A surprising assessment of the ways that virtual worlds are entangled with human psychology

This wide-ranging study touches many aspects of sixteenth-century British culture, putting Shakespearean drama into the context of one of the century's greatest preoccupations, the study and use of rhetoric. Its multifaceted thesis is developed cumulatively over four chapters, each linked to the one preceding, moving from the general picture of the role of rhetoric in sixteenth-century English culture, through its contribution to the rise of Elizabethan drama, and culminating in its specific application to the interpretation of Shakespeare. Recognizing the thesis's challenge to critical orthodoxy, both traditional and contemporary, in all of these areas, its development proceeds with full discussion and deliberation at every stage, citing a broad range of sixteenth-century as well as Classical rhetorical materials to justify a radically subversive reinterpretation of their thrust. Trevor McNeely is Professor Emeritus of English at Brandon University.

Frank Compton must join forces with his most feared enemies to defeat an ancient civilizations-devouring malevolence in the final installment of Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn’s Quadrail series A dozen sentient species occupy the galaxy, and the Quadrail connects them all. Arriving at Proteus Station under a cloud of suspicion, ex-government agent Frank Compton finds he must answer for the death of six members of the Filly elite, a crime for which he has been falsely accused. Filiaelian captivity, however, is the least of Compton’s worries, for his horse-faced alien accusers are guarding a terrible secret that dates back centuries: the Shonkla-raa, a race of super-soldiers believed to be extinct. Invincible fighters bred for conquest and dedicated to the destruction of the Quadrail, as well as the annihilation of the unsuspecting billions who oppose them, the Shonkla-raa must be stopped at all cost. But to do so, Compton and his beautiful, enigmatic half-human partner, Bayta, will have to ally themselves with the insidious, mind-enslaving Mohdri, the malevolent group intelligence they have sworn to destroy. Hugo Award winner Timothy Zahn concludes his sensational Quadrail series with a riveting futuristic adventure that combines the best of three popular genres—hard science fiction, mystery, and espionage thriller. Judgment at Proteus is a breathtaking tale of deception, murder, and desperate maneuverings in a secret war that threatens the survival of every living being in the galaxy.

Twenty-nine collected essays represent a critical history of Shakespeare's play as text and as theater, beginning with Samuel Johnson in 1765, and ending with a review of the Royal Shakespeare Company production in 1991. The criticism centers on three aspects of the play: the love/friendship debate.

Literature on the Move formulates a new aesthetics for the altered conditions and challenges of the new century. The point of departure for examining a bordercrossing literature on the move is travel literature, from which the view opens up unto other spaces, dimensions and patterns of movement which will shape the literatures of the 21th Century. And these will become - one needs no prophetic gift to see - for a major part literatures with no fixed abode. Signposts of this journey through literature proposed by this book are texts by, among many others, Balzac, Barthes, Baudrillard, Borges, Calvino, Condé, Cohen, Diderot, Goethe, A.v. Humboldt, Kristeva, Reyes, Rodó or Stadler. This book will specially appeal to an audience interested by comparative literature, literary theory, and travel literature and will be of interest to anybody who delights in «literary journeys».

In the 22nd century biofeedback techniques to control by will the processes of one's own body have reached their ultimate expression: the ability to transform the body into virtually any viable form whatsoever. What began as an innocent technique to reduce anxiety without recourse to drugs has raised fundamental questions about what it is to be human, since form is no longer sufficient nor even relevant. Enter the Humanity Test: in a future when other techniques can change the forms of animals, so far it has been a guaranteed one hundred percent successful means of determining whether a life form started out as human. But now strange life forms, vicious and bestial, are proliferating throughout the Solar System. They are clearly not human, and clearly their nervous systems are too underdeveloped for them to have been human. But though the beasts threaten havoc and death to all the far flung isolated stations, the simple solution of shooting the varmints is impossible: for life forms that according to the Humanity Test started out human the law is very clear: Thou Shalt Not Kill.