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Sustainability Leadership: Wie Führungskräfte mitteltständischer Unternehmen Nachhaltigkeit verankern können (essentials)
by Wolfgang Zimmermann Felix Richter Andre StuerDas Buch zeigt, wie Mittelstands- und Familienunternehmen die Nachhaltigkeitswende ihres Unternehmens mit Hilfe von Sustainability Leadership meistern können. Denn zunehmende staatliche Vorgaben und die ökologische Transformation veranlassen viele Unternehmer dazu, sich aktiv mit dem Thema auseinanderzusetzen. Dabei stehen Unternehmen und Organisationen vor neuen Herausforderungen – alte Führungs- und Managementmuster passen nicht mehr. Als Führungskraft ist es nicht immer leicht, angesichts hoher Komplexität und Unsicherheit die Orientierung zu behalten und die eigene Unternehmensstrategie mit den Bedürfnissen von Mitarbeitenden und externen Stakeholdern in Einklang zu bringen. Die Autoren zeigen anhand von praxisnahen Beispielen und konkreten Werkzeugen einen ganzheitlichen und integrativen Leadershipansatz auf, wie Führungskräfte mittelständischer Unternehmen Nachhaltigkeit erfolgreich in ihrem Unternehmen verankern können. Besonders bemerkenswert: Dies kann die Geburtsstunde eines „Unternehmertum 2.0“ sein. Es basiert auf den oftmals tiefen Wurzeln des Unternehmens und neuen, innovativen Perspektiven. Interviews mit Unternehmerpersönlichkeiten vermitteln Impulse und geben Einblicke zu ihren Erfahrungen mit der Nachhaltigkeitstransformation.
Motivation, Anstrengung und das Modell des neuronalen Netzes
by Theodore Wasserman Lori WassermanIn den letzten zehn Jahren hat sich unser Verständnis des menschlichen Gehirns grundlegend gewandelt – von einer modularen Struktur hin zu einem hoch integrierten neuronalen Netzwerkmodell. Dieses neue Verständnis verändert grundlegend die Art und Weise, wie wir wesentliche psychologische Konstrukte wie beispielsweise Motivation erklären. Im Netzwerkmodell wird Motivation als ein spezialisierter Aspekt des menschlichen Lernsystems betrachtet, der darauf abzielt, Ziele zu erreichen. Von ursprünglich grundlegenden Bedürfnissen wie Nahrung und Unterkunft entwickelt sich Motivation im Laufe der Zeit zu einem komplexen Geflecht aus extrinsischen und intrinsischen Zielen. Der Kern all dieser Entwicklungen ist die angeborene Flucht- oder Kampfreaktion, die sich im Laufe der Zeit durch eine Kombination aus angeborenen menschlichen Temperamentseigenschaften und Lebenserfahrungen verändert. Diese Veränderungsprozess basiert zum Teil auf einem Fehlerprognosenetzwerks, das mit dem Belohnungsnetzwerk zusammenarbeitet, um ein System sich ständig weiterentwickelnder Bewertungen von Zielen und Vorgaben zu erzeugen. Das Zusammenspiel dieser Netzwerke führt zu einem kognitiven Prozess, den wir Motivation nennen. Wie die meisten Netzwerke wird das Motivationssystem von Netzwerken rekrutiert, wenn die Aufgabenanforderungen der Situation es erfordern. Solch ein Verständnis von Motivation hat tiefgreifende Auswirkungen. In der klinischen Psychologie könnte es die Beurteilung und Therapie von Verhaltensweisen neugestalten und die Richtung für neue therapeutische Interventionen vorgeben. Dieses Buch stellt die Übersetzung einer englischsprachigen Originalausgabe dar. Die Übersetzung wurde mit Hilfe von künstlicher Intelligenz erstellt. Eine anschließende manuelle Überarbeitung erfolgte vor allem nach inhaltlichen Gesichtspunkten, so dass das Buch stilistisch von einer herkömmlichen Übersetzung abweicht.
