Poetry

[close] From deep within the darkest shadows, the gleaming tip of cold steel pokes out, searching for persons of power, drawn to their supremacy. It could be a friend, a trusted confidant, a family member, a lover, or a complete stranger. It could be your worst enemy, your own inner demons, or evil personified. In the end it matters not who is behind the blade. For the eye of the dagger sees all, but shadow of the dagger may be the last thing you ever see.

From the minds of authors Josh Brown, Alex Ness, and Marc N. Kleinhenz comes a fantasy collection of seven short stories and two epic poems, all focusing on the twisted secrets of killers hiding in the shadows. "The Queen’s Guard," "The Holy Knight," and "Once a Great Warrior," by Josh Brown. "Shadow and Source," "Split Decision," "The Emperor’s Last Friend," "Coal Mining Kills," and "Highest of Hell’s Generation," by Alex Ness. "So it is Said," by Marc N. Kleinhenz. [close]

[close] "The Deacon’s Tale" is the story of Cai Rui, Task Force Commander of the infamous “Black Section” of the Sol Force Intelligence Corps and a loyal Archdeacon of the Roman Catholic Church. Charged to investigate a brutal massacre of Catholic converts on a distant alien world, Cai Rui finds himself on the trail of a killer who can threaten not only his life, but his very soul. As a brutal new race emerges from the shadows, one man will be tested to the extremes of courage and faith by an enemy who dares to call himself…”The Deacon”.

The Kthonia Press edition of this novel includes a revised text and five new Appendices on the races of the Sword of the Stars universe.

“Sword of the Stars. I have played almost nothing else for a week... I had a fever this weekend, and I experienced dreams about the game that were so gripping, so true to life, and in their way terrifying, that I now believe the future described in the Sword of the Stars wiki to be the accurately predicted future of our galaxy.” --Tycho Brahe, Penny Arcade
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[close] In passionate, lyrical, funny, angry, and ecstatic poems that migrate from the heartland of the country to the Atlantic coast and beyond, this young poet searches the world within her and around her for intimate myths that will hold, stories that will heal, actions that can transform the restless quest for love into its steady practice, adolescence into adulthood.

"With sonorous cadences, with relentless honesty, and with deeply human truths, as well as deeply human humans infusing her poems, Maria Nazos has written a stunning first collection. Godspeed (like a bolt, like a bullet) A Hymn That Meanders into the world!" Thomas Lux, author of Particles: Poems, The Cradle Place, The Street of Clocks, and New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995.

"Maria Nazos's first book successfully depicts an 'us' whose lyric motion is equal parts devotional and destructive but never accidental. This is grown-folk poetry, up front and adult, and there is not an ounce of surface-utterance in A Hymn that Meanders." Thomas Sayers Ellis, author of Skin Inc: Identity Repair Poems and The Maverick Room. [close]