Fans of W A Noble’s Beast-Speaker trilogy will be pleased that the series has been expanded to include a fourth book which takes the story in a truly unexpected direction. The war is long over and the children who were its victims and heroes are growing up quickly. But just when life seems to be granting them a period of peace and normality, they are called upon to find a cure for the mysterious disease eating away at the limbs and life of their city’s leader. Ancient cryptic clues lead them to a far-away and long forgotten mountain enclave where Seeger encounters a very different kind of beast to anything he has seen before. Even with the timely assistance of some dragons, the outcome of this quest remains in the balance until the final pages.

The theme of this Research Companion is 'connectivity and the global reach of electroacoustic music and sonic arts made with technology'. The possible scope of such a companion in the field of electronic music has changed radically over the last 30 years. The definitions of the field itself are now broader - there is no clear boundary between 'electronic music' and 'sound art'. Also, what was previously an apparently simple divide between 'art' and 'popular' practices is now not easy or helpful to make, and there is a rich cluster of streams of practice with many histories, including world music traditions. This leads in turn to a steady undermining of a primarily Euro-American enterprise in the second half of the twentieth century. Telecommunications technology, most importantly the development of the internet in the final years of the century, has made materials, practices and experiences ubiquitous and apparently universally available - though some contributions to this volume reassert the influence and importance of local cultural practice. Research in this field is now increasingly multi-disciplinary. Technological developments are embedded in practices which may be musical, social, individual and collective. The contributors to this companion embrace technological, scientific, aesthetic, historical and social approaches and a host of hybrids – but, most importantly, they try to show how these join up. Thus the intention has been to allow a wide variety of new practices to have voice – unified through ideas of 'reaching out' and 'connecting together' – and in effect showing that there is emerging a different kind of 'global music'.

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New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor–winning Shannon Hale's beloved young adult fantasy series, The Books of Bayern, now together in an e-book bundle! Ani needs to embrace her gift before she can become queen. Enna learns how to control the flames before they consume her. Razo embarks on a special mission to save his kingdom. Rin leaves behind the forest she loves to find herself. Spun from a classic German fairy tale, master storyteller Shannon Hale weaves together a series that is equal parts fantastical and romantic, with unforgettable protagonists to root for at its center. Now all together in a single volume, readers will dive into a world of hidden magic, epic quests, and above all, friendship.