“Paints a vibrant portrait of post-war Vietnam, illuminating both the dangers and the great beauty of a country in the process of healing itself.” —Booklist You can go home again. When twenty-three-year-old Maia Trieu, a curator’s assistant at the Museum of Folklore & Rocks in Little Saigon, Orange County, is offered a research grant to Vietnam for the summer of 1991, she cannot refuse. The grant’s sponsor has one stipulation: Maia is to contact her great-aunt to pass on plans to overthrow the current government. The expatriates did not anticipate that Maia would become involved with excursions in search of her mother or attract an entourage: an American traveler, a government agent, an Amerasian singer, and a cat. Maia carries out what she believes is her role as a filial daughter to her late father, a former ARVN soldier, by returning to their homeland to continue the fight for an independent Vietnam. Along the way, however, she meets a cast of characters—historical and fictional, living and dead—who propel her on a journey of self-discovery, through which she begins to understand what it means to love. “Delivers a war-ravaged Vietnam rich in history, folklore, the tragedy of families torn asunder, and the beauty of Buddhist wisdom that connects the living and dead . . . an impressive debut.” —Charles Johnson, National Book Award-winning author of Middle Passage “Lam deftly explores the slippery interplay between heritage and identity, history and duty, ultimately proving that each of us is so much more than the places we come from. An important debut.” —Quan Barry, author of We Ride Upon Sticks

A mix of history and inventive remembrances, Summer on Fire recreates six weeks in the intense summer of 1967. Riots, rock and roll, shootings, marches, and bomb plots shake Detroit, reminding us that today's turmoil is a mirror of that era.

"Del's parents have exiled her to Hamburg, Germany, to spend the summer with her much older sister, Cassandra. Separated from her friends, having to cope with a sister who is her polar opposite, Del struggles to figure how to fit - in her foreign surroundings, in her family, in her own life. When Cassandra's landlord asks Del to read the translated diary of Garda, a girl from World War Two, Del meets someone in those pages who might have it tougher than she does."--Summary from author's website

Describes the season of fire that struck Yellowstone in 1988, and examines the complex ecology that returns plant and animal life to a seemingly barren, ash-covered expanse.

Kadar San, a human-Zentadon crossbreed distrusted by both humans and Zentadon, is dispatched with a Deep Reconnaissance Team (DRT) to the Dark Planet of Aldenia. His mission: use his telepathic powers to sniff out a Blob assault base preparing to attack the Galaxia Republic. Dominated by both amazing insect and reptile life forms, and by an evil and mysterious Presence, Aldenia was once a base for the warlike Indowy who used their superior technology to enslave the Zentadon and turn them into super warriors to deploy against humans. The DRT comes under attack not only from savage denizens of the Dark Planet, but also from the mysterious Presence, which turns team member against team member and all against Kadar San. The Presence promises untold wealth and power to any member of the team unscrupulous enough to unleash the contents of a Pandora's box-like remnant of Indowy technology. The box's possessor poses a greater threat than the entire Blob nation, for he is capable of releasing untold horrors upon the galaxy. Kadar San finds himself pitted against a human killer, an expert sniper, in a desperate struggle to save both the Republic and the human female he has come to love. Like all Zentadon, however, Kadar San cannot kill without facing destruction himself in the process, and he has no choice but to kill. In order to save the galaxy, Kadar San must face the truth . . . no one will leave the Dark Planet .

An interplay of the fantastic and philosophical, this edition illuminates the interconnectedness of lives, following four characters and a cat as they journey through an enduring land from their fortuitous first meetings to love's final acts.