The Second Sun

Beka and Charley...left alone by their parents more than a year ago. They are trapped in a city surrounded by a massive wall. Time is running out for the two of them to uncover the secrets behind their capture and to realize their best hope for survival could cost them everything.

Indian summer, the succession of warm, fair days gracing New England in autumn, is at once a flourishing period signaling the end of fall, a meteorological event, a vernacular cultural construction, and a literary metaphor. In this appealing and elegant book, Sweeting plumbs Indian summer's use in literature as a symbol of second chance, rebirth, or reprieve before the onset of a harsher season. Well researched and charmingly written, Beneath the Second Sun is the first book to systematically treat the history and uses of Indian summer imagery in American life. The author focuses on the ways in which New Englanders have embraced the season, and he places the celebration of the season's beauty and its melancholy qualities within the context of Anglo-Native American relations. Sweeting does not try to locate the original definition of Indian summer, rather he explores the far more interesting ways in which the season has been imagined and described in American culture. Popular authors including Philip Freneau, Susan Cooper, Lydia Sigourney, John Greenleaf Whittier, Francis Parkman Oliver, Wendell Holmes, and, especially, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and William Dean Howells freely employ Indian summer imagery in their works. In the context of modern American Studies, Sweeting's study is part of a "post-modern" scholarly discussion of how tangible realities such as climate are mediated, even forged, by social needs. Sweeting further investigates the imaginative, early-nineteenth-century "invention" of New England regional identity and integrates traditional American Studies literary and historical concerns with a contemporary interest in the environment and sense of place. Sweeting's graceful, lively, and accessible style beckons not only scholars of American literature and the nineteenth century but any traveler seeking the glories of autumn in New England.

The Second Sun is, above all things, an adventure made animate by hundreds of distinct characters across half a world written to confess through prose and tale our tendencies poisoned by Dickensian bleakness or cruelty, and to wholly ameliorate that cynicism by the light and courage of those who live and labor for a just peace. The story begins with a fae boy named Moo on the island of Cero, understood by all who have heard the name to be a paradise where its residents live for thousands of years, sustained by the power of the fruits grown from the branches of the island's elders. A mist inexplicable even to the elders encircles the island and shields the people from hostile forces by taking the life of any who pass not in the company of a fae. However, a small ship is discovered on the island's shores and a young girl named Yuyu is rescued, astonishingly, alive from her place trapped inside a chest and reveals creatures with buzzing wings murdered the crew that kidnapped her. Her testimony compels a scholar of paradise named Kamo to leave her home aided in her investigation by her friend and master engineer Serkis. The second chapter follows the Odinites on the Raven's Word and their deliverance of ten children captured and sold into slavery. Captain Valara Viktor commands her crew make for the island city of Caradras to locate a translator who can negotiate their return home or their enlistment into Odin's Navy to aid in restoring their sovereignty stripped of them by the Polemarx empire before they make the return journey to Valheim, the last fortress of Odin, far north in the Hells Sea. The third chapter begins with a squire named Rade who is at the service of one none older than he but already knighted named Ser Barimon. Ordered by their dead Emperor's remaining council, they depart on a diplomatic mission but are offered the recreation of a man hunt by a lord now local to the region they were to pass through. The lord Juvie Morto, Ser Barimon, Rade, and seven others chase the shadow of an infamous deserter named Still Morrow, who fled with his troops during the battle for Victrious, the capitol of the Wooloe empire. When the pair return to brief the council on Still Morrow's whereabouts, Rade is offered leave by his knight to join a festival. Though his evident proximity to power leaving the council's chambers urged spies within the new capitol of Capra to kidnap the squire. Each chapter following the first three advances the stories born from these adventures.

The extraordinary chronicle of two doctors “bringing light to those in darkness” (Time)—the “miracle workers” whose story is featured on 60 Minutes The publisher will donate a portion of its proceeds on the sale of this book to the Himalayan Cataract Project. Second Suns is the unforgettable true story of two very different doctors with a common mission: to rid the world of preventable blindness. Dr. Geoffrey Tabin was the high-achieving “bad boy” of his class at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sanduk Ruit grew up in a remote village in the Himalayas, where cataract blindness—easily curable in modern hospitals—amounts to an epidemic. Together, they pioneered a new surgical method, by which they have helped restore sight to over 4 million people—all for about $20 per operation. #1 New York Times–bestselling author David Oliver Relin brings the doctors’ work to vivid life through poignant portraits of their patients, from old men who can once again walk treacherous mountain trails, to children who can finally see their mothers’ faces. The Himalayan Cataract Project is changing the world—one pair of eyes at a time.

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly. Sword & Citadel brings together the final two books of the tetralogy in one volume: The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home. The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth. "Brilliant . . . terrific . . . a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!"-Philadelphia Inquirer "The Book of the New Sun establishes [Wolfe's] preeminence, pure and simple. . . . The Book of the New Sun contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . once into it, there is no stopping."--The New York Times Book Review At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.