Yet Nell is determined to elude the duties and restrictions of matrimony. So when she finds herself pregnant at the age of 17, she refuses to divulge the name of the father and even her childhood friend Martin is kept in the dark.Nell's stepfather Hiram sends Nell to live at the Poor Farm of which he is a governor, to await the day when her baby can be discreetly adopted. Nell is ready to go along with Hiram's plans until an unused padded cell is opened and two small bodies fall out.Nell is the only resident of the Poor Farm who is convinced that the unwed mother and her baby were murdered, and the incident prompts her to rethink her decision to abandon her own child to her fate. But the revelations to which her questions lead make her realize that even if she manages to escape the Poor Farm with her baby, she may have no safe place to run to.

    The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?Infomocracy is Malka Older's debut novel.

    Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.Contents:Rocket SummerYllaThe Summer NightThe Earth MenThe TaxpayerThe Third Expedition-And the Moon Be Still As BrightThe SettlersThe Green MorningThe LocustsNight MeetingThe ShoreInterimThe MusiciansWay in the Middle of the AirThe Naming of NamesUsher IIThe Old OnesThe MartianThe Luggage StoreThe Off SeasonThe WatchersThe Silent TownsThe Long YearsThere Will Come Soft RainsThe Million Year Picnic

    He is a normal average man, married with two kids. When his wife and children leave for a visit to his in laws in England, Ralph finds himself alone at home. He goes about his daily chores and with his faithful dog Jason at his side, Ralph soon discovers that he is not only alone at home, but he is truly alone. Everyone on the face of the Earth has vanished. With no explanation, Ralph and Jason struggle to survive in an empty world. As power fails and the phones go dead, all hope of contacting his missing family is gone. With no outside communication and no idea what has caused the worldwide disappearances, their outlook is grim. With no power, water or phones, Ralph abandons their home and searches for some place to live that will allow him to provide for the future, whatever the future might bring. As Ralph and Jason face new challenges, the two grow closer together and come to depend on each other for their very survival.Ralph tries to adapt to the loss of everyday conveniences as he and Jason move into an old farm house and proceed to make it their home. Ralph spends part of the time building his own power generating plant and relying on spring water. Together they collect farm animals from the surrounding area and move them to the farm. The animals provide food and help to ease the loneliness. As time passes they settle into their new home. Planting crops for food and then guarding those crops, they struggle to become self sufficient. With no men to stop them, wildlife fills the land and Ralph and Jason have new worries as predators also multiply.Ralph prepares the farm for protection and the pair defend themselves against nature running wild. With an explosion of smaller animals, their food supply is threatened but just as quickly the small animals disappear and their worries quickly turn to the large number of predators that are now in the area. With no men around, the animals become bolder and bolder. They are forced to fight to protect each other and the small farm they now consider home.When nature reaches equilibrium, Ralph and Jason spend each day providing for their needs and trying to cope with loneliness. Each day brings a different struggle and Ralph learns to adapt to each new circumstance. Trying to salvage books and materials before they are lost, Ralph and Jason make numerous dangerous trips into the towns and cities until they are forced to stop. Finally all modern technology fails and mankind retreats several hundred years.As the years roll by, they settle into the routine of their new lives. The lack of human company threatens Ralph’s sanity and his sorrow sometimes overwhelms him. Thoughts of his wife and children are never far from his mind and their loss weighs heavily on him. Finally the last man on Earth, an aged and stooped figure waits for the final end.

    Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assassinated. Follow the story of Quentin Barnes, a 19-year-old quarterback prodigy that has been raised all his life to hate, and kill, those aliens. Quentin must deal with his racism and learn to lead, or he'll wind up just another stat in the column marked "killed on the field."

    His world suddenly upside-down, he embarks on a desperate search for answers as the official rescue effort begins. As he races to find his wife, John is pursued by a cold-blooded killer when he becomes entangled in a scheme to steal millions of dollars from a New York Mafia boss. In the rush of action as the search intensifies, John’s life becomes a high-stakes guessing game of learning who to trust and who to fear.

    Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness: a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her fearsome glass starship the Maurader, she’s just Andi, their captain and protector. When a routine mission goes awry, the all-girl crew’s resilience is tested as they find themselves in a most unfamiliar place: at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter connected to Andi’s past and a harrowing betrayal. Meanwhile, on the far side of the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The final pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two. Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their ship—or just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles towards the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only thing certain is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted. From internet sensation Sasha Alsberg and author Lindsay Cummings comes a new serialized space opera, full of action, fantastical intrigue, and steamy star-crossed romance. ​ For fans of popular sci-fi books and fantasy books for teens such as Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, Wool by Hugh Howey, Truthwitch by Susan Dennard, and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

    After years of testing experimental medicines and participating in repetitive sleep-related studies, all is finally going well for Ben ... until strange dreams begin to plague him and memories once hidden begin to reveal themselves. The doctors and staff onboard project Lucy are not who Ben thinks they are, and the organization will stop at nothing to keep his emerging memories buried for good. Ben is put on a collision course that will bring him to the brink of total insanity, and perhaps even death. At the heart of it all, Ben's worst enemy is his own mind, and he must confront his past in order to save his future. "The twists and turns of the plot will leave your head reeling and possibly questioning your own mental state for a moment.” (The San Francisco Book Review). With over 100 five star reviews on Amazon.

    Across the country, a university student, enjoying the unexpected attentions of an enigmatic seductress, is disturbed when his best friend falls to his death from the thirteenth floor of a neighbouring campus tower block.As each tries to unravel the mystery behind the apparent suicides, they are drawn into an obsessive search for a computer-generated fractal video sequence, with startling effects on human consciousness, and which might just pave the way for discovery of the ultimate Theory of Everything. However, they are not the only ones to have seen the potential of this mind-altering video, and soon find themselves in a desperate race against time with gangsters from the shadowy worlds of sex, drugs, cyber-crime, and massively multi-player on-line gaming.Science ContentAlthough, as the reviews testify, CONNECTED has been enjoyed by many with no background in computer science, Mandelbrot Fractal geometry, string theory, quantum physics or brain science, those with some interest or knowledge in these areas seem to have particularly enjoyed the book. One reason for this appears to be that most of these references are actually based on fact. Of course, some readers have preferred to skim these sections, and claim that this did not detract from the story. Others have appreciated the scientific detail and fidelity, and some have even thanked the author for explaining such things in a way that enabled them to learn something new.Philosophy, Science and ReligionAlthough CONNECTED is mostly enjoyed as a fast-paced mystery thriller, it is also, to a limited extent, about the inevitable conflict between science and religion. The two main male protagonists happen to be atheist, and some of the dialogue explores the different thoughts and attitudes concerning some of life’s deeper questions. These include the origins of the universe, the nature of consciousness, and whether there could be life after death. Again these philosophical references to faith and atheism are few, and mostly quite short, but all are crucial to the story.Setting and slangCONNECTED is a contemporary novel, set entirely in England. As the story unfolds through two converging plot threads, the action switches between a fictitious village in the Lake District, the University of Essex in Colchester (an old Roman town about 60 miles north-east of London), Bracknell (a newer suburban town some 40 miles west of London), and North London.Consequently, there is some British slang and occasional use of bad language (e.g. a few instances of the F-word etc.) in keeping with the age and background of the characters.Why Connected?Years ago, while the author was at university, a fellow student had a breakdown and was admitted to the local psychiatric hospital. A few, who knew him well, went to visit and reported that he’d subsequently lost the plot and was gabbling incomprehensibly of having found the answer to life, the universe and everything. While most people seemed consumed with sadness and pity at this, the author’s first thought was, “What if he really had discovered some universal truth?” Although never seriously believing that he had, it was on that day that the seed of an idea lodged in his young brain – a seed that years later would

    Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monsters.

    Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.This is the twelfth expedition.Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach—the secret agency that monitors these expeditions—is in disarray. In Authority, John Rodriguez, aka “Control,” is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that.It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown—navigating new terrain and new challenges—the threat to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound—or terrifying.

    She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.

    The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

    Long ago, the violence and radiation of the terrorist wars killed America. Those left dwell in a world of ritual and magic where ten dominions struggle for supremacy and a dark power rises to claim all. Areenna, the only daughter of the King of Freemorn, is barely eighteen, yet her psychic ability is strong. She is summoned to ‘The Island’ and learns that the fate of her world is in her hands. She must undertake a perilous journey to save Nevaeh from destruction. But she will not travel alone. Mikaal, the son of the High King of Nevaeh, has as much at stake as Areenna. Their quest takes them through haunted wastelands filled with mutants while an evil force does everything in its power to stop Areenna and Mikaal—for it wants Nevaeh as its own.

    Some men go to war to escape. For Scott Remington, war is entirely different. It is a belief. It is a calling. It is a destiny. Leaving everything behind-his fiancée, his future, his life-he embarks on a mission of faith into a battle he can barely understand. This is his story. This is his war. This is only the beginning.