Firedance: Words that Burn A searing selection of short stories from the circle of Firedance authors. The child, the girl, slowly rose up out of the water, then turned away, laughing, and skipped and danced over the path of fire towards the setting sun. My kind, the Fire Dancers, we make the machines work. We harvest the sun for energy. The star had been growing closer to the atmosphere. The forests burned with fire that ran across the ground like sunlight at daybreak. It was a ragged, wild dance that left the land exhausted. Fire danced amongst the rebels. Horses bolted, their manes, their tails afire, liquid flame dripping upon the grass. As he watched, she whirled, like a dervish, faster and faster until she burst into a fireball. The painting I found most striking is one that he calls 'The Fire Dance, ' or 'Upa 'upa in the native Tahitian language. Fire-starting was something of a talent, perhaps his only one. 'My land in this realm is fraught with tension, fire and instability; I dare not leave.' 'Why do you call that dog Firedance, not Henry?' Three ragged children gyrate to rhythms that none can hear to make the fire, the animating fire. 'Ya gotta learn a lesson kid: you mess with me, and you're messing with fire.'

What do we do when God becomes an unwanted houseguest, you're in love with the wrong girl and aliens decide to eat California? Take a wild ride with 15 writers from around the globe to discover their version of a broken world... and the humour, compassion and love which saves us. From murder to manga, heartbreak to horror, Broken Worlds dances us through times, genres and worlds. Prepare to be thrilled, tickled, scared and enchanted... it's one hell of a ride.

Nothing serves to remind us of the instability of the "globalized" order as much as the continuing power of territorial boundaries to spawn political and humanitarian crises. Although it might seem that in this important respect the modern world has made little progress, the work of Gerald Blake continues to prove that peaceful resolution of problems associated with international boundaries can be attained. This festschrift reflects the topics and regional preoccupations of one of the leading researchers in the field. Professor Blake returned to certain topics throughout his long career, especially the Middle East, maritime boundaries, and the relation between borders and demographics. Several of the authors extend his work in such areas as Arctic jurisdiction, environmental issues of transboundary water management, and geographic information systems (GIS). For the growing number of professionals in conflict management, international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, environmental law, and energy law, and for workers in such diverse fields as natural resource management and forced migrations - as well as for specialists in the Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia - these revealing essays should offer a wealth of valuable information and insight.

As international political and economic relations have become increasingly complex, so have the pressures on international boundaries and the borderlands which surround them. Although there are still many examples of "traditional" boundary problems associated with disputes between states concerning control over territory and maritime space, the papers in this volume demonstrate the vulnerability of borderlands to other forces, most notably illegal immigration and cross-border crime. This study aims to investigate the causes and implications of borderland stress. The first section explores changing concepts of sovereignty and their impact on the meaning and functions of international boundaries. The contributions in the second and third sections offer a combination of regional appraisals and individual case studies highlighting the range of problems affecting borderlands around the world, together with an assessment of some of the initiatives launched in response to those problems. While many of the conclusions drawn are rather sobering, it is clear that in some parts of the world new and imaginative approaches to territorial organization and management are helping to create safer, more dynamic and more prosperous borderlands. The papers in this volume represent the proceedings of the fifth International Conference of the International Boundaries Research Unit, held at the University of Durham on 15-17 July 1998.