Orion Sweeping

Anne Marie Todkill's debut recalibrates the anxiety of the present. It gives doubt a hearing, finding resilience in fragility and grace in unexpected places. The poems assembled in Orion Sweeping take nothing at face value. What are we to make of a radioactive souvenir, a shape-shifting dog, landscapes made strange by time? The speakers gathered here seek to set the record straight: a mink gives advice; a wolf disputes a rumour; a photographer zooms in on a kill; a military strategist gives lessons in peace. But the sum of the evidence is not bleak. A baby arrives as robustly as a whale; the solidarity of marriage is enacted in surprising ways; father and daughter share a gift for reprieve. Under the penetrating gaze of these poems, beauty and tenderness come quietly into view.

What would you do if the life you live has all been a lie? Sixteen-year-old Orion is about to find out, as his world is thrown into turmoil. When he learns that the stars are his home and that he is destined to rule over a kingdom. Leaving everything he knows behind he risks losing himself and his humanity to save magical races he never knew existed. With the help of his newfound companion, Orion must embark on a journey to dangerous new places and take on an unknown evil that seeks to take over his kingdom.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

No longer content to inhabit one host at a time, the Grendel entity goes viral, in this new phase of Matt Wagner's epic, which spans centuries and culminates in the rise of a new kind of host: the Grendel-Khan! As the Grendel cycle transitions into the far future, artists Tim Sale, John K. Snyder, Jay Geldhof, and Hannibal King join creator Matt Wagner for the most ambitious phase to date. From the broken world of the “Incubation Years” rise parallel figures: the corruption-fighting Orion Assante and a mysterious new Grendel. Each wages his own war against Pope Innocent XLII, in God and the Devil, and the aftermath establishes the most powerful Grendel yet, in Devil’s Reign, with Matt Wagner rewriting the rules of comics storytelling at every turn in this highly charged political drama. With over five hundred pages of visionary writing and breathtaking art, the Grendel Omnibus series takes readers deeper into Wagner’s timeless classic!

Orion The hunter and the Hunted is the story of the evolution of a troubled adolescent into a world class assassin. The dark forces that created the environment for this transformation are in conflict with several other factors that enable Orion to keep some piece of his early life intact. These past beliefs are buried deep in Orion’s mind; they surface at some of the most inopportune times. During these times Orion wishes for some way to extricate himself from his present occupation. To further complicate Orion’s existence, outside influences, both past and future, related to his occupation keep him swirled around in a never ending duet with death.

John O'Ryan is not a god . . . not exactly. He is an eternal warrior destined to combat the Dark Lord through all time for dominion of the Earth. Follow him, servant of a great race, as he battles his enemy down the halls of time, from the caves of our ancestors to the final confrontation under the hammer of nuclear annihilation. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"A dull, wet school holiday which has been so disappointing, is now drawing to a close for Alex. All this changes when an unexpected visit to the Great Museum of History with his eccentric aunt sets off a fantastic chain of events. Alex finds himself transported to a magical island faraway, in the midst of talking creatures, a kindly wizard and a magnificent golden eagle. Pitted against the dastardly schemes of The Grizzly Grumpot, find out what happens to Alex and his new friends when you step into this colourful world of adventure, mystery and spells that don't always work!"