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If you like martial arts movies, you're going to love this book! YMAA Publication Center has chosen author Arthur Rosenfeld's The Cutting Season to introduce a new literary fiction category: Martial Arts Fiction. The Cutting Season transplants this ancient, hugely popular, and authentic literary category to an American setting. Along with a thrilling story, The Cutting Season also conveys insights into genuine martial techniques and philosophies. Dr. Xenon Pearl cuts brains for a living, and he's as good as it gets. His direct, sometimes abrasive style is forgivable in light of his skill with a scalpel, and tempered by his compassion for his patients and his friends. He is a dutiful son to his widower father, a doting grandchild to a grandfather who was once a rabbi, and he has even met the girl of his dreams. Everything is on-track for this medical golden boy. The other side of this motorcycle riding, brilliant doctor façade is a side that Xenon (aka Zee) hides even from his father. Secretly trained since childhood by his Chinese nanny, Wu, Tie Mei–herself a martial warrior of shadowy lineage–Dr. Xenon Pearl is also a martial arts expert who loves the sword as much as the scalpel. Now his past is showing up to literally haunt him. His dead teacher reappears, reminding him that he has lived many lives before… I relived the foul stench of city cisterns, the rotting of corpses in the desert, the intoxicating smell of night-blooming jasmine, the musky odor of my own clothes after battle, the ripe and heady aroma of a wife waiting months for my return. My fingertips bore witness to the paper-thin delicacy of azaleas, and the smooth hands of children. My hands recalled weapons I have no name for, spiked ropes and strange maces with bumps and edges like some crazy fruit. I remember the gossamer threads of an industrious spider touching my eye. I remembered feeling holes where once I had teeth. In this life, Dr. Xenon Pearl must use his skill – to defend the innocent, defeat the Russian mob, protect the woman who loves him, and stay one step ahead of a smart cop; he is set to lose everything unless he can cut just one more time. "It's essential that you remember your previous lives," she said. «Without that memory, you're doomed to repeat your lessons.» "You are a fearsome warrior no matter what skin you wear, no matter the shape of your eyes; it's time to give up the scalpel and pick up your sword." "I'm a doctor." I said. «And the way things look now, I'm a schizophrenic doctor.» "Your visions always come true." She said. «You are going to cut the man who burned his wife.» "I'm telling you to cut him now!" In the spirit of martial arts tradition, The Cutting Season brings the traditional Asian martial arts novel to our shores, exploring human conflict, desires, and the search for moral certainties. Do no harm… Honor your teacher… Cut without mercy…

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The Crocodile and the Crane translates an ancient, hugely popular, and authentic literary tradition to the setting of a near-future apocalypse, while conveying insights into Asian philosophy, history, and martial arts tradition. PRACTITIONERS OF A SECRET ART that bestows immortality and more, Sanfeng and Zetian are brother and sister and have lived together in China for more than 3000 years. Now, in the near future of 2009, they face an enemy they recognize from their childhood, a terrifying disease that left them orphaned and alone in the world. The disease kills quickly and without mercy—victims die grimacing grotesquely—and as it spreads, it brings the siblings to the edge of apocalypse and pits them against each other in a battle for the world. They are joined in their global struggle by a famous American selfhelp guru, a naïve but smart young publishing executive, a bitter Australian cop, and a beautiful Indonesian nurse with a secret the whole world wants to steal from her. This thrilling race against time offers a smorgasbord of Chinese history, an epic love story, and the trenchant tale of one very special, intimate, and gifted family. It is a warning against the pitfalls and perils of the modern world, and a clarion call to heed the wisdom of the ancients in new and ever more relevant ways—before it is too late.

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