Book excerpt: This first standalone edition of Philip Jose Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey's critically acclaimed novel, The Song of Kwasin the third volume of the Khokarsa series contains a host of rare and previously unpublished bonus materials, including: a brand-new introduction by noted author and critic Paul Di Filippo; a preface to the Meteor House edition by Christopher Paul Carey; "Kwasin and the Bear God" by Philip Jose Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey (a 20,000-word novella featuring a lost adventure of Kwasin); The Khokarsan Calendar by Philip Jose Farmer; The Plants of Khokarsa by Philip Jose Farmer; A Guide to Khokarsa by Christopher Paul Carey; Philip Jose Farmer s notes on the Khokarsa series, including his original and alternate outlines to The Song of Kwasin; and correspondence by Philip Jose Farmer to Frank J. Brueckel and John Harwood, authors of "Heritage of the Flaming God," the monumental essay that inspired the Khokarsa series. After years of exile in the Wild Lands, the giant warrior Kwasin of Dythbeth returns to the mighty Khokarsan Empire seeking the oracle's forgiveness, only to find his native land torn asunder in a bloody civil war. The tyrannical King Minruth has usurped the throne from his daughter Awineth and, allied with the priests of the sun god Resu, overturned the beneficent, centuries-old rule of the priestesses of the goddess Kho. His spoiled cousin Hadon having fled with his companions to far-flung Opar, Kwasin soon finds he will have to take up the cause alone against Minruth the Mad. Wielding his massive Ax of Victory, forged from the heart of a fallen star, Kwasin sets out to reconquer the throne of Khokarsa. But when he finds himself caught between a vengeful queen who seeks to control him and a conspiring priest who wants him dead, Kwasin must decide between reining in his unruly passions or unleashing them in a fury that could hurl the empire into oblivion. For the high priestess has decreed that unless Kwasin can master his wild nature and stop King Minruth before he attains immortality in an unholy ritual of the sun god, Great Kho will destroy all the land!"