It's the first year of India's independence from England. The creation of two nations, India for the Hindus, Pakistan for the Muslims, has become a nightmare of ethnic clashes and terrorism. Just as the violence is showing signs of easing, Gandhi is assassinated. With the entire subcontinent teetering on the edge of chaos, Roger Taylor, an American working for the British intelligence service, is called on to defuse a series of death fasts protesting the partition of India-something that can only add tension to an already volatile situation. When the hardboiled Taylor arrives in the sacred city of Haridwar to confront the protesters, he encounters a woman who completely disarms him with her goodwill and depth of spirit. What begins as a political mission for Taylor unexpectedly becomes an excursion into Tibetan metaphysics and a life-changing glimpse into the workings of the wheel of life and death.

Chain of Souls

Literature & Fiction

ARMSTRONG, DAN

United States

Mud City Press

The winter is unseasonably warm in central Asia. The Himalayan snowpack is diminished by a quarter. The spring run-off is down and the summer rains late. Water shortages stress grain crops across the center of the continent and into China. Concerns for the Asian harvest ripple through the world markets like a twenty-dollar spike in the price of light sweet crude. In America's heartland, ex-Army Colonel Nathaniel Cromwell and his eighteen year-old son farm eight hundred acres of corn and wheat. This year, as he has the last five, Cromwell sold ninety percent of his summer harvest cash advance in January to finance planting in the spring. Now in June, as the price of wheat breaks twelve dollars a bushel, Cromwell curses the day he must harvest his fields at four-twenty-six, because it will be the grain dealers and speculators, not the farmers, who will reap the profits of Asia's grain shortage. Cromwell awakens on the twenty-second of June to broad daylight at two a.m. A wall of fire stretches across the western horizon. His neighbor Tom Foster has torched twelve hundred acres of wheat in protest of the market mechanisms. It is the third field burning in two weeks. But this one is different. Foster stays in his fields after setting them aflame. Three days later, at Foster's funeral, the President of the National Grange approaches Cromwell. The farmers are trying to organize a strike. They need someone to provide leadership. Awarded a Medal of Honor in 2002 and dishonorably discharged in 2004 for speaking out against US military operations in the Central Asia, Cromwell is a man with national recognition to the masses and a rebel hero's spark among the farmers. He accepts the Grange's request to run the strike. A week later, with no warning, the Non-partisan Farmer's Alliance burns a million acres of ripe winter wheat. That evening on nationwide TV, Cromwell tells the grain industry, the government, and the shocked TV audience that the alliance will methodically burn their crops from Ohio to Oregon if there isn't an immediate restructuring of the grain market. The grain industry and the Secretary of Agriculture condemn the burning. The Director of Homeland Security labels the striking farmers domestic terrorists. A federal warrant is put out for Cromwell's arrest.

Prairie Fire

Puddle of Love

Taming the Dragon

It’s the end of the third century before Christ. The city-state of Syracuse is a critical seaport in Rome’s second war with Carthage. One of the ancient world’s most beautiful cities, it is also the home of the famous Greek mathematician Archimedes. When Syracuse comes under Carthaginian control in 214 B.C., the Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus storms the city with 40,000 soldiers and 60 warships, only to be confronted by the most sophisticated weapons the world has ever seen, all built and designed by Archimedes. The Roman army is turned back as though toy soldiers three separate times. Unwilling to concede, Marcellus blockades the city by land and sea, determined to starve Syracuse into submission. Timon Leonidas, an orphan of the war, is Archimedes’ slave during the last three years of the mathematician’s life and through the duration of the siege. Timon tells the story of a city held hostage from the perspective of a young Greek, privy to the political intrigue that boils around his master. When Syracuse finally falls, Marcellus' first concern is to secure its greatest asset, the aging mathematician. In one of the most poignant scenes in all of history, a Roman soldier, certain the scientist is casting a hex, strikes Archimedes down as he sketches out a geometry problem. In his last moments, Archimedes gives his cherished slave a gift more powerful than any weapon used in the siege, but with the promise that it can only be revealed to save his life—a promise that becomes Timon’s fate to break.

The Eyes of Archimedes: The Siege of Syracuse

Armstrong, Mr. Dan

Genre Fiction

Almost everyone at some time in his or her life has entertained the idea of an encounter with the supernatural. For most, these are just passing fancies—a glance at the astrology column in the local newspaper or an evening of fun with a Ouija board. For myself, it has always been more than that. Since my childhood I have wanted to witness something from beyond the pale—to observe a demonstration of telekinesis or see a UFO—anything that would allow me a peek behind the veil of ordinary reality. And yet, despite my willingness to believe in something more, until I actually had hard evidence of the other side, I could be no more than a hopeful skeptic. And that is what these stories are about, exploring the unexplained, knowing the unknowable...

