotiator but also the first woman to publish a book of poems in Italy, an event that launched a revolution for Italian women's writing. Vittoria was, in short, at the very heart of what we celebrate when we think about sixteenth-century Italy; through her story the Renaissance comes to life anew.

In his prime, Marshal Charlie Martell had been the surest shot and toughest lawman in all of Kansas. But his days of gunfighting and keeping the peace ended when he was badly shot up while single-handedly breaking up a bank robbery. The incident left him badly crippled, and he became a drunken derelict. He reached the point of deciding to do himself in when he heard that his ex-partner had been gunned down by three outlaws. Charlie knows he stands no chance of surviving, but if he's going to die, he might as well do it in a final showdown with that outlaw trio in this one final gesture of defiance and personal pride.

Set against the stunning backdrop of Renaissance France, The Serpent and the Moon is a true story of love, war, intrigue, betrayal, and persecution. At its heart is one of the world’s greatest love stories: the lifelong devotion of King Henri II of France to Diane de Poitiers, a beautiful aristocrat who was nineteen years older than her lover. At age fourteen, Henri was married to fourteen-year-old Catherine Medici, an unattractive but extremely wealthy heiress who was to bring half of Italy to France as her dowry. When Catherine met Henri on her wedding day, she fell instantly in love, but Henri could see no one but the beautiful Diane. When Henri eventually became king, he and Diane ruled France as one. Meanwhile, Catherine took as her secret motto the words “Hate and Wait” and lived for the day Diane would die and she could win Henri’s love and rule by his side. Fate had another plan. Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent, herself a descendant of both Catherine and Diane, imbues this seldom-told story with an insider’s grasp of royal life. The Serpent and the Moon is a fascinating love story as well as a richly woven history of an extraordinary time.

Jessie Morton is thrilled when she finds Bill Warren, an old fashioned shoemaker, and he agrees to come back to Renaissance Faire Village with her. She's not so thrilled when claims to have elf magic, and he falls for Princess Isabelle. The dancing slippers Bill makes for Isabelle make him a suspect when the princess takes a leap from the castle terrace. Now, Jessie must find the lady or lord who helped the princess with her last dance before she loses her star attraction.

A Novella of 22,000 words in the Renaissance Faire Mystery series PLUS the first chapter of Murderous Matrimony, Book Six.Wanda Le Fey is dead, and Renaissance Faire lover, Jessie Morton, looks suspiciously like the person who killed her. Jessie was simply returning the prank Wanda played on her by dyeing the other woman blue. It wasn’t her fault that Wanda was also stabbed in the chest by a sword as she tried to get out of her shower. Now Wanda’s blue ghost is prodding Jessie to find her killer. And a dead Wanda is far worse than a live Wanda.

Two generations after the Great Relocation, internal tensions threaten to tear the Azdhag Empire apart. The Great Lords want the Free-towns forced into submission, even as the colony worlds argue for more independence within the Empire. When a new imperial governor sets Pokara against the Empire, the crown-prince and a Free-towner lord struggle to hold things together. Back on Drakon IV, the king-emperor grows impatient with recalcitrant nobles even as a possible interstellar invasion force approaches the edges of imperial space.

West Barrington, a musician from 1926 Harlem, seems to have everything going for him. A job at the most popular nightclub in Harlem, a music career that is taking off, and a girlfriend, Lanna Gold, who's the lead singer of the group Crystal Dream. But when West awakens after falling asleep on the eve of 1927, he realizes that he has been thrown into a world far beyond 1927 after he discovers that he has awakened in 2016 Harlem.

Novel length supernatural mystery at about 55,000 words.In less than two short weeks, Jessie Morton will marry Chase Manhattan at the Renaissance Faire Village and Marketplace. But so much can go wrong in that short time. A man is murdered in Jessie's new Arts and Crafts Museum and her assistant is being scrutinized for the deed. Chase's brother and parents have arrived and are still against their marriage. Wanda's ghost is busy making Jessie's life miserable. The Ren Faire wedding of her dreams may never take place. Can she talk Chase into eloping before it's too late?

When a fairy named Apple Blossom is found dead in a fountain, Ren Faire lover Jessie Morton makes a wish she lives to regret—that her husband, Chase Manhattan, is no longer the Renaissance Faire Village Bailiff so he doesn’t have to look for the fairy’s killer and ruin their plans to go away for their first wedding anniversary.  Trapped in a timeless ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ experience, Jessie is transported to a different Village to face the consequences of her wish where Chase isn’t the Bailiff, and he’s not married to her. Jessie’s fairy godmother who granted the wish tells her that she must find a way to make Chase fall in love with her again, and they must discover who killed Apple Blossom, if she ever wants to go back to the life she knew.

Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires charts in vivid detail the largely forgotten history of European corpse medicine, when kings, ladies, gentlemen, priests and scientists prescribed, swallowed or wore human blood, flesh, bone, fat, brains and skin against epilepsy, bruising, wounds, sores, plague, cancer, gout and depression.One thing we are rarely taught at school is this: James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine. Ranging from the execution scaffolds of Germany and Scandinavia, through the courts and laboratories of Italy, France and Britain, to the battlefields of Holland and Ireland, and on to the tribal man-eating of the Americas, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires argues that the real cannibals were in fact the Europeans. Medicinal cannibalism utilised the formidable weight of European science, publishing, trade networks and educated theory. For many, it was also an emphatically Christian phenomenon. And, whilst corpse medicine has sometimes been presented as a medieval therapy, it was at its height during the social and scientific revolutions of early-modern Britain. It survived well into the eighteenth century, and amongst the poor it lingered stubbornly on into the time of Queen Victoria. This innovative book brings to life a little known and often disturbing part of human history. Review'This book is full of rich detail, making you both recoil and yet read on, fascinated by our ancestors’ imaginative ways to try and heal the sick. ' – Cotswold History Blog"I do not write this lightly - Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians is one of the most eye-opening and phenomenal books I have ever read. It is incredibly well researched, well written and states the case of medicinal cannibalism throughout the ages with great detail and reference. There is no other book like it and I feel so fortunate to have it upon my shelf...It would be a fantastic book to accompany a college class of the same subject." - Amazon.com Customer Review, 5 Stars"Sugg's book offers iteself as a 'history' of corpse medicine. Though it is the work of a well-known literary scholar, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires *invokes imaginative writing only to augment the evidence it draws from medical and scientific texts... Sugg's interest in corpse medicine reaches well beyond mumia to inspect all those strange concoctions of human tissue and waste favoured by early modern pharmacology"– Michael Neill, London Review of Books.*

The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance recounts the almost untold story of how the rediscovery of the pagan, mythological imagination during the Renaissance brought a profound transformation to European culture. This highly illustrated book, available for the first time in paperback, shows that the pagan imagination existed side-by-side—often uneasily—with the official symbols, doctrines, and art of the Church. Godwin carefully documents how pagan themes and gods enhanced both public and private life. Palaces and villas were decorated with mythological images/ stories, music, and dramatic pageants were written about pagan themes/ and landscapes were designed to transform the soul. This was a time of great social and cultural change, when the pagan idea represented nostalgia for a classical world untroubled by the idea of sin and in no need of redemption. A stunning book with hundreds of photos that bring alive this period with all its rich conflict between Christianity...

'They're all scared. Everybody's afraid' – Eddy Merckx 'Nothing compares to the Ventoux' – Lance Armstrong 'Heart-stirring and jaw-dropping in equal measure' – Tim Moore The French call Ventoux 'the killer mountain' and in 1967 it claimed its most famous victim, as former world champion Tom Simpson died near the summit during that year's Tour de France. The terrible ascent of Ventoux's south side encapsulates both the brutality and beauty of this cruel sport, but also highlights cycling's ongoing battle to distance itself from its demons. Yet it was the legendary and extreme climb of Mont Ventoux that first inspired award-winning author Jeremy Whittle's love of cycling, so much so that he bought a house in its shadows. Ventoux is his memoir to the Giant of Provence in which he reveals the little-known history of the Ventoux, and tells the story of a monstrous climb that has driven riders to near-hysteria and also to...

Travel back in time to Renaissance Italy with the Robbins twins! In book nine of The Treasure Chest, Maisie and Felix continue to learn the magic of Elm Medona and the Pickworth family history. In the latest adventure, the twins travel to fifteenth- century Italy and meet a young Leonardo da Vinci. Every Treasure Chest book features a biography of the featured historical figure along with Ann's Favorite Facts from her research!

