#sam wanted to be the people's champion and was kind to the downtrodden

[shallowseeker]

RE: This post by @queermania and the Sam-Dean dichotomy. Sometimes I think too about how After School Special showed us that while Dean put on the mask of "cool, popular kid," it's really Sam. Sam's the popular kid. Even though he often feels like a freak.

[go-redgirl]

Eli Steele: De Blasio's shameful racial profiling of Asian students

I was setting up my camera to film a rally on the steps of Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan when a disheveled middle-aged man clutching an odd assortment of papers to his chest stopped and stared at the gathering of parents and community leaders. 

They were there to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing attack on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), the sole gateway to one of New York’s nine specialized high schools. Their hand-drawn signs read, "Stop picking on Asian kids!" "Fix failing schools!" and "Keep the test!" The disheveled man began to yell aggressively and I turned, to lipread him: "You Asians take all the spots at these schools! Only eight blacks got into Stuyvesant High, only eight! You gotta give us blacks a chance, that’s all we’re asking for, man!" I turned my camera to capture him but he saw me and fled.

Later, as I reflected on this incident, I thought of that frosty November morning in 2013 when I waited outside a Brooklyn voting center for the de Blasio family to arrive and cast the votes that helped elect the father mayor of New York City. I was filming my documentary on multiracial Americans, "How Jack Became Black."  There was an excitement in the air as people around me praised de Blasio’s multiracial family. 

They believed such a man was a harbinger of better racial relations and they loved his campaign stance against racial profiling. They could not have predicted that de Blasio would leave office eight years later as one of America’s most egregious racial profilers.

Why had de Blasio and his education administration racially profiled Asian children? Was it because these youths took the American dream seriously and burned the midnight oil? Was it because their parents — many of them immigrants and impoverished — squeezed every penny to see that their children were prepared to take the test? Or was it simply that they were different, Asian and an unpreferred minority?

If 54 percent of the 4,262 eighth graders that passed the SHSAT had been black instead of Asian, there is very little doubt that de Blasio would not have charged the test as "structurally racist." In fact, he likely would have praised the test.

Wai Wah, the charter president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York, and her friend, George Lee, showed me the tweet sent by de Blasio’s education chancellor, Meisha Potter, after the students received their test results. Potter found it "unacceptable" that so few blacks were admitted to specialized high schools and said that it was "past time for our students to be fairly represented." The implication was the test was racist. FLORIDA WILL REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO TEACH CIVICS AND ‘EVILS OF COMMUNISM’

Wai Wah and George pointed out that Potter failed to congratulate the students who had studied for years and passed the exam. They also noted that Potter had neglected to pay respect to the other 19,266 students who similarly sacrificed but did not pass the test. The only thing that mattered to Potter was "our students," a label that included only Blacks and Hispanics.

Potter was only following the path forged by de Blasio, who spoke of the need to "redistribute wealth." Like previous educators, she ignored the reality of favoring equity over merit, a reality that cost many black and Hispanic neighborhoods its gifted and talented programs over the past several decades. When blacks and Hispanics had access to these programs, they took the same test that de Blasio disparaged as racist and dominated Brooklyn Tech from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Not one of these bureaucrats from de Blasio and Potter to the previous education chancellor, Richard Carranza, asked the obvious question: why had "too many" Asians passed the test?

Asking such a question would have forced de Blasio to examine what influences and behaviors made certain students successful. He would have quickly discovered that there was nothing "Asian" about their successes — after all, far more Asians failed the test than those who passed. He would have also discovered that it was their steadfast belief in the American Dream that drove them to take chances on their talents, a path followed by countless successful Americans.

Also, to look at the humanity of these Asians would have forced de Blasio to look at the root causes driving the terrible inequities that plague the nation’s largest public school system. Instead, it was easier for him to racially profile and scapegoat Asians for these inequities.

The racial biases of de Blasio and the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) establishment, rarely got much attention in the press. These folks promoted equity to the level of a top societal moral virtue where representation by race trumped merit. Having lowered themselves down to the inhuman level of race, they see race in everything and therein lies their bias, a bias that extended beyond Asians to blacks and Hispanics.

