Early in the last century a boy, Ivy Flowers, swam across Tar Bay to Hoopers Island to see a girl. In time, Shirley Flowers was born of the union that began with that swim. During the same period, Captain Augustus Elsworth Phillips, Jr. was the captain of the cargo schooner, McCready. In her aft-cabin a boy, Brice Phillips would be conceived. Brice Phillips and Shirley Flowers would marry and have two sons, Steve and Jeffrey. With the family’s Hoopers Island packing plant as a base, the Phillips would create a worldwide empire based upon their relationship with the crab. This is the story of that family. It is also the story of the Empires of the Crab.

In the fifth novel of the seven-book series, the Crab Clan has protected the empire for centuries against the demon armies of the Shadowlands. Now, faced with a showdown against all other clans, the Crab Clan abandons its history and allies itself with the very evil it has so long opposed.

Early in the last century a boy, Ivy Flowers, swam across Tar Bay to Hoopers Island to see a girl. In time, Shirley Flowers was born of the union that began with that swim. During the same period, Captain Augustus Elsworth Phillips, Jr. was the captain of the cargo schooner, McCready. In her aft-cabin a boy, Brice Phillips would be conceived. Brice Phillips and Shirley Flowers would marry and have two sons, Steve and Jeffrey. With the family's Hoopers Island packing plant as a base, the Phillips would create a worldwide empire based upon their relationship with the crab. This is the story of that family. It is also the story of the Empires of the Crab.

This collection introduces the work of Japan’s foremost Marxist writer, Kobayashi Takiji (1903–1933), to an English-speaking audience, providing access to a vibrant, dramatic, politically engaged side of Japanese literature that is seldom seen outside Japan. The volume presents a new translation of Takiji’s fiercely anticapitalist Kani kōsen—a classic that became a runaway bestseller in Japan in 2008, nearly eight decades after its 1929 publication. It also offers the first-ever translations of Yasuko and Life of a Party Member, two outstanding works that unforgettably explore both the costs and fulfillments of revolutionary activism for men and women. The book features a comprehensive introduction by Komori Yōichi, a prominent Takiji scholar and professor of Japanese literature at Tokyo University.