Soldier Of Arete

The second volume of Gene Wolfe's powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who, while fighting in Greece, received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The first volume of Gene Wolfe's powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This omnibus of two acclaimed novels is the story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who was fighting in Greece when he received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory but gave him in return the ability to see and converse with the supernatural creatures, the gods and goddesses, who invisibly inhabit the classical landscape. Latro forgets everything when he sleeps. Writing down his experiences every day and reading his journal anew each morning gives him a poignantly tenuous hold on himself, but his story's hold on readers is powerful indeed.

A man who forgets everything while he sleeps and is dependent on his journal entries to keep his life together, Latro finds himself in Egypt, where he searches for a way to rid himself of the curse that causes him to lose his memory.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .

In the town of Castleview, Illinois, Tom Howard is murdered at the factory he manages—on the same day that Will E. Shields and his family, newly come to Castleview, arrive with a realtor in tow to see Howard's house. From an attic window, Shields glimpses the phantom castle that has given the town its name. They are discussing the house with Sally Howard when the police arrive bearing the dreadful news. Then, driving back to the motel, Shields nearly hits a gigantic horseman in the rain...beginning a series of collisions with the mythological that only Gene Wolfe could tell. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, wizards, and dragons. His adventure will conclude next year in the second volume of The Wizard Knight, The Wizard. Gene Wolfe is one of the most widely praised masters of SF and fantasy. He is the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Nebula Award, twice, the World Fantasy Award, twice, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Fantasy Award, and France's Prix Apollo. His popular successes include the four-volume classic The Book of the New Sun. With this new series, Wolfe not only surpasses all the most popular genre writers of the last three decades, he takes on the legends of the past century, in a work that will be favorably compared with the best of J. R. R. Tolkien, E. R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, and T. H. White. This is a book---and a series---for the ages, from perhaps the greatest living writer in (or outside) the fantasy genre. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.