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Showing 1 - 20 of 24 items
By Carl Sagan. 1977
Essays by an award-winning scientist about the possible development of human intelligence, written for nonspecialists. Discusses the biological functions of…
sleep, increasing brain size, and language learning among chimpanzees. Chronicles advances in understanding the brain and implications for the future. BestsellerBy David Brin, Stephen W. Potts. 2017
A collection of short stories and essays examining the benefits and pitfalls of transparency in technology in a surveillance society.…
Includes pieces from, among others, Robert J. Sawyer, James Morrow, William Gibson, Jack McDevitt, Neal Stephenson, Ramez Naam, and Cat Rambo. Strong language. 2017By David Lubar. 2003
Eighth-grader Taylor and her twin brother, Ryan, are complete opposites. So when trouble-making Ryan discovers mysterious alien disks that enable…
him to become legends from the past--Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, and others--Taylor tries to keep him out of trouble. For grades 5-8. 2003By Susan Merrill Squier. 2004
Embryo adoptions, stem cells capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, intra- and inter-species organ transplantation--these and…
other biomedical advances have unsettled ideas of what it means to be human, of when life begins and ends. In the first study to consider the cultural impact of the medical transformation of the entire human life span, Susan Merrill Squier argues that fiction--particularly science fiction--serves as a space where worries about ethically and socially charged scientific procedures are worked through. Indeed, she demonstrates that in many instances fiction has anticipated and paved the way for far-reaching biomedical changes. Squier uses the anthropological concept of liminality--the state of being on the threshold of change, no longer one thing yet not quite another--to explore how, from the early twentieth century forward, fiction and science together have altered not only the concept of the human being but the contours of human life. Drawing on archival materials of twentieth-century biology; little-known works of fiction and science fiction; and twentieth- and twenty-first century U. S. and U. K. government reports by the National Institutes of Health, the Parliamentary Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation, and the President's Council on Bioethics, she examines a number of biomedical changes as each was portrayed by scientists, social scientists, and authors of fiction and poetry. Among the scientific developments she considers are the cultured cell, the hybrid embryo, the engineered intrauterine fetus, the child treated with human growth hormone, the process of organ transplantation, and the elderly person rejuvenated by hormone replacement therapy or other artificial means. Squier shows that in the midst of new phenomena such as these, literature helps us imagine new ways of living. It allows us to reflect on the possibilities and perils of our liminal lives.By J. T. Mahany, Antoine Volodine. 2015
"The interconnected works of Volodine--think Faulkner, but after an apocalypse--constitute the most exciting project in contemporary French literature."--Maria ClementiThat is…
what we had called post-exoticism. It was a construction connected to revolutionary shamanism and literature. . . . It was an interior construction, a withdrawal, a secret welcoming land, but also something offensive that participated in the plot of certain unarmed individuals against the capitalist world and its countless ignominies. This fight was now confined solely to Bassmann's lips.Like with Antoine Volodine's other works (Minor Angels, We Monks & Soldiers), Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven takes place in a corrupted future where a small group of radical writers--those who practice "post-exoticism"--have been jailed by those in power and are slowly dying off. But before Lutz Bassmann, the last post-exoticist writer, passes away, a couple journalists will try and pry out all the secrets of this powerful literary movement.With its explanations of several key "post-exoticist" terms that appear in Volodine's other books, Lesson Eleven provides a crucial entryway into one of the most ambitious literary projects of recent times: a project exploring the revolutionary power of literature.Antoine Volodine is the author of dozens of books under a few different pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. These novels--several of which are available in English--articulate a post-exoticist universe filled with secrets, revolutionary writers, and spiders.J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the University of Rochester's MA in Literary Translation Studies program and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.By Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne Maree Brown. 2016
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision,…
and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres-sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism-but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to…
the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries-and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)-captivated readers for nearly three decades.Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from "The Horror on the Links” (1925) to "The Chapel of Mystic Horror” (1928), as well as an introduction by George Vanderburgh and Robert Weinberg.By Ian Rankin. 2019
It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones.After his friend suspects something strange…
going on at the launch facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"...Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move.The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story.But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden...A gripping, page-turning suspense masterclass - experience the brilliance of the iconic Ian Rankin.As you ride down the intergalactic bike path, you come to a crossroads. Which path will you take? Your choice…
