Hero S Homecoming

Six months ago, being snowed in at Christmas with the amazing woman he met on R & R at Fort Riley would have been a dream come true, yet now, as a blizzard swirls outside Beth Tate's house, Captain Chris Walker knows he shouldn't be there. Blinded in combat and emotionally scarred, he never wanted Beth to know the man he's become—but stranded by the storm, he had no one else to call. Hurt and bewildered when Chris abruptly ended his faithful contact from Afghanistan, Beth tried to put him and their whirlwind romance out of her mind and prepared for a quiet holiday alone—until the phone rang. Now that he's here, she's more confused than ever, torn between love for the man she once knew and anger at the one who broke her heart. A life with Beth was everything Chris wanted, but the wounds of battle are nothing compared to the agony of heartbreak. It will take more than mistletoe, but perhaps this holiday season Chris will find his way home. 33,000 words

He was a loner, a drifter...and the only man who could save a little girl's life. But to do that J. D. Cade would have to reveal a secret he'd kept for over twenty-five years--the secret that he was still alive. J.D. certainly hadn't planned on staying in Whitehorn. But soon he was renewing old friendships--and forging a tempting new one. Vibrant and tender, Dr. Carey Hall didn't know who J.D. was, but she seemed ready to care for him. What would happen when she discovered J.D. was really Whitehorn's nearly forgotten golden boy--and she'd fallen prey to another Kincaid?

The ancient Greeks’ concept of “the hero” was very different from what we understand by the term today. In 24 installments, based on the Harvard course Nagy has taught and refined since the 1970s, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours explores civilization’s roots in Classical literature—a lineage that continues to challenge and inspire us.

Professor Roger Woodard brings together a group of the world's most authoritative scholars of classical myth to present a thorough treatment of all aspects of Greek mythology. Sixteen original articles guide the reader through all aspects of the ancient mythic tradition and its influence around the world and in later years. The articles examine the forms and uses of myth in Greek oral and written literature, from the epic poetry of 8th century BC to the mythographic catalogues of the early centuries AD. They examine the relationship between myth, art, religion and politics among the ancient Greeks and its reception and influence on later society from the Middle Ages to present day literature, feminism and cinema. This Companion volume's comprehensive coverage makes it ideal reading for students of Greek mythology and for anyone interested in the myths of the ancient Greeks and their impact on western tradition.

A major new interpretation of Vergil's epic poem as a struggle between two incompatible versions of the Homeric hero This compelling book offers an entirely new way of understanding the Aeneid. Many scholars regard Vergil's poem as an attempt to combine Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey into a single epic. Joseph Farrell challenges this view, revealing how the Aeneid stages an epic contest to determine which kind of story it will tell—and what kind of hero Aeneas will be. Farrell shows how this contest is provoked by the transgressive goddess Juno, who challenges Vergil for the soul of his hero and poem. Her goal is to transform the poem into an Iliad of continuous Trojan persecution instead of an Odyssey of successful homecoming. Farrell discusses how ancient critics considered the flexible Odysseus the model of a good leader but censured the hero of the Iliad, the intransigent Achilles, as a bad one. He describes how the battle over which kind of leader Aeneas will prove to be continues throughout the poem, and explores how this struggle reflects in very different ways on the ethical legitimacy of Rome’s emperor, Caesar Augustus. By reframing the Aeneid in this way, Farrell demonstrates how the purpose of the poem is to confront the reader with an urgent decision between incompatible possibilities and provoke uncertainty about whether the poem is a celebration of Augustus or a melancholy reflection on the discontents of a troubled age.

This dynamic collection of essays by international film scholars and classicists addresses the provocative representation of sexuality in the ancient world on screen. A critical reader on approaches used to examine sexuality in classical settings, contributors use case studies from films and television series spanning from the 1920s to the present.

The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the most authoritarian Muslim-majority countries have produced highly imaginative accounts on one of the frontiers of knowledge: astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. This book argues that the Islamic tradition has been generally supportive of conceptions of extra-terrestrial life, and in this engaging account, Jörg Matthias Determann provides a survey of Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu texts and films, to show how scientists and artists in and from Muslim-majority countries have been at the forefront of the exciting search. Determann takes us to little-known dimensions of Muslim culture and religion, such as wildly popular adaptations of Star Wars and mysterious movements centred on UFOs. Repression is shown to have helped science fiction more than hurt it, with censorship encouraging authors to disguise criticism of contemporary politics by setting plots in future times and on distant planets. The book will be insightful for anyone looking to explore the science, culture and politics of the Muslim world and asks what the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would mean for one of the greatest faiths.