Lincoln Fox And The Bad Dog

Lincoln Baker can't do magic, but he's reverse engineered the principles behind it. When he and his friends make a few bad decisions, they end up on the hit list of some very bad, very magical people. Now, along with the tech he's built and a mysterious entity that seems to be following him, Lincoln needs to stay alive long enough to figure out what's going on, take the fight to the people who are really in charge, and maybe enforce some order on the encroaching chaos. Computer systems based on magic, soul-eating creatures from beyond our plane of existence, deadly ancient artifacts and a metric, um, crap-ton of strangeness come together in this urban fantasy set in the Pittsburgh Neutral Territory. Warnings: language, violence and sexual situations

I’m a nerd. A nerd for magic. But now I'm buff :P When the Praecants have decided that you're working for them or else, you don't have a lot of choice in the matter. It could be worse. I got beaten into way better shape, learned a lot about tracking and killing magical creatures, and finally made a genuine friend who shares my interest in magical technology. Of course, Babd is still running around spreading her own kind of adorable chaos. All of this stuff -- the other worlds, the proximity to magic, maybe even Babd herself -- is starting to get inside my head. And what's with all the magical creatures that have started popping up? I’m still a nerd at heart, but things are changing... Follow Lincoln, Babd, Fox, Gwen, and some new friends as they try to secure a summit of the world's most powerful Praecants, in Pittsburgh of course. None of them trust each other, so holding it in a place where magic barely works is the only way to get them all in the same room. Will Lincoln stop being so nerdy? Will Fox find a sentient holster and settle down? Will Babd ever eat her kibble?! Download it now! Warnings: language and violence Q&A with the Author LFBD had a strong set of themes. What are the themes for "A Walk In The Park..."? LFBD's over-riding theme was the cycle of "behavior drives biology drives behavior," and I crafted a lot of the arcs to specifically show how that cycle can lead one in different directions, both good and bad. "Walk" takes on something a little bit -- but not entirely -- different, which is what happens when our own psychology and minds collide with and are influenced by those of others around us. And what if those around us aren't merely humans, but magic users, creatures from different planes of existence, and even demigods? I guess the full theme is "How we defend the Self against the influences the Other, and maybe we don't always want to." It's not nearly as succinct as LFBD, but it worked. This book has a lot more magical creatures. How did you come up with them? Well, there's a part of the book where Gwen is telling Lincoln that he's become a "[monster] hunter," and she uses a very specific word instead of "monster". I thought it would be fun to take creatures from that other well known mythology as the descriptive basis for the morphs in "Walk." They aren't actually that, but it was certainly the inspiration. You'll have to get to that part of the book to see exactly what I'm talking about. Some parts of "Walk" touch on the Holocaust. That's a sensitive topic. How did you handle it? From the time I had the idea of how that was going to weave into the story, I wanted to make sure that it did so in a respectful manner. I specifically included some friends from the Jewish community with family ties to that awful point in history in the beta reading group, and asked for their frank feedback. I was prepared to cut or alter the manuscript if it hit them with any level of offense. I'm glad to say that it did not, so that part of the story stayed intact. How do you keep the longer-running action sequences clear and coherent? For the big "set pieces" I usually have a vague idea of how they should flow. To get the details, I drag out action figures and stuffed animals, and then "play" the sequence out physically. Things occur to you when you do it that way that I find hard to hold entirely in my head. It's like "Oh, this person has no idea that other person is there -- how would that change their reaction?" I feel like it lends physical grounding to the scenes, because they are physically grounded. It's solid in my head, and that comes through in the prose. I would still like to buy a Babd. Babd is still not for sale.

A fun short story for your Spoopy Season enjoyment!

The figure of the dog is a paradox. As in so many cultures, past and present, the dog in ancient Greece was seen as the animal closest to humans, even as it elicited from them the most negative representations. Still a loaded term today, the word bitch not only signified shamelessness and a lack of self-control but was also exclusively figured as female. Woman and dogs in the Greek imagination were intimately intertwined, and in this careful, engaging analysis, Cristiana Franco explores the ancients' complex relationship with both. By analyzing the relationship between humans and dogs as depicted in a vast array of myths, proverbs, spontaneous metaphors, and comic jokes, Franco in particular shows how the symbolic overlap between dog and woman provided the conceptual tools to maintain feminine subordination. Intended for general readers as well as scholars, Shameless extends the boundaries of classics and anthropology, forming a model of the sensitive work that can be done to illuminate how deeply animals are imbricated in human history. The English translation has been revised and expanded from the original Italian edition, and it includes a new methodological appendix by the author that points the way toward future work in the emerging field of human-animal studies.

Focusing upon the Mission Métis of Lac la Biche, the author examines the use of French, Cree, and English as a means of garnering insight into the mechanisms of western Canadian Métis cultural and linguistic variation. He concludes that the relationship of the people to their environment is inextricably bound to an understanding of their language and culture and that the delineation of cultural boundaries is, therefore, a highly complex matter.

This fully revised fourth edition outlines seven strands of practice for three to six-year old children, designed to develop the skills, concepts and knowledge underpinning literacy in the early years. Accompanying each strand are clear explanations of the research and reasoning on which they are based. Practical advice on helping children transfer their learning into their own child-initiated activities, to build a genuine and solid foundation for literacy, is integral to the book.