The city in question is London in the 1690s; but it is also New York in the 1990s. The new technologies are diving bells, pneumatic winches, and "sucking-worm" drainage engines; but they are also wireless telecommunication devices, patented biotechnology processes, and revolutionary electronic Internet routers. Only the sense of unlimited possibility remains the same throughout.Unfolding simultaneously in two distant--but remarkably similar--periods of history, Extravagance is a comic, pictaresque novel of financial mania, the story of a world gripped by a terminal case of irrational exuberance. Navigating the perils of both eras is a single cast of characters: Will himself, a young man on the make, eager to do whatever it takes to make his fortune; Will's uncle (and sponsor) Gilbert Hawking, a shrewd businessman with one foot in the Old Economy and one in the New; Benjamin Fletcher, the developer of a pioneering new technology destined to set the world on fire; and Theodore Witherspoon, the cheerfully unscrupulous wizard of the financial markets who promises to make them all wealthy beyond their dreams.Meanwhile, Will's aspirations are complicated by his pursuit of Ben Fletcher's sister, Eliza, the gorgeous and disconcertingly aggressive woman who is as desirable as she is elusive. Can Will succeed in his efforts to win both Eliza and the fortune that her brother's new technology seems likely to bring him? And can he make it all happen before the general euphoria of the age reaches its inevitable climax?Extravagance is a uniquely conceived work of high comic entertainment -- an ultra-smart time machine of a novel that proves that both love and greed are timeless.From the Hardcover edition.

    But an unexpected visit from his beloved older brother will set in motion a chain of events that plunge Babe into a vortex of terror, treachery, and murder--and force him into a race for his life . . . and for the answer to the fateful question, "Is it safe?"

    Award-winning author James Dashner’s The Maze Runner shows the influences of the author’s broad reading. It relates the story of the amnesiac Thomas as he is forced into the near-bucolic setting of the Glade, learns to navigate it and the labyrinthine Maze surrounding it and leads the people of the Glade from their bounded world into a broader outside world. It also presents a perspective on adolescence well worth discussing which this Analysis covers every detail that you would otherwise miss. The Maze Runner has features that recommend it for both adolescent readers and those who teach them which this Summary & Analysis helps to decipher increasing your understanding of the book more than ever. The former will find the dialogue and action engaging without neglect of character development. The latter will find a text that manages to play with the tropes of Golding’s Lord of the Flies (which Dashner reports as a direct influence on the book), offering a way to introduce that text and a venue for discussion of it. They present opportunities for readers to engage with underlying assumptions and attitudes, offering the chance for readers to understand themselves, the culture in which they live and the culture in which the writer writes which this Analysis covers. Each is a chance to better understand the world, and The Maze Runner does well to make such chances available. The book is well worth reading, both for its intended audience of young adults (inside and outside the classroom) and for a more general reading public. This Analysis of The Maze Runner fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

    None of them were. That wasn't unusual--he'd spent well over ten years of his life going places he wasn't supposed to go, doing things he wasn't supposed to do."CIA paramilitary operations officer Harry Nichols had brought his team to Ciudad del Este for a single purpose: eliminating Jean-Claude Manet, aka Ramzi bin Abdullah, the former head of al-Qaeda operations in Europe. It was supposed to be simple. But there's nothing simple about killing a man.

    Beam Piper's groundbreaking parallel world's SF novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, and the sequel, Great Kings' War by John F. Carr and Roland Green. The Paratime Police patrol an infinity of alternate earths. Their prime directive is to protect the Paratime Secret thereby keeping this infinity of worlds from mixing and destroying each other, or from learning the parasitical Home Time Line is secretly looting their resources.When Penn. State Policeman Calvin Morrison is accidentally dropped off from a cross-time conveyer onto Styphon's House Subsector, he threatens both the Paratime Secret and leadership of the gunpowder theocracy, who owe their power to their secret knowledge of the "fireseed" formula. In just a few weeks, by the use of his knowledge of military strategy, Kalvan saves the small princedom of Hostigos from an invasion orchestrated by Styphon's House.Kalvan Kingmaker opens right after Kalvan's decisive victory over the Holy Host of Styphon. With Great King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax in mourning over his eldest son's death, the time is ripe for the Army of Hostigos to invade Harphax and topple the Iron Throne. At the holy city of Balph, the Inner Circle is reeling. Archpriest Roxthar, a rare true believer in Styphon, is conducting a full-blown inquisition of Styphon's corrupt upper priesthood. Once his reformation is complete, Roxthar's next job will to rebuild the Holy Host and defeat and destroy the Usurper Kalvan.Meanwhile, there is a great migration of nomads across the Sea of Grass; they are the wild card. As the nomads pour across the Great Middle River, pushing the clans and tribes that live there into the Great Kingdoms, the big question soon becomes: Will Styphon's House be buried by the human wave, or will they use the nomads in their war to the death with Kalvan and Hos-Hostigos?