New Technologies for Glutamate Interaction: Neurons and Glia (Neuromethods #2780)
by Maria KukleyThis volume explores the latest technologies used to study the co-existence of neuronal and neuron-glia synapses in the brain. The chapters in this volume are organized into three parts. Part One covers recent advancements in the technical approaches for studying glutamatergic signalling between neurons. Part Two highlights approaches to study the functional role of astrocytes at neuronal synapses. Part Three focuses on fast signalling at neuron-glia synapses, and highlights relevant methods for investigating these unusual synapses, including slice electrophysiology and in vivo gene delivery techniques. In the Neuromethods series style, all chapters contain key advices from experts in the field that are valuable for performing successful experiments on the topic in your laboratory.Cutting-edge and thorough, New Technologies for Glutamate Interactions: Neurons and Glia is a valuable resource for both neuronal and glial physiologists who are interested in learning about and developing new methods to further understand neuronal and neuron-glia synaptic transmission.
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
by Erik Larson#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis &“One of [Erik Larson&’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.&”—Time • &“A bravura performance by one of America&’s greatest storytellers.&”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMattersOn Winston Churchill&’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people &“the art of being fearless.&” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it&’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill&’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London&’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents&’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela&’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill&’s &“Secret Circle,&” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today&’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill&’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
Alexander
by Klaus Heinrich Thomas MannThis historical fantasy, written by the son of the well-known German novelist Thomas Mann, takes Alexander the Great for its subject, charting his life and career, and examining his obsession with conquest and supremacy, regardless of its effects on his friends and lovers. Written in 1920s Germany in the aftermath of World War I, this timeless story can also be viewed as a fascinating study of power with highly political connotations. Alexander is a captivating early work of historical fiction from a troubled and unjustly neglected writer.
Good Material: A novel
by Dolly AldertonNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • From the New York Times best-selling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both&“Like Nora Ephron, with a British twist….Delivers the most delightful aspects of classic romantic comedy—snappy dialogue, realistic relationship dynamics, humorous meet-cutes and misunderstandings—and leaves behind the clichéd gender roles and traditional marriage plot.&” —The New York TimesAndy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.Now he is. . .Without a homeWaiting for his stand-up career to take offWondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't lookingSet adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.
Thunderstruck
by Erik LarsonA true story of love, murder, and the end of the world&’s &“great hush.&”In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, &“the kindest of men,&” nearly commits the perfect murder.With his unparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chase over the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
by Erik LarsonErik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler&’s rise to power.The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America&’s first ambassador to Hitler&’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the &“New Germany,&” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler&’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
by Meghan O'GieblynA strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate &“[A] truly fantastic book.&”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking.Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
Sex and Vanity: A Novel
by Kevin KwanNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • The author of the international phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians takes us from Capri to NYC, where a young woman finds herself torn between two men—and two very different cultures."Another riveting tale of privilege, culture and romance ... extravagant fashion and deceit, resulting in one truly modern love story." —CNNOn her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can't stand him. She can't stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can't stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can't stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin Charlotte.The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment building, and, ultimately, herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world—and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
by Andy Greenberg"With the nuance of a reporter and the pace of a thriller writer, Andy Greenberg gives us a glimpse of the cyberwars of the future while at the same time placing his story in the long arc of Russian and Ukrainian history." —Anne Applebaum, bestselling author of Twilight of DemocracyThe true story of the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in history and the desperate hunt to identify and track the elite Russian agents behind it: "[A] chilling account of a Kremlin-led cyberattack, a new front in global conflict" (Financial Times).In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a mysterious series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes grew ever more brazen. They culminated in the summer of 2017, when the malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, penetrating, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest businesses—from drug manufacturers to software developers to shipping companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. Hospitals went dark. NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billion dollars in damage—the largest, most destructive cyberattack the world had ever seen.The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in history: a group known as Sandworm. Working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency, they represent a persistent, highly skilled force, one whose talents are matched by their willingness to launch broad, unrestrained attacks on the most critical infrastructure of their adversaries. They target government and private sector, military and civilians alike.A chilling, globe-spanning detective story, Sandworm considers the danger this force poses to our national security and stability. As the Kremlin's role in foreign government manipulation comes into greater focus, Sandworm exposes the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield. It reveals how the lines between digital and physical conflict, between wartime and peacetime, have begun to blur—with world-shaking implications.
