Issola

Okay, so maybe I've been living in the woods too long, where you can't even get a decent cup of klava first thing in the morning. So who should turn up but Lady Teldra, the courtly servant of my old friend the Dragonlord Morrolan? Teldra wants my help, because Morrolan and Aliera have disappeared, and according to Sethra Lavode, it looks like they may be in the hands of the Jenoine. Do I want to mess with them? The guys who made this place? And I thought I had problems before... Oh well, what's a little cosmic battle with beings who control time and space? It's better than hunkering down in the woods without even so much as a drinkable cup of klava. In Issola, Stephen Brust delivers another swashbuckling fantasy adventure for Vlad Taltos. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Vlad Taltos, a sometime assassin currently on the run from his former associates, is tracked down in his jungle hideout by a most improbable party: Lady Teldra, who has come to enlist Vlad's help.

Jo Walton is an award-winning author of, inveterate reader of, and chronic re-reader of science fiction and fantasy books. What Makes This Book So Great? is a selection of the best of her musings about her prodigious reading habit. Jo Walton's many subjects range from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. Among them, the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by 'mainstream'; the under-appreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers.

Long ago, one of the gods fashioned an artifact called the silver tiassa. To Devera the Wanderer, it's a pretty toy to play with. To Vlad Taltos, it's a handy prop for a con he's running. To the Empire, it's a tool to be used against their greatest enemies—the Jenoine. To the Jhereg, it's a trap to kill Vlad. The silver tiassa, however, had its own agenda. Steven Brust's Tiassa tells a story that threads its way through more than ten years of the remarkable life of Vlad Taltos—and, to the delight of longtime fans, brings him together with Khaavren, from The Phoenix Guards and its sequels. Khaavren may be Vlad's best friend—or his most terrible enemy. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The first critical edition with facing-page English translation of the fourteenth-century Il Tristano Riccardiano, MS 1729. The French prose Roman de Tristan circulated widely in medieval Italy, attested numerous translations and adaptations in different dialects, two of which are preserved in Florence's Biblioteca Riccardiana and reveal important links amongst the extant Italian Tristans. The longer version, Tristano Riccardiano, MS 2543, has been edited, re-edited and translated into English. However, its shorter sister, found in the fourteenth-century MS Ricc. 1729, has suffered almost complete critical neglect, perhaps due to its amateur production traits, complex amalgam of regional dialects and idiosyncratic script. While its contents (Tristan's birth, early adventures, love affair with Yseut) largely correspond to MS 2543, there are noteworthy variants. For example, the famous three-day tournament, conserved in the Tristano Panciatichiano and constituting the bulk of the Tristano Corsiniano, does not appear. MS 1729 also preserves the final episodes (Tristan's fatal wounding, the lovers' deaths, lamentation at Camelot), which are not found in MS 2543. This volume offers the first critical edition of this Italian exemplar, permitting further linguistic analysis; it is accompanied by a facing-page English translation, opening the text to a wider audience. The full introduction considers the manuscript itself, looking at such matters as its dating, illustrations, watermarks and contents, and comparing it with other redactions, whilst notes, a bibliography and index of proper names complete the apparatus.

In which Vlad Taltos confronts the Left Hand of the Jhereg...and discovers the game has more players than he thought Vlad Taltos, short-statured, short-lived human in an Empire of tall, long-lived Dragaerans, has always had to keep his wits about him. Long ago, he made a place for himself as a captain of the Jhereg, the noble house that runs the rackets in the great imperial city of Adrilankha. But love, revolution, betrayal, and revenge ensued, and for years now Vlad has been a man on the run, struggling to stay a step ahead of the Jhereg who would kill him without hesitation. Now Vlad's back in Adrilankha. The rackets he used to run are now under the control of the mysterious "Left Hand of the Jhereg"—a secretive cabal of women who report to no man. His ex-wife needs his help. His old enemies aren't sure whether they want to kill him, or talk to him and then kill him. A goddess may be playing tricks with his memory. And the Great Weapon he's carrying seems to have plans of its own... Picking up directly where Issola left off, Dzur gives us Vlad Taltos at his best—swashbuckling storytelling with a wry and gritty edge. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"In Dragon, Vlad finds himself in the last place any self-respecting assassin wants to be: the army. Worse, he's in the middle of an apocalyptic battle between two sorcerous armies, and everyone expects him to perform a role that they won't explain."