could determine your future, or the future of all humanity, forever. These twelve stories explore a variety of intersections set in distant, outlandish, or disturbingly realistic futures and dimensions—all involving bicycles and the breaking of gender stereotypes. A bicycle race spans a rift between worlds. A teenager learns a valuable lesson from her prepper mom. A young fruit seller gets closer to her dream of becoming an astronaut. An overwhelmed mom finds unexpected solace at a bicycle collective. And much more! Contributors include Tuere T.S. Ganges, Gretchin Lair, Ayame Whitfield, Julia K. Patt, Elly Bangs, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Monique Cuillerier, Kat Lerner, Hella Grichi, and Summer Jewel Keown, with illustrations by Elly Bangs and Paul Abbamondi.By Edited by William Davies. 2018
An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics.From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand…
to Aldous Huxley's consumerist dystopias, economics and science fiction have often orbited each other. In Economic Science Fictions, editor William Davies has deliberately merged the two worlds, asking how we might harness the power of the utopian imagination to revitalize economic thinking.Rooted in the sense that our current economic reality is no longer credible or viable, this collection treats our economy as a series of fictions and science fiction as a means of anticipating different economic futures. It asks how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics and provides surprising new syntheses, merging social science with fiction, design with politics, scholarship with experimental forms. With an opening chapter from Ha-Joon Chang as well as theory, short stories, and reflections on design, this book from Goldsmiths Press challenges and changes the notion that economics and science fiction are worlds apart. The result is a wealth of fresh and unusual perspectives for anyone who believes the economy is too important to be left solely to economists.ContributorsAUDINT, Khairani Barokka, Carina Brand, Ha-Joon Chang, Miriam Cherry, William Davies, Mark Fisher, Dan Gavshon-Brady and James Pockson, Owen Hatherley, Laura Horn, Tim Jackson, Mark Johnson, Bastien Kerspern, Nora O Murchú, Tobias Revell et al., Judy Thorne, Sherryl Vint, Joseph Walton, Brian WillemsBy Sergio De La Pava. 2018
"Ambitious, affecting, intelligent, plangent, comic, kooky and impassioned. I've read a lot of novels this year, between judging the Man…
Booker prize and the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, and I've yearned for this kind of exuberant, precise fiction" Stuart Kelly, Guardian on A Naked SingularityIt would take something huge to put Paterson, New Jersey on the map.But Nina Gill is determined to do just that. She is the daughter of the ageing owner of the Dallas Cowboys and the well-kept secret to their success. Shocked when her brother inherits the team, leaving her with the Paterson Pork, New Jersey's only Indoor Football League franchise, she vows to take on the N.F.L. and make her new team the pigskin kings of America.Meanwhile, Nuno DeAngeles - a brilliant criminal mastermind - contrives to be thrown into Rikers Island prison to commit one of the most audacious crimes of all time. Now he's on the inside, he has two good reasons to get out. But how does a person of culture go about breaking out of the penal system when the whole of the land of the free is addicted to keeping him in it?Without knowing it, or ever having met, Nina and Nuno have already had a profound effect on each other's lives. As his bid for freedom and her bid for sporting immortality reach crisis point, their stories converge in the countdown to an epic conclusion. Thrilling, touching, insightful and shockingly hilarious, De La Pava's extraordinary novel gets under the skin and into the minds of a vast cast of characters from the fringes of society - immigrants, exiles and outsiders.By Matthew Reilly. 2017
Join one of the world's greatest adventure writers on a non-stop thrill-ride. * * * * *A SHADOW WORLD BEHIND…
THE REAL WORLDWhen Jack West Jr won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil.A WORLD WITH ITS OWN HISTORY, RULES AND PRISONSNow these dark forces are coming after Jack... in ruthless fashion.THAT IS REACHING INTO OUR WORLD ... EXPLOSIVELYWith the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend.It's an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted... * * * * *JACK'S BACK. Catch up with him in the rest of the international bestselling series.SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERSTHE SIX SACRED STONESTHE FIVE GREATEST WARRIORSTHE FOUR LEGENDARY KINGDOMSBy Andrew Dana Hudson. 2022
Through speculative fiction, five interlocking novelettes explore the possible realities of our climate future.What is the future of our climate?…
Given that our summers now regularly feature Arctic heat waves and wildfire blood skies, polar vortex winters that reach all the way down to Texas, and “100-year” storms that hit every few months, it may seem that catastrophe is a done deal. As grim as things are, however, we still have options. Combining fiction and nonfiction and employing speculative tools for scholarly purposes, Our Shared Storm explores not just one potential climate future but five possible outcomes dependent upon our actions today. Written by speculative-fiction writer and sustainability researcher Andrew Dana Hudson, Our Shared Storm features five overlapping fictions to employ a futurist technique called “scenarios thinking.” Rather than try to predict how history will unfold—picking one out of many unpredictable and contingent branching paths—it instead creates a set of futures that represent major trends or counterposed possibilities, based on a set of climate-modeling scenarios known as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).The setting is the year 2054, during the Conference of the Parties global climate negotiations (a.k.a., The COP) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each story features a common cast of characters, but with events unfolding differently for them—and human society—in each alternate universe. These five scenarios highlight the political, economic, and cultural possibilities of futures where investments in climate adaptation and mitigation promised today have been successfully completed, kicked down the road, or abandoned altogether. From harrowing to hopeful, these stories highlight the choices we must make to stabilize the planet.Our Shared Storm is an experiment in deploying practice-based research methods to explore the opportunities and challenges of using climate fiction to engage scientific and academic frameworks.By Matthew Reilly. 2017
