Stephen Knight

It started in the Middle East. A flu-like plague that infected thousands and killed roughly ten percent of its victims. Those who died awoke once again, but they were no longer among the living--they came back as soulless carnivorous corpses who desired only one thing: to feed on living human flesh.As the infection spread across Europe and the rest of the globe, cities were overwhelmed. Nations fell. Humanity flickered like a candle flame in the wind.In the United States: the nation's great cities become hunting grounds. New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles...all fall victim to hordes of shambling dead who want to devour the living.

A "Gathering Dead" NovelWhen Hollywood screenwriter and former Border Patrolman Robert Wallace recovers from a sickness that had left him bedridden for days, he finds that his wife has been killed, his son is missing, and Los Angeles has been overrun by hordes of carnivorous corpses.Only this is no movie set. It's the zombie apocalypse, and the City of Angels is now the hunting ground of the dead. Their prey: the living. Whether on high-paid movie stars or penniless bums on Skid Row, the dead want to feed, and human beings are the only item on their menu. Wallace embarks in a desperate search for his son while trying to evade the legions of ghouls that totter across the crumbling ruins of Los Angeles.Welcome to Hell A

Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, has been a source of enduring fascination for centuries. In this authoritative, entertaining, and generously illustrated book, Stephen Knight traces the myth of Merlin back to its earliest roots in the early Welsh figure of Myrddin. He then follows Merlin as he is imagined and reimagined through centuries of literature and art, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose immensely popular History of the Kings of Britain (1138) transmitted the story of Merlin to Europe at large. He covers French and German as well as Anglophone elements of the myth and brings the story up to the present with discussions of a globalized Merlin who finds his way into popular literature, film, television, and New Age philosophy. Knight argues that Merlin in all his guises represents a conflict basic to Western societies-the clash between knowledge and power. While the Merlin story varies over time, the underlying structural tension remains the same whether it takes the form of bard versus lord, magician versus monarch, scientist versus capitalist, or academic versus politician. As Knight sees it, Merlin embodies the contentious duality inherent to organized societies. In tracing the applied meanings of knowledge in a range of social contexts, Knight reveals the four main stages of the Merlin myth: Wisdom (early Celtic British), Advice (medieval European), Cleverness (early modern English), and Education (worldwide since the nineteenth century). If a wizard can be captured within the pages of a book, Knight has accomplished the feat.

Crime fiction--a product of the burgeoning metropolis of the 19th century--features specialists who identify criminals to protect an anxious citizenry. Before detectives came to play the central role, the protagonists tended to be lawyers or other professionals. Major English writers like Gaskell, Dickens and Collins contributed to the genre--Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was a best-seller in 1887--and American and French authors created new forms. This book explores thematic aspects of 19th century crime fiction's complex history, including various social and gender roles between different time periods and settings, and the imperial elements that made Sherlock Holmes seem dynamically contemporary.

It Was the End of Days.The world had less than seven hours to prepare. When it hit, the coronal mass ejection from the sun rolled back hundreds of years of technological innovation. Airplanes fell from the skies. Power grids crashed. Even electrical cabling was turned to slag. No internet. No cable TV. No electricity. No modern day conveniences of any kind, from fancy European sedans to smart phones to clean, running water. The entire world is plunged back into the Dark Ages in less than a second, courtesy of the most powerful Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) event in recorded history.Television development exec Tony Vincenzo has always lived a high-society life, first in Los Angeles, now in Manhattan. As New York City tears itself apart in an orgy of violence, Vincenzo has to leave his high-floor luxury condominium on Central Park South's Billionaire's Row in order to return to his wife and young son in the Hollywood Hills overlooking LA. But the only way to get there is to walk, and Vincenzo is no Joe Survivalist-he's the kind of guy used to the trappings of the good life. While society unravels all around him, he has to not only make it out of New York alive, but across the entirety of a nation descending into feral madness.His journey becomes more complex when he commits a truly selfless deed, and winds up with two young charges: seven-year-old Daniel, an autistic boy ill-equipped for a life of hardship, and his sassy four-year-old sister, Gabriella. Together, the trio will need every stroke of luck they can find to persevere in the lawless lands that lie ahead of them...and survive the brutality of the serial killer Roth who pursues them.

In The Politics of Myth, Stephen Knight studies nine figures still vividly alive, all of them appearing in twenty-first century film and television. Analysing how they relate to the major themes of power, resistance and knowledge, he shows how fact and fiction interweave to help us explore and understand the complexities of our world.Myths shift with time: Robin Hood can be a tough anti-authoritarian, a genial aristocrat, a Saxon patriot; Queen Elizabeth I has been seen as a Protestant heroine, a love-lorn lady, even a grumpy manipulator. From Merlin's multiple manifestations and Sherlock Holmes's smoking habits to the ongoing arguments about Ned Kelly, this book explores the richness and the range of figures of myth.

