The characters here are well developed and engaging. Durango is quite the hero. He struggles with moral dilemmas, knows his own fallibility and still manages to be one tough dude. Vienne is excellent as his second, and the supporting characters of miners and bad guys are all memorable. I truly hope this becomes a series. Durango and Vienne make quite a duo and I am eager to learn what kind of trouble they get into next and also where their relationship might be headed. This is a solid recommend for teens grade 8 and up. There's quite a bit of violence and death. Fans of the Hunger Games will find much to like here, although this one is a bit more hard core sci-fi. Very well written.
It’s midsummer in Sweden—when the light lingers through dawn and a long, isolating winter finally comes to an end. In this magical time, a brutal killer has chosen to strike. A female priest—who made enemies and acolytes in equal number—has been found hanging in her church. And a big-city lawyer quite acquainted with death enters the scene as police and parishioners try to pick up the pieces....
To read and enjoy this book it will suffice to possess a modest knowledge of mathematics, i.e., knowledge of arithmetical rules and elementary geometry. Very few problems require the ability of forming and solving equations - and the simplest at that. The table of contents, as you may see, is quite diversified: the subjects range from a motley collection of conundrums and mathhematical stunts to useful practical problems on counting and measuring.
"[READING ECO is a timely indication] of the fruitfulness of perceiving Eco as the same in his metamorphoses. [It also testifies] to a certain price that Eco and his readers must/may pay for the enormous pleasure and intellectual stimulus of being Eco and being with Eco." -- The Comparatist Umberto Eco is, quite simply, a genius. He is a renowned medievalist, philosopher, novelist, a popular journalist, and linguist. He is as warm and witty as he is learned -- and quite probably the best-known academic and novelist in the world today. The goal of this anthology is to examine his ideas of literary semiotics and interpretation as evidenced both in his scholarly work and in his fiction.
Why do cats give birth to kittens, lions to lion-cubs, and rabbits to baby rabbits? Why do human children, too, not only outwardly look like their parents, but also resemble them in character and disposition? Why are twins as like as two peas or quite different? Why are some babies born monsters? Can man remake animals and plants to order?
