Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub

Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub PDF Author: R Ch Garcia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
In this Young Adult, SciFi/fantasy, college-bound Miguel Reilly summers in New Mexico's outlands to explore its Mexican and Native American ruins and traditions. But an outrageous bon vivant shaman, Tomás Martinez, apprentices him into The Nine Passions, teachings that upset the teen's worldview. Miguel takes the legacy of US and Chicano-Mexicano-Native history to heart but learns he's not "pure" Irish-American. But can he rid himself of his white privilege? Ever? Tomås has a hidden agenda. Transforming the timid, unwilling nerd into a Slayer? Wielding powerful Otherworld magic, he trains Miguel to battle La Muerte Blanca, a dragon-like creature that stalked the ancient Aztecs, for their hearts. Aided by his nagual jaguar spirit, Miguel finds allies. The jovial bartender Julio, three curandera healers, the bruja witch Blasa and an elusive Mexican dwarf. But Maya med student Maritza Magdalena who once escaped the creature becomes his valuable partner. Her life-passion: to locate and destroy La Muerte Blanca. Investigating the labyrinth of Mexico City's sewers, Miguel and Maritza barely escape the dragon's paralyzing toxins and kill Maritza's dragon. Still, another exists. Clues in Náhuatl codices lead the duo to Chichén Itzá. Can they both survive a descent into the sacrificial cenote wells for the final, fantastical battle? And will Miguel find his true identity and self-worth? A coming-of-age fantasy of kinship and high-adventure, Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub reminds of Zorba the Greek and The Teachings of Don Juan. More than "ethnic fiction" or genre fantasy, this cross-genre novel takes inspiration from the legacy of Rudy Anaya.

Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub

Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub PDF Author: R Ch Garcia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book

Book Description
In this Young Adult, SciFi/fantasy, college-bound Miguel Reilly summers in New Mexico's outlands to explore its Mexican and Native American ruins and traditions. But an outrageous bon vivant shaman, Tomás Martinez, apprentices him into The Nine Passions, teachings that upset the teen's worldview. Miguel takes the legacy of US and Chicano-Mexicano-Native history to heart but learns he's not "pure" Irish-American. But can he rid himself of his white privilege? Ever? Tomås has a hidden agenda. Transforming the timid, unwilling nerd into a Slayer? Wielding powerful Otherworld magic, he trains Miguel to battle La Muerte Blanca, a dragon-like creature that stalked the ancient Aztecs, for their hearts. Aided by his nagual jaguar spirit, Miguel finds allies. The jovial bartender Julio, three curandera healers, the bruja witch Blasa and an elusive Mexican dwarf. But Maya med student Maritza Magdalena who once escaped the creature becomes his valuable partner. Her life-passion: to locate and destroy La Muerte Blanca. Investigating the labyrinth of Mexico City's sewers, Miguel and Maritza barely escape the dragon's paralyzing toxins and kill Maritza's dragon. Still, another exists. Clues in Náhuatl codices lead the duo to Chichén Itzá. Can they both survive a descent into the sacrificial cenote wells for the final, fantastical battle? And will Miguel find his true identity and self-worth? A coming-of-age fantasy of kinship and high-adventure, Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub reminds of Zorba the Greek and The Teachings of Don Juan. More than "ethnic fiction" or genre fantasy, this cross-genre novel takes inspiration from the legacy of Rudy Anaya.

