Scram!: The Gripping First-hand Account of the Helicopter War in the Falklands


Harry Benson - 2012
    This is the thrilling untold story of the young helicopter pilots -- most barely out of their teens -- who risked their lives during this brief but ferocious war. In April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21 year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed 'junglies', flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war -- the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines -- is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their 'Boys Own' story, told for the very first time. Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter.  None of these pilots has spoken before about: - The two helicopter crashes and eventual rescue following a failed SAS mission high up on an in hospitable glacier in South Georgia - The harrowing story of the Exocet strike that sunk the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor - The daring missile raid on the Argentine high command in Port Stanley - The constant mortar fire faced while supporting troops and evacuating casualties - The hair-raising head-on attacks by Argentine jets on British helicopters - The extraordinary courage shown during the evacuation of the bombed landing ship 'Sir Galahad'  If you liked Apache, Vulcan 607 and Chickenhawk, you'll love Scram!  The word "Scram" was coined by Falklands helicopter pilots to warn other 'junglies' to go to ground or risk being shot down as Argentinean jets blasted through 'bomb alley'. The term has never been used before or since.

A Tangled Road to Justice (Paladins of Distant Suns #1)


Olan Thorensen - 2019
    When former soldier Everett Cole signed on to help colony planets prepare for joining the Federation, his employers were disconcertingly vague about their identity and his duties. Yet, the pay was good and it got him off Earth and on the way to a fresh start. More reservations arose when - 11 light-years from Earth - he met his partner, Edgar Millen, an enigmatic man with a penchant for violent solutions and a fetish for the mythology and language of the American Wild West. It wasn’t until they reached the colony world of Astrild that the mission became somewhat clearer. They were players in multi-faceted efforts to steer colony worlds in preparation for joining the Federation. Unfortunately, not all obstacles were amenable to diplomatic, political, or economic solutions. Cole and Millen were agents, troubleshooters, hired guns - or whatever you wanted to call them - tasked with removing impediments to civilized law and order - the methodology left open-ended. Millen and Cole’s first mission to test their partnership? The backwater town of Justice was under the control of a strongman and his henchmen. All they had to do was convince the cowed citizens to rise against their tormenter. Formal authority and backup? None. Millen was blasé at the assignment. Everett’s first thought was, “What the—!”

Faiths & Avatars (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9516)


Julia Martin - 1996
    Detailed in this 192-page core supplement are the most prominent religions and deities of the Realms. Each divine power is covered in depth by an entry that includes information about the deity's appearance, personality, worshipers, portfolio, aliases, domain name, superior, allies, foes, symbol, worshipers' alignments, avatar, manifestations, church and specialty priests. The information on each religion includes its core dogma, day-to-day activities of priests, holy days and important ceremonies, major centers of worship, affiliated orders, and the priestly vestments and adventuring garb of members of the clergy. Finally, each entry contains spells specific to each of the religions - some new, some long unavailable or hard to find and some updated to conform with the current AD&D game rules. Faiths & Avatars includes: • All the greater, intermediate and lesser deities of the Faerûnian pantheon • The honored dead, including Bane, Bhaal, Moander, Myrkul and Leira, among others • Expanded and clarified specialty priest classes and specific spells for all religions with priesthoods • Color illustrations of priests from every faith in ceremonial dress • Four additional general priest classes now official to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting: crusaders, monks, mystics and shamans.

Tiepolo's Hound


Derek Walcott - 2000
    Camille Pissarro, born in 1830, leaves his native St. Thomas to follow his vocation as a painter in Paris. The poet himself hunts for a detail -- a slash of pink on the inner thigh/of a white hound -- of a Venetian painting encountered on an early visit from St. Lucia to New York. Both journeys take us through a Europe of the mind's eye, in search of a connection between the lost, actual landscape of a childhood and the mythical landscape of empire. Published with twenty-six of Derek Walcott's own paintings, the poem is at once the spiritual biography of a great artist in self-exile, a history in verse of Impressionist painting, and a memoir of the poet's desire to catch the visual world in more than words.

Brothers in Exile


Joe Vasicek - 2014
     Deep in the Far Outworlds, a derelict space station holds the bones of a long-dead people—and a beautiful young woman locked in cryofreeze. When the star-wandering brothers Isaac and Aaron Deltana find the sleeping girl, they soon realize that they are her only hope for rescue. If they don't take her, then slavers certainly will. With no way to revive her, they set a course for the New Pleiades in hopes of finding someone who can help. But a storm is brewing over that region of space. After a series of brutal civil wars, the Gaian Empire has turned its sights outward. A frontier war is on the verge of breaking out, and the brothers are about to be caught in the middle of it. They both harbor a secret, though. Somewhere else in the Outworlds is another derelict station—one that they used to call home. That secret will either bind them together or draw them apart in SONS OF THE STARFARERS BOOK I: BROTHERS IN EXILE

Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles


Roger E. Bilstein - 1997
    . . . Roger Bilstein gracefully wends his way through a maze of technical documentation to reveal the important themes of this story. Rarely has such a nuts-and-bolts tale been so gracefully told."—Air University Review"Easily the best book of the NASA History Series. . . . Starting with the earliest rockets, Bilstein traces the development of the family of massive Saturn launch vehicles that carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon and boosted Skylab into orbit."—Technology and CultureA classic study of the development of the Saturn launch vehicle that took Americans to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, Stages to Saturn is one of the finest official histories ever produced. The Saturn rocket was developed as a means of accomplishing President John F. Kennedy's goal for the United States to reach the moon before the end of the decade. Without the Saturn V rocket, with its capability of sending as payload the Apollo Command and Lunar Modules--along with support equipment and three astronauts--more than a quarter of a million miles from earth, Kennedy's goal would have been unrealizable. Stages to Saturn not only tells the important story of the research and development of the Saturn rockets and the people who designed them but also recounts the stirring exploits of their operations, from orbital missions around earth testing Apollo equipment to their journeys to the moon and back.  Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the development of space flight in America and the course of modern technology, this reprint edition includes a new preface by the author providing a 21st-century perspective on the historic importance of the Saturn project.Roger E. Bilstein is professor emeritus of history at the University of Houston, Clear Lake. Regarded as one of the nation’s premier aerospace historians, he is the author of six books, including Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts and Testing Aircraft, Exploring Space: An Illustrated History of NACA and NASA.

Dark Eden


Chris Beckett - 2012
    Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

Scout Force


Rodney L. Smith - 2011
    His redemption comes as he is recruited into the elite and secretive Scout Force. Follow Kelly’s adventures as an officer in the Galactic Republic Fleet’s Scout Force, protecting humanity’s frontiers from human treachery and an onslaught by the expansive, hostile K’rang Empire.

Exploring Jupiter: Astrological Key to Progress, Prosperity & Potential


Stephen Arroyo - 1990
    From its apt title, to its generous use of many famous chart examples, to Arroyo's trademark insight and wisdom on every page, "Exploring Jupiter" is positively a winner! The presentation of the astrology is clear, practical and intelligent, making it a must for both newer students and more experienced practising astrologers. Unlike the majority of modern astrologers, Arroyo refers to Jupiter's ancient rulership of Pisces as being significant. The book includes: Jupiter through the signs, Jupiter through the houses (arranged by element), Jupiter aspects in the birth chart and so on. As always with Stephen Arroyo, it is the clarity and profound depth of these guidelines for interpretation that is so striking. The chapter on transits involving Jupiter is particularly good, building on ideas he has expressed in earlier writings.

Rogue Starship


David Alastair Hayden - 2017
    Visions and dreams aren't the normal way archeologists uncover artifacts, but that's what guided him to the Ancient ship.The discovery should be the greatest triumph of his career. Instead, it ends in disaster and leads to his son, Siv, being placed in cryogenic sleep.A century later, Siv wakes to a world in decline, a world where you do what you must to survive. With the help of Silky, his father's old neural-interfacing AI companion, Siv becomes the best procurement specialist on the planet. But his services belong to the criminal Shadowslip Guild who owns him. After a job goes sideways in the worst way possible, the last thing Siv expects is to be offered his freedom. But there's a catch. His target is so hot that rival criminal guilds, foreign governments, and religious extremists will risk war to get it.The Outworld Ranger series packs all the action and sci-fi fun of the stories that inspired it: Star Wars, The Fifth Element, and Guardians of the Galaxy. It has sentient AI's, alien mysteries, starship battles, quirky robots, and a space messiah.The Benevolency UniverseFor over three thousand years a superintelligence called the Benevolence guided humanity through an age of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and technological advancement. Now, a century after its collapse, our enemies multiply as we struggle to maintain our starfaring civilization and recover technology we once took for granted. But the Benevolence kept many secrets to itself, secrets that could shape the future of humanity.  Also in the Benevolency UniverseForbidden System (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1)

Central Station


Lavie Tidhar - 2016
    Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation—a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness—are just the beginning of irrevocable change.At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive...and even evolve.

Forensics: The Science Behind the Deaths of Famous People


Harry A. Milman - 2020
    A more plausible explanation would have been that she died from a drug overdose. A review of the medical examiner's report revealed that the Fisher family refused to give permission for an autopsy and toxicology tests to be done. Constrained by these limitations, the coroner labeled the manner of death "undetermined".FORENSICS: The Science behind the Deaths of Famous People is an analysis and description of how coroners determine the cause and manner of death. An investigation of twenty-three deaths of famous people was conducted based on a review of publicly available autopsy and toxicology reports, as well as published scientific and lay articles. Drug use was implicated in 70 percent of the deaths. Four celebrity deaths were the result of suicide or homicide. Four others were from natural causes.

Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos


Alan W. Hirshfeld - 2001
    Not until the nineteenth century would three men, armed with the best telescopes of their age, race to conquer this astronomical Everest. Parallax tells the fast-moving story of their contest, which ended in a dead heat. Against a sweeping backdrop filled with kidnappings, dramatic rescue, swordplay, madness, and bitter rivalry, Alan W. Hirshfeld brings to life the heroes -- and heroines -- of this remarkable chapter in history. Characters include the destitute boy plucked from a collapsed building who grew up to become the world's greatest telescope maker; the hot-tempered Dane whose nose was lopped off in a duel over mathematics; a merchant's apprentice forced to choose between the lure of money and his passion for astronomy; and the musician who astounded the world by discovering a new planet from his own backyard.Generously illustrated with period engravings and paintings, Parallax is an unforgettable ride through time and space.

The Collapsing Empire


John Scalzi - 2017
    Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

Detective Conan: Count Down To Heaven Vol. 2 (Meitantei Konan: Tengoku Heno Kounto Dauno) (In Japanese)


Gosho Aoyama