Evil has won. God does nothing. But one hope remains. Scattered throughout Hydor, Sera, Faye, and Auron watch as the world falls. Their families killed, the kingdom destroyed, and their powers scattered, they struggle to find a reason to continue. Iblis’ destruction seems unstoppable. Men and magi can only slow, not stop, him. His will has become indomitable, and Ostus idly sits by. But all is not yet lost. In the deepest recesses of her heart, Sera knows there is an even greater force at play, one that can shift the tide of war. Though scorned by the gods before, she can rely on this force to help her keep her greatest vow: to always use her magic for good, no matter what evil she witnesses. And in doing so, she may yet emerge from the clash of the gods and save their world.

Hannibal vs. Scipio. Grant vs. Lee. Rommel vs. Patton. The greatest battles, commanders, and rivalries of all time come to life in this engrossing guide to the geniuses of military history. “A compelling study of military leadership.”—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom Any meeting of genius may create sparks, but when military geniuses meet, their confrontations play out upon a vast panorama of states or civilizations at war, wielding the full destructive power of a mighty nation’s armies. Gods of War is the first single-volume, in-depth examination of the most celebrated military rivalries of all time, and of the rare, world-changing battles in which these great commanders in history matched themselves against true equals. From Caesar and Pompey deciding the fate of the Roman Republic, to Grant and Lee battling for a year during the American Civil War, to Rommel and Montgomery and Patton meeting in battle after battle as Hitler strove for European domination, these match-ups and their corresponding strategies are among the most memorable in history. A thrilling look into both the generals’ lives and their hardest-fought battles, Gods of War is also a thought-provoking analysis of the qualities that make a strong commander and a deep exploration of the historical context in which the contestants were required to wage war, all told with rousing narrative flair. And in a time when technology has made the potential costs of war even greater, it is a masterful look at how military strategy has evolved and what it will take for leaders to guide their nations to peace in the future.

By examining literary accounts of theomachy (literally "god-fight"), The War With God provides a new perspective on the canonical literary traditions of epic and tragedy, and will be of great interest to scholars in Classics as well as those working on the European epic and tragic traditions. The struggle between human and god has always held a prominent place in classical literature, especially in the closely related genres of epic and tragedy, ranging from the physical confrontation of Achilles with the river-god Scamander in Iliad 21 to Pentheus' more figurative challenge to Dionysus in Euripides' Bacchae. Yet perhaps the most intense engagement with theomachy occurs in Latin literature of the 1st century AD, which included not only the overreachers of Ovid's Metamorphoses and Hannibal's assault on Capitoline Jupiter in Silius Italicus' Punica, but also, in the richest and most extended treatments of the theme, the transgressive figures of Hercules in Seneca's Hercules Furens and Capaneus and Hippomedon in Statius' Thebaid. This book, therefore, explores the presence of theomachy in Roman imperial poetry, focusing on Seneca and Statius, and sets it within a tradition going back through the Augustan age all the way to archaic Greece. The central argument of the book is that theomachy symbolizes various conflicts of authority: the poets' attempts to outdo their literary predecessors, the contentions of rival philosophical views, and the violent assertions of power that characterized both autocratic authority and its opposition. By drawing on evidence from literature, politics, religion, and philosophy, this project reveals the various influences that shaped the intellectual and cultural significance of theomachy: from Stoic and Epicurean debates about the gods to the divinization of the emperor, from poetic competition with Vergil and Homer to tyranny and revolution under the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties.

"A masterfully crafted, brutally compelling Norse-inspired epic." —Anthony Ryan THE GREATEST SAGAS ARE WRITTEN IN BLOOD. A century has passed since the gods fought and drove themselves to extinction. Now only their bones remain, promising great power to those brave enough to seek them out. As whispers of war echo across the land of Vigrid, fate follows in the footsteps of three warriors: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman pursuing battle fame, and a thrall seeking vengeance among the mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn. All three will shape the fate of the world as it once more falls under the shadow of the gods. Set in a brand-new, Norse-inspired world, and packed with myth, magic, and vengeance, The Shadow of the Gods begins an epic new fantasy saga from bestselling author John Gwynne.

A young girl called Tozi stands at the bottom of a pyramid, waiting to be led to the top where her heart will be cut out... Pepillo, a Spanish orphan who serves a sadistic Dominican friar, is aboard the Spanish fleet as it sails towards Mexico... This is the epic story of the clash of two empires, two armies and two gods of war. Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong. This is a war of gods and men. Dark powers that work behind the scenes of history show their hand as the prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl is fulfilled with the arrival of Cortes. The Aztec ruler Moctezuma fights to maintain the demands of the war god Huitzilopochtli for human sacrifice. The Spanish Inquisition is planning an even greater blood-letting. Caught up in the headlong collision between two gods of war are Tozi, Pepillo and the beautiful Malinal whose hatred of Moctezuma runs so deep she will sell out her own land and people to destroy him.

From Islam declaring Jihad against the west, to Arab against Jew, to Catholic against Protestant, one question resonates with the global threat we face today: Why does God inspire the killing of Man? Renowned historian Christopher Catherwood vividly recounts a saga of passion and prejudice that laid the foundation for our own troubled age. Beginning with the death in 632 of Muhammad--as much political leader and general as prophet--Islam commenced its breathtaking spread, which, under Muhammad's successors, eventually conquered an empire larger than Rome's. Even as this vast realm broke apart into Sunni and Shiite factions, the Christian retaliation--ruthlessly and unscrupulously unleashed in 1095 with the First Crusade--sparked a clash between East and West that continues to this day. The pattern would repeat itself again and again: with the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, in which the same Islamic faith that had once been an institution of tolerance in places like Spain became an instrument of expansion; with the wars of the Reformation, when Catholic and Protestant slaughtered each other in the name of the Prince of Peace; and with the endless conflicts of today's Middle East, savagely fought over by three faiths that all worship the same God. Based on exhaustive research and written with an unflinching, unbiased eye toward revealing the often painful truth, Making War in the Name of God unveils humanity's ancient habit of sanctifying bloodshed--and exposes a past that we forget at our peril. Christopher Catherwood teaches history at Cambridge University in England and at the University of Richmond (Virginia). A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is the author of several acclaimed books, including Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq, A God Divided: Understanding the Differences Between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and Whose Side Is God On?

Between the third and sixth centuries, the ancient gods, goddesses, and heroes who had populated the imagination of humankind for a millennium were replaced by a new imagery of Christ and his saints. Thomas Mathews explores the many different, often surprising, artistic images and religious interpretations of Christ during this period. He challenges the accepted theory of the "Emperor Mystique," which, interpreting Christ as king, derives the vocabulary of Christian art from the propagandistic imagery of the Roman emperor. This revised edition contains a new preface by the author and a new chapter on the origin and development of icons in private domestic cult.