Centurions at war. The Roman Empire at stake. Brothers Correus and Flavius have won respect in service to the Empire. Correus is entrusted with the honoured task of running the Emperor’s brutal games. Flavius, a Centurion at his brother’s side, has risen to become the Emperor’s most trusted advisor. But now Correus has been given a deadly mission: quelling a barbarian uprising in Germany. While he struggles to negotiate a treaty that could save the lives of thousands, he uncovers a deadly plot that could cast the Empire – and his own family – into ruin... The Emperor’s Games is an enthralling historical adventure, perfect for fans of Ben Kane and Conn Iggulden.

GianLorenzo Cortese, a gamer who traveled from a distant future to our present, is writing his memoirs. In The Emperors Legacy, he dives deeper into the future of gaming with all its glamour and danger. GianLorenzos future games are as intense and involving as real life. The game engine is a machine capable of creating a virtual world indistinguishable from reality, populated by intelligent, unpredictable, and self-directed characters. In The Emperors Legacy, GianLorenzo begins his adventures among the professional gamers. In a grandiose setting, he meets the emperor, an enlightened leader of a civilization at the height of its power. As the game evolves, GianLorenzo grows oblivious to the thin lines dividing game and reality. Many menacing shadows surround the throne, and GianLorenzo will fight with all he has to keep his promise of loyalty to his emperor. GianLorenzo Cortese is also the author of Memoirs of a Gamer from the Future, the first in the Game World series.

Of all aspects of Roman culture, the gladiatorial contests for which the Romans built their amphitheatres are at once the most fascinating and the most difficult for us to come to terms with. They have been seen variously as sacrifices to the gods or, at funerals, to the souls of the deceased; as a mechanism for introducing young Romans to the horrors of fighting; and as a direct substitute for warfare after the imposition of peace. In this original and authoritative study, Thomas Wiedemann argues that gladiators were part of the mythical struggle of order and civilisation against the forces of nature, barbarism and law breaking, representing the possibility of a return to new life from the point of death; that Christian Romans rejected gladiatorial games not on humanitarian grounds, but because they were a rival representation of a possible resurrection.

The Roman Emperor Commodus wanted to kill a rhinoceros with a bow and arrow, and he wanted to do it in the Colosseum. For fourteen days near the end of AD 192, the emperor mounted one of the most lavish gladiatorial games Rome had ever seen. People rushed from all over Italy to witness the spectacle. Why did Roman rulers spend vast resources on such over-the-top displays? Why did the Roman rabble enjoy watching the slaughter of animals and the sight of men fighting to the death? In this book, Jerry Toner set out to answer these questions by describing what it would have been like to attend Commodus' fantastic shows.

Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead.

Describes the events and games held in the amphitheaters, cicuses, and theaters in ancient Rome.

When you’ve been accused of kidnapping an emperor, and every enforcer in the city wants your head, it’s hard to prove yourself an honorable person and even harder to earn an imperial pardon. That doesn’t keep Amaranthe Lokdon and her team of outlaws from trying. When athletes start disappearing from the Imperial Games, they may finally have an opportunity to show the emperor that they’re on his side. If she and her comrades can get to the bottom of such a public mystery, they’re sure to get the credit. But plans go awry when Amaranthe’s own men start plotting against each other, the new ally she’d hoped to acquire tries to turn her in, and her best fighter—and closest friend—disappears. Maybe getting involved wasn’t such a good idea after all… Deadly Games is approximately 110,000 words. It is the third book in The Emperor's Edge series.