Rather than empower these demographics with the tools of equality by strengthening the schools, de Blasio believed he could racially engineer blacks and Hispanics to parity at the expense of Asians. That is how little faith he had in these demographics to agent their own fates. At the same time, de Blasio derived enormous political capital for appearing to champion the downtrodden while conveniently ignoring the long history of horrific oppression suffered by many Asian communities in America. It was this bias that allowed de Blasio to racially profile an entire class of people for the way they looked.

I thought about how this ugliness was taking place in 2021 as I traveled to the far end of the Brooklyn borough to visit the Ni family. Sam, an immigrant shop owner, welcomed me into a home that married the American Dream with cultural memories of the China that Sam and his wife left behind. I asked their children, Zoe, a seventh-grader studying for the SHSAT, and Leo, a ninth-grader at Hunter College High School, what they thought of all this anti-Asian discrimination — a Brooklyn educator had recently called the people like them "yellow folks."

After several shy answers, Zoe answered with the truth ignored by many educators: "People aren’t numbers. There are real people in these statistics. There are real people who are losing out on opportunities. And it is upsetting to me to know the reason is merely race."

Sam, a reflective and thoughtful man, revealed later that he had heard of Martin Luther King’s dream in China and that is part of why he came to America. Through a translator, he said, "In China’s cultural revolution, students were classified as ‘being of red five category’ or ‘being of Black five category.’ Why? It’s not anything to do with the individual student, but with his family background, with other external factors. In New York, even the entire United States, education, concerning race matters, it’s actually like China’s Cultural Revolution, not looking at the student himself, on who studies well and who doesn’t, but throwing up a mess of race and family background identity, to judge what kind of person you are. I think this is going backward in history."

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Sam also had words for leaders like de Blasio: "What they want is to use their views to remake and control the world as they want, and not let us free people, competing freely, under a system of equal opportunity, create a brilliantly multi-colored world. So what they are doing, to take their ideas to control the world, that's, in a certain sense, actually very much like communism, totalitarian communism."

Sam revealed to me that he had recently thought of immigrating to another country. He left the paralyzing class divisions of China only to find his children on the wrong side of racial divisions in America. But then he seemed to let that thought die down — at least in America he has the unbridled right to fight the injustices affecting his kids and he has fought.

As I rode back into Manhattan, I thought of what George Lee told me on the issue of representation. He blamed the ongoing racial divisions on critical race theory that, for him, was a "political ideology of race war, racial hatred." He wondered out loud how one Asian could represent another Asian, or a black another black, for that matter. He explained that nobody looks like him or thinks like him so how can he represent another Asian? He then continued, "If an Asian gets into Harvard, does that Asian take courses on behalf of an Asian who did not get in?" He looked at me with the twinkle in the eye that one often has when revealing a racial absurdity: "There is no such thing as representation by race. This whole language of representation is basically saying that Asians or whites or blacks are mutually substitutable."

That was the very thing that de Blasio fought against when he campaigned for Mayor of New York. He knew the evil of racial profiling was that people were not seen as individuals but as members of a race. He had heard blacks complain that they should not fall under suspicion because they were black and lived in high crime neighborhoods. They protested that it was unfair and that they were more than their race. Yet de Blasio betrayed this lesson in humanity when he racially profiled the Asians his entire time in office, leaving many black and Hispanic students worse off than when he took office.

In many ways, the disheveled man who yelled at the Asians at the rally was a sad symbol of de Blasio’s education legacy. That man had been poisoned in the mind to believe that Asians somehow had monopolized all the power and that is why he demanded that they give blacks a chance. But there is nothing the Asians can give him. There is nothing a race can give. Only the individual can give or take. That man will sadly never rise above his current station as long as he thinks that way. And that is why de Blasio failed so miserably on his campaign promise to uplift the schools. Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is "What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter: @Hebro_Steele

[ryanmeft]

The Greatest Showman Movie Review

The Greatest Showman is a piece of complete fantasy, an almost total fabrication that gets two things exactly right: P.T. Barnum existed, and he created modern entertainment. The rest is smoke and mirrors, obscuring behind a modern narrative sheen what it doesn’t outright invent. Barnum would be proud. What matters isn’t that it’s accurate. What matters is it is a total blast with a genuinely moving message, the kind of thing that no longer entirely works in Disney films because they’ve driven it into the ground. Somehow, song-and-dance numbers about being yourself get a breath of fresh life injected when they’re sung by conjoined twins and bearded ladies.