Leonardo da Vinci's scientific explorations were virtually unknown during his lifetime, despite their extraordinarily wide range. He studied the flight patterns of birds to create some of the first human flying machines; designed military weapons and defenses; studied optics, hydraulics, and the workings of the human circulatory system; and created designs for rebuilding Milan, employing principles still used by city planners today. Perhaps most importantly, Leonardo pioneered an empirical, systematic approach to the observation of nature-what is known today as the scientific method.Drawing on over 6,000 pages of Leonardo's surviving notebooks, acclaimed scientist and bestselling author Fritjof Capra reveals Leonardo's artistic approach to scientific knowledge and his organic and ecological worldview. In this fascinating portrait of a thinker centuries ahead of his time, Leonardo singularly emerges as the unacknowledged “father of modern science.”From the Trade Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyCapra, author of the classic The Tao of Physics, makes the case in this fascinating intellectual biography for the great artist Leonardo being the unsung father of modern science. Drawing on approximately 6,000 pages and 100,000 drawings surviving from Leonardo's scattered notebooks, Capra explores the groundbreaking research of this quintessential Renaissance man. Illegitimate, born in a Tuscan village in 1452, Leonardo did not receive a classical education, a fact that, Capra notes, later freed him from the intellectual conventions of his time and allowed him to develop his own holistic, empirical approach to science. Apprenticed with Verrocchio in Florence around the age of 15, Leonardo became an independent artist when he was 25, but his intellectual appetites demanded more. He taught himself Latin and began the famous notebooks, a record of his artistic and scientific explorations. The recurring patterns he saw in nature led him to create what Capra calls a science of wholeness, of movement and transformation. Capra expresses his own intellectual kinship with Leonardo's multidisciplinary perspective on science, one that recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all natural phenomena—a view he sees as particularly relevant today. Illus. (Oct. 30) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“Minutely researched, vividly written, and endlessly fascinating, The Science of Leonardo opens up a realm which has never been adequately appreciated.” —Dr. Oliver Sacks“Illuminating and impassioned . . . . A profound and clear exploration of Leonardo's scientific thought.”—The San Francisco Chronicle“A delight . . . . Lucid and spirited, it sparks a whole series of ideas and questions for further investigation.”—American Scientist“A fascinating glimpse of the road not taken by Western Science. Capra makes a compelling case that the science of the future may look a lot more like Leonardo's than Bacon's or Descartes -- a science of systems, non-reductive and akin to an art.” —Michael Pollan, author of Botany of Desire and Omnivore's Dilemma“Vivid and compelling. . . . Leonardo himself would have nodded in approval of this book, because for the first time it crystallizes the entire body of his work into a coherent, unified whole.” —Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the ImpossibleFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

In this brilliant and widely acclaimed work, Peter Burke presents a social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. He discusses the social and political institutions which existed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and analyses the ways of thinking and seeing which characterized this period of extraordinary artistic creativity. Developing a distinctive sociological approach, Peter Burke is concerned with not only the finished works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and others, but also with the social background, patterns of recruitment and means of subsistence of this 'cultural elite'. New to this edition is a fully revised introduction focusing on what Burke terms 'the domestic turn' in Renaissance studies and discussing the relation of the Renaissance to global trends. He thus makes a major contribution to our understanding of the...The EPUB format of this title may not be compatible for use on all handheld devices.

Product Description‘I will seek Vengeance upon those who betrayed my family. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am an Assassin...’ Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, a young man embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honour, he will learn the art of the assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli – knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.To his allies, he will become a force for change - fighting for freedom and justice. To his enemies, he will become a threat dedicated to the destruction of the tyrants abusing the people of Italy. So begins an epic story of power, revenge and conspiracy. TRUTH WILL BE WRITTEN IN BLOOD

In the wake of the Excalibur's destruction, Dr. Selar, the ship's former medical officer is concerned about the birth of her child, following which, she retires to her world to raise her baby like a true Vulcan. Meanwhile, the baby Xyon, though Vulcan in appearance also carries some of its father's latent Hermat qualities. Thus, starts the conflict for the child's ultimate fate between Selar and Lieutenant Commander Burgoyne, the child's father­eventually resolved by T'Pau and the Vulcan justice system.

