A new cycle of the quest begins. A letter folded seventeen times calls the six young wizards to Tokyo - to a city that once kept hours no clock in Europe could hold: unequal hours, hours that stretch in summer and shrink in winter, hours that belong to the sun and not to the machine. At the heart of the mystery stands the most extraordinary timepiece the six have ever faced: the Man-nen dokei, the Myriad Year Clock - the ten-thousand-year clock, the most Japanese machine ever built, with a...

The Keeper Cycle's third quest opens with the one thing that canno happen: in the held city of Jaipur, where a sundial the size of a palac reads the sky to the second, the shadow has begun to fall wrong. The Samrat Yantra - the Supreme Instrument, greatest of the great stone instruments of the astronomer-king Jai Singh - has no gears to jam and no hands to slip: it casts an honest shadow, and an honest shadow cannot lie. Yet it is lying - and if Makar Sankranti, the day the sun turns north...

The Keeper Cycle's second quest begins with a single golden feather, fallen out of a clear summer sky onto the Bund - dropped by the Golden Rooster, eldest of the Orloj's three sons, keeping a promise nine hundred years old. It summons the six young keepers, with Hina Tanaka and her ledger, to the one city of the quest that will not hold still - Shanghai, where a squat stone tower called Big Ching chimed Westminster over the river, and where, behind the real city, a held city is waiting fo...

From the bell-founders of the Kiso Valley to the sandpainters of the Himalayas, from a king who envies noon to a machine learning to say a human name - Poetry in Equilibrium gathers nine cycles of verse and fable, each carried home by a different keeper of time, teaching the same old lesson in nine different tongues: how to want less, love harder, and let go clean.In Part I, the wandering scholar-poet of the Orloj Series carries his notebook through Tokyo, Shanghai, Ja...

In a crumbling five-world nation built on prophecy, bloodlines, and ancient secrets, one rebellious princess may be the key to salvation - or the doom of humanity.Long before Earth became the world we know, a warrior crossed the stars bearing the AMON-I, a forbidden weapon said to come from the Creator's armory. With it, he destroyed an ancient evil, shattered civilizations, and set in motion a prophecy that would echo across worlds for millennia.Now, on the planet Aladfar,...

"The Praise of Folly" is a satirical work by Desiderius Erasmus that critiques the societal norms and practices of his time. Through the voice of Folly, a personification of foolishness, Erasmus humorously examines the absurdities of human behavior, including the vanity of scholars, the hypocrisy of religious leaders, and the folly of war. The text is both entertaining and thought-provoking, encouraging readers to reflect on the nature of wisdom and folly in their own lives, while also cha...

The central theme of the essay is the personification of Folly as a wise, witty, and entertaining speaker who praises herself and her own influence. Through this personification, Erasmus uses satire to critique the folly and foolishness that he saw prevalent in society, particularly within the Church and among the clergy. Folly's speech is a blend of humor, irony, and sharp criticism, making it a powerful tool for societal commentary.Erasmus uses Folly's voice to expose various vices and f...

Considered one of the most important works of literature in Western Civilization, Desiderius Erasmus's essay In Praise of Folly is a classic satirical work in the style of the ancients, in which the Goddess of Folly extols the virtues of frivolousness and indulgence of one's passions and then turns to a satirical examination of Christian piousness. In a humorously satirical way, the work examines the abuses of power of the Roman Catholic Church at the time and is seen as one of th...

Erasmus critiques the hypocrisy of rulers and clergy who claim divine justification for war while ignoring Christ's message of peace and love. He vividly describes the horrors of war—suffering, destruction, and the loss of innocent lives—to emphasize its futility and moral corruption. Instead of glorifying war as a means to power or justice, Erasmus advocates for diplomacy, reason, and compassion as the true paths to resolving conflicts.His writings against war resonate as a call for ethic...

Everyone wants to be sexy – the word we use for showing up vibrant, attractive and fully present – but few people know that health is sexy’s foundation. Fully sexy comes from fully healthy. What does that take? Life created health based in nature and human nature. Food and fitness are only one of eight parts of healthy/sexy. Each of the eight distinct aspects of our nature, and our context, has a different function, needs a different kind of attention, goes off in a different way, and requ...

We get some sense of things which were moving deeply in Erasmus' life from his "Manual of a Christian Knight." We find here a characteristic criticism of religious forms taking the place of religious substance. We find a tremendous emphasis upon the intelligence which in no way lessens the emphasis on vital piety. Prayer and knowledge are to work together in the life of the Christian knight. The inner is to give force and power to the outer. The outer is never to take the place of the inne...

In Praise of Folly, also translated as The Praise of Folly (Latin: Stultitiae Laus or Moriae Encomium; Greek title: Μωρίας ἐγκώμιον (Morias enkomion); Dutch title: Lof der Zotheid), is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in June 1511. Inspired by previous works of the Italian humanist Faustino Perisauli De Triumpho Stultitiae, it is a satirical attack on superstitions and other traditions of European society as well as on the Western Churc...