Cassidy Ann Mage made a promise. If the masked impostor leader, Dmitri von Calvin, ever returned to complete his secret death campaign against the people of I-Star, she would stand in his way using the magic sword at her side. President Calvin is counting on this as he knows more about the nature of the black sword than she does. As Cassidy comes out of hiding, she realizes more and more that the sword is influencing her actions and guiding her decisions. President Dmitri von Calvin is now more prepared than ever as he has teamed up with a secret society of dark sorcerers and placed them in the highest positions in the government in the guise of counterterrorism. Further, Dmitri has surrounded himself with dragons from Cassidys past, every bit as powerful as she is. Cassidy and her friends are the only hope for a world plunging into war but Cassidy must escape the control of the sword before it is too late. A fast-paced trial by fire, A Wicked Storm is the fantasy novel youve been waiting for.

The great futuristic society of I-Star has long foretold the coming of a female with a gem embedded in her forehead. Known as the Dark Messiah, this woman possesses magical powers that will bring about the destruction of life as they know it. When a young Cassidy awakens inside an enchanted cave, she has no memory of how she came to be in this strange place. She starts to build a life for herself in the modern, utopian world of I-Star. The odd red crystal in the middle of her forehead disturbs her, as no one else in the community of Jennison has such a marking. Cassidy soon catches the attention of a mysterious sorcerer, Dmitri von Calvin, who recognizes her as the Dark Messiah and wishes to harness her power for destructive ends. Cassidy learns of the sorcerer's evil agenda and the prophecy of the Dark Messiah. Rather than fulfill her role as a life destroyer, Cassidy makes a decision to stand and fight against the destruction of her beloved world. An epic fantasy full of larger-than-life characters, Legend of the Dark Messiah speaks to the incredible power of one individual to change the world.

""Cycling the Moon"" is a full color illustrated satirical/funny science fiction book that has cross-over appeal to young adults and adults. It combines the humor of Douglas Adams with the allegorical facets of a C.S. Lewis book. The short novel makes fun of bureaucracy and our materialistic culture through a bunch of aliens. Within his small Southern town, a misfit, creative youth, Marty, whose father always wanted him to be more technical and whose mother always liked his creativity, finds a watch with a character in it that was thrown down to Earth by the Minister of Poetic Justice. The Minister of Poetic Justice, an executioner-like alien from a distant moon with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth-style leathery helmet, has shrunk down a time traveler, Tempus Fugit, and has put him in the watch as punishment for his trying to turn his entire moon into a time travel device. After Marty finds this watch, various adventures and misadventures ensue.

That white Americans continue to insist upon a white Christ in the face of all historical evidence to the contrary and despite the hundreds of shrines to Black Madonnas all over the world, is the crowning demonstration of their white supremacist conviction that all things good and valuable must be white. On the other hand, until black Christians are ready to challenge this lie, they have not freed themselves from their spiritual bondage to the white man nor established in their own minds their right to first-class citizenship in Christ's kingdom on earth.

We have a lot to be positive about in South Africa. With all our problems, it’s easy to feel bleak. But hold those thoughts, because Legends might be just the tonic you need to drive off the gloom. This book tells the stories of a dozen remarkable people – some well known, others largely forgotten – who changed Mzansi for the better. Most South Africans are proud of Nelson Mandela – and rightly so. His life was truly astounding, but he’s by no means the only person who should inspire us. There’s King Moshoeshoe, whose humanity and diplomatic strategies put him head and shoulders above his contemporaries, both European and African. And John Fairbairn, who brought non-racial democracy to the Cape in 1854. Olive Schreiner was a bestselling international author who fought racism, corruption and chauvinism. And Gandhi spent twenty years here inventing a system of protest that would bring an Empire to its knees. Legends also celebrates Eugène Marais’s startling contributions to literature and natural history (despite a lifelong morphine addiction); Sol Plaatje’s wit, intelligence and tenacity in the face of racial zealots; Cissie Gool’s lifetime fighting for justice and exposing bigots; and Sailor Malan’s battles against fascists in the skies of Europe and on the streets of South Africa. Legends also celebrates Eugène Marais’s startling contributions to literature and natural history (despite a lifelong morphine addiction); Sol Plaatje’s wit, intelligence and tenacity in the face of racial zealots; Cissie Gool’s lifetime fighting for justice and exposing bigots; and Sailor Malan’s battles against fascists in the skies of Europe and on the streets of South Africa. And then there’s Miriam Makeba, who began her life in prison and ended it as an international singing sensation; Steve Biko, who shifted the minds of an entire generation; and Thuli Madonsela (the book’s only living legend), who gracefully felled the most powerful man in the land. Engagingly written and meticulously researched, Legends reminds South Africans that we have a helluva lot to be proud of.

Zombies first shuffled across movie screens in 1932 in the low-budget Hollywood film White Zombie and were reimagined as undead flesh-eaters in George A. Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead almost four decades later. Today, zombies are omnipresent in global popular culture, from video games and top-rated cable shows in the United States to comic books and other visual art forms to low-budget films from Cuba and the Philippines. The zombie’s ability to embody a variety of cultural anxieties—ecological disaster, social and economic collapse, political extremism—has ensured its continued relevance and legibility, and has precipitated an unprecedented deluge of international scholarship. Zombie studies manifested across academic disciplines in the humanities but also beyond, spreading into sociology, economics, computer science, mathematics, and even epidemiology. Zombie Theory collects the best interdisciplinary zombie scholarship from around the world. Essays portray the zombie not as a singular cultural figure or myth but show how the undead represent larger issues: the belief in an afterlife, fears of contagion and technology, the effect of capitalism and commodification, racial exclusion and oppression, dehumanization. As presented here, zombies are not simple metaphors; rather, they emerge as a critical mode for theoretical work. With its diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches, Zombie Theory thinks through what the walking undead reveal about our relationships to the world and to each other. Contributors: Fred Botting, Kingston U; Samuel Byrnand, U of Canberra; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington U; Jean Comaroff, Harvard U; John Comaroff, Harvard U; Edward P. Comentale, Indiana U; Anna Mae Duane, U of Connecticut; Karen Embry, Portland Community College; Barry Keith Grant, Brock U; Edward Green, Roosevelt U; Lars Bang Larsen; Travis Linnemann, Eastern Kentucky U; Elizabeth McAlister, Wesleyan U; Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College-SUNY; David McNally, York U; Tayla Nyong’o, Yale U; Simon Orpana, U of Alberta; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State U; Ola Sigurdson, U of Gothenburg; Jon Stratton, U of South Australia; Eugene Thacker, The New School; Sherryl Vint, U of California Riverside; Priscilla Wald, Duke U; Tyler Wall, Eastern Kentucky U; Jen Webb, U of Canberra; Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan U.