The Writer S Crucible

Arriving home, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend's wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. His one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak.

An alien race struggles to survive on an uninhabitable planet in this “impeccably detailed and beautifully thought out” novel from a Hugo Award winner (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). On a planet besieged with cosmic dust, where meteors of all sizes frequently hit, wiping out entire civilizations, a strange alien species struggles against extinction over the course of millennia. As their star grows hotter, melting ice caps and causing more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, higher levels of radiation lead to higher rates of mutation. Plants that had been edible become poisonous or die off altogether. Watching their dire situation only get worse, the planet’s scientists finally acknowledge that to survive long-term, the inhabitants will have to abandon their fraught home world and become a space-faring species. In a story that spans millennia, Hugo Award–winning author and British science fiction master John Brunner introduces us to an alien race that takes control of their own evolution and builds the technological society that will be their way into space. “One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves.” —SF Site

Crucible is a collection of poems by award-winning poet Daniel Bosch. The poems break easily into two sections. In the first, a set of ironic, emulative "Homages & Elegies," Bosch playfully apostrophizes poets living and dead, as if it took two not only to tango, but to write a poem. He wrestles with Dickinson, grooves with the glacial wit of Frost (belatedly), waltzes with Walcott's ghost (prematurely), mimics Mandelstam, picks apples with Sappho, and shares a transcontinental flight with Brodsky. Each poem is carefully measured; some are composed by meticulous inversion of their precursor's poetic strategy. Literary but by no means prudish, these poems look back-and forward-to a time when poems took stands readers could understand, disagree with, and laugh at. The result is a sort of hypertext essay on what it means to pour oneself into the mold of "poet" in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The second half of Crucible is "Passion Fruit," a fourteen-poem "sonnet" that courts a single muse through incarnations as various as "Orange," "Peach," "Banana," "Cherries," "Blueberries," and "Mango." Part love poem, part meditation on physical longing and memory, "Passion Fruit" celebrates the eye's brief glimpses of beauty in poems frank, funny, and joyful. "I admire Daniel Bosch's Crucible very much for its inventiveness and vitality and the enviable skill of its execution. Every poem feels alive, and though they're often 'homages' to other writers, and 'after' other writers, the book is crackling throughout with an individual personality." -David Ferry

Whether you are a beginner or an accomplished professional, whether your field is fiction, nonfiction or journalism, Sol Stein's Solutions for Writers is an indispensable guide to enhancing your work. In Stein's own words, 'This is not a book of theory': just practical, immediately useful solutions to help with every type of writing problem. From shaping an opening sentence that hooks the reader to the secret of successful revision, deft character development to pumping up pacing, Solutions for Writers contains a wealth of wisdom from one of publishing's most storied editors. Packed with ideas, examples of techniques in practice, and advice that shines a new light on craft, Sol Stein's writing guide is a timeless classic - a book for writers to mark up, dog-ear, and cherish.

Mitchell Hogan, an imaginative new talent, makes his debut with the acclaimed first installment in the epic Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, A Crucible of Souls, a mesmerizing tale of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery. When young Caldan’s parents are brutally slain, the boy is raised by monks who initiate him into the arcane mysteries of sorcery. Growing up plagued by questions about his past, Caldan vows to discover who his parents were, and why they were violently killed. The search will take him beyond the walls of the monastery, into the unfamiliar and dangerous chaos of city life. With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to become apprenticed to a guild of sorcerers. But the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths he does not fully understand. As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that will bring the world to the edge of destruction. Soon, he must choose a side, and face the true cost of uncovering his past. This is the author's definitive edition.

Fans of Three Dark Crowns and Red Queen will devour book two in the #1 New York Times bestselling Burning Glass trilogy, about a teen empath and the secret dangers of her expanding power. Sonya and Anton may have brought about a revolution, but can they protect their homeland—and their love—with so many forces threatening to tear them apart? The empire has fallen, Valko faces trial, and Sonya is finally free from her fate as Sovereign Auraseer. But Sonya’s expanding abilities are just as unstable as the new government of Riaznin. Not only can she feel the emotions of others but, unlike most Auraseers, she’s learned to make others feel what she’s feeling as well. And with her relationship falling apart, Sonya isn’t immune to her power’s sinister temptations. Now, as Sonya fights to contain her own darkness, she senses a new evil lurking in the shadows of the palace. Someone from Sonya’s past has returned seeking revenge—and she won’t be satisfied until Sonya has suffered for her mistakes.