Join one of the world's greatest adventure writers on a non-stop thrill-ride. * * * * *A SHADOW WORLD BEHIND…
THE REAL WORLDWhen Jack West Jr won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil.A WORLD WITH ITS OWN HISTORY, RULES AND PRISONSNow these dark forces are coming after Jack... in ruthless fashion.THAT IS REACHING INTO OUR WORLD ... EXPLOSIVELYWith the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend.It's an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted... * * * * *JACK'S BACK. Catch up with him in the rest of the international bestselling series.SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERSTHE SIX SACRED STONESTHE FIVE GREATEST WARRIORSTHE FOUR LEGENDARY KINGDOMSBy Michael A. Allen, Justin S. Vaughn. 2016
Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction allows readers, students, and instructors to explore the multiple…
worlds of science fiction while gaining a firm grasp of core political science concepts. This carefully composed text is comprised of sixteen brief chapters, each of which takes a prominent science fiction film or television episode and uses it to explore fundamental components of political science. The book is designed to serve as a supplemental text for undergraduate political science courses, especially Introduction to Political Science. The structure and content of the volume is shaped around the organization and coverage of several leading texts in this area, and includes major parts devoted to theory and epistemology, political behavior, institutions, identity, states, and inter-state relations. Its emphasis on science fiction—and particularly on popular movies and television programs—speaks to the popularity of the genre as well as the growing understanding that popular culture can be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for communicating difficult yet foundational concepts, especially to introductory level college students.By Antoine Volodine, Jeffrey Zuckerman. 2017
Part post-apocalyptic adventure story and part scathing critique of humanity, Volodine’s award-winning novel takes place after the fall of the…
Second Soviet Union against a bleak, almost Tarkovskian landscape. A number of damaged individuals wander this nuclear winter seeking safety, both from the elements and from the psychotic Solovyei who invades people’s dreams and torments them for thousands of years.By Claire Wade. 2019
'This story is amazing, well crafted, and truly makes you think' NetGalley reviewer'Gripping and original. A timely dystopian, feminist novel'…
NetGalley reviewer'A cleverly crafted, and chillingly current novel' NetGalley reviewerImagine a world where...Everything you ate was monitored by the government.Every step you took was counted.Your children were weighed every day at school.Neighbours reported on neighbours and no one was safe from judgement.Sugar was illegal, and baking was a crime.Imagine if that world was here... What would you do?Toe the line or fight for your freedom...By Ian Rankin. 2020
THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'Shockingly good' The Sun'A prescient, high-octane thriller' Daily Express'Totally on the…
money - and ripe for this republication' i Newspaper * * * * *It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones.After his friend suspects something strange going on at the satellite facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"...Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move. But why?The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story.But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden...DISCOVER THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER.* * * * *'Rankin is a master storyteller'Guardian'Great fiction, full stop'The Times'Ian Rankin is a genius'Lee Child'One of Britain's leading novelists in any genre'New Statesman'A virtuoso of the craft'Daily Mail'Rankin is a phenomenon'Spectator'Britain's No.1 crime writer'Mirror'Quite simply, crime writing of the highest order'Express'Worthy of Agatha Christie at her best'ScotsmanBy Richard Preston. 1997
A deadly virus - and a desperate race against time.'One of the most horrifying things I've ever read in my…
entire life' Stephen KingOne spring morning in New York City a seventeen-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. Hours later she is having violent seizures, blood is pouring out of her nose, and she begins to attack her own body in the most hideous way imaginable. Soon, other gruesome deaths of a similar nature have been discovered, and the autopsies reveal that a previously unknown virus is at large. It replicates horribly fast, it is always fatal - and is just too efficient to be entirely natural.When the Centre for Disease Control sends a forensic pathologist to investigate, her discoveries precipitate a national crisis.THE COBRA EVENT is a dramatic, heart-stopping thriller of an all-too-real threat.By Terry Nation. 1976
Survivors of a global plague battle for life on an empty planet. A gripping vision of a post-apocalyptic world...'A fine…
piece of British post-apocalyptic fiction' 'Nation's novel is based on his original cult series...and is all the better for it, being far, far more gritty and realistic' SUNDAY SUNA virus has wiped out 95 per cent of the world's population in just a few weeks, leaving the remaining 5 per cent to stay alive in a world devoid of the most basic amenities - electricity, transport and medicine. The few survivors of the human race are forced to fall back on the most primitive skills in order to live and re-establish some semblance of law and order.Abby Grant, widowed by the plague, moves through this new dark age with determination, sustained by hope that her son, who fled his boarding school at the onset, has survived. She knows she must relearn the skills on which civilisation was built. With others, she founds a commune and the group return to the soil. But marauding bands threaten their existence. For Abby, there's a chance for a new life and love when she encounters James Garland, the fourteenth Earl of Woodhouse, who is engaged in a desperate fight to save his ancestral home. But more important, she must find her son.