A penetrating look at the South African transition and what is wrong with it, by a prominent commentator

In these ten elegantly written short stories, Caitlin Hamilton Summie takes readers from WWII Kansas City to a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood in New York, and from the quiet of rural Minnesota to its pulsing Twin Cities, each time navigating the geographical boundaries that shape our lives as well as the geography of tender hearts, loss, and family bonds. Deeply moving and memorable, To Lay To Rest Our Ghosts examines the importance of family, the defining nature of place, the need for home, and the hope of reconciliation.

Kwasi Kwarteng is the child of parents whose lives were shaped as subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a unique perspective and impeccable academic credentials to a narrative history of the British Empire, one that avoids sweeping judgmental condemnation and instead sees the Empire for what it was: a series of local fiefdoms administered in varying degrees of competence or brutality by a cast of characters as outsized and eccentric as anything conjured by Gilbert and Sullivan. The truth, as Kwarteng reveals, is that there was no such thing as a model for imperial administration; instead, appointees were schooled in quirky, independent-minded individuality. As a result the Empire was the product not of a grand idea but of often chaotic individual improvisation. The idiosyncrasies of viceroys and soldier-diplomats who ran the colonial enterprise continues to impact the world, from Kashmir to Sudan, Baghdad to Hong Kong.

A powerful new fantasy from Hugo award–winning author Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts creates a world both deep and broad, where a sorcerer-prince seeks world domination for the glory of his God. Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin. Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards. These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power. The Eternal Sky Trilogy #1 Range of Ghosts #2 Shattered Pillars #3 Steles of the Sky At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An unsentimental vision of the west, new and old, comes to life in a gritty new collection of stories by the author of Snow, Ashes In Ghosts of Wyoming, Alyson Hagy explores the hardscrabble lives and terrain of America's least-populous state. Beyond the tourist destinations of Jackson Hole and Yellowstone lies a less familiar and wilder frontier defined by the tension wrought by abundance and scarcity. A young runaway with a big secret slips across the state border and steals a collie pup from the Meeker County fairgrounds. A chorus of trainmen details a day spent laying rail across the Wyoming Territory, while contemporary voices describe life in the oil and gas fields near Gillette. A traveling preacher is caught up in a deadly skirmish between cattle rustlers and ranchers on his way from Rawlins to the Indian reservation on the Popo Agie River. Locals and activists clash when a tourist makes an archaeological discovery near Hoodoo Mountain. With spirited, lyrical prose, Hagy expertly weaves together Wyoming's colorful pioneer and speculator history with the notoften- heard voices of petroleum workers, thrill-seeking rock climbers, and those left behind by the latest boom and bust.

"A one-of-a-kind love story...Those who enjoy fables or magical realism will be spellbound by this redemptive story of a search for love, love lost and love (of a sort) found again...exquisite prose." – Publishers Weekly Maddy, an old lady now, arrives home one day to find a peculiar boy waiting for her. Over tea, she tells him the story of her life long ago, when she wished for her days to be as romantic and mysterious as a fairy tale. It was then that she fell painfully in love with a free spirit named Feather, who put aside his wild ways to live with her in a little cottage, conceived with her a child never to be born, and disappeared -- leaving an inconsolable Maddy to follow after him on a fantastical journey across the sea. In a beautifully crafted tale Sonya Hartnett masterfully explores the mysteries of the heart, the sustaining power of memory, and the ultimate consolation that comes to souls who live fully and fearlessly.

Set in a fascinating alternative world in which ghosts are real, the United States never came into existence and Russia is still ruled by the Romanovs, this sequel to Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator continues the adventures of semi-retired spy Dr. Johan Eschbach. His lovely wife Llysette du Boise, a refugee from the burning remains of France and a world-famous novelist, has been invited to provide a command performance for the Russian Imperial household. Johan accompanies her, allowing him to work on the oil concession in Russian Alaska that Columbia so desperately needs and do some spying on the side. Johan's espionage is carried out against the backdrop of the famous white nights of St. Petersburg, the nearly Arctic midsummer when the sun barely dips below the horizon and the sky seems to dissolve in ivory light. But even the oil shortage will fade to insignificance when Johan discovers what new weapons technology the Russians are developing, a threat even more fearsome than the atomic bombs of Austro-Hungary. Working in the tradition of Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson for hard-edged adventure with sophisticated social and political dimensions, Modesitt provides a unique blend of speculation and intrigue that brings the trilogy to a rousing end.