The Emperor's Blades


Book Description

In The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley, the emperor of Annur is dead, slain by enemies unknown. His daughter and two sons, scattered across the world, do what they must to stay alive and unmask the assassins. But each of them also has a life-path on which their father set them, destinies entangled with both ancient enemies and inscrutable gods. Kaden, the heir to the Unhewn Throne, has spent eight years sequestered in a remote mountain monastery, learning the enigmatic discipline of monks devoted to the Blank God. Their rituals hold the key to an ancient power he must master before it's too late. An ocean away, Valyn endures the brutal training of the Kettral, elite soldiers who fly into battle on gigantic black hawks. But before he can set out to save Kaden, Valyn must survive one horrific final test. At the heart of the empire, Minister Adare, elevated to her station by one of the emperor's final acts, is determined to prove herself to her people. But Adare also believes she knows who murdered her father, and she will stop at nothing—and risk everything—to see that justice is meted out. Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne The Emperor's Blades The Providence of Fire The Last Mortal Bond Other books in the world of the Unhewn Throne Skullsworn (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Centurions


Book Description

The unputdownable and action-packed story of Ancient Rome. Correus and Flavius are half-brothers, sons of a brilliant general. One, son of a slave, is a born warrior destined to excel. The other, a nobleman by birth, must struggle relentlessly to succeed. When they both join the Centuriate, a position Flavius has always known he will inherit, and one that Correus has long coveted, together they face the brutal reality of war. Fighting German barbarians will prove dangerous, not only to their bodies, but to their souls as well... The Centurions is an epic Roman adventure, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Ben Kane.




The Emperors and Empresses of Russia


Book Description

Since glasnost began, Russia's most eminent historians have taken advantage of new archival access and the end of censorship and conformity to reassess and reinterpret their history. Through this process they are linking up with Russia's great historiographic tradition while producing work that is fresh and modern. In "The Emperors and Empresses of Russia", renowned Russian historians tell the story of the Romanovs as complex individual personalities and as key institutional actors in Russian history, from the empire builder Peter I to the last tsar, Nicholas II. These portraits are contributions to the writing of history, partaking neither of wooden ideologisation nor of naive romanticisation.




Killing the Emperors


Book Description

Lady (Jack) Troutbeck is missing. So too, is Sir Henry Fortune, celebrity curator, and his partner in love and money, louche art dealer Jason Pringle. Panic begins in the London art world when no one can locate Anastasia Holliday, sensational abject artist, Jake Thorogood, the critic who catapulted her into stardom, or Dr Hortense Wilde, notorious for having influenced generations of art students to despise craftsmanship. Spotting that the victims' common link is that their careers blossomed when they whole-heartedly embraced newly-fashionable conceptual art, there is media hysteria. Are they hostages? If so why? Ransom? Revenge? What bewilders the police and her friends is that Baroness Troutbeck is a standard-bearer of conservative values in education and art who recently publicly described admirers of conceptual art as knaves and fools. Can Troutbeck's friends rescue her before her own worst fantasies are turned into reality?




Emperors and Gladiators


Book Description

Of all aspects of Roman culture, the gladiatorial contests for which the Romans built their amphitheatres are at once the most fascinating and the most difficult for us to come to terms with. They have been seen variously as sacrifices to the gods or, at funerals, to the souls of the deceased; as a mechanism for introducing young Romans to the horrors of fighting; and as a direct substitute for warfare after the imposition of peace. In this original and authoritative study, Thomas Wiedemann argues that gladiators were part of the mythical struggle of order and civilisation against the forces of nature, barbarism and law breaking, representing the possibility of a return to new life from the point of death; that Christian Romans rejected gladiatorial games not on humanitarian grounds, but because they were a rival representation of a possible resurrection.




