Contributed articles with reference to India.

Eli Monpress is talented, charming, and a thief. And, he's out to make a name for himself in this omnibus edition of Rachel Aaron's "fast, furious, and let's not forget fun" (Tom Holt) fantasy trilogy. But not just any thief. He's the greatest thief of the age -- and he's also a wizard. And with the help of his partners -- a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls -- he's going to put his plan into effect. The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he'll need to steal some big things. But he'll start small for now. He'll just steal something that no one will miss -- at least for a while. Like a king.

When it comes to true stories, you have to be there to verify it yourself. I was there, and I can guarantee you that it was all real. A horror story that not only did I witness but that I also have recorded on video. But me and my friends, we lived that night. A night when everyone started disappearing, one after another, and in the end, only one remained. A night that none of us will never forget.

“A sprawling fantasy saga . . . Caleb Carr boldly goes where he’s never gone before.”—USA Today Legend meets history in this mesmerizing novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Caleb Carr. Demonstrating the rich storytelling, skillful plotting, and depth of research he showcased in The Alienist, Carr has written a wildly imaginative, genre-bending saga that redefines the boundaries of literature. Some years ago, a remarkable manuscript long rumored to exist was discovered: The Legend of Broken. It tells of a prosperous fortress city where order reigns at the point of a sword—even as scheming factions secretly vie for control of the surrounding kingdom. Meanwhile, outside the city’s granite walls, an industrious tribe of exiles known as the Bane forages for sustenance in the wilds of Davon Wood. At every turn, the lives of Broken’s defenders and its would-be destroyers intertwine: Sixt Arnem, the widely respected and honorable head of the kingdom’s powerful army, grapples with his conscience and newfound responsibilities amid rumors of impending war. Lord Baster-kin, master of the Merchants’ Council, struggles to maintain the magnificence of his kingdom even as he pursues vainglorious dreams of power. And Keera, a gifted female tracker of the Bane tribe, embarks on a perilous journey to save her people, enlisting the aid of the notorious and brilliant philosopher Caliphestros. Together, they hope to exact a ruinous revenge on Broken, ushering in a day of reckoning when the mighty walls will be breached forever in a triumph of science over superstition. Breathtakingly profound and compulsively readable, Caleb Carr’s long-awaited new book is an action-packed, multicharacter epic of a medieval clash of cultures—in which new gods collide with old, science defies all expectation, and virtue comes in many guises. Brimming with adventure and narrative invention, The Legend of Broken is an exhilarating and enthralling masterwork. Praise for The Legend of Broken “An excellent and old-fashioned entertainment . . . The Legend of Broken seamlessly blends epic adventure with serious research and asks questions that men and women grappled with in the Dark Ages and still do today.”—The Washington Post “[A] colossal effort . . . a fantasy epic . . . meant as an allegory, a cautionary tale for our precarious times. To make his points, Carr has summoned a dream team of soldiers, wizards, and tiny forest folk.”—The New York Times Book Review “Carr keeps the action hurtling along with a steady diet of gruesome murders and political betrayals. And he clearly wants modern readers to see something of their own world in the political corruption and greed that ultimately doom Broken.”—The Boston Globe

Young Ye Zangming, Green Lotus Pearl. The strong wind blew against the willow tree, neutralizing the irreversible situation; the Fiery Blaze Needle pierced through the gate of rebirth with a faint glow. After entering the World Gate, a beautiful woman appeared within the world tomb. After experiencing life and death several times, she would obtain the benefits of being able to destroy the heavens. On the road of no return, brothers share the same heart, and the true and false know what a hero is. Outside of Cheng City, demons flew in a frenzy, and people kowtowed to become true kings. The Three Gates of Life and Death would swarm over the world, turning the sun and moon into a new song. The Cave of Samsara, surrounded by mountains, had smoke rising from all corners of the world, looked like a painting in the tenth generation, and within the compass formation, four ferocious beasts and a hundred thousand devil soldiers would be reduced to fragments after ten thousand years of enmity. Her beauty was old, and she had no desire for marriage. She could only look forward to dancing with the king for all eternity. Hand-to-hand desire, the crippled king, life does not love, just to join hands to advance the new article. Communicator 476311286 [Wrap]

The Saber Claw is a new fast destroyer built around the new Vallen/Maxumus warp engines. It is armed with new attack and electronic warfare jump ships called Daggers. These jump ships were designed for marines by marines. Beary Maxumus is a young 18 year old Bearilian Fleet Cadet with a secret. He is actually Dr. Beary Maxumus the designer of the Warp engine that powers the ship. He is also a Marine reserve Corporal who was part of an elite Special Forces unit called MSU 6. The enemy calls him the Ghost. His dream was to be just another cadet. Those dreams are about to be shattered.

In The Legend of the Mystical Inkwell, AJ DeLaura explores a new avenue for his writings. His heroine, Paulina De Milliante, a young teenage girl, inherits a magical inkwell and a weather-worn leather journal from her great-grandmother. The inkwell has been in her Sicilian family for five centuries and has been passed down to a fourth-generation female. “You may write about your future. Be wary, for what is written cannot be undone.” With her new powers come major responsibilities. Paulina and her kitten, Willi Whiskers, enter the strange land of Goloriacum and cannot return home until the biddings of the country’s First Minister are completed. Her story is one of coming of age, of discovering her personal power. New friends and fantastical resources help her overcome obstacles as she seeks to discover her true self.

George Sand's The Seven Strings of the Lyre is a philosophical play written in poetic prose and never intended for perfomance on stage. Completed in 1838 during the early stages of Sand's romantic involvement with Frederic Chopin, it is one of the very few treatments of the Faust legend by a woman. George Kennedy offers the first English translation of this work, along with an introduction that places the play in its philosophical and literary context. The Seven Strings of the Lyre is Sand's response to Goethe's Faust and a reflection of her views of music as developed in conversations with Chopin and Franz Liszt. Sand, unlike so many of her contemporaries, saw Goethe as a less-than-ideal poet. She criticized him for lacking "enthusiasm, belief, and passion," and she faulted him for being a proponent of the art-for-art's-sake movement, which Sand deplored for its lack of social conscience. Sand's play describes the efforts of Mephistopheles to win the soul of Albertus, a teacher of philosophy and descendant of Faust. Regarding Goethe's Mephistopheles as insufficiently wicked, Sand conjures up a devil truly worthy of the epithet. For Faust, whom she considered too cold, Sand substitues the more emotional Albertus, whose despair that life and love have passed him by in his devotion to philosophy makes him vulnerable to the machinations of the devil. And in place of Goethe's village girl, Marguerite, or the dangerous Helen of the earlier Faust legend, Sand creates the angelic Helen, who awakens Albertus's love and teaches him the emotional and spiritual truths he had never learned from books. Richly philosophical and deeply romantic, the play is a reaction against eighteenth-century rationalism. It asserts the existence of some higher truth to be foud in music, poetry, and a sympathetic response to nature, but it also, contrary to the doctrine of art for art's sake, demands social responsibility from the artist. Sand believed that the arts should lead society to an awareness of truth, freedom, and the meaning of life, and The Seven Strings of the Lyre is an attempt to dramatize this belief. Originally published in 1989. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.