300 years after the Great Shadowking War, the tendrils of an ancient evil are worming in through the cracks of the world. Emperor Magramon is dead, the Khatrimantine Empire mourns and soon his only son, Ilgarion, will ascend the throne. But undercurrents of dread foster unease and mistrust in the imperial capital and disturbing portents hint at unrevealed horrors. Meanwhile, the agents of an old and vicious power plot, and wait... Can Corlek Ondene, former captain of the Iron Guard, work with the likes of Dardan and the Countess Ayoni to stem the tide of evil? Can the Order of Watchers, a band of renegade mages, unlock the terrible onrushing mystery in time? And can their leader, the elderly Calabos, keep his true identity a secret through the terrors yet to come? For when the faces of Night dance with the faces of Day, the Weaver of Fate dances alone, and faces become masks and masks become faces. REVIEWS “SHADOWKINGS, was brutal, cruel and realistic in a way genre usually avoids. SHADOWGOD, his second, is not only lighter, it is better... and makes good use of the world Cobley has created... writing to rival David Gemmell.” -- Jon Courtenay-Grimwood (Guardian)

Moll Pecksniff and her friends are living as outlaws in a secret cave by the sea, desperate to stay hidden from the Shadowmasks. But further along the coast lies the Amulet of Truth, the only thing powerful enough to force the Shadowmasks back and contain their dark magic. So, together with Gryff, the wildcat that’s always by her side, and her best friends Alfie and Sid, Moll must sneak past smugglers, outwit mer creatures and crack secret codes to save the Old Magic. With more at stake than ever before and the dark magic rising fast, can Moll and her friends stop the Shadowmasks before it’s too late? Catapult into this page-turning adventure from the author of Sky Song, perfect for fans of J.K. Rowling, Michelle Harrison and Eva Ibbotson. 'Reminded me of the very best of the Harry Potter books' Piers Torday, author of The Last Wild 'A thrillingly wild adventure - bold, breathless and beautifully told' Jonathan Stroud, author of Lockwood & Co. 'No one does edge-of-seat action like Abi Elphinstone' Emma Carroll, author of Letters from the Lighthouse 'Abi Elphinstone’s books are full of adventure, wit, heart, and, above all, bravery’ Katherine Rundell, author of The Explorer ​ ‘Abi Elphinstone is proving to be a worthy successor to CS Lewis’ The Times 'A gifted storyteller... one of today's greatest children's authors' LoveReading Also by Abi Elphinstone: The Dreamsnatcher The Night Spinner Sky Song Winter Magic (anthology) Everdark (World Book Day) Rumblestar Jungledrop The Crackledawn Dragon Everdark

“Fine adventure” in the complete New York Times–bestselling fantasy trilogy from the legendary million-selling author and creator of Drizzt Do’Urden (Terry Brooks). This “worthy, entertaining addition to fantasy literature” tells the epic saga of a righteous warrior/avenger who battles an evil wizard, dragons, and cyclopean armies to liberate an imperiled kingdom (Starlog). The Sword of Bedwyr: Luthien Bedwyr vows to rescue the beleaguered land of Eriador from the evil reign of Wizard-King Greensparrow. But first Luthien must secure two weapons from a dragon’s lair: a legendary sword and a blood-red cape that renders its wearer invisible. Aided by a halfling thief, an ancient mage, and a beautiful elf slave, Luthien prepares for insurgence as the Crimson Shadow. Luthien’s Gamble: With the rallying support of enslaved humans, defiant peasants, and Fairborn elves, Luthien has forged a path for the freedom of his kingdom as the avenging Crimson Shadow. But when his tyrannical adversary makes a bid for peace by calling back his army of cyclops, Luthien suspects the evil wizard is setting a trap. The Dragon King: Luthien Bedwyr’s alter ego wields a magical sword and wears a scarlet cape that renders him invisible. But his greatest enemy, the evil Wizard-King, has a counterpart of his own: an unstoppable, bloodthirsty colossus of a dragon. Now the ultimate battle for a kingdom will reach its spellbinding endgame in the rousing finale to a trilogy “filled with memorable characters and compelling action” (Terry Brooks).

