“Reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin’s paradigm-shattering The Left Hand of Darkness, this piercingly moving story belongs in most fantasy collections.”—Library Journal There are secrets beneath her skin. Sorykah Minuit is a scholar, an engineer, and the sole woman aboard an ice-drilling submarine in the frozen land of the Sigue. What no one knows is that she is also a Trader: one who can switch genders suddenly, a rare corporeal deviance universally met with fascination and superstition and all too often punished by harassment or death. Sorykah’s infant twins, Leander and Ayeda, have inherited their mother’s Trader genes. When a wealthy, reclusive madman known as the Collector abducts the babies to use in his dreadful experiments, Sorykah and her male alter-ego, Soryk, must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest to get them back. Complicating the dangerous journey is the fact that Sorykah and Soryk do not share memories: Each disorienting transformation is like awakening with a jolt from a deep and dreamless sleep. The world through which the alternating lives of Sorykah and Soryk travel is both familiar and surreal. Environmental degradation and genetic mutation run amok; humans have been distorted into animals and animal bodies cloak a wild humanity. But it is also a world of unexpected beauty and wonder, where kindness and love endure amid the ruins. Alluring, intense, and gorgeously rendered, Ice Song is a remarkable debut by a fiercely original new writer. Praise for Ice Song “A stunning debut fantasy about love and the ties of blood.”—Armchair Interviews “Kasai’s debut is a boldly adventurous tale depicting a richly detailed world. The aspect of Traders shifting gender brings Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness to mind, while the activities on Chen’s island are more reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Meredith Gentry novels.”—Booklist “Ice Song is definitely a compelling read, largely due to the fact that Sorykah is such a well-developed character. She has an equally intense and complex sense of love and resentment for her children. And the fact that she exists between the world of humans and the mutants is also a source of conflict for her character . . . Ice Song is a near-perfect combination of fantasy, great storytelling and social commentary.”—Philadelphia Gay News

In this collection of essays, Stephen Watson turns to the writers who have endured for him; to the places that have formed him; and always to the nature of writing and literature itself. The range is remarkable: he moves from Leonard Cohen to Dante, from Albert Camus to Allen Ginsberg, not excepting Czeslaw Milosz and T.S. Eliot. Closer to home, there are essays on Robben Island and the meaning of the Cedarberg. More personally, movingly, a final section of the book returns to the site of a love affair, the birth of a daughter, and what it is that defines his native city, Cape Town. Whatever Watson touches on, he gives substance to the line from Pasternak that provides this collection with its title: 'the music in the ice'. In Watson's hands the essay form itself becomes an instance of that music. Here is a book that demonstrates again why Justin Cartwright has called Stephen Watson 'South Africa's foremost essayist'.

The return to Lexicon begins when thirteen-year-old cousins Ivan and Daphne find their Aunt Adelaide deathly ill. Leaving their aunt to rest, Ivan and Daphne accidentally let their younger cousin, Lila, in on their secret world of Lexicon. Ivan and Daphne must track Lila, who disappears, through the frozen landscape to the Land of Winter where social status and freedom are determined by how well one sings. Fortunately for Lila, her musical talent lands her in the most favorable place. Separated by class now, the cousins face cold, hunger, poverty, illness, injustice, and the malicious plotting of a power-hungry blind man. Slave, servant, and fine lady, the three cousins must escape their own imprisonment before they reunite, provoke a revolution, and restore spring to the Land of Winter.

Ice Cube is one of the most influential figures in the history of rap and hip-hop. Best known for the vitriol of his angry black man recordings of the late 1980s and mid 1990s, Ice Cube epitomizes the genre often referred to as gangsta rap. Much of his music from these years is focused on the disturbing realities of life in black urban ghettos, and as a result it chronicles such complex and controversial issues as racial stereotypes, street gangs, racial profiling, black on black crime, teen pregnancy, absentee fathers, and male-female relationships. His recordings with NWA are noteworthy for their sardonic humor in discussing dire issues. The group's landmark CD Straight Outta Compton (1988) is a palette of urban woes recounted in aggressive and hostile street vernacular, while Ice Cube's recordings of the 1990s now represent paradigms of the gangsta style. The first three chapters of The Words and Music of Ice Cube explore Ice Cube's recordings between 1988 and 1996 and situate Ice Cube in the context of other rappers of this period-most notably Public Enemy, Ice-T, Tupac, Biggie, and Snoop Dogg-whose music also chronicled explosive issues in urban ghettos. The fourth chapter considers Ice Cube's career in film, beginning with a discussion of his performance in Boyz n the Hood and ending with a look at his most recent films, Barber Shop, Barber Shop II, Are We There Yet? And Are We Done Yet? The fifth and final chapter looks back over all of Ice Cube's work to date and considers his impact and his legacy in music and popular culture at large. .

Canada has produced many successful proponents of the genre known as heavy metal. Drawing on interviews with the original artists of the 1980s, this book provides a new perspective on the dreams of musicians shooting for an American ideal of success ... and ultimately discovering a uniquely Canadian voice in the process.

It all starts with the release of fidgety, suspicious Percy Talbott from state prison after serving a five-year sentence. We don't know why, only that she's released and on her way to Gilead and its "colors of paradise." But when she arrives it is February and bitter cold, and the only one around to meet her is restless Sheriff Joe Turner, who takes her to the Spitfire Grill to help the aging Hannah Ferguson run the diner. All is gray, dismal and listless around them, and the characters are in the "winter of their lives" emotionally and spiritually.

The perfect gift for fans of HBO's Game of Thrones—a boxed set featuring the first four novels! George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series has become, in many ways, the gold standard for modern epic fantasy. Martin—dubbed the "American Tolkien" by Time magazine—has created a world that is as rich and vital as any piece of historical fiction, set in an age of knights and chivalry and filled with a plethora of fascinating, multidimensional characters that you love, hate to love, or love to hate as they struggle for control of a divided kingdom. This bundle includes the following novels: A GAME OF THRONES A CLASH OF KINGS A STORM OF SWORDS A FEAST FOR CROWS