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why The Many Are Smarter Than The Few And How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies And Nations
by James SurowieckiIn this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
by Neal GablerA provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry. The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream. Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture. Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.
Machete: Poems
by Tomás Q. MorínThis fresh voice in American poetry wields lyric pleasure and well-honed insight against a cruel century that would kill us with a thousand cuts. "Morín's writing uses the mundane details of everyday life...as a jumping-off point for creating fascinating and philosophical worlds." —LitHub"Dios aprieta, pero no ahorca" ("God squeezes, but He doesn't strangle")--the epigraph of Machete--sets the stage for a powerful poet who summons a variety of ways to endure life when there's an invisible hand at your throat. Tomás Morín hails from the coastal plains of Texas, and explores a world where identity and place shift like that ever-changing shore. In these poems, culture crashes like waves and leaves behind Billie Holiday and the CIA, disco balls and Dante, the Bible and Jerry Maguire. They are long, lean, and dazzle in their telling: "Whiteface" is a list of instructions for people stopped by the police; "Duct Tape" lauds our domestic life from the point of view of the tape itself. One part Groucho Marx, one part Job, Morín considers our obsession with suffering--"the pain in which we trust"--and finds that the best answer to our predicament is sometimes anger, sometimes laughter, but always via the keen line between them that may be the sharpest weapon we have.
Gratitude: Essays
by Oliver SacksA deeply moving testimony and celebration of how to embrace life. No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.&“A series of heart-rending yet ultimately uplifting essays….A lasting gift to readers." —The Washington Post&“It is the fate of every human being,&” Sacks writes, &“to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.&” Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.&“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.&” —Oliver Sacks &“Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the &‘abnormal.&’ He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way—face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw.&” —Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania&“Both terrifying and enthralling.&”—Entertainment Weekly&“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.&”—NPR&“Thoroughly engrossing.&”—George R.R. MartinOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era&’s great transatlantic &“Greyhounds&”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger&’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don&’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo
The Edge of In Between
by Lorelei SavarynA spellbinding, twisty, magical retelling of The Secret Garden that takes readers on a journey through what separates the living and the dead.Lottie lives in Vivelle, a vibrant city where life exists in brilliant technicolor and nearly everyone is born with magic, including Lottie. But when tragedy strikes, color is stripped from Lottie&’s heart and from the world around her. Taken in by her reclusive uncle, Lottie moves into Forsaken, a vast manor located in the gray wasteland between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead.There, Lottie discovers more secrets and mysteries than she ever dreamed possible. Even so, she is filled with nothing but despair. But when splintered magic threatens to consume everyone and everything she still holds dear, Lottie must find a way to thaw both the world and the hearts of those around her—before time runs out.In this stunning portrait of love, loss, magic, and hope, one girl finds the strength to overcome tragedy—and finds a way to embrace the gifts that make life worth living.Praise for The Edge of In Between:&“A lyrical, graceful conjuring of the landscape of grief [that] doesn't just reimagine a children's classic, but does it with great love.&”—Jacqueline West, author of The Books of Elsewhere series and Long Lost&“Brilliant and empowering…a book that belongs in the hands of every middle-grade reader.&” —Lindsay Currie, author of What Lives in the Woods "Richly layered with emotional truths, The Edge of In Between embraces all the fragile elements of grief and sorrow, hope and love—as well as the strength (so very much like magic) that resides inside us all." —Heather Kassner, author of The Plentiful Darkness
The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World
by Sharon BrousThe national bestsellerFrom one of our country&’s most prominent rabbis, an inspiring book about the power of community based on one of her most impactful sermons.In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society?Sharon Brous—a leading American rabbi—makes the case that the spiritual work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity. To show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities of care. Brous contends that it is through honoring our most basic human instinct-- the yearning for real connection-- that we reawaken our shared humanity and begin to heal. This kind of sacred presence is captured by the word amen, a powerful ancient idea that we affirm the fullness of one another&’s experience by demonstrating, in body and word: &“I see you. You are not alone.&” An acclaimed preacher and story-teller, Brous pairs heart-driven anecdotes from her experience building and pastoring to a leading-edge faith community over the past two decades with ancient Jewish wisdom and contemporary science. The result is a clarion call: the sense of belonging engendered by our genuine presence is not only a social and biological need, but a moral and spiritual necessity.With original insights and practical tools, The Amen Effect translates foundational ideas into simple practices that connect us to our better angels, offering a blueprint for a more meaningful life and a more connected and caring world.
