This is a poignant and irreverent diary of the author's yearlong (2001-2) experience of teaching English to college students in Beijing, People's Republic of China. From the very first pages, the author draws you into his struggle with a culture worlds away from his comfort zone. The author's generous and compelling personality allowed him to gain access to the lives of his students and their families, who became characters in his tale. One can experience the author's wit and humanity throughout the narrative.

The author's humorous...[more]

Dreibrand Veta has killed for his country. At the frontlines of imperial expansion, he seeks to rebuild the fortune of his noble family. In his daring travels he encounters the rys, a race far more powerful than the human empire that bred him. Dreibrand cannot defy the rys Queen Onja nor defend his companion, Miranda, and her children from the wicked tyrant Queen.

Desperate for help, Dreibrand and Miranda join Shan, a rys with emerging powers who plans to challenge Onja. In Shan’s pursuit of the rys throne, he exerts his magical powers, gathers his allies, and incites rebellion among Onja’s human subjects.

Great wealth and power will reward the kings, warriors, and spies that align themselves with the rys pretender, but defeat could mean worse than death. Onja can imprison souls and her genocidal rage is legendary. Everything is at risk for Shan’s union of renegades.

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The Bloodbaths is the first book of Steve Libbey's new Aqua Pura Trilogy, a sword and sandal fantasy featuring a plumber on an epic quest to win back his beloved. Mercedes Lackey says: "Steve Libbey gives the 'sword-and-sandal' epic a kick in the tunic and propels it into the gestalt of the 21st century, with an everyman hero whose brains triumph over brawn."

Crixus Oraan is a water artesan, an engineer who builds aqueducts and piping for bathhouses and mansions in the empire of Rond (which bears a resemblance to our own Roman Empire). His guild has entrusted him with a large sum of gold to establish a branch in the up-and-coming coastal town of Restia. In a misguided effort to win enough gold to buy a lavish house for his new fiancé Kharrina, he loses the guild's gold in a card game.

A shady sea captain present at the game—and possibly responsible for fleecing him—offers to sneak him...[more]

A fat boy with the blues. A skinny girl who runs marathons. And a con man on the lam. If you liked Clear Heart, or if you liked Boone Barnaby, you’ll like this one, too. The themes are a bit more grown up than Boone Barnaby, but it’s still family-friendly for reading. For any age it’s my brand of writing: humane, down to earth, good-natured, sometimes funny and sometimes sad.

Babcock plays electric guitar. He’s writing songs - and trying to figure out the true meaning of rock and roll - but he keeps coming up with the blues. Babcock is trying to start a friendship with a girl, Kirsten, who is as different as can be: Kirsten is skinny; she hates insects. And she's white. Babcock is fat; he speaks...[more]

Shepherd Autrey is a Quaker, a physician, and a man deeply disturbed by the madness around him as the War Between the tates bears down on his America in 1863. Dared by a friend to take an active role, Shep volunteers to provide humanitarian aid to the victims of Sherman’s scorched earth campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. There he runs foul of a Confederate recruiting drive and fi nds himself hanged by the neck from a tree. Awakening in a strange land which can’t possibly be earth, Shep is plunged into battle and saves the life of an alien warrior prince. Hailed by bloodthirsty killers as the bravest man alive, Shep combats his conscience, his fl agging faith, and an ever-growing number of people who want him dead.

Golden Age of the Solar Clipper - Trader Tales: Book 4


When he graduates from the Academy at Port Newmar, Ishmael Horatio Wang reports for duty in his first assignment as an officer. When he gets to his new ship, he finds things are not exactly the way he'd learned in school. The coffee tastes like used engine oil, the ship has no heart, and the nearest decent tailor is two quadrants away. What's a new Third Mate to do? Will he be able to trust Billy?

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Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads.

But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.

Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down.

Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead.


Produced by DarkFire Productions and narrated by Starla Huchton.

The FIRST of Four parts in the HeavenField story.

“...The world has changed forever; we have opened the door to something which we don’t understand, and that door cannot be closed. I only hope we can change with the world.” The man had a fevered stare, and Thomas found himself mesmerised by his words, obscure as they were.
The man suddenly stiffened, as if hearing a distant noise, then leaned close to Thomas once more.
“They’re coming,” he whispered.

When Grace Palmer and her team of research scientists discover a way into a mysterious world they name the HeavenField, they trigger a...[more]