First Spear: Rudimenta preludes Julius Caesar’s Commentaries by focusing on the regular soldiers serving Rome in Spain and Late Republic Italy. Heavily researched on actual historical events, Rudimenta targets fans of historical fiction and romance. 63 BCE: Gaius Crastinus, Titus Pullo, Lucius Vorenus, Publius Bacculus, all of whom eventually follow Caesar into Gaul, are recruited in Baetica, Spain, where four thousand tiros must be trained by too few centurions. Centurion Marcus Petronius has decades of experience in fighting, but Tribune Lucius Cotta has ideas of his own, putting the two at odds during weeks of brutal training where recruit Crastinus emerges as a trusted leader and the first to be promoted. Meanwhile, provincial Quaestor Julius Caesar has military aspirations of his own, but little training or experience. While he and his comrades complete their training, Crastinus must also watch over Caesar. Dispatched to Cadiz, Crastinus thwarts a street robbery, rescuing Cornelius Balbus and his beautiful daughter, with whom he falls hopelessly in love. The Senate suddenly orders VIII Legion to Italy, where a disgruntled Senator Lucius Catiline plots rebellion against the Republic. Can VIII Legion survive crossing a grueling Spanish desert and treacherous winter Mediterranean to preserve a republic they’ve never seen?

Newly recruited Eighth Legion tiros must embrace the life;' a world of brutal training, merciless discipline and of pitiless Centurios. If young Gaius Crastinus and his comrades hope to survive ambush and death securing trade routes of the Province from Lusitanii hoards routinely crossing the border to raid and pillage; they must first endure their apprenticeship, the Rudimentum Militare. When disgruntled Senator Catiline arms a desperate army of ruthless, landless veterans and escaped slaves to terrorize Rome, the Eighth must act. Can these untried and outnumbered Legios survive hundreds of miles of grueling desert, deadly midwinter seas while mutinous internal factions threaten the Legion from within still emerge victorious?

Generate faster, better results—using less capital and fewer resources! Toyota, Alcoa, Pratt & Whitney, and the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power Program operate in vastly different worlds, but they have one thing in common. Each of these organizations generates constant, almost automatic operational self-improvements at rates faster, durations longer, and breadths wider than any of its competitors. Excellence in operational management is the single element separating industry leaders from all others. The High-Velocity Edge is a blueprint for fueling innovation and improvement at both the management and process level in your own company. It’s not magic, it’s not luck. It’s something that that can be taught, cultivated, practiced, and effectively applied to an organization. Spears explains how to: Build a system of “dynamic discovery” that reveals operational problems and weaknesses Attack and solve problems at the time and in the place where they occur, converting weaknesses into strengths Disseminate knowledge gained from solving local problems throughout the company as a whole Create managers invested in the process of continual innovation Apply the lessons of The High-Velocity Edge, and you will enjoy profitability, quality, efficiency, reliability, and agility unmatched by any of your rivals.

Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds. “A beguiling fantasy not to be missed.”—Evelyn Skye, New York Times bestselling author of The Crown’s Game WINNER OF THE IAFA CRAWFORD AWARD • WINNER OF THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE IGNYTE AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, Vulture, Polygon, She Reads, Gizmodo, Kirkus Reviews, The Quill to Live The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace. But that god cannot be contained forever. With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined. Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.

“Spectacular—I've been waiting years for this book to exist.” —Maria Dahvana Headley, author of Beowulf: A New Translation "If Le Guin wrote a Camelot story, I imagine it would feel like Spear: humane, intelligent, and deeply beautiful. It's a new story with very old bones, a strange place that feels like home." —Alix E. Harrow, author of A Spindle Splintered She left all she knew to find who she could be . . . She grows up in the wild wood, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake drift to her on the spring breeze, scented with promise. And when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she decides her future lies at his court. So, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and sets out on her bony gelding for Caer Leon. With her stolen hunting spear and mended armour, she is an unlikely hero, not a chosen one, but one who forges her own bright path. Aflame with determination, she begins a journey of magic and mystery, love, lust and fights to death. On her adventures, she will steal the hearts of beautiful women, fight warriors and sorcerers, and make a place to call home. The legendary author of Hild returns with an unforgettable hero and a queer Arthurian masterpiece for the modern era. Nicola Griffith’s Spear is a spellbinding vision of the Camelot we've longed for, a Camelot that belongs to us all. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Puzzling, disturbing rumors have reached Port Kar. Tarl Cabot, warrior and merchant, pirate and slaver, once of Earth, now of Gor, learns that the Farther Islands, Thera, Daphna, and Chios, west of the Island Ubarates of Cos and Tyros, are being bloodily and systematically ravaged by corsairs supposedly led by himself, by Bosk of Port Kar, as he is commonly known. How could this be? What is one to make of it? Why would so cruel and outrageous a hoax, apparently pointless, be perpetrated? Who would dare to do so? And, in the meantime, shipping is assailed and towns and villages are looted and burned. Tarl Cabot will investigate. He will seek vengeance. His quest will carry him to the taverns and palaces of corrupt, luxurious, decadent Sybaris, on Thera, where life is cheap and collared slave girls plentiful, where ruthless corsairs live by the sword and whip, and into strange and dangerous waters teeming with predatory vessels and monstrous sea life. As the mystery is unraveled, bit by bloody bit, he discovers that its threads may reach far beyond the Farther Islands.