This book explores and explains stories about the mythic outlaw, who from the Middle Ages to the present day has stood up for the values of natural law and true justice. Analysing the whole sequence of Robin Hood adventures, it begins with the medieval tradition, including early poems and the long-surviving sung ballads, and goes on to look at two variant Robins: the Scottish version, here named Rabbie Hood, and gentrified Robin, the exiled Earl of Huntington, now partnered by Lady Marian. The nineteenth century re-imagined Robin as a modern figure – a lover of nature, Marian, England and the rights of the ordinary man. In novels and films he has developed into an international figure of freedom, while Marian’s role has grown in a modern feminist context. Even to this day, the Robin Hood myth continues to reproduce itself, constantly discovering new forms and new meanings.

Starting with William Godwin's Caleb Williams and Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly, this book covers in detail the great works of detective fiction--Poe's Dupin stories, Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Sayers' Strong Poison, Chandler's The Big Sleep, and Simenon's The Yellow Dog. Lesser-known but important early works are also discussed, including Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, Emile Gaboriau's M. Lecoq, Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case and Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. More recent titles show increasing variety in the mystery genre, with Patricia Highsmith's criminal-focused The Talented Mr. Ripley and Chester Himes' African-American detectives in Cotton Comes to Harlem. Diversity develops further in Sara Paretsky's tough woman detective V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only, Umberto Eco's medievalist and postmodern The Name of the Rose and the forensic feminism of Patricia Cornwell's Postmortem. Notably, the best modern crime fiction has been primarily international--Manuel Vasquez Montalban's Catalan Summer Seas, Ian Rankin's Edinburgh-set The Naming of the Dead, Sweden's Stieg Larsson's The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and Vikram Chanda's Mumbai-based Sacred Games. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

WHEN OUR WORLD ENDED, THEIR MISSION BEGANThe Sixty Minute War brought humanity to the brink of annihilation. Billions perished. The planet Earth was turned into a virtual graveyard, with the shattered, burned-out skeletons of great cities serving as tombstones marking Mankind's demise.But in the United States, one final outpost remains. Ten years have passed, and Harmony Base, a subterranean U.S. Army installation that survived the nuclear inferno, has yet to receive any response to its continual radio transmissions. Long-range surface reconnaissance missions fail to locate any other survivors. Harmony's personnel, a mix of military and civilian specialists, wonder if they are the only living beings left on the planet.Earthquake damage to the base's vital power plant necessitates a different type of mission: the retrieval of spare parts from a storage depot in San Jose, 1,600 miles distant. Captain Mike Andrews and his crew set out across a Giger-inspired landscape blighted by lightning storms and deadly hazards that could swallow their all-terrain vehicles whole. The last thing Andrews expects to encounter in the nuked ruins of San Jose are survivors led by a twisted freak with mental powers off the scale...Harmony is America's last chance to rise up from the ashes of the nuclear holocaust and help restore civilization. But only if Andrews and his crew can escape San Jose...and the madman who calls himself The Law

A popular crime genre in the nineteenth century, urban mysteries have largely been ignored ever since. This historical and critical text examines the origins of the innovative genre, which grappled with the rise of enormous, anonymous cities, beginning in France in 1842, then spreading rapidly across the continent and to America and Australia. Writers covered include Eugene Sue, George Reynolds, Paul Feval, George Lippard, "Ned Buntline" and Donald Cameron.

Since its appearance nearly two centuries ago, crime fiction has gripped readers' imaginations around the world. Detectives have varied enormously: from the nineteenth-century policemen (and a few women), through stars like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, to newly self-aware voices of the present - feminist, African American, lesbian, gay, postcolonial and postmodern.Stephen Knight's fascinating book is a comprehensive analytic survey of crime fiction from its origins in the nineteenth century to the present day. Knight explains how and why the various forms of the genre have evolved, explores a range of authors and movements, and argues that the genre as a whole has three parts – the early development of Detection, the growing emphasis on Death, and the modern celebration of Diversity.The expanded second edition has been thoroughly updated in the light of recent research and new developments, such as ethnic crime fiction, the rise of thrillers in the serial-killer and urban collapse modes, and feel-good 'cozies'. It also explores a number of fictional works which have been published in the last few years and features a helpful glossary. With full references, and written in a highly engaging style, this remains the essential short guide for readers of crime fiction everywhere!

