Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly—but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden. Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market. Jess has been sent to be his family’s spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library’s service. When his friend inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life—and soon both heretics and books will burn…

    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

    Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms were taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loved—the world as he knew it. First published in 1955, this classic thriller of the ultimate alien invasion and the triumph of the human spirit over an invisible enemy inspired three major motion pictures.

    Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago? Father Dietrich is the village priest of Oberhochwald, the village that will soon gain the name of Teufelheim, in later years corrupted to Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength across Europe but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, knows science and philosophy, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact between humanity and an alien race from a distant star when their interstellar ship crashes in the nearby forest. It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague.Tom and Sharon, and Father Dietrich, have a strange and intertwined destiny of tragedy and triumph in this brilliant SF novel by the winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award.

    The heavens have been silent since - until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Who to send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet? Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder, and a biologist so spliced to machinery he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior, and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find - but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them.

    Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

    So when Colonel Carl Butler answers the call from an old and powerful friend, he knows it's something big—and he's not being told the whole story. A high councilor's son has gone MIA out of Cappa Base, the space station orbiting a battle-ravaged planet. The young lieutenant had been wounded and evacuated—but there's no record of him having ever arrived at hospital command. The colonel quickly finds Cappa Base to be a labyrinth of dead ends and sabotage: the hospital commander stonewalls him, the Special Ops leader won't come off the planet, witnesses go missing, radar data disappears, and that’s before he encounters the alien enemy. Butler has no choice but to drop down onto a hostile planet—because someone is using the war zone as a cover. The answers are there—Butler just has to make it back alive…

    Now, with the entire city corrupted -from the people to the very buildings they inhabit- only the most wretched sort of existence remains. For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a low-life postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.

    The Tyrell are a race that loves to fight, and they’re very good at it. The harder they fight, the better they like it. Whenever they discover another intelligent race, they force them into combat whether they want it or not. When humans are warned of an inevitable confrontation with the Tyrell, they attempt to form a multi-species Alliance, but the challenges are great, and they know it’s only a matter of time before a Tyrell fleet of massive ships will arrive in Earth orbit. Cate Harrow and Gort Eagleton are two Aerospace Force officers with the kind of strategic and tactical skills that the Alliance needs to win this war, but before they can even begin to defeat the Tyrell, they must survive the incompetent leadership that threatens complete disaster. Defeating the Tyrell will be far more difficult than the Alliance initially believes unless they can discover their one weakness. This action-packed series has lots of space battles and political intrigues, as well as personal triumphs and tragedies. Excerpt: “Flight Ops to Skydiver. You and your squadron have the green light, Commander. Good luck.” “Thanks, Ops. Skydiver to Squadron. We have a green light. Sound off when you’ve undocked in sequence order. Here we go.” She turned and nodded to her co-pilot who would maneuver the corvette out the half kilometer wide maw of the carrier, Ranger, while she monitored the rest of the squadron. As Skydiver gently pulled away from the docking bay then past the baffles and moved towards the opening, Harrow switched one of her displays to the rear external view, using computer enhancement to compensate for the low level of light inside the main hangar space. Each corvette in the squadron was undocking and maneuvering in a specified sequence in order to avoid collisions. “Skydiver is clear of Ranger,” said the co-pilot. As the ship began to accelerate, Harrow watched the carrier start to recede into the distance. Just as she began to shift her gaze, she saw a streak of light hit Ranger from below, penetrate up through the interior of the huge hangar and come out the top of the ship. “FLIGHT OPS! WHAT THE HELL—“ shouted Harrow. “—BEEN HIT! RANGER’S BEEN HIT!” Harrow recognized the voice of the Flight Operations Duty Officer. “OH GOD! BISMARK REPORTS BEING HIT TOO!” Harrow thought fast. The Tyrell had obviously detected the four carriers and were firing their long range, faster-than-light kinetic energy projectiles from below. The mission was clearly compromised, and to her way of thinking, getting the carriers to a safe distance was now not only their top priority, it was their only priority. “SL to Flag!” said Harrow quickly. “We’re kinda busy right now, Commander!” Harrow didn’t know who was replying, but she did know it wasn’t Vice-Admiral LeClair, and that’s who she wanted to talk to. “You tell the Admiral that he needs to order his carriers to jump RIGHT NOW, Goddamit! We’re sitting ducks here!” Without waiting for a reply she turned to the co-pilot. “How many of our ships have cleared the Ranger?” “They’re all out! Do we try to dock again?” “God no! No time for that. We’ll have to catch up with her at the rally point if our carriers bug out in time!” She looked at the display that was still showing a now much smaller Ranger.

