Orson Scott Card - (Maps in a Mirror #04) - Cruel Miracles
"This fourth volume in Orson Scott Card’s five-volume anthology of short stories features six tales with religious and spiritual themes, exploring the mysteries of ritual, sacrifice, faith, and death. Discover why immortal beings seek mortal gods, witness the consequences of a vengeful spirit, enter behind the scenes of the lives of television faith healers, and more. Stories include: Mortal Gods, Saving Grace, Eye for Eye, St. Amy’s Tale, Kingsmeat, and Holy. In a series of introductions and afterwords, Card offers background commentaries for each story."
Using the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled North America, Orson Scott Card has created an alternate world where magic works, and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies. Charms and beseechings, hexes and potions, all have a place in the lives of the people of this world. Dowsers find water, the second sight warns of dangers to come, and a torch can read a person's future or their heart.
"Citizen Kane" is often considered the greatest masterpiece of the cinema, hailed for its story, dramatic technique, and filmmaking innovations. The film should have launched its director, Orson Welles, to superstar heights, instead, this singular filmmaker spent his career facing constant financial and organizational struggles. Yet despite these obstacles, Welles managed to produce two other successful films - "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch of Evil". This encyclopaedia follows Welles' career from his early days as a radio performer with "Mercury Theater on the Air" to his rise and prolonged decline in Hollywood.
The novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, making Card the only author (as of 2007) winner of both of science fiction's top prizes in consecutive years. His writing contains detailed characterization and moral issues. Card has written, "We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.