Spear of the Emperor


Book Description

Great new novel from Aaron Dembski-Bowden chronicling the story of the Emperor's Spears, a Space Marine Chapter on the edge of destruction, last watchmen over the Elara's Veil nebula. Now, the decisions of one man, Amadeus Kaias Incarius of the Mentor Legion, will determine the Chapter's fate… The scattered worlds of the Elara's Veil nebula were once protected by the oath of unity sworn by three mighty Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. The Star Scorpions were undone by flaws in their genetic coding. The Celestial Lions were ravaged by the Inquisition for sins they did not commit. Now, after hundreds of years, only the Emperor's Spears still keep their vigil. They are barbarian watchmen against the Outer Dark; bloodied but unbroken in their long duty. Amadeus Kaias Incarius, a brother of the Mentor Legion, is commanded to cross the Great Rift and assess the Spears' war-readiness, only to be drawn into the chaotic plight of a depleted crusade on the Imperium's benighted frontier. The decisions he makes, far from the God-Emperor's light, will decide the fate of the war-torn Chapter.




Emperors and Usurpers


Book Description

This historical commentary examines books 79(78)-80(80) of Cassius Dio's Roman History, which cover the period from the death of Caracalla in A. D. 217. to the reign of Severus Alexander and Cassius Dio's retirement from political life in 229. Cassius Dio, a Roman Senator, provides a valuable eyewitness account of this turbulent period, which was marked by the assassination of Caracalla, the rise of Macrinus, Rome's first equestrian emperor, and his subsequent overthrow, the tempestuous, and by all accounts peculiar, reign of Elagabalus, and the continuation of the Severan dynasty under the young Severus Alexander. In addition to elucidating important passages from these books, this study assesses Cassius Dio's political life and its relationship to his literary career; his call to history and time of composition; his historical method; and his attitude toward and subsequent presentation of the later Severan dynasty. In its investigation of books 79(78)-80(80), the work assesses an important stretch of Dio's actual text, which for other parts has been preserved largely in epitome and excerpts. Finally, the work aims to fill a gap in scholarship, as no commentary on these books of Cassius Dio's history has been produced since the nineteenth century, and its publication coincides with a renewed interest in the history and historiography of the Severan period.




Year of the Four Emperors


Book Description

"...the plotline is meticulous and engrossing, and the characters are intricately crafted...” — Literary Titan It is 1001 Anno Rex, and the emperor of the Empire of Kristianborg, the tyrannical Severus Valentinian, has been assassinated. Severus leaves behind four sons, each born by a different queen consort—but without declaring an heir before his death, the throne lies vacant. Zeno, Andronikos, Leo, and Commodus all covet the illustrious title of emperor. However, they will need the support of the Council of Archons and the power of the Yeneceri army—the most prominent, most formidable soldiers in the dominion—to obtain it. Zeno’s mother, Eleonora Ulrika, who climbed the ranks from a woman of lesser nobility to a powerful consort, uses all her wit, charm, and appeal to gain support for her son. She has spent years guiding him to become a competent warrior and military leader, especially for this very moment. However, the other queen consorts are no delicate flowers, and each wants her son on the throne. Battles, murder, bribes, and treachery ensue as each vies for the pinnacle of power. Yet against this backdrop of politics, war, and a fight for the throne lies something more sinister, something more threatening, something no one empire of men can hold back. . . . A tale of politics, intrigue, war, and lust, Year of the Four Emperors sets the stage for the forthcoming books in The Grand Duchess series.







Roman Emperors


Book Description

Roman Emperors is a concise chronological guide to the emperors who ruled the Roman Empire. It covers the period from the establishment of the Empire by Augustus in 27 BCE to the abdication of Romulus Augustus in 476 CE, an event that marks the official end of the existence of the Roman Empire as a political entity in Western Europe. After a useful introduction to the late Republic and its transformation into the Empire, each of the eighty-five emperors customarily recognized as legitimate are presented in the order in which they reigned. This includes both Eastern and Western emperors for those periods where the empire was divided, and each one is illustrated. A useful glossary of technical terms is also provided.