The Secret of Abdu El-Yezdi: The Burton And Swinburne Adventures (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure #4)
by Mark HodderPhilip K. Dick Award-winning author Mark Hodder continues his Burton & Swinburne Adventures with a steampunk adventure set in an alternate England teetering on the edge of annihilation…After barely surviving his discovery of the source of the Nile, explorer Sir Richard Burton returns home to fame, glory, and a knighthood from his highness King George V. But he also receives another title―King’s Agent…for Burton may be the only man who can save England from doom.Once he is brought into the king’s service, Sir Richard is trusted with a shocking truth: ever since the assassination of Queen Victoria, those in power have been guided and advised by a spirit―Abdu El Yezdi―whose wisdom has brought about incredible progress and prosperity.Unfortunately, the voice of El Yezdi has fallen silent just as a controversial alliance is about to be formed with the Central German Confederation. More suspicious still are the disappearances of a number of England’s most brilliant thinkers and builders, with no clue as to who is responsible.Now, aided by his own circle of unlikely and unconventional allies—including the devilishly lewd poet Algernon Swinburne—Sir Richard must delve into the darkest reaches of both the mystical and machine worlds if England is to survive a coming storm unlike anything ever imagined…
The Star Shard
by Frederic S. DurbinCymbril feels like a bird in a cage. Her task is to sing, to draw crowds to the markets offered by Master Rombol, lord of the Thunder Rake, the only home Cymbril has known. The Rake is a city on wheels, a vast wagon that rolls over the land, its interior a labyrinth of stairways, corridors, chambers, and secret doors.When Cymbril befriends a fellow slave, a boy named Loric, one of the mysterious Fey, she dreams of a life beyond the Rake, and the two begin to plan their escape. But dangers haunt the shadows—the ominous Eye women, the perilous Night Market, the terrors of the Groag Swamp, and something that stalks the night’s dark byways, hunting . . . Survival will depend upon courage, loyalty, and perhaps upon a gift from Cymbril’s long-departed parents—the glowing and magical fragment of a star.
The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats: The Burton And Swinburne Adventures (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure #6)
by Mark HodderTime is twisted, worlds are changed, and fates are intertwined in this thrilling final chapter of the Burton & Swinburne Adventures from Philip K. Dick Award-winning author Mark Hodder.In 1890 the renowned adventurer and explorer Sir Richard Burton could sense his impending death…Until he was suddenly alive, young and strong in the year 1864—a past that he remembers well, but which is definitely different from what he previously lived through. Burton’s amazement is heightened when he is reunited with his loyal friend, the eccentric poet Algernon Swinburne, who is equally nonplussed at being somehow transported into his former self at the moment of death.Before long, Burton and Swinburne—joined by many of their brave compatriots—find themselves once again being pulled to and fro by the streams of time in an adventure that may decide the fate of humanity.For while Burton, Swinburne and company have employed time travel to save the empire and her subjects, that technology has now fallen into the wrong hands. England’s ruling class are transforming Burton and Swinburne’s beloved England into a nightmare where those in power—along with their merciless clockwork enforcers—oppress and enslave the masses.And now, Burton and his friends will have to find a way to heal the damage time travel has done to the world if they are ever going to save it…
The Return of the Discontinued Man: The Burton And Swinburne Adventures (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure #5)
by Mark HodderPhilip K. Dick Award-winning author Mark Hodder continues his Burton & Swinburne Adventures in an electrifying tale in which the future and the past collide―and the world itself may be altered forever…Years ago, a madman from the future assassinated the beloved Queen Victoria―which inadvertently sparked the explosion of scientific and industrial advancement that thrust England into a technological age beyond anything ever imagined. And the effects of that event are about to be felt more than ever.When a renowned scientist attempts to experiment on the assassin’s time-travelling suit, he unleashes a wave of chaos and conflicting timelines, resulting in blood red snow falling from the sky, and the adventurer Sir Richard Burton being tormented by jarring visions of alternate realities that are somehow both unavoidable and yet changeable. Time and reality may have just reached their breaking point.But most disturbing of all, the legendary Spring Heeled Jack has returned―in several different places at the same time! These numerous “Jacks” are all very confused, very irritable, and very dangerous…And they are all looking for Sir Richard Burton.