    Panicked millions gridlock roads as Ray Bramlett escapes New York, barely ahead of a radioactive cloud. A thousand miles west, Karla Becker stares in horror at the televised images—sure the aftermath will bring worse. While Karla hunkers down at home, trusting her preparations, Ray seeks safety among his Tennessee friends. Each of their strategies buys time, but as social order collapses around them, both plans go awry. Now, survival means confronting a world teeming with sudden death and learning that no sanctuary remains safe forever.

    Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely—the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.Vivid, tumultuous, and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason’s mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut, The Lost Books of the Odyssey.

    The last time he was conscious, at thirty-one, O.J. Simpson had just led police on a long car chase and nobody knew the name Monica Lewinsky. When he turns on the strange-looking flat screen in his room at the nursing home, he hears reporters on one channel after another talking about Charlie Sheen’s infamous meltdown. After his mother arrives at his bedside, he learns that his father has died, his wife has divorced him, and the music store that he owned for most of his adult life has been sold. As Joel grapples with the loss of his independence, he realizes that his mother, who has driven him crazy since birth, will be his caretaker for the foreseeable future. Luckily, angels disguised as therapists and the support of old friends help him through a grueling rehabilitation. With one foot in the past and a heavy heart, Joel is about to slowly reenter a very different world than the one he left. Birdcall Morning is an emotional and life-affirming tale about the struggle to start over, the value of friendship, the true nature of love, and the changing times that we live in. It’s the sort of book that takes you on an unexpected journey that’s captivating until the very last word.

    Includes 200 pages of songs, incidental music and dialogue cues.

    Irredeemably hooked on Ecstasy, spangles and each other, Bole and Star grope through life in permanent bewilderment. So dim is their grasp on reality that they believe their duvet is a giant bag of pills, and have to write notes to remind themselves to eat)

    His tryst with destiny begins when his father becomes the victim of political violence. He is suddenly the man of the house. In trying to bring together his breaking family, and win back their family home, he experiences life through encounters with some incredible women. Rhea helps inculcate a sense of purpose in his life. Kavya is vivacious, Flirty and sensuous, who makes him bolder. Priya teaches him lessons none else could have, and Ahana is an innocent poet at heart, who makes him shed the garb of the hermit. Till we meet again is a story of a sleepy neighbourhood, which transforms into a modern-day ghetto of gated communities, riding the real estate juggernaut. A story of resilience and determination, it’s a heady cocktail of familial bonds, hope, deceit, vengeance and love.

    

    

     The world had less than seven hours to prepare. When it hit, the coronal mass ejection from the sun rolled back hundreds of years of technological innovation. Airplanes fell from the skies. Power grids crashed. Even electrical cabling was turned to slag. No internet. No cable TV. No electricity. No modern day conveniences of any kind, from fancy European sedans to smart phones to clean, running water. The entire world is plunged back into the Dark Ages in less than a second, courtesy of the most powerful Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) event in recorded history. Television development exec Tony Vincenzo has always lived a high-society life, first in Los Angeles, now in Manhattan. As New York City tears itself apart in an orgy of violence, Vincenzo has to leave his high-floor luxury condominium on Central Park South's Billionaire's Row in order to return to his wife and young son in the Hollywood Hills overlooking LA. But the only way to get there is to walk, and Vincenzo is no Joe Survivalist—he's the kind of guy used to the trappings of the good life. While society unravels all around him, he has to not only make it out of New York alive, but across the entirety of a nation descending into feral madness. His journey becomes more complex when he commits a truly selfless deed, and winds up with two young charges: seven-year-old Daniel, an autistic boy ill-equipped for a life of hardship, and his sassy four-year-old sister, Gabriella. Together, the trio will need every stroke of luck they can find to persevere in the lawless lands that lie ahead of them…and survive the brutality of the serial killer Roth who pursues them.

    YOUNG Brian Lanigan, the owner of a TV news station, gets a bad feeling when his meteorologists shows him the satellite image of a growing storm. The feeling only gets worse when no one wants to talk about the meteorological freight train heading toward the US and he's threatened to keep the information out of the weather reports. Brian acts on his instincts and quickly prepares to stock up and bug out. ABOUT AUTHOR JERRY D. YOUNG Author Jerry D. Young has been a fixture in the survival and prepping communities for more than twenty years. The author of more than 100 novels and short stories, Jerry’s writing has been a staple for men and women of all ages and from all walks of life that are interested in prepping, survival, and all-around self-sufficiency. Jerry’s books are written with the goal of educating as well as entertaining and generally enjoyed by all who seek to expand their knowledge of prepping and survival topics while enjoying a good book or short story. As daunting as the end of the world, nuclear fallout, World War III, Civil unrest, economic collapse, solar flares, EMP attacks, and other apocalyptic scenarios may be, society has always been interested in the “What If?” of a Post-Apocalyptic World. Jerry’s stories provide interesting and practical perspectives of heroes and villains navigating Post-Apocalyptic scenarios including everything from Mad Max type of events to more relevant plot lines that seem as if they could have come from the headlines of the modern world. Find more about Jerry D. Young at www.CreativeTexts.com.