If only the criminals in the colony would just lift their game? After a fitful night spent tossing and turning Slikker provided his mate Eddie with an ear-bashing over breakfast. "Consider the Sketland Mob. Now there was a fair-dinkum reign of terror. Evil bastards, through and through and violent. Mongrels, granted, but sly an' difficult mongrels. Or the Gang o' Five. That was a substantive campaign. Murder, corruption, intimidation, and theft. Even sly grogging. They had the whole of Charters Towers under their thumb. An' again, while they was a bunch of utter bastards, at least they was interestin' bastards, running a farsighted criminal enterprise. What we need is an outbreak of criminal cunning. An epidemic of sly reasoning. A sudden plague of moral turpitude. What North Queensland needs, mate, is some decent bloody crims!" Apparently Slikker had entirely forgotten about the old adage that 'you need to be careful about what you wish for'. Sometimes wishes come true.

The tale is of a bee named Hermia who, while dreaming of adventure, makes an error in the hive. The drones are outraged, and to pacify them, the Queen sends Hermia off on a quest to find the pollen of the mysterious Golden Orchid! On her journey to find this rare flower, Hermia has many strange and interesting adventures. Will she succeed? Finally, when she is close to finding the flower, she uncovers a plot against a hive that has befriended her. Hermia and her friends first have to find a way to defend the hive from destruction!

Amid the hustle and bustle of teeming contemporary Guangzhou (also known as Canton), capital of Guangdong province, an ordinary blue-collar Chinese family of three copes with a life-threatening crisis. As an only child--the product of China's harsh one-child policy--the daughter of the family must care for her mother who is in the late stage of colon cancer. This is the story of that struggle. That child takes the reader back in time to see the marriage of her parents through the eyes of an only child. Growing up alone without the love and support of a sibling, how does the only child bear the filial responsibility so deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture? How does she deal with the dilemma of keeping secret from her mother the terminal nature of her cancer? How does her mother's deathbed account of her life change the daughter's understanding of her parents' generation? The true life story is unique both in its depiction of ordinary life in today's China and in its universal picture of an ordinary family dealing with its past and facing its grim future. This young woman, typical of China's one-child generation, tells a tale that ranges from grim to comic, revealing human frailty as well as faith and extraordinary courage.

When the universe first opened, the heavens and earth became chaotic, and the grandmist was born. According to the legends, there were 3,000 great Daos, 800 side doors, and a total of 3800 grandmist purple clouds. The Creation Jade Plate that Hong Jun obtained from the Zhou Mountain contained 49 strands of purple qi, and when Pan Gu established the heavens, it encountered divine retribution and fell apart. As for Hong Jun, he obtained 7 pieces of the great Dao, and the rest, he did not know that some of the grandmist energy had disappeared into the universe, while others had landed in some famous mountains and rivers. There were also some who stayed in their spirit veins to absorb the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, becoming more and more spiritual! Obtain the good fortune of the world, know the Yin and Yang, change at dawn, and train to become a great Dao. Association Teardrop QQ: 297253427 Favorite friends can add oh, writing books is tiring, when there's nothing to do it's still possible to bullsh * t. Close]

Read “happily ever after” with this magical eBook collection that includes three enchanting, retold fairy tales. Journey to faraway fairy tale lands with atmospheric retellings of three beloved tales. Before Midnight revisits Cinderella’s story in France, Golden puts a new spin on Rapunzel’s romance, and Wild Orchid reimagines the Chinese tale of Mulan. With so much real-life drama in today’s busy world, Once allows readers to escape into whimsical realms where every story has a happily ever after.

“Clear, informative text. It is a superb production, reminding us of the astonishing diversity of these plants.” —Times Literary Supplement One in every seven flowering plants on earth is an orchid. Yet orchids retain an air of exotic mystery—and they remain remarkably misunderstood and underappreciated. The orchid family contains an astonishing array of colors, forms, and smells that captivate growers from all walks of life across the globe. Though undeniably elegant, the popular moth orchid—a grocery store standard—is a bland stand-in when compared with its thousands of more complex and fascinating brethren, such as the Demon Queller, which grows in dark forests where its lovely blooms are believed to chase evil forces away. Or the Fetid Sun-God, an orchid that lures female flies to lay their eggs on its flowers by emitting a scent of rancid cheese. The Book of Orchids revels in the diversity and oddity of these beguiling plants. Six hundred of the world’s most intriguing orchids are displayed, along with life-size photographs that capture botanical detail, as well as information about distribution, peak flowering period, and each species’ unique attributes, both natural and cultural. With over 28,000 known species, the orchid family is the largest and most geographically widespread of the flowering plant families. Including the most up-to-date science and accessibly written by botanists Mark Chase, Maarten Christenhusz, and Tom Mirenda, each entry in The Book of Orchids will entice researchers and orchid enthusiasts alike. “A luscious coffee-table tome.” —Nature