Since its appearance nearly two centuries ago, crime fiction has gripped readers' imaginations around the world. Detectives have varied enormously: from the nineteenth-century policemen (and a few women), through stars like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, to newly self-aware voices of the present - feminist, African American, lesbian, gay, postcolonial and postmodern.Stephen Knight's fascinating book is a comprehensive analytic survey of crime fiction from its origins in the nineteenth century to the present day. Knight explains how and why the various forms of the genre have evolved, explores a range of authors and movements, and argues that the genre as a whole has three parts – the early development of Detection, the growing emphasis on Death, and the modern celebration of Diversity.The expanded second edition has been thoroughly updated in the light of recent research and new developments, such as ethnic crime fiction, the rise of thrillers in the serial-killer and urban collapse modes, and feel-good 'cozies'. It also explores a number of fictional works which have been published in the last few years and features a helpful glossary. With full references, and written in a highly engaging style, this remains the essential short guide for readers of crime fiction everywhere!

Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, has been a source of enduring fascination for centuries. In this authoritative, entertaining, and generously illustrated book, Stephen Knight traces the myth of Merlin back to its earliest roots in the early Welsh figure of Myrddin. He then follows Merlin as he is imagined and reimagined through centuries of literature and art, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose immensely popular History of the Kings of Britain (1138) transmitted the story of Merlin to Europe at large. He covers French and German as well as Anglophone elements of the myth and brings the story up to the present with discussions of a globalized Merlin who finds his way into popular literature, film, television, and New Age philosophy. Knight argues that Merlin in all his guises represents a conflict basic to Western societies-the clash between knowledge and power. While the Merlin story varies over time, the underlying structural tension remains the same whether it takes the form of bard versus lord, magician versus monarch, scientist versus capitalist, or academic versus politician. As Knight sees it, Merlin embodies the contentious duality inherent to organized societies. In tracing the applied meanings of knowledge in a range of social contexts, Knight reveals the four main stages of the Merlin myth: Wisdom (early Celtic British), Advice (medieval European), Cleverness (early modern English), and Education (worldwide since the nineteenth century). If a wizard can be captured within the pages of a book, Knight has accomplished the feat.

Now you will be unstoppable! Everything you need to build websites with FileMaker is in this book. Many of you have wanted to build FileMaker driven websites for yourself, your boss or your clients. You have been unable to do so because of time restraints and the pressure of learning yet another language. This book teaches you how to use FMStudio to build powerful FileMaker applications without writing a single line of code. FMStudio is a Dreamweaver extension that connects to FileMaker. FMStudio enables you to drag and drop FileMaker fields into Dreamweaver. Using our powerful wizards, you can instantly create real world FileMaker web solutions. Quickly learn how to build FileMaker websites by following our step by step tutorials. Add a new valuable tool to your FileMaker tool belt and take a step into the world of web publishing with FMStudio.

A classic and highly controversial exposé of the secret world of the Freemasons reissued with a new introduction by Martin Short, author of ‘Inside the Brotherhood’. The Freemasons have long fascinated outsiders. The subject of Dan Brown’s new novel – set for release in 2007 – this secret and exclusive society, thought to be the largest in Britain today, remains a mystery to the many excluded from its ranks. One would never know if a father or brother was a member due to the mandatory vow of secrecy. In this classic, controversial exposé, Stephen Knight talks to the men on the inside – those who have broken their vow of secrecy to reveal the darker side of the ‘brotherhood’. Do they influence the law? Is the KGB involved? And is there is a secret group of Masons running the country today, perhaps influencing every move we make? Fully updated with a new introduction by Martin Short, acclaimed author of ‘Inside the Brotherhood’, this is the unmissable, true story of an ancient, and mysterious brotherhood operating in our midst.

A Hundred Years of Fiction is the first in-depth exploration and analysis of the Anglophone fiction of Wales in the twentieth century. It covers the major periods, genres and authors, from Allen Raine to Christopher Meredith. Stephen Knight considers Welsh fiction from a sociocultural viewpoint, relating the authors and texts to the determining forces of their period and contexts, such as economy, politics, religion, gender issues, concepts of Welsh identity and the varying pressures of a colonial situation. He uses the techniques of modern post-colonial (and colonial) criticism, paying special attention to the role of Welsh-language culture in the formation of the authors and their texts. Beginning with early responses to colonialism, the book then moves on to map Wales's varying representations of the politics of industry, as well as the ways in which Welsh writing in English responded to the metropolitan influence of modernism. In the latter half of the century, the question of women's writing in Wales has become increasingly important, and is examined in detail, as is the decline of industry and the concurrent rise of a postmodern Anglophone literature. A Hundred Years of Fiction will be essential reading for anyone interested in the multiple articulations of Welsh identity and culture in twentieth-century English-language fictions of Wales.