The Dragon Waking

The Dragon Waking PDF Author: Grayson Towler
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
ISBN: 0807517054
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Rose Gallagher loves having a friend who is a dragon. When a dragon war threatens to break out, Rose must find courage to help her friend recover the Harbinger before its too late. For 13-year old Rose, it feels like a dream come true to have a friend who can perform magic, change shape, and fly her away from the predictability of smalltown life. But secrets have a price, and the more Rose learns about the world of dragons, the more dangerous her life becomes. Helped only by her fantasy-obsessed friend and a local occult enthusiast, Rose soon finds herself risking her life to help Jade recover a mysterious fragment of a meteorite called the Harbinger which has the power to awaken countless dragons from their 65-million year slumber. But Jade isn't the only one who wants the Harbinger. The most powerful man in Las Vegas is actually another dragon who wants the stone to fulfill his own ambitions. The fragile bond between Rose and Jade is put to the test as they face this cunning enemy and his plot to replace humanity with the prehistoric civilization of dragons. As their battle unfolds over the neon-drenched skies of Las Vegas, Rose must face this overwhelming threat by drawing on the magic that humans possess—the power of friendship, compassion, and trust.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs PDF Author: Steve Brusatte
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062490451
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
"THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY," hails Scientific American: A thrilling new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. "A masterpiece of science writing." —Washington Post A New York Times Bestseller • Goodreads Choice Awards Winner • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Smithsonian, Science Friday, The Times (London), Popular Mechanics, Science News "This is scientific storytelling at its most visceral, striding with the beasts through their Triassic dawn, Jurassic dominance, and abrupt demise in the Cretaceous." —Nature The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before. In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field—naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork—masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages. Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.” Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China. An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come. Includes 75 images, world maps of the prehistoric earth, and a dinosaur family tree.

The Gastro-Archeologist

The Gastro-Archeologist PDF Author: Jeremy Woodward
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030626210
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In order to understand common conditions such as coeliac disease and Crohn’s disease, one must view the gut in its evolutionary context. This is the novel approach to the gut and its diseases that is adopted in this book. The first part tells the story of the evolution of the gut itself – why it came about and how it has influenced the evolution of animals ever since. The second part focuses on the evolution of immunity and how the layers of immune mechanisms are retained in the gut, resembling the strata revealed in an archeological dig. The final part, ‘The Gastro-Archeologist’, ties the first two together and highlights how understanding the gut and immune system in their evolutionary context can help us understand diseases affecting them. Ambitious in its scope but telling a unique story from a refreshingly novel perspective, the book offers an informative and enjoyable read. As the story of the gut, immunity and disease unfolds, the author aims to endow readers with the same sense of awe and excitement that the subject evokes in him. Difficult concepts are illustrated using simple and colourful analogies, and the main content is supplemented with anecdotes and unusual and amusing facts throughout the book. The book is intended for anyone with an interest in the gut, its immunity and diseases, ranging from school and college biology and biomedical students, to professionals working in the field, and to patients suffering from intestinal diseases who want to understand more about their conditions.

Sandfuture

Sandfuture PDF Author: Justin Beal
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262367181
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
An account of the life and work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki that leads the author to consider how (and for whom) architectural history is written. Sandfuture is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasaki’s most famous projects—the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New York—were both destroyed on national television, thirty years apart, makes his relative obscurity all the more remarkable. Sandfuture is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architecture’s role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasaki’s life, Sandfuture spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built. The result is at once sophisticated in its understanding of material culture and novelistic in its telling of a good story.

The Stone Gods

The Stone Gods PDF Author: Jeanette Winterson
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547416261
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The Whitbread Prize–winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit delivers a novel that “transports us to something like the future of our own planet” (The Washington Post Book World). On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet—pristine and habitable, like our own was sixty-five million years ago, before we took it to the edge of destruction. Off the air, Billie Crusoe and the renegade Robo sapien Spike are falling in love. Along with Captain Handsome and Pink, they’re assigned to colonize the new blue planet. But when a technical maneuver intended to make it inhabitable backfires, Billie and Spike’s flight to the future becomes a surprising return to the distant past—“Everything is imprinted forever with what it once was.” What will happen when their story combines with the world’s story? Will they—and we—ever find a safe landing place? Playful, passionate, polemical, and frequently very funny, The Stone Gods will change forever the stories we tell about the earth, about love, and about stories themselves. “Scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential futures.” —The New York Times Book Review “[A book] that you don’t so much read as drink in, refuse to put down, cast inside of like a hunting dog, seeking against all odds the insight that will illuminate everything, a true answer to the fix we’re in.” —Los Angeles Times “A vivid, cautionary tale—or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, bestselling author of Changing Planes

