The story of Ancient Egypt and the extraordinary civilisation that flourished along the banks of the River Nile can seem like a gorgeous pageant studded with exceptional events. Among them are the building of the pyramids, the conquest of Nubia, Akhenaten's religious revolution, the power and beauty of Nefertiti, the life and death of Tutankhamun, the ruthlessness of Ramesses, Alexander the Great's invasion, and Cleopatra's fatal entanglement with Rome which led to the fall of Ptolemaic Egypt.
Grade 6-8 Kit Rodriguez is having a rough time. His family's new DVD player and remote control are too busy yelling obscenities at each other to work the TV, and his dog is asking his mother questions about the meaning of life. Even worse, his best friend and partner in wizardry, Nita, grieving over her mother's death, shuts him out emotionally and telepathically. To top it off, Kit has just been sent on an assignment to see why a new wizard's initial Ordeal is taking so long.
Nora Blackbird has made the society pages yet again. The impoverished Philadelphia heiress has agreed to wed Mick Abruzzo, son of New Jersey's most notorious mobster-if he can survive the Blackbird Curse. Anytime a Blackbird sister remarries, the groom is bound to die...
Eleven recent short stories and an impromptu poem with autobiographical commentaries reveal the storytelling wizardry of Asimov and his profound understanding of current times. Appearing originally in publications ranging from the New York Times (its first science fiction tale ever published!) to the former If magazine (its last!), with themes leading from Women’s Liberation to “Feminine Intuition,” from the Bicentennial to “Death at the Tercentennial,” and from mathematical games to life-and-death struggles, these short stories examine the Asimovian landscape with typical wit and understanding.
By Christmas 1914, the wild wave of enthusiasm that had sent men flocking to join up a few months earlier began to tail off, and though the original British Expeditionary Force had suffered 90 percent casualties, most people, particularly the soldiers themselves, still believed that 1915 would see the breaking of the deadlock. But their hopes were shattered on the bloody battlefields of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Loos, and far away on the shores of Gallipoli.
