Beginning with the first writings to assimilate and rework Western literary traditions, through the flourishing of the short story genre in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Taisho era, to the new breed of writers produced under the constraints of literary censorship, and the current writings reflecting the pitfalls and paradoxes of modern life, this anthology offers a stimulating survey of the development of the Japanese short story.Various indigenous traditions, in addition to those drawn from the West, recur throughout the stories: stories of the self, of the Water Trade (Tokyo's nightlife of geishas and prostitutes), of social comment, love and obsession, legends and fairytales. This collection includes the work of two Nobel prize-winners: Kawabata and Oe, the talented women writers Hirabayashi, Euchi, Okamoto, and Hayashi, together with the acclaimed Tanizaki, Mishima, and Murakami.The introduction by Theodore Goossen gives insight into these exotic and enigmatic, sometimes disturbing stories, derived from the lyrical roots of Japanese literature with its distinctive stress on atmosphere and beauty.

    In the case of Thomas Ligotti, the response has invariably been to the effect that he never has any idea what he is going to produce in the future, if anything. Since he began publishing in the early 1980s, this answer has perhaps seemed somewhat disingenuous. Some may have thought that it was an affectation or diversionary tactic. After all, books under his name have since appeared on a somewhat regular, if not exactly prolific, schedule. But as the years went by, it became more and more apparent that Ligotti’s output was at best haphazard. A chapbook here, a slim or full-fledged story collection there, a book of poetry or unclassifiable prose out of nowhere, and then at some point a quasi-academic statement of his philosophical ideas and attitudes. Such a scattered crop of writings is not unheard-of, but for one who toils in the genre of horror, whose practitioners are commonly hard at work on a daily basis, it does seem as paltry as it is directionless. Accordingly, the present volume is another unexpected contribution to Ligotti’s desultory offerings. And no one could be as surprised by its appearance as he was. As anyone knows who has followed his interviews and obsessions as they appear in his fiction, Ligotti must take his literary cues from a lifetime of, let us say, whimsical pathologies. Other authors may suffer writer’s block. In the present case, the reason may be dubbed “existence block,” one that persisted for some ten years. This is less than an ideal development for anyone, but for a word-monger it can spell the end. And yet the end did not arrive. During 2012, it seemed that it might in the form of a sudden collapse and subsequent hospitalization prefigured—one might speculate—by the abdominal crisis suffered by the character Grossvogel in Ligotti’s story “The Shadow, The Darkness.” Yet like the agony endured by the aforementioned figure, the one in question led only to a revitalization of creativity. This revitalization may not be exactly spectacular, but all the same here it is. Throughout Ligotti’s “career” as a horror writer, many of his stories have evolved from physical or emotional crises. And so it was with the surgical trauma that led to the stories in The Spectral Link, an event that is marginally mentioned in the first of these stories, “Metaphysica Morum.” In the second story, “The Small People,” Ligotti returns, although not precisely in the usual fashion, to his fixation with uncanny representations of the so-called human being. Having nearly ceased to exist as he lay on the surgeon’s table, the imposing strangeness of the nature and vicissitudes of this life form once again arose in his imagination. So what project and publications are forthcoming from Thomas Ligotti? As ever, not even he knows.

    These tales cover the range of Greek mythology, including the creation story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the heroic adventures of Perseus, the fall of Icarus, Cupid and Psyche's tale of love, and the tragic history of Oedipus and Thebes. Men and Gods is an essential and delightful book with which to discover some of the key stories of world literature.

    The mutants' creator bequeathed them the secret of the drive, and with it a monopoly on space travel, which allows them to dominate normal humans. During his escape, Paddy discovers that the knowledge of how to manufacture the engines has been stored in five gold rings, one for each mutant race. The rings are hidden in five secret locations for safekeeping. With the help of a beautiful human secret agent, Fay Bursill, Paddy searches the home planets of each of the mutant species, in the hope that Earthfolk will be able to resume their rightful place in space.

    There are mighty warriors, samurai, in Naipon as in Japan, and added to their skill with the two swords of a samurai they must have skill in magic.One of the greatest of them all is the woman called Tomoe Gozen. She is young and rash, perhaps not as wise as she should be ... indeed, as she will be ... but valiant in war, loyal in friendship, and steadfast in honor as becomes a samurai.This is the story of how sorcery caused Tomoe Gozen to break with her bushido, and of what she did to regain her honor.And even Amaterasu the Shining Goddess was unsure how this came to be... whether in Naipon the hopes and fears of Japan coalesced into a different and stranger reality, or if in Japan the glory and terror of Naipon echoed through the dreams of Japanese.

    He's established a utopian community on an estate outside the town of Jeckyll's Glen, where the faithful wait, work, and pray for the world to end.Vernelia, Amy, and Catherine Charter are the three young townswomen whose father falls under the Reverend Fitcher’s hypnotic sway. In their old house, where ghostly voices whisper from the walls, the girls are ruled by their stepmother, who is ruled in turn by the fiery preacher. Determined to spend Eternity as a married man, Fitcher casts his eye on Vernelia, and before much longer the two are wed. But living on the man's estate, separated from her family, Vern soon learns the extent of her husband’s dark side. It's rumored that he's been married before, though what became of those wives she does not know. Perhaps the secret lies in the locked room at the very top of the house—the sin-gle room that the Reverend Fitcher has forbidden to her.Inspired by the classic fairy tales "Bluebeard" and "The Fitcher Bird," this dark fantasy is set in New York State’s “Burned-Over District,” at its time of historic religious ferment. All three Charter sisters will play their part in the story of Fitcher's Utopia: a story of faith gone wrong, and evil coun-tered by one brave, true soul.

    You can think of the Python programming language as your tool to solve data problems that are beyond the capability of a spreadsheet.Python is an easy to use and easy to learn programming language that is freely available on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux computers. So once you learn Python you can use it for the rest of your career without needing to purchase any software.This book uses the Python 3 language. The earlier Python 2 version of this book is titled "Python for Informatics: Exploring Information".

    Leering from the arches and peaks of ancient cathedrals. Spreading their wings across hallowed doorways. Even decorating our homes in stony, silent elegance. Are they angels or demons? Sacred or profane? In the Shadow of the Gargoyle features fifteen original stories and two classic tales of the legendary gargoyle. The contributors range from bestselling masters to the hottest newcomers--award-winners, artists, musicians, and, yes, gargoyle collectors. Each of them experts at drawing blood from a stone... Contributors include:* Harlan Ellison * Neil Gaiman * Katherine Kurtz * Brian Lumley * Jane Yolen * Charles L. Grant * John Mason Skipp * Nancy Holder * Alan Rodgers * Lucy Taylor * Jo Clayton * Don D'Ammassa * Christa Faust * Robert J. Harris * Brian Hodge * Caitlin R. Kiernan * Marc Levinthal * Melanie Tem * Wendy Webb

    The ancient dragon kings have deemed that the hour is right to regain their dominance over Earth—and only Thongor and his companions, aided by the science and magic of the wizard Sharajsha, stand between mankind and the night of doom!

    It provides the latest available information, while retaining its blend of theory and practice within a straightforward presentation.

    First sailing to the Antarctic in the 1899 Belgian expedition, Amundsen never lost his passion for exploring, following this trip with a journey around the top of Canada to prove the existence of the North West Passage between 1903 and 1906. Setting sail for the Antarctic a full month or so after Scott, Amundsen still managed to beat the British team to the Pole by a full month. Making a lot of money out of shipping during the First World War, Amundsen followed his epic journeys by being only the second man to travel around d the to of Siberia from Atlantic to Pacific oceans, then flying over the North Pole by airship. He died in 1928.

    Nothing, no one could fix me. Until you came into my life again. I wish I had gone with you that day instead of him. Because, now I can't imagine how I spent the previous years of my life without you by my side. You are my savior. You showed me that its okay to be broken and you showed me that I wasn't alone. You were with me. i love you for that. But I hate that I love you. I was never good with love. I'm scared that one day I'll wake up without you by my side. One day you will realize that you are better off without me and I don't want that day to come. Not now, not ever. I love you too much to let you go. I finally have a place in this world and that is next to you. You once said, 'Our mistakes compliment each other.' Truer words than these were never said before. We are both broken and incomplete but together, we're whole and we're fixed. We might be too bad for the others, but we are good for each other. They say all good things come to an end, but I'm bad and so are you. Together, we are horrible. But that just means that we're inevitable. You are mine and I promise to forever be yours."

    Rezzori surrounds Tildy with a host of fantastic characters, engaging us in a kaleidoscopic experience of a city where nothing is as it appears—a city of discordant voices, of wild ugliness, and heartbreaking disappointment, in which, however, “laughter was everywhere, part of the air we breathed, a crackling tension in the atmosphere, always ready to erupt in showers of sparks or discharge itself in thunderous peals."

    Why? In John McMurry's words: "I have been asked hundreds of times over the past ten years why I wrote this book. I wrote this book because I love writing. I get great pleasure and satisfaction from taking a complicated subject, turning it around until I see it clearly from a new angle, and then explaining it in simple words. I write to explain chemistry to students the way I wish it had been explained to me years ago." Through his lucid writing and ability to show the beauty and logic of organic chemistry, McMurry makes learning enjoyable for students. The highest compliment that can be given to a chemistry book applies to McMurry: It works! Mainstream in level, McMurry's coverage is concise yet doesn't omit any key topics. McMurry blends the traditional functional-group approach with a mechanistic approach. The primary approach, by functional group, begins with the simple and progresses to the more complex so that readers who are not yet versed in the subtleties of mechanisms are first exposed to the "what" of chemistry before beginning to grapple with the "why." Within this primary organization, the author places a heavy emphasis on explaining the fundamental mechanistic similarities. In this edition, McMurry retains his standard-setting features (including his innovative vertical format for explaining reaction mechanisms) while revising his text line-by-line to include hundreds of small but important improvements. For example, the Sixth Edition includes new examples, additional steps in existing examples, new problems, new phrases to clarify the exposition, and a vibrant new art program. In addition, new icons in the text lead students to a variety of new online resources. McMurry's text is in use at hundreds of colleges and universities around the world, from North America, to the United Kingdom and the Pacific Rim.

    The new edition continues to reflect the conversational style and clarity that has made this a leader in the market. It explores the key concepts and principles while using the PepsiCo financial statement to clearly show how the information is applied in the real world. The book has also been updated with the latest data as to reflect today's business environment.