The Trouble With Fairies

The Trouble With Fairies PDF Author: Liz Roadifer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781942335054
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A runaway fairy accidentally transports Joy Flint to the mysterious town of Peace & Prosperity, a tourist mecca for all the mythical beings who secretly inhabit the world. As a public school teacher, Joy has learned to roll with the punches and be flexible, so exploring a place full of elves, dwarfs, trolls, Sasquatch, and a family of Cyclopes should be fun compared to the terrors of her classroom. Except for two glaring problems: the town is in the midst of a dangerous wizard duel, and she can't find a way home. Mayor Harradorn is a proud descendant of the Vikings who founded this fantasy town. He also suffers from a damsel-in-distress curse. Every time the unwelcome outsider Joy Flint gets into trouble, he has to go to her rescue. It doesn¿t help that all outsiders like Joy are forced to stay forever to insure the town¿s secrecy. Still, with every rescue, his heart is glad she¿s not going anywhere.With a bit of trickery and a wizard¿s help, Joy escapes. But with a fairy still living with her, nothing is that simple. Harradorn shows up. His town has fallen under a horrific spell and Joy holds the key to releasing them. To save his town, she and Harradorn must travel to the forbidden city of Macklin's Mark, headquarters of wizards. Even if they succeed, one last evil lurks to prevent this tale from having a happy ending.

The Joy of Science

The Joy of Science PDF Author: Richard A. Lockshin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402060998
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This book reveals that scientific logic is an extension of common, everyday logic and that it can and should be understood by everyone. Written by a practicing and successful scientist, it explores why questions arise in science and looks at how questions are tackled, what constitutes a valid answer, and why. The author does not bog the reader down in technical details or lists of facts to memorize. He uses accessible examples, illustrations, and descriptions to address complex issues. The book should prove enlightening to anyone who has been perplexed by the meaning, relevance, and moral or political implications of science.

Karst Management

Karst Management PDF Author: Philip E. van Beynen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400712073
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
Focusing specifically on the management of karst environments, this volume draws together the world’s leading karst experts to provide a vital source for the study and management of this unique physical setting. Although karst landscapes cover 12% of the Earth’s terrain and provide 25% of the world’s drinking water, the resource management of karst environments has only previously received indirect attention. Through a comprehensive approach, Karst Management focuses on engineering issues associated with surface karst such as quarries, dams, and agriculture, subsurface topics such as the management of groundwater, show caves, cave biota, and geo-archaeology projects. Chapters that focus on karst as an integrated system look at IUCN World Heritage sites, national parks, policy and regulation, measuring systematic disturbance, information management, and public environmental education. The text incorporates the most up-to-date research from leading karst scientists. This volume provides important perspectives for university students, educators, geoengineers, resource managers, and planners who are interested in or work with this unique physical landscape.

Extinct Animals

Extinct Animals PDF Author: Ross Piper
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313349886
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Everyone is familiar with the dodo and the wooly mammoth, but how many people have heard of the scimitar cat and the Falkland Island fox? Extinct Animals portrays over 60 remarkable animals that have been lost forever during the relatively recent geological past. Each entry provides a concise discussion of the history of the animal—how and where it lived, and how it became extinct—as well as the scientific discovery and analysis of the creature. In addition, this work examines what led to extinction—from the role of cyclical swings in the Earth's climate to the spread of humans and their activities. Many scientists believe that we are in the middle of a mass extinction right now, caused by the human undermining of the earth's complex systems that support life. Understanding what caused the extinction of animals in the past may help us understand and prevent the extinction of species in the future. Extinct Animals examines the biology and history of some of the most interesting creatures that have ever lived, including: The American Terror Bird, which probably became extinct over 1 million years ago, who were massive predators, some of which were almost 10 feet tall; the Rocky Mountain Locust, last seen in 1902, formed the most immense animal aggregations ever known, with swarms estimated to include over 10 trillion insects; the Giant Ground Sloth, which was as large as an elephant; and the Neandertals, the first Europeans, which co-existed with prehistoric Homo sapiens. Extinct Animals includes illustrations—many created for the work—that help the reader visualize the extinct creature, and each entry concludes with a list of resources for those who wish to do further research.