Something exciting has been happening in modern SF. After decades of confusion, many of the field's best writers have been returning to the subgenre called, roughly, "hard SF"-science fiction focused on science and technology, often with strong adventure plots. Now, World Fantasy Award-winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present an immense, authoritative anthology that maps the development and modern-day resurgence of this form, argues for its special virtues and present preeminence-and entertains us with some spectacular storytelling along the way. Included are major stories by contemporary and classic names such as Poul Anderson, Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, David Brin, Arthur C. Clarke, Hal Clement, Greg Egan, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Paul Levinson, Paul McAuley, Frederik Pohl, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder, Charles Sheffield, Brian Stableford, Allen Steele, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, and Vernor Vinge. The Hard SF Renaissance will be an anthology that SF readers return to for years to come. **Amazon.com Review Edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, The Hard SF Renaissance (2002) is a thematic sequel to their 1994 anthology The Ascent of Wonder. The first anthology argued that "[t]here has been a persistent viewpoint that hard [science fiction] is somehow the core and the center of the SF field." The Hard SF Renaissance asserts that hard SF has truly become the heart of the genre and supports its assertion by assembling nearly a thousand pages of short stories, novelettes, and novellas originally published between the late 1980s and early 2000s. A different theory says hard SF stories are engineering puzzles disguised as fiction; The Hard SF Renaissance repudiates this theory in regard to modern hard SF. Most of the selections have strong prose and rounded characters, several are classics, and gadget-driven clunkers are mercifully few. Contributors to The Hard SF Renaissance range from SF gods like Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, and Frederik Pohl; to promising newcomers like Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder, and Peter Watts; and to acclaimed SF writers not usually associated with hard SF, like James Patrick Kelley, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, and Michael Swanwick. You may have noticed the lack of women in that list. It reflects the book: the 30-odd contributors (some with two stories) include only three women (Nancy Kress, Joan Slonczewski, and Sarah Zettel, with one story each). Some eyebrow-elevating omissions are Eleanor Arnason, Catherine Asaro, Nicola Griffith, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Connie Willis, all of whom have written hard SF stories in the period covered by The Hard SF Renaissance. They've certainly written SF harder than the book's implicit definition (the book reprints Kim Stanley Robinson's fine story "Sexual Dimorphism," in which fossil DNA serves as a metaphor for the protagonist's failing relationship; a few cosmetic changes and this SF story would be mainstream). The absence of several crucial authors makes The Hard SF Renaissance a less-than-definitive anthology of late-20th-century hard SF. --Cynthia Ward From Library Journal From Paul McAuley's tale of runaway technology ("Gene Wars") to Gregory Benford's story of evolution and murder ("Immersion"), the 41 stories in this annotated anthology provide a strong argument for the revival of hard sf as a major force in the genre in the 1990s. Showcasing short fiction by veteran sf authors like Kim Stanley Robinson, Joe Haldeman, Bruce Sterling, Nancy Kress, Ben Bova, and Arthur C. Clarke, the collection charts the emergence of trends in the genre. Primary among them are the movement away from a conservative, pro-military route and toward a more liberal-minded science, as well as the rising prominence of British and Australian authors. Each story is prefaced by brief commentaries that continue the arguments posited in the general introduction. For libraries wanting a definitive collection of hard sf written since 1990, this is a priority purchase. Highly recommended. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

Amazon.com ReviewIt speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. From Publishers WeeklyUsing only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and "a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity." Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Timothy Williams was selected by The Observer as one of the "10 Best Modern European Crime Writers" for his series featuring Northern Italian police detective Piero Trotti. Now, 20 years after his last investigation, Trotti returns! After decades as a commissario in his city on the River Po, Piero Trotti has retired. But his newfound peace is brief. An old friend calls him to Siena to give him urgent news: a known hit man has returned to Italy to kill Trotti. The former inspector must admit that he isn't entirely undeserving, as his mistaken accusations and failed gambles have cost innocent lives in the course of his investigations. Though Trotti carries the burden of these deaths with him each day, someone else has appeared to enact his own, long-awaited retribution. Traveling across Italy to escape his pursuer, Trotti revisits his own past and searches for clues to the cold-case murder of Valerio Gracchi, a leftist radical who became a national media...

Discusses how the Renaissance encouraged breakthroughs in technique and the creation of works like da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus." **

This entertaining and learned volume contains book reviews, lectures, and hard to find articles from the late C. S. Lewis, whose constant aim was to show the twentieth--century reader how to read and understand old books and manuscripts. Highlighting works by Spenser, Dante, Malory, Tasso, and Milton, Lewis provides a refreshing update to medieval and Renaissance criticism, and equips modern readers to understand these works in a new way.

Thal embodies the ancient magic of the pagan past. He challenges a world conquered by a spiritual system that denies the flesh and forgets the Earth. Although wanted for Devil worship and shape shifting, he still boldly walks the streets of 16th century Prague. Jesuits hunt him. Mercenaries fear him. Musicians sing his praise, and women are captivated by his alpha swagger.