Akron Public Library

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...

""I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn, only regret." For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the...

"Idris used to be a war hero--a fighting elite, technologically enhanced not only to be stronger, faster, and near immortal, but to communicate mind-to-mind with Earth's mysterious alien enemies known as the Architects. Then the Architects simply disappeared--and Idris and his kind became obsolete. Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have found something strange abandoned in space. Have their enemies returned? And if so, why?"--provided by...

A crippled shepherd boy entertained the Wise men on their way to Bethlehem. He gave them a simple gift for the Christ Child and received a miraculous gift in return.

MUSIC Freeman, associate editor of Opera News and author of the first volume of The Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas (LJ 11/15/84), presents this second volume of stories from 125 more operas, this time covering less familiar works, such as early pieces (Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in partria, 1640) and contemporary ones (John Adams's Nixon in China, 1987). The entries are arranged by composer, with a brief introduction providing...

We are not alone. On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system. In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of...

"The purpose of this book is to present the essential materials of thirty-two operas, the musical materials in general on the left-hand page, the corresponding dramatic materials on the right"

Each Lord of Ruddigore is cursed to commit a crime a day or die. Robin, who is the Lord of Ruddigore living incognito to avoid the family curse, is exposed and forced into a life of crime until logic offers an ingenious solution and reunion with Rose Maybud.

"Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor of the 32nd century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it. The potential for profit is so great that Lorq has little difficulty cobbling together...