    Cult members willingly accept seven brutal years of torture, known as their “tribulation,” to atone for their earthly sins and come out on the other side saved (or thoroughly brainwashed?). The hero of this thriller, Stacy Carlson, must uncover the mystery of the Tribulation cult after her husband Greg is kidnapped by its leader, Brother Elijah (Josh Charles), through a bizarre AM radio broadcast. Greg’s disappearance leads Stacy into this world of zealots, skeptical law enforcement, and a former rock star turned conspiracy radio host, Reid Singer. Stacy and Reid team up to uncover the truth about the otherworldly religious mythology before them. Will Stacy find her husband and bring down the cult? All will be revealed by the end of Tribulation.

    But as they drop through the atmosphere of the uncharted planet Capsun 23, Cal can’t shake the feeling that something is off about this mission. Three data drones have previously touched down but quickly went dark. And now, all communication with a group of civilian researchers has been lost. Intel suspects scavengers are to blame—or at worst pirates. But Cal’s instincts are telling him otherwise. All that’s known about Capsun 23 is that the gravity is within acceptable limits, the air is breathable, and water is abundant. Three things to encourage life…but what kind of life?  Cal has never been one to back away from a potential fight, but if his instincts are right, a lone team simply won’t cut it. Not by a long shot. "Fast paced and gripping sci fi. If you liked Aliens you'll love this." Amazon reviewer'Harper's Ten' is the prequel to the Fractured Space series.

    This space borne hive, this extinction fleet, made no attempts to communicate and offered no mercy.Humanity has always been a deadly organism, and we would not so easily be made the prey. Unified against a common enemy, we fought back, meeting the swarm with soldiers upon every front.We were resplendent in our fury, and yet, despite the terrible slaughter we visited upon the enemy, world after world still fell beneath ravenous tooth and wicked claw. For every beast slain in the field, another was swiftly hatched to take its place and humanity was faced with a grim war of attrition.After a decade of bitter galactic conflict, it was all humanity could to do slow the advance of the swarm and with each passing year we came closer to extinction.The grinding cost of war mounted. The realization set in that without a radical shift in tactics and technology the forces of humanity would run out of soldiers before it ran out of bullets.In desperate response to the real threat of total annihilation, humanity created the Einherjar. Fearless new warriors with frightening new weapons who were sent to fight the wolves at the gate.

    After three decades as a Pervenio Corporation Collector, chasing wanted offworlders and extinguishing protests throughout the solar system, Malcolm Graves doesn't bother asking questions. So long as the pay is right, he's the man for the job. But his latest assignment doesn't afford him that luxury. A high-profile bombing on Earth has the men who sign Malcolm's paychecks clamoring for answers. They force him to team up with a strange, augmented partner who's more interested in statistics than instinct, and ship them both off to Titan to hunt down a suspected group of extremists: Titanborn rebels who will go to any length to free their home from the tyranny of Earth's corporations. Heading into hostile territory, Malcolm will have to use everything he's learned to stay alive. But he soon realizes the situation on the ground is much more complex than he anticipated...and much more personal. Check out the thrilling first book in a gritty and innovative science-fiction series perfect for fans of The Expanse and Blade Runner. You can also grab in on Audible performed by the award-winning RC Bray, narrator of The Martian.

    The human race must set aside its own inner conflicts to rebuild their alliance with the Ildiran Empire for the survival of the galaxy.Galactic empires clash, elemental beings devastate whole planetary systems, and factions of humanity are pitted against each other. Heroes rise and enemies make their last stands in the climax of an epic tale seven years in the making.

    Stay cool.No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.