Destiny of Dragons (The Legacy of Dragons #3)
by Jack CampbellIn the thrilling conclusion to the Legacy of Dragons trilogy, ancient weapons of mass destruction lie hidden under the city of Pacta Servanda... Remnants of the Great Guilds and rebellious factions of the Empire want to seize those weapons to allow them to regain control of the world of Dematr. Only Jason, brought by the first ship from Earth since the colony failed, might be able to disarm the threat. But he also might know how to employ those weapons, making him a danger for all sides.Standing between those threats is Kira of Dematr. But Kira, who inexplicably has been able to manifest Mage powers as well as technical skills, finds herself being consumed by the mental conflicts between those powers and skills. As rogue Mechanics, Mages, and mercenaries attack with every weapon at their disposal, Kira suffers more blackouts and begins to lose her mind. The fate of her world rests on whether she can stay alive and find answers in time to problems that no one else has ever confronted....
The Last Full Measure
by Jack CampbellFrom the New York Times bestselling author of the epic Lost Fleet series comes a story of a nightmarish America that could have been—and the Civil War that would set her free once more…America, 1863: the dream of the Founding Fathers has become a nightmare. The ideals of freedom and individualism have fallen to tyranny, corruption and greed. Wealthy industrialists of the North and slave-holding plantation owners of the South now hold power through the might of the military and puppet politicians—and all who defy them are declared traitors to the United States of America.Condemned for daring to speak against the government, Prof. Joshua Chamberlain is on his way to a penal plantation when his prison train is captured by the Army of the New Republic—a growing force of courageous soldiers who wish to restore the United States to its original righteous path. Joining a company of heroes with names such as Hancock, Longstreet and Armistead, Chamberlain finds himself joining the fight for freedom. But to win that freedom—and keep it—the rebellion needs a leader who is not a soldier, but a living symbol of the cause with the wisdom and fortitude to lead America back into the light.Chamberlain knows exactly where to find such a leader. A man who is currently being held in the most secure and dangerous prison in the country, where his treasonous ideals cannot be heard. A man whose refusal to bow to those who proudly claim slavery as a way of life has already made him a legend. A man they must rescue at all costs…A man called Lincoln.
Orbis
by Scott MackayAward-winning author Scott Mackay delivers an “intriguing alternate history” of conquest, rebellion and the destiny of humanity… (Booklist).Two thousand years ago, as the Roman Empire beat back the rise of Christianity, the saviors of mankind arrived. And they weren’t Jesus of Nazareth or his Disciples.They were the Benefactors.They appeared as heavenly beings on a mission of hope, convincing the people of Earth to accept their kindly dominion by hi-jacking the insurgent Christian Movement and turning it into an instrument of control. When the mighty Roman Empire refused to bow down, it was destroyed.Ever since, the Benefactors have guided and led, and humankind has followed and prospered, but at a price.In an alternate 1947, the truth behind the Benefactors’ origins and motives are about to be discovered. And unless three ordinary people can find the courage to fight against everything they’ve been taught to believe and obey, the end of humanity may already be inevitable…With this “riveting drama,” Scott Mackay once again proves himself a writer of rare talent and captivating imagination in the realm of science fiction (Locus).