Five years ago, Corin Cadence's brother entered the Serpent Spire -- a colossal tower with ever-shifting rooms, traps, and monsters. Those who survive the spire's trials return home with an attunement: a mark granting the bearer magical powers. According to legend, those few who reach the top of the tower will be granted a boon by the spire's goddess.He never returned.Now, it's Corin's turn. He's headed to the top floor, on a mission to meet the goddess.If he can survive the trials, Corin will earn an attunement, but that won't be sufficient to survive the dangers on the upper levels. For that, he's going to need training, allies, and a lot of ingenuity.The journey won't be easy, but Corin won't stop until he gets his brother back.

Corin Cadence finally has a firm reason to believe his brother, Tristan, is still alive.Unfortunately, finding more information isn't going to be easy. Tristan appears to be entangled with a clandestine organization that calls themselves Whispers. And Corin's last brush with the Whispers didn't exactly end well.As much as he wants to follow that lead, Corin has more pressing problems to deal with.Sera is still suffering from a mysterious malady that has stolen her voice and her magic. Corin knows that a portion of that is his fault, and he's determined to fix it.His mother is still off in another country, and there are growing odds that she's involved with a conspiracy to overthrow the visages.Corin has also been branded with a new magical mark on his right hand -- one that even veteran climbers don't seem to recognize. He's going to need to figure out how it works, otherwise it could be more of a vulnerability than an asset.Corin still hasn't finished his first year at Lorian Heights. If he fails his final exams, he'll be sent off to the military, and lose his chance to investigate his brother's fate.And finally, there's the issue of enemies.He might have made a few of them.The biggest problem?He's not sure if Jin, once one of his closest companions, is one of them.

After concluding their first year at Lorian Heights, Corin and his friends catch a train from their native Valia to the distant country of Caelford. For most, this would be a simple vacation. Corin has other plans.-Meet Anabelle Farren, the eccentric owner of Farren Labs, and learn about artificial attunements.-Seek out Warren Constantine, a previous Arbiter, for training and a potential alliance.-Find the visage Ferras herself to seek a cure for Sera's condition.Of course, Corin is Corin, and there's absolutely no chance he's going to be able to stick to a list....And even if Corin miraculously developed a sense of focus, he isn't the only one with plans.The Blackstone Bandit.Everyone's favorite mysterious book entity.The aforementioned Farren.A vacationing professor.The mirror of a figure from Keras' past.When their plots intersect, Corin and his friends are, predictably, stuck at the center.It's going to be a long vacation.

The most talented Starfleet engineers of two generations unite to solve a two-hundred-year-old technological mystery that turns out to be only the beginning of a wider quest. With the support of Guinan and Nog, as well as the crew of the U.S.S. Challenger, Geordi La Forge and Montgomery Scott soon find themselves drawn into a larger, deadlier, and far more personal adventure. Helped by old friends and hindered by old enemies, their investigation will come to threaten everything they hold dear. Seeking out the new, and going where no one has gonebefore, Geordi, Scotty, and Guinan find that their pasts are very much of the present, and must determine whether any sufficiently advanced technology is really indistinguishable from magic.

For the post-singularity Confederation, manipulating the quantum foam – the ability to alter the base code of the universe itself and achieve transcendence – is the holy grail of science. But it seems an impossible dream until their scouts encounter Darius, a lost colony world whose inhabitants have apparently discarded the technology that brought them to the planet in order to adopt a virtually feudal culture. On Darius, the ruling elite exhibits abilities that defy the accepted laws of physics. They can manipulate the quantum foam! Desperate to understand what is happening on Darius, the Confederation dispatches a stealth team to infiltrate the planet's society and discover the truth behind their strange abilities. But they will soon realise that the people on Darius are not all the simple folk that they seem – and they are sitting on a secret that threatens the entire universe ...

The Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling have been phenomenal bestsellers winning fans world wide. These essays look at the magic, literary devices and moral themes in the Harry Potter series. In addition, the controversy between Christians over the moral themes is discussed.