The Open Secret: And Twelve Other Tales of the Unknown

It’s two hundred and ten years before the birth of Christ. Rome’s second war with Carthage is in its eighth year. Hannibal’s army, yet to know defeat, roams the Italian peninsula ravaging the farmland and pressuring Latin cities to abandon their loyalty to Rome. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, just back from a successful siege of Carthaginian controlled Syracuse, demands that the Roman Senate give him an army to confront the Carthaginian chieftain and finally force him out of Italy. Over the next two years, Marcellus and his two legions pursue Hannibal’s army in a subtle game of cat and mouse—Hannibal seeking perfect ground for battle, Marcellus daring to challenge a man who has tricked one Roman general after another. Three times the two armies clash with no decisive outcome. Facing recall in Rome for his inability to finally defeat Hannibal, Marcellus vows before the People’s Assembly to destroy Hannibal’s army in the coming spring. Despite growing criticism from his enemies in the Senate, Marcellus is given one last chance to achieve what he believes is his destiny. Timon Leonidas, a Greek refugee from the war, travels with Marcellus and his army as a scribe and mapmaker through three tension-filled campaigns. Timon tells the tragic story of one of Rome’s greatest field marshals, detailing Marcellus’ political battles, his strained family life, and his obsessive quest for unparalleled glory on the battlefield.

The Eyes of Archimedes Book II: The Death of Marcellus

It’s late in the third century before Christ. Rome’s war with Carthage has gone on far too long. Thirteen years have passed since Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, and he’s still there, plundering the farmland and terrorizing the inhabitants. Publius Cornelius Scipio, recently back from casting the Carthaginians out of Spain, now wants a chance at Hannibal. Fighting strong resistance in the Roman Senate, Scipio demands an opportunity to invade Africa and besiege Carthage, promising this will force Hannibal to leave Italy and come to the rescue of his homeland. Such is Scipio’s popularity and his reputation as an up-and-coming general, the Senate cannot refuse him. He is given the authority to raise an army and sail for Africa. Meanwhile, Timon Leonidas, once Archimedes’ slave, and more recently a scribe for the deceased Marcellus Claudius, has gained attention as a mapmaker. Scipio, desperately needing accurate maps of North Africa, tracks down Timon and asks him to travel to Africa with him. Despite recently reuniting with his mother after six years of separation, Timon gives in to Scipio’s charm and signs onto the campaign. Just as Scipio predicted, his invasion of Africa draws Hannibal back to Carthage. The two generals maneuver across the African plains with armies of forty thousand men, finally confronting each other outside the city of Zama to determine the outcome of the war in a battle that rivals any in history for its impact on the direction of western civilization.

The Eyes of Archimedes Book III: Zama

Management of our natural resources in both an efficient and sustainable manner is essential to our future. A critical part of this is learning what Mother Nature’s plants have to offer and how to cultivate them. Botanical Treasures provides this information for various plants, while also bringing together ethnobotany, economic botany, and agriculture in a system of nature-based renewable economics that is sorely needed in this age of environmental concern. The plants profiled in Botanical Treasures have the potential to produce a broad range of raw materials for a variety of useful, commercial products. Some can be grown on disturbed and marginal lands where little else can grow. Some contribute valuable functions to agroecology, have unique medicinal properties, or act as important sources for food. Think of Botanical Treasures as a user's guide to planet Earth.

Botanical Treasures: Multi-use Plants for Renewable Resources and a Nature-based Economy

Science & Math

Smith, Joshua

Biological Sciences

Harry MacCormack met Ida Mock in 1971. Despite a 50-year age difference, they immediately sensed a deep connection that embraced both a knowledge of Native American culture and a turn toward metaphysics. Harry had just written a book about Native American traditions, and Ida had been a long-time spiritual medium. Over a period of 13 years, Ida related her life story to Harry through question-and-answer interviews and astral projection back to the time of her childhood. What results is a fascinating memoir of a remarkable healer and medium born in Idaho in 1892, that also reveals the spiritual unfolding of a 29-year-old man just beginning his life as an organic farmer in western Oregon. Ida’s story not only traces the life of a pioneer woman awakening to her powers as a medium and a healer, but also recounts the steady press of progress upon the western frontier—the expansion of the railroads, the arrival of the automobile, and finally the advent of modern technology. Ida, who had seen it all from a tiny cabin in the upper reaches of the Clearwater River in the 1890s to the first home computer in the 1980s, was the perfect guide for Harry, a new age back-to-the-land farmer whose heart ached for what he saw as the incursion of modern society on the beauty of undisturbed nature.

Grandma's Song of Healing

Biographies & Memoirs

MacCormack, Harry

Community & Culture

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Mud City Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mud City Press