The film, helmed by a first-time feature director name of Michael Gracey, takes the complex and sometimes dark and terrible stories of P.T. Barnum’s life and distills them into an archetype: the struggling visionary desperate to provide for his family. Hugh Jackman, that perennial audience favorite, dons the bright red jacket and top hat, but not at first. When the film begins, he’s nothing: a servant boy whose lady love’s father (an easily loathable Fredric Lehne) sneers at him when he later comes to take her away, announcing she’ll be back as soon as she tires of his lack of wealth.

 She doesn’t and isn’t. Soon she’s grown and played by Michelle Williams, and they are dancing and singing with their two daughters on the soot-stained rooftops of mid-19th century New York. This is one of my favorite time periods in all of film or any other medium, suffused as it is with a Dickensian vibe of downtrodden-ness, a ripe canvas on which to paint any number of rags-to-riches stories. You might notice that Williams, as Charity, isn’t saddled with the easy cliche of most wife characters in these yarns. She neither constantly nags the perpetually struggling Barnum with reminders of their money woes, nor does she make dramatic speeches when his success and his head begin to swell. When one of the daughters asks for ballet shoes, their response could draw tears even in 2017 from anyone who ever had to spend an hour in the store trying to decide whether they could afford the tiniest luxury. (I was reminded of the personal recollection of someone I know, which I won’t share here). Barnum, who has been let go from a (fictional) job in shipping, is able to provide as a present instead a quickly invented gadget that puts on a light show.

Quickly inventing things, of course, became Barnum’s stock in trade. It isn’t an exaggeration to say he invented modern entertainment as we know it. What is a movie, after all, if not pure and total…humbug? And the even more modern video game has learned how to ensnare a person’s emotions with computer code in such a way that they will keep returning and paying for new hats. Barnum sought out the total outcasts of society, the ones who would have before been doomed to poverty, prejudice and early death, and made them stars. He brought in exotic animals and displayed them for the audiences of the cold New England coasts for the first time. He brought the idle whims of the aristocracy to the people.

He also made his performers to go on stage in cages, and can without a doubt be called a profiteering exploiter. The film portrays him as a philanthropist and early champion of what we would now consider rights for the differently-abled. His performers are his friends, and the ensemble cast includes dazzling performances by Sam Humphrey as the famous General Tom Thumb, Keala Settle as bearded lady Lettie Lutz, and Zendaya as black trapeze artist Annie Wheeler, whose race alone kept her off any earlier stages. The only time it is intimated that Barnum forgot they were human is during a period when he hires famous, respected singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) to tour the world and bring him the respect he craves from titans and queens (there is a wonderful exchange between Tom Thumb and none other than the Queen of England herself).

 In reality, the man whose second-most-famous line was “There’s a sucker born every minute” was very, very in it for a buck, and while it can be fairly said that his performers lived much worse lives before he found them, that was hardly his intent. He didn’t use the term “freaks” affectionately.

What “The Greatest Showman” does is what “Moulin Rouge!” and the supremely underrated “Marie Antoinette” did: it helps to shine a light on a mostly forgotten period of history by modernizing it, and it mostly does this through music. The film opens with “The Greatest Show”, as rousing an intro as any musical has ever managed. Every song is good, but the standouts comprise the center section of the film. “This Is Me”, nominated for a Golden Globe and a safe bet for Oscar, features the under-valued Keala Settle leading Barnum’s army of “freaks” in a rousing celebration of being yourself. This theme has gotten tired but is given new life with the performance of an ensemble cast and a stellar visual production by an army of technical maestros far too extensive to list in a review. Rebecca Ferguson lends a perfect physical presence to Loren Allred’s vocal performance of “Never Enough”, a solo act that gives musical voice to Barnum’s escalating needs for adulation. My favorite number, visually and musically, is that of Zac Efron and Zendaya’s interracial love song, “Rewrite the Stars”, which explodes off the screen without the benefit of tons of props or multiple flashy costumes, and ought to puncture the stoicism of all but the most stubborn tough guys.

We can debate whether Barnum’s legacy was for good or ill; the film doesn’t even claim the often-laughable “Based on a True Story” appellation, so for me it’s not really important. I loved La la Land, and contend it only took so much flack when people thought it would out-Oscar Moonlight, and I loved The Greatest Showman for the same reason: it made me want to celebrate how awesome life is at the same time it got me weepy at how hard it can get. I don’t need accuracy. After all, I have a broom closet full of history books for that.

 Verdict: Highly Recommended

[sheikah]

Do you think Jon and Daenerys will have a healthy relationship?

Hi,anon! Thanks so much for this ask. Yes, I do think their relationship will behealthy, and there are so, so many reasons for it that I’d love to gush abouthere. 

1.      Troubled Pasts

Jon and Dany both had experiencesin their childhoods that shaped their perception of society and other people insimilar ways.

As a bastard Jon was viewed andtreated as inferior at Winterfell during his youth. Despite Ned’s love we cansee that this had a profound effect on Jon’s personality and led to his laterself-doubt and “broody” attitude.

From the beginning of AGoT we seefrom Cat’s treatment of Jon and the fact that he is barred from the high tableat the feast honoring Robert that Ned’s attentive parenting, Robb’s friendship,and Jon’s close, loving relationship with Arya aren’t enough to make him trulyfeel like an equal member of the Stark family.

Similarly, Dany is told by Viserysfrom a young age that they are royalty deserving of a better life. He tellsher about their home and family, but she never gets to experience any of this.Instead she is shuffled around from place to place, never allowed to feelsecure and content in a real home. The only constant in her life is Viserys andhe is abusive.

Things don’t really get better forthem from there. Jon is allowed to go to The Wall and no one aside from Benjeneven attempts to warn him what his life there will be like, and even Benjen’swarning is lukewarm. Tyrion gives him a more realistic picture of what theWatch is but by that point Jon doesn’t want to turn back from his decision.

So as a young man Jon is thrown into a hard life in one of the most unforgiving climates of this universesurrounded by people who resent him for his family name—a family name hedoesn’t actually get to reap the benefits of out in the world. Thorne callinghim “Lord Snow” sets him apart from his brothers and puts a target on his backfrom the beginning. But Jon overcomes this and finds common ground with hisbrothers, starting with Sam, so that he can develop friendships with his newcompanions.

When she is sold to the dothraki,Dany is also an outcast. Physically she sticks out like a sore thumb amongstthe dothraki and she can’t speak a word of their language. She’s a young girland a virgin who is given to an enormous, intimidating brute of a man who rapesher. In spite of this she ingratiates herself to him and the rest of the dothrakito try and make the best of her situation, learning their language and earningthe friendship of her handmaids and the love of her husband.

2.      Similar Worldviews

These experiences gave both Jonand Dany a look at what it is like to be a marginalized person in Planetos.Class discrimination in Jon’s case and misogyny in Dany’s show them both howhard it is to make a place for yourself in the world if the circumstances ofyour birth happen to put you outside the ranks of the privileged nobility.

Because of that they both make ittheir business to help the downtrodden and underprivileged people in theirrespective regions. Jon doesn’t execute Ygritte when ordered to do so,partially because it goes against his sensibilities to behead a woman, but alsobecause he hasn’t fully bought into the prejudices of his society. Andhis relationship with Ygritte allows him to see that the Free Folk are justpeople like him.

So while it’s true that Jon needsthe wildlings in the war against the White Walkers, he also brings them Southto bring them under the protection of The Wall because he believes in equalityand as someone who was treated as less than because of his birth, heunderstands to some extent what it’s like to be a wildling. And supports equaltreatment for them.

Across the world, Dany’sexperiences with the dothraki made her a champion for women in the largelypatriarchal culture in Essos. She tries to defend the women from the shepherdvillage, even though Mirri Maz Duur thinks her efforts are too little, too late.

But when Drogo dies and the strongof his khalasar desert her, Dany is just as happy to have the allegiance of thewomen, children, and elderly who are left to her when the others leave. She wants to care for peoplewho can’t care for themselves, and continues this crusade in the liberation ofthe slave cities.

She was essentially sold to Drogoas a slave and as such she cares deeply about the atrocity of slavery, refusingto sail for Westeros until Ghiscari slavery has been abolished entirely. Shealso liberates the women of the dosh khaleen, who are living in their own sortof slavery under the authority of the khals until Dany frees them.

Jon’s egalitarian views resultedin the men who are supposed to serve and obey him murdering him instead. Dany’ssimilar choices led to her own subjects attempting to murder her.

So we can see that equality andfreedom are important values to both Jon and Dany. And both of them faceddoubts and resistance from not only their enemies but their friends and allies, too, on their quests to improvethe quality of life for the wildlings, the dothraki, and the slaves. 

So in one another, Jon and Dany will finally findanother person who 1. Understands what it is like to be a leader/ruler 2.Understands what it is like to have to make the unpopular decisions and 3. Iswilling to put themselves on the line to help the least fortunate people in theworld.

They also both know when violenceor drastic measures are necessary. We’ve seen Jon execute people against hisown hesitation on the matter, with Janos and then Thorne, Olly, and the othertraitors. This is something he obviously struggled with but he still did itbecause it is what needed to be done. At the same time, we know that Dany hashad to execute people who have challenged her rule, a rule that keeps peopleout of the chains of slavery. She was forced to execute Mossador and make anexample of the former master who she fed to Viserion and Rhaegal, and while Ithink she learned from this mistake later, she crucified the masters for theircrucifixion of the children. So both of them have experience with making thetough choices and facing the consequences.

This is very important for twopeople who are in positions of power when it comes to their relationship. It isessential that they share these values if their relationship is going to work.

3.      Important Differences/Yin and Yang

But I am not here to try and saythat it will all be perfect. Jon and Dany have a lot of differences inpersonality. There is a reason we often look to them as the ice and fire of theseries, besides the obvious reasons of their family names, the cold and hotclimates they hail from, etc.

Dany has the fire, passion, andalso the hot temper. She is impulsive and quick to anger. But her passion alsomeans that she loves deeply and feels happiness just as intensely as she doessadness and rage.

While we have occasionally seenfits of rage from Jon, he is typically more stoic, harder to rile, and moreforgiving.

So when Dany wants to go all “fireand blood,” or when Jon doesn’t want to act rashly when she does, we can counton arguments and disagreements. But any healthy couple has these. No one isgoing to agree 100% of the time, and people often say opposites attract. So Jon’sand Dany’s differences are important, too, because they need to balance eachother out.

When Jon is full of doubt, Dany’ssurety will push him to action. When Dany acts on emotion, Jon can counsel herand make sure action is warranted. It’s like a yin and yang that I think willwork beautifully.

They even look like the yin and yang—Dany with her pale eyes and silver-whitehair, often wearing white and pale pastels, while Jon is every bit the man inblack. They complement one another in every possible way.  

4.         Common Protests

I often see people worry about the incest, but I don’t think we have a real reason to worry about that. As we know, GoT/ASOIAF is set in a fictionalized, fantasy version of medeival Europe where incest was more commonly practiced. But even if that weren’t the case, there is precedent in the series for this kind of incest, and I’m not just talking about Targaryens.

Jon and Dany are nephew and aunt, which is not a particularly close family relation.

In immediate ASOIAF history we see cousin incest that is completely acceptable and not alarming to the family members. Joanna Lannister and Tywin Lannister (Tyrion, Cersei, and Jaime’s parents) were cousins. Rickard Stark and Lyarra Stark (Ned, Brandon, and Lyanna’s parents) were cousins.

Earlier in history Jonnel Stark married his niece Sansa Stark. And Edric Stark married his niece Serena Stark.

In current ASOIAF history Aeron Greyjoy wanted to marry Asha/Yara to her uncle Victarion.

And none of this takes into account the several examples of incest in Targaryen ancestry. Since the Targaryens have strange features and some extra abilities they are not like regular humans and incest does not effect them the way it would normal people so even sibling incest is common for Targaryens (remember Jon and Dany are both Targaryen). It is a misconception that Aerys II represents all modern Targaryens or that all would be mad as he was because of incest.

So I don’t think that this would be an obstacle to Jon’s or Dany’s feelings about the other. If anything they will be elated to have a family to be a part of.

5.      Loneliness

Finally, in spite of how far they’vecome, both Jon and Dany are still lonely and desire companionship. The famousparallel that I see mentioned all the time in the Jonerys fandom comes to mind:

Jon in ASOS:

Jon wondered where Ghost was now.Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in thewoods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made himfeel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleepingbeside him, he felt alone.

Dany in ADWD:

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr waskissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himselfinside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveledand the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she wasalone.

Even with Davos and Tyrion as their respective advisers, even withTormund and Edd and Missandei and Jorah as friends, they still lack somethingthat only they can provide each other—a real partner. Someone who is theirequal and who can understand their struggles and support them. We have seen that both Jon and Dany have the capacity for love, realromantic love, not just marriages of convenience or necessity. And when ithappens, I think it will absolutely be healthy, and as happy as a relationshipcan be in the turmoil they are living through currently.

Lastly, it is something that we can believe GRRM is in favor of too based on the years of foreshadowing, discussed here by @oadara.

Thanks for giving me a reason to talk about my faves, anon :)

[cherita]

11 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Deluxe Edition Books for Gift Giving

Books make for great gifts, don't you think?

Except . . . book lovers have probably already bought or read most of the books they want. Enter the deluxe edition: those fancy, illustrated editions designed especially for gift giving — I mean, I assume that's what they're for, with their gilded edges, pretty pictures, and fall release dates.

If you're searching for the perfect book to give your favorite sci-fi or fantasy reader, elevate your giving with a deluxe, anniversary or collector's edition of a beloved book. Or a hardcover edition instead of a mass market paperback, or a series collected into one volume. Here are 11 such deluxe edition books to get you started in these trying holiday shopping times...

Jump to: Sci-Fi Books || Fantasy Books || Young Adult Books

For Science Fiction book lovers...

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy

Jeff VanderMeer

In time for the holidays, a single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance — perfect for fans of dark sci-fi films and books alike, as the Annihilation movie adaptation starring Natalie Portman is set to hit theaters in February.

SYNOPSIS: Area X — a remote and lush terrain — has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers — they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding — but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

Ender’s Game (Hardcover Reissue)

Orson Scott Card

This engaging, collectible, miniature hardcover of the Orson Scott Card classic and worldwide bestselling novel makes an excellent gift for anyone’s science fiction library.

SYNOPSIS: Once again, Earth is under attack. An alien species is poised for a final assault. The survival of humanity depends on a military genius who can defeat the aliens. But who?

Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master. And a child.

Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battle School. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. He excels in simulated war games. But is the pressure and loneliness taking its toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battle School is just a game. Isn't it?

Old Man’s War (Hardcover Reissue)

John Scalzi

A perfect gift for an entry-level sci-fi reader and the ideal addition to a veteran fan’s collection, John Scalzi's Old Man’s War will take audiences on a heart-stopping adventure into the far corners of the universe.

SYNOPSIS: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it to the stars. The bad news is that, out there, planets fit to live on are scarce―and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Responsible for protecting humanity, the Colonial Defense Force doesn’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth, never to return. You’ll serve two years in comb

For Fantasy book lovers...

The Broken Earth Trilogy

N.K. Jemisin

For the Kindle lover, get the complete New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with The Fifth Season (2016 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel) and The Obelisk Gate (2017 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel), and concludes with this year's highly acclaimed The Stone Sky.

SYNOPSIS: This is the way the world ends...for the last time.

A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Edgedancer

Brandon Sanderson

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, a special gift edition of Edgedancer, a short novel of the Stormlight Archive (previously published in Arcanum Unbounded).

SYNOPSIS: Three years ago, Lift asked a goddess to stop her from growing older--a wish she believed was granted. Now, in Edgedancer, the barely teenage nascent Knight Radiant finds that time stands still for no one. Although the young Azish emperor granted her safe haven from an executioner she knows only as Darkness, court life is suffocating the free-spirited Lift, who can't help heading to Yeddaw when she hears the relentless Darkness is there hunting people like her with budding powers. The downtrodden in Yeddaw have no champion, and Lift knows she must seize this awesome responsibility.

The Name of the Wind 10th Anniversary Edition

Patrick Rothfuss 

This deluxe, illustrated edition celebrates the New York Times-bestselling series, The Kingkiller Chronicle—a masterful epic fantasy saga that has inspired readers worldwide.

The anniversary hardcover includes more than 50 pages of extra content; a beautiful, iconic cover by artist Sam Weber and designer Paul Buckley; gorgeous, never-before-seen illustrations by artist Dan Dos Santos; detailed and updated world map by artist Nate Taylor; and more.

SYNOPSIS: My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature—the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

Neverwhere Illustrated Edition

Neil Gaiman

The #1 New York Times bestselling author’s dark classic of modern fantasy, beautifully illustrated with strikingly atmospheric, painstakingly detailed black-and-white line art by award-winning artist Chris Riddell, and featuring the author’s preferred text and his Neverwhere tale, “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back.”

SYNOPSIS: Richard Mayhew is a young London businessman with a good heart whose life is changed forever when he stops to help a bleeding girl—an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed. Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in Neverwhere—a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth.

Neverwhere is home to Door, the mysterious girl Richard helped in the London Above. Here in Neverwhere, Door is a powerful noblewoman who has vowed to find the evil agent of her family’s slaughter and thwart the destruction of this strange underworld kingdom. If Richard is ever to return to his former life and home, he must join Lady Door’s quest to save her world—and may well die trying.

For Young Adult book lovers...

City of Bones 10th Anniversary Edition

Cassandra Clare 

Celebrate the tenth anniversary of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones with this gorgeous new edition, complete with new cover art, gilded edges, over thirty interior illustrations, and six new full-page color portraits of everyone’s favorite characters! Also includes the Clave’s official files on some of the series’ most beloved characters, written by Cassandra Clare.

SYNOPSIS: This is the book where Clary Fray first discovered the Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of warriors dedicated to driving demons out of our world and back to their own. The book where she first met Jace Wayland, the best Shadowhunter of his generation. The book that started it all. A perfect gift for the Shadowhunter fan in your life.

A Darker Shade of Magic Collector’s Edition

V.E. Schwab

A stunning collector's edition of the acclaimed novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab. With an exclusive metallic ink cover and reading ribbon, this edition will feature: end papers of London, fan art, a glossary of Arnesian and Antari terms, an interview between author and editor, and original (never before seen!) tales from within the Shades of Magic world.

SYNOPSIS: Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

Leigh Bardugo

Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of lavishly illustrated short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.

SYNOPSIS: Enter the Grishaverse...

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.

Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, the tales in The Language of Thorns will transport you to lands both familiar and strange―to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.

This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, each of them lavishly illustrated and culminating in stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

Red Queen Collector's Edition

Victoria Aveyard

A beautifully designed collector’s edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, featuring exclusive content, fan art, a redesigned cover, printed case, stained edges, a never-seen-before look behind the scenes of the Scarlet Guard, and more!

SYNOPSIS: Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard--a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

The perfect gift for anyone looking to add this beautiful edition to their collection, and for new readers eager to discover the lush, vivid fantasy series where loyalty and desire can tear you apart and the only certainty is betrayal.