This scar on my arm is the mark of the thin man's sword... These on my chest, the barbarian's gyrspike... This, on my shoulder, the woodman's axe. And this rasping whisper, all that is left of my voice, it is the scar of the Lord Singer's jealousy. They took my voice and my life and left my body for the crows. But not all who die rest in peace. Erik Scott de Bie spins a haunting tale of revenge, honor, love, and hate, all bound within a dark man whose indomitable spirit marks him as on of - The Fighters!

When the compass makers begin dying, causing Crosspoint to fall into chaos, Ryland is ordered by the king to commit a heinous, unforgivable act that places him at odds with his closest friends--Shaye, a majicar, and Fairlie, a metalsmith. Original.

Pursued by members of every species, Meris-the most ancient and legendary of the Jadamiin-is a stowaway on a ship bound for the Port Earth space station. But the pursuit isn't over-and suddenly Port Earth is embroiled in high level intrigue that could annihilate the entire station.

On Prison Planetoid Three, Jaguar Addams and Alex Dzarny use their telepathic gifts to make criminals face the fears that drive their heinous crimes. They’ve been a great team, but now, Alex has left the Planetoid and Jaguar, grief stricken over the death of his son. Jaguar, left on her own, goes off to the home planet with her friend Rachel to watch some Formula One racing in Montreal. There, a lost dog leads her to some of the fastest women on the planet, and when one of them is killed, she’s stuck with the dog and the case. In short order she realizes that the man responsible for the death is the same one who made Alex leave, and he won’t rest until both she and Alex are dead.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing, ICSOC 2008, held in Sydney, Australia, in December 2008. The 32 revised full papers and 20 short papers of the research track presented together with 6 industrial papers, 6 demonstration papers of the industrial track, and the abstracts of 4 keynote lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 184 submissions. The papers present original research in the field of service oriented computing, from theoretical and foundational results to empirical evaluations as well as practical and industrial experiences. Topics addressed include services foundations, business service modelling, integrating systems of systems using services, service engineering, service assembly, service management, SOA runtime, quality of service, service applications (grid, e-science, government, etc.), as well as business and economical aspects of services.