Shattered Sun

Nine hundred years ago, the Sun exploded. It shattered into millions of pieces, which swirled about the cosmos and eventually plummeted into the earth. On that day, the world was plunged into an eternal twilight. Without the Sun, life became dependent on its fractured remains, the Sun Shards, for survival. They instantly became the most precious resources on the face of the earth. If you had one, you had light, heat, and the ability to grow food. If you didn't, you died a cold, lonely death. Here's the funny thing though: Life goes on. People adapt, banners change, and the world keeps spinning. In this new age there is no day and no night; just a never-ending twilight. The world is still a place of gods and monsters, but now without the sun overhead these horrors have moved into the cities and alleyways to prey at all hours of the day. This world still needs heroes, someone to bring a light into the dark places and to make sure the boogeyman stays in his closet. Do you have what it takes to shine?

Among a growing number of ethnographies of eastern Indonesia that deal with cosmology, exchange, and kinship, From a Shattered Sun is the first to address squarely issues originally broached by Edmund Leach and Claude Lévi-Strauss concerning the relation between hierarchy and equality in asymmetric systems of marriage. On the basis of extensive fieldwork in the Tamimbar islands, Susan McKinnon analyzes the simultaneous presence of both closed, asymmetric cycles and open, asymmetric pathways of alliance--of both egalitarian and hierarchical configurations. In addition, Tamimbarese society is marked by the existence of multiple, differentially valued forms of marriage, affiliation, and residence. Rather than seeing these various forms as analytically separable types, McKinnon demonstrates that it is only by viewing them as integrally related--in terms of culturally specific understandings of "houses," gender, and exchange--that one can perceive the processes through which hierarchy and equality are created.

The epic sword-and-sorcery adventure of the Bound Gods fantasy series, which started with In the Shadow of the Gods and The Bones of the Earth, comes to its dark conclusion in this thrilling story of a vibrant world whose fate lies in the hands of vengeful gods and bold warriors. The world has been plunged into darkness...and only the scheming priest Joros might be able to bring back the sun. With his ragtag band of fighters—a laconic warrior, a pair of street urchins, a ruthless priestess, and an unhinged sorcerer—Joros seeks to defeat the ancient gods newly released from their long imprisonment. But the Twins have champions of their own, and powers beyond knowing...and the only sure thing is that they won’t go down without a fight. The fate of the world hangs in the balance as the Twins aim to enact revenge on the parents that imprisoned them, and the world that spurned them. The Long Night has begun, and the shadows hide many secrets—including that the Twins themselves may not be as powerful as they would have everyone think. Joros and his allies must strike now—before the Twins can consolidate their power...and before they are allowed to shape the world in their vision.

A desperate alliance of human and Hroom factions gather to defeat Apex, a brutal alien menace who has vowed to exterminate all civilized races from the sector. The final book of the Sentinel Trilogy.