In Trapped in Oblivion: Between the Rule of Heaven and Hell, poet Richard D. Kydd Jr. describes exactly that human condition: Souls at once held in the hand and vision of God, while suffering the struggles of the damned and blind. And therein lies Kydd's gift; the ability to realistically portray both the endless human capacity for hope and love amid a life of sorrow and loss. His ability to reconcile this paradox and juxtapose hope and despair in the same poem is what makes his work so compelling. As in his previous work, Kydd shows wide range. In By the Pale Moonlight he describes the moon as simultaneously, "A barren desolate environment of rock...a bureaucratic reason to spend billions...a beacon showing lovers the way to the heart..." and, finally, with tongue in cheek, "...an excuse for a poem's subject matter." Kydd understands illusion well, and the theme runs throughout his work. Oh God Dear God presents a typical happy family, then bluntly and unexpectedly shocks at the end. He speaks often of the mirage of money and power, and of the soul losing its way in pursuit of illusory happiness. Yet in the end he always gives hope. In Star Bright he may say sarcastically, "Lactose intolerant to your Mama's tit," as he depicts the fate of the outcast. But in Rings of Fire he promises, "Life has blessed us one to another in this day of our love." In The Shadow of a Friend Kydd says, "You know my dear Sister. Haven't you looked upon her face? You call her Life. I am her Brother. To you I am Death. Come, be one with me." It is the mark of his maturity as a poet that Kydd is able to help the reader reconcile life with death, and accept our fate as human beings.

Trapped in oblivion, a story set in Africa, is the story of Nnenna and Kunle, two high school students who against all odds and societal norms, fall in love. Their quest to understand and discover their identity through love, leads them to different society vices like teen pregnancy, child molestation, domestic abuse, rape, cyber bullying, suicide, HIV/AIDS and the typical African parental control / judgment. Nnenna, who started her journey of self discovery at the age of 13, is ignorant of all the societal vices stated above, and goes on a quest to understand, by seeking her mum's knowledge. She meets a brick wall in her mum, who represents an average African mum that believes, indulging in sex education with your child brings a negative effect in the child. Nnenna then resorts to getting her information from her peers in school. Her mum's lack of support, increases her desire to be with Kunle, who feels exactly the same way she does, but falls prey to peer pressure that creates a domino effect on everyone associated with himself and Nnenna. The misinformation Nnenna receives on the other hand, and her mum's constant negativity through nagging and threats, pushes her on a journey of self discovery, enlightenment and ultimately lifetime full of regrets' but, a self driven purpose to empower the society on the need to give sex education to the family unit.

A romance fiction set in Africa. What happens when Nnenna and Kunle are thrown into a whole new world, oblivious to, and intrigued by life, living, sex, cyber-bullying, teen pregnancy, peer pressure and HIV/AIDS? Follow the trail as against all odds, they encounter their first intimate relationship. This heartfelt book is Ifeoma Theodore Jnr. E's first novel. She inhibits the mind of adolescents with ease, and tells their story (moving us from the suburbs of Lagos, to a sleepy town, in eastern Nigeria) gracefully and always with uncommon empathy. Trapped in Oblivion raises questions that every adolescent, teen, young adult and adult want appropriate answers to.

Five stranded teenagers must battle for their lives against a group of escaped convicts, and each other, in this shocking survival thriller from the author of Bad Girls and Lost Summer. Courtney Stanton thinks she's on just another ski trip with her friends -- until a horrific car accident strands them all on an isolated Colorado road during a blizzard. Frightened but alive, Courtney and her companions discover an abandoned vehicle nearby, and seek help. But the vehicle turns out to be a prison van, with the inmates missing, and the guard's dead body in the front seat. Soon after, a stumbling figure emerges from the snow, a handcuffed refugee from the van. He says he's been in prison for selling meth, but that he once served in the army. Dare they trust him? He pleads innocence about the guard's murder, warns them about the other fugitives, and promises he will help guide them out of the wilderness. But as the group begins a nightmare trek across the frozen landscape, they start to get the feeling he hasn't told them the entire truth, and someone -- or something -- is secretly watching their every move.

A Master Chief story and original full-length novel set in the Halo universe—based on the New York Times bestselling video game series! 2526. It has been more than a year since humanity first encountered the hostile military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant, and several weeks after the United Nations Space Command’s devastating counterattack of Operation: SILENT STORM was deemed an overwhelming success. The UNSC has put its faith in the hands of the Spartans, led by the legendary Master Chief, John-117: enhanced super-soldiers raised and trained from childhood via a clandestine black ops project to be living weapons. But the Covenant—enraged and fearful of their enemy’s unexpected strategies and prowess—is not taking its recent defeat lightly, and is now fully determined to eradicate humanity from existence, brutally overrunning the ill-fated planets of the Outer Colonies faster than retreats can be ordered. If the UNSC has any chance of stemming the tide of the war, the Master Chief and Blue Team must drop onto an empty, hellish world in order to capture a disabled Covenant frigate filled with valuable technology. It has all the makings of a trap, but the bait is far too tempting to ignore—and this tantalizing prize is being offered by a disgraced and vengeful Covenant fleetmaster, whose sole opportunity for redemption lies in extinguishing humanity’s only hope of survival…

In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness -- a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown (The Soul Is Not a Smithy). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way (The Suffering Channel). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring (Oblivion). Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate.