Bloody Skies

A visual history of the US Eighth Air Force in World War II • Hundreds of photos of American aircraft damaged or shot down by the German Luftwaffe • Photos of damaged bomber and fighter planes, plus information on their crews and missions • Perfect complement to the narrative accounts in the Stackpole Military History Series • Ideal reference for military history fans, scholars, and modelers

Vampires. Magic. War. Welcome to the world After the Black. This collected edition includes the first three novels of the Blood Skies saga — BLOOD SKIES, BLACK SCARS and SOULRAZOR — plus the all-new short story CRUCIFIX POINT. Completely re-edited and featuring exciting new cover art by Barry Currey, the BLOOD SKIES OMNIBUS is a must-have for any Dark Fantasy or Military Sci-Fi collection! BLOOD SKIES Southern Claw warlock Eric Cross is a member of Viper Squad, ordered to pursue the renegade witch called Red across a war-torn wasteland before she can betray vital secrets to the Ebon Cities. BLACK SCARS Cross and a band of unlikely allies find themselves on the trail of a recently released evil as it stalks the land in search of its ancient enemy, leaving a trail of madness and destruction in its wake. CRUCIFIX POINT Sent to investigate a series of mysterious vanishings in the wastelands, Cross and his newly-formed mercenary team learn the true fate of those killed during the massacre at Crucifix Point. SOULRAZOR Cross and his team are tasked with halting enemy activity near the remote city-state of Fane, where vampire agents have teamed up with a former Revenger to locate a deadly weapon called Soulrazor.

In a world where nightmares stalk the earth and the few survivors must battle the vampire legions of the Ebon Cities, a team of soldiers races to save mankind when a traitor threatens to destroy the future of humanity. Southern Claw warlock Eric Cross is a member of Viper Squad, and his mission is to pursue the witch called Red across the wastelands. His hunt takes him through haunted forests and blighted tundra, into war-torn cities and to the edge of a twisted necropolis. And before the journey is done Cross will uncover the dark origins of magic, and learn the true meaning of sacrifice...

Little has been written about the contributions of enlisted combat aircrew members during World War II. Also, the importance of crew unity has not been sufficiently emphasized. BLOODY SKIES is the story of a Fifteenth Air Force B-17 crew that often flew the notorious Old Flak Holes & how they learned to respect & trust each other. Training made them cohesive; crisis & tragedy bonded them. They arrived at Amendola, Italy on the day their entire squadron, the Twentieth, had been wiped out by the Luftwaffe. That was their introduction to war. Ten enthusiastic, bright-eyed, cocky boys experience a fatigue & weariness so overpowering it seems to go deep into the bones. It is only their pride in themselves, their crew & their country that keeps them returning to the skies to face another day of that dreaded flak & German fighters. In spite of the horrors of aerial combat, they can still find humor in their lives & compassion for those innocent victims of every war--the children. These ten men, from the economic, cultural & geographic spectrum of 1940s America, represented the best their country could offer.

Dispatched on what was to be an easy assignment of attacking the Privoser Oil Refinery and associated railroad yards at Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, the 20th Squadron of the 2nd Bombardment Group saw the bloodiest day in their history. Not a single one of the 20th Squadron's B-17 bombers returned from the mission. In this book, the 90 airmen on that mission provide a remarkable personal window into the Allies' Combined Bomber Offensive at its height during World War II. Their stories encapsulate how the U.S. Army Air Force built, trained, and employed one of the mightiest war machines ever seen. These stories also illustrate, however, the terrible cost in lives demanded by that same machine.

Physicist Nicki Towns, prompted by messages from an ancient Assyrian manuscript, steals her company's advanced technology and travels to Iraq on a personal mission to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein.