Modern Literature

//Modern Literature
­
  • This volume contains three novellas:  The Clayfield: A young lad growing from a boy to a teen in a 1950s army camp in England. Like any lad he has dreams and adventures - but he has a growing awareness of another, less cosy world beyond his child-horizons.  Decency and Honour: Canberra, 1971 - the fervent spirit of the demos (combined with military tactics and ethos); the war; the prankersterism of the socially committed and the racism of the anti-racists.  A Paperknife and a Broken Oar: The evolution of the relationship between two men - one the eternal outsider who feels compelled to relive the past and the other the sometime friend who fails to understand.

  • Book IV of Empire.  Britannia has been subdued - and an epic new chapter in Marcus Valerius Aquila's life begins. The murderous Roman agents who nearly captured Marcus have been defeated by his friends. But in order to protect those very friends from the wrath of the emperor, he must leave the province which has been giving him shelter. As Marcus Tribulus Corvus, centurion of the second Tungrian auxiliary cohort, he leads his men from Hadrian's Wall to the Tungrians' original home in Germania Inferior. There he finds a very different world from the turbulent British frontier - but one with its own dangers. Tungrorum, the center of a once-prosperous farming province, a city already broght low by the ravages of the eastern plague that has swept through the empire, is now threatened by an outbreak of brutally violent robbery. A bandit chieftain called Obduro, his identity always hidden behind an iron cavalry helmet, is robbing and killing with impunity. His sword - sharper, stronger and more deadly than any known to the Roman army - is the lethal symbol of his unstoppable power. And now he has moved beyond mere theft and threatens to destabilise the whole northern frontier of the empire ...
  • A selection from classic Australian authors... Stories in this volume: Death of a Brumby, Boland Robinson; The Boundary-Rider's Goanna, Spoils to the Victor and King of the Scrub,  Henry C. Lamond;The Grey Kangaroo, Alan Marshall; The Mullet and The Catch, Vance Palmer; The Good Season and Return of the Hunter, Frank Dalby Davison; The Gleam of His Wing, Eric Lambert; Bush Cats, Henry Lawson; Native Dog and The Perch, Dal Stivens; The Wedge-Tailed Eagle, Geoffrey Dutton; On The Reef and The Darling Cod, George Farwell; 'The Breaking', R. Wilkes Hunter; Emperors, John Bechervaise; Crows, Dowell O'Reilly; The Pelican and Gun Dog, Cecil Mann; In Crocodile Land, Ion Idriess; Painted Finches, Katharine Susannah Prichard; The White Dingo, Younger Hillman; The Plover, M. Barnard Brereton; The Overseer, Jack Hyett; The Great Stampede, Carl Warbuton and W.K. Robertson; The Hunter, E. Dithmack; Old Harry's Groper, W.N. Scott.
  • He was three-quarters wolf and all fury.  Born in a cave, in famine, int he frozen Arctic, in a world where the weak died without mercy and only the swift, the strong and cunning survived. This was White Fang's world until he and his mother were captured by the man-gods: Men who taught White Fang to hate.  He was beaten, abused and attacked.  He was bought and sold, tortured, trained  to kill in blood sports.  He did not know kindness and became a mad, lethal creature of pure rage.  Only one man saw White Fang's  intelligence and nobility and he had the courage to offer the killer a new life. But can a wolf understand the words 'hope' and 'love'?
  • Book I of Queens Of England:  Despite the dangers of practicing her faith in the staunchly Protestant England, pretty Queen Henrietta Maria refuses to cast aside her Catholicism, so she finds little favour among the people. She is impetuous and loving, fond of fashionable clothes and gossip and Charles, a family man of principle and integrity, is entirely devoted to her. But their happy if controversial marriage is soon under threat when Henrietta is denounced as a puppet of Rome and charged with leading Protestant England back to Rome. Soon her enemies swarm and the spies in her household prove too much. Only her loyalty and love for Charles can hope to keep him from the road to regicide.
  • Book  V of the  Doctor series. Dr. Simon Sparrow looks forward to a life of tranquillity and order as a respectable homeowner with a new wife, life insurance and a law mower. But that was before his old friend Dr Grimsdyke took to using their home as a place of refuge from his various mischiefs -  particularly the incident involving an actress which produced theatrical rather than medical complications. That was more than enough without  the appearance of Simon’s godfather, the eminent Sir Lancelot Spratt, now retired from St. Swithin's after thirty years of getting his own way. Sir Lancelot is descending on his mild-mannered colleague Hubert Cambridge, ready to seize control of the plans for the St. Swithin's Bicentenary celebrations - and he does call on Simon but his visit is spectacularly curtailed!
  • The story of the love between Sir Richard Grenvile - the King's General in the West and the most detested officer in his army - and Honor Harris of Lanrest, beautiful and brave during the years of the English Civil War. Honor Harris is only eighteen when she first meets Richard Grenvile, proud, reckless - and utterly captivating. But following a riding accident, Honor must reconcile herself to a life alone. As Richard rises through the ranks of the army, marries and makes enemies, Honor remains true to him and finally discovers the secret of Menabilly.  Decades later, an undaunted Sir Richard, now a general serving King Charles I, finds her. 
  • Danny's life is quite simple: doing odd jobs with his father to keep afloat, like painting barns or fixing plumbing, and then kicking back with a six-pack at the end of the day. His father believes that aAll women, young and old, are tramps and whores and no good, and are to be steered clear of. But living near a college, with college girls all over the town, Danny goes from complete innocence to jaded weariness as he experiences one after the other. He knows that Angie, the sophisticated, unstable student is trouble and she, with Danny's tough, vengeful father, make a strange triangle.  Danny and Angie's affair works out for a while in a hole-and-corner sort of way.  Then as the Welsh winter closes in, Angie gets more demanding - and Danny is faced with a cruel, impossible choice.
  • The Romans stripped Jonathan of his clothes, his citizenship and his name.  He became Cerberus, a killing machine.  Soon he was the toast of Rome, mingling with the patricians and forgetting he was a gladiator slave. The more he killed, the more he forgot. He left behind his Judean homeland and forgot his God. He forgot the father who was trying to free him and his love for Sarai, the slave girl.  He was now Cerberus - Roman gladiator.