Cross swords with a blue-skinned pirate—and unravel the mystery of the masked spellcaster—in this second Stone of Tymora adventure Though robbed by a masked spellcaster and left for dead by a demon, twelve-year-old Maimun refuses to give up the magic that rightfully belongs to him. After reuniting with dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden and Captain Deudermont's crew, Maimun sets off on a sea-faring chase that will test both the strength of his spirit and of his friendships. As perilous storms rock Sea Sprite and vicious pirates bombard its decks, a mysterious force gathers in the Moonshaes, determined to bring Deudermont's ship—and Maimun's quest—crashing to an end on its shores. In this second book of the Stone of Tymora trilogy, R.A. Salvatore and his son Geno continue their gripping tale of coming-of-age in a world filled with magic, featuring a cameo of R.A. Salvatore's signature character Drizzt Do'Urden.

Get up to speed with a series of performance-enhancing coding techniques and methods that will help you improve the performance of your Unity applications Key FeaturesOptimize graphically intensive games using the latest features of Unity such as Entity Component System (ECS) and the Burst compilerExplore techniques for solving performance issues with your VR projectsLearn best practices for project organization to save time through an improved workflowBook Description Unity engine comes with a great set of features to help you build high-performance games. This Unity book is your guide to optimizing various aspects of your game development, from game characters and scripts, right through to animations. You’ll explore techniques for writing better game scripts and learn how to optimize a game using Unity technologies such as ECS and the Burst compiler. The book will also help you manage third-party tooling used with the Unity ecosystem. You’ll also focus on the problems in the performance of large games and virtual reality (VR) projects in Unity, gaining insights into detecting performance issues and performing root cause analysis. As you progress, you’ll discover best practices for your Unity C# script code and get to grips with usage patterns. Later, you’ll be able to optimize audio resources and texture files, along with effectively storing and using resource files. You’ll then delve into the Rendering Pipeline and learn how to identify performance problems in the pipeline. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to optimize the memory and processing unit of Unity. Finally, you’ll cover tips and tricks used by Unity professionals to improve the project workflow. By the end of this book, you’ll have developed the skills you need to build interactive games using Unity and its components. What you will learnApply the Unity Profiler to find bottlenecks in your app, and discover how to resolve themDiscover performance problems that are critical for VR projects and learn how to tackle themEnhance shaders in an accessible way, optimizing them with subtle yet effective performance tweaksUse the physics engine to keep scenes as dynamic as possibleOrganize, filter, and compress art assets to maximize performance while maintaining high qualityUse the Mono framework and C# to implement low-level enhancements that maximize memory usage and prevent garbage collectionWho this book is for The book is intended for intermediate Unity game developers who wants to maximize the performance of their game. The book assumes familiarity with C# programming.

Want to identify fiction books that boys in grades three through nine will find irresistible? This guide reveals dozens of worthwhile recommendations in categories ranging from adventure stories and sports novels to horror, humorous, and science fiction books. In Get Those Guys Reading!: Fiction and Series Books that Boys Will Love, authors Kathleen A. Baxter and Marcia A. Kochel provide compelling and current reading suggestions for younger boys—information that educators, librarians, and parents alike are desperate for. Comprising titles that are almost all well-reviewed in at least one major professional journal, or that are such big hits with kids that they've received the "stamp of approval" from the most important reviewers, this book will be invaluable to anyone whose goal is to help boys develop a healthy enthusiasm for reading. It includes chapters on adventure books; animal stories; graphic novels; historical fiction; humorous books; mystery, horror, and suspense titles; science fiction and fantasy; and sports novels. Within each chapter, the selections are further divided into books for younger readers (grades 3–6) and titles for older boys in grades 5–8. Elementary and middle school librarians and teachers, public librarians, Title One teachers, and parents of boys in grades 3–9 will all benefit greatly from having this book at hand.

Are you a mobile developer or a web developer who is looking to create immersive and cool Augmented Reality apps with the latest Google ARCore platform? This book will help you to jump right into developing with ARCore and help you create a step by step AR app with it easily. This book will teach you to implement the core features of ARCore ...