Tchaikovsky's Empire

Tchaikovsky's Empire PDF Author: Simon Morrison
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030019210X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky--composer of some of the world's most popular orchestral and theatrical music "A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century's most important musical figures."--Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer.

Empire in Black and Gold

Empire in Black and Gold PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616143398
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbors. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the aging Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path. But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

Tchaikovsky's Empire

Tchaikovsky's Empire PDF Author: Simon Morrison
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030019210X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book Here

Book Description
A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky--composer of some of the world's most popular orchestral and theatrical music "A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century's most important musical figures."--Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer.

Dragonfly Falling

Dragonfly Falling PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616143401
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
Two young companions, Totho and Salma, arrive at Tark to spy on the menacing Wasp army, but are there mistakenly apprehended as enemy agents. By the time they are freed, the city is already under siege. Over in the imperial capital the young emperor, Alvdan, is becoming captivated by a remarkable slave, the vampiric Uctebri, who claims he knows of magic that can grant eternal life. In Collegium, meanwhile, Stenwold is still trying to persuade the city magnates to take seriously the Wasp Empire's imminent threat to their survival. In a colorful drama involving mass warfare and personal combat, a small group of heroes must stand up against what seems like an unstoppable force. This volume continues the story that so brilliantly unfolded in Empire in Black and Gold - and the action is still non-stop.

The Scarab Path

The Scarab Path PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616143622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 764

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Book Description
The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself crippled in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past that she cannot appease, seeking for meaning in a city that no longer seems like home. The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities who refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat yet again. Out past the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its stones...

Blood of the Mantis

Blood of the Mantis PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 161614341X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Driven by the ghosts of the Darakyon, Achaeos has tracked the stolen Shadow Box to the marsh-town of Jerez, but he has only days before the magical box is lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the forces of the Empire are mustering over winter for their great offensive, gathering their soldiers and perfecting their new weapons. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather what allies they can before the Wasp armies march again, conquering everything in their path. If they cannot throw back the Wasps this spring then the imperial black-and-gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end. In Jerez begins a fierce struggle over the Shadow Box, as lake creatures, secret police and renegade magicians compete to take possession. If it falls into the hands of the Wasp Emperor, however, then no amount of fighting will suffice to save the world from his relentless ambition.

The Erevis Cale Trilogy

The Erevis Cale Trilogy PDF Author: Paul S. Kemp
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780786954988
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Once an thief, then an assasin, Erevis Cale must now become a hero.

Children of Ruin

Children of Ruin PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509865861
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
'My most anticipated book of the year' - Peter F. Hamilton, Britain's no.1 science fiction writer Children of Ruin follows Adrian Tchaikovsky's extraordinary Children of Time, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award. It is set in the same universe, with new characters and a thrilling narrative. It has been waiting through the ages. Now it's time . . . Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them. 'Books like this are why we read science fiction' - Ian McDonald, author of the Luna series All underpinned by great ideas. And it is crisply modern - but with the sensibility of classic science fiction' Stephen Baxter, author of the Long Earth series (with Terry Pratchett)

Children of Time

Children of Time PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316452491
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Series! Adrian Tchaikovsky's award-winning novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Salute the Dark

Salute the Dark PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 0330521268
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Salute the Dark is the fourth book in the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. As spymaster Stenworld makes a stand in his home city, others must chose where their loyalties lie. All must face the end of days . . . The mighty Wasp armies are on the march. And with war imminent, spymaster Stenwold must finally separate allies from false friends. He knows the Empire won’t stop until its flag hangs over Collegium, Stenwold's home city. Tisamon the Weaponsmaster favours a more direct strategy – facing the Wasp Emperor himself, with a blade in his hand. He’d be abandoning both friends and family to do so. Yet is he driven by honour, or being manipulated by something far more sinister? With the Shadow Box in his possession at last, Uctebri can begin his dark ritual. The Wasp-kinden’s Emperor believes this will grant him immortality. However, Uctebri has his own plans – for the Emperor and the Empire. Salute the Dark is followed by the fifth book in the Shadows of the Apt series, The Scarab Path.

Cage of Souls

Cage of Souls PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788547233
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 637

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Book Description
Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author. The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?