First Crusade

Spring, 1096. Europe’s princes march their armies toward the Holy Land. They are accompanied by tens of thousands of pilgrims, led by a fiery preacher Peter the Hermit. Their destination is Jerusalem, the holiest of all Christian cities. Their goal is to conquer the Muslim occupation. History will call them the First Crusade. Among the pilgrims is Oderic of Rheims, a Benedictine monk from Eastern France. He's devoted to the cause, but the Crusade will test every vow he swore to the Church. His poverty will be challenged by greed, his obedience tempted by blood lust.

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

When a crusader army of Western European Franks took Jerusalem by storm on July 15, 1099, it was one of the more unexpected conquests in history. Everything seemed to be against them for the previous three years of crusades right up to the final siege, yet they finally prevailed. And when they did, they massacred most if not all of the population before establishing a Christian realm in a region that had been taken over by the Muslims in 634 CE.

Of the many campaigns during the Middle Ages, few are as remarkable or seemingly impossible to win at the start as the First Crusade (1095-99), and the true crowning achievement of that crusade, which resulted in two centuries of Western European Christian states in the Middle East and the permanent firing of the European imagination, was the conquest of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 after three weeks of siege.

Throughout the galaxy, the reclusive alien race known as The One are incapacitated by terror. On the planet Luddeccea, wolf-human hybrid Volka harbors a terrible secret...a secret that must explain her nightmares. Trapped on a luxurious asteroid, pleasure ‘bot 6T9 struggles to find purpose - until he receives a message from an Unidentified Caller. The worlds of The One, Volka, and 6T9 are about to collide. The galaxy will be shaken to its core. The starship is waking.

My name is Argo Herrero. I'm ready to enlist, sign the contract to serve for 10 years under the ally ranks. Enlisting is the only way to free myself from the hands of the totalitarians, to fight for freedom itself. The allies assure me citizenship and a decent salary after 10 years of service. The Megachine are strong. Undefeated. Unrivaled. They have wiped out the ally drone force and are moving in for the final blow. First they took Europe, then Asia. With the help of the Chavistas, they conquered Latin America.

Though Aaron Turner would be just as happy to oversee archaeological digs, there might still be a few people out to kill him. What his enemies don’t know is that Aaron really is the One God’s Chosen, called Bringer, known as Death, and he’s become righteously pissed off.

After years of planning, the Lunar Free State is going to war, on a crusade to liberate the people of Tatanna from the evil Bugs. For Lorna Greenwood, this will be a trial by fire—her first mission with her own command, the Predator-class destroyer LFS Lynx. She’s looking to get some payback for her last trip there eight years ago, which didn’t end well.

After 10,000 years of war, humanity has obtained its wish - crusading the Milky Way. My name was Argo Herrero. I'm now Lynx, my code of war. Planetary system after planetary system, we've slain all intelligent species once alive in our galaxy. All but one, the last intelligent species left to be purged by our ranks. What will become of us when we've purged the whole galaxy? I don't know, but I'm afraid of what we'll become, of what I've already become.