From a multiple Hugo Award winner: Four more novels in a brilliantly imaginative series. In the second half of the World of Tiers series, Kickaha embarks on a journey to the eternally shifting landscape of the Lavalite World of Lord Urthona—and the ultimate clash with his arch nemesis. On Earth, Kickaha and the Lord Anana pursue a rogue Beller called Thabuuz. They thought they had wiped out the last of the biolab-generated artificial intelligences created by the Lords, but it seems one has escaped through a portal to Southern California. Thabuuz must be found before he can spawn more Bellers and revive their war against the Lords. But even though he came from Earth fifty years ago, Kickaha no longer recognizes his former home, now ruled by a hostile Lord known as the Red Orc. Leaving an unwelcoming Earth, Kickaha is trapped on the strange planet he thinks of as Lavalite World, and the only way out is a single gate, located inside Urthona’s palace. But the stronghold moves as readily as the dangerous terrain, making survival an unlikely prospect. After facing harrowing challenges and finally returning home to the World of Tiers, Kickaha is led into one last trap. He’ll have to confront the fearsome enemy who has been hunting him all along—and the fate of the pocket universes lies in the balance. This omnibus contains the author’s preferred text of the novels Behind the Walls of Terra and Lavalite World, reprinted from the limited edition volumes published by Phantasia Press.

After destroying a trace of dark fire, David, Zanna, and the Pennykettle dragons vanished. In a brand-new world, Co:per:nica, which runs parallel to that of Crescent Lane, firebirds roam the ancient librarium, a museum for books. But when 12-year-old David and Rosanna accidentally injure one of the firebirds, they are suddenly thrust into a remarkable adventure. The evil Ix have taken over one of the firebirds, turning it to the side of darkness, but the birds have a secret: They know about the existence of dragons. And from across the universe, one may come to their aid....

A collection of interviews with some of the world's leading progressive thinkers on the movement for Palestinian liberation and its connections to struggles for justice across the globe.As more and more people align themselves with the Palestinian people, Palestine in a World on Fire provides the global perspective and analysis needed to inform how we forge ahead on this path of newfound solidarity. Editors Ilan Pappé and Katherine Natanel have gathered a collection of interviews that are intimate, challenging, and rigorous—many of them conducted before October 7th but still startlingly prescient. The interviewees connect the struggle for Palestinian liberation to various liberatory movements around the world, simultaneously interrogating and recontextualizing their own positions given the ongoing aggression in Palestine. This incredible group includes Angela Y. Davis, Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Nadine El-Enany, Gabor Mate, Mustafa Barghouti,...

Amazon.com ReviewIt speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. From Publishers WeeklyUsing only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and "a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity." Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Acclaimed historian Amanda Foreman follows the phenomenal success of her New York Times bestseller Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire with her long-awaited second work of nonfiction: the fascinating story of the American Civil War and the major role played by Britain and its citizens in that epic struggle.Even before the first rumblings of secession shook the halls of Congress, British involvement in the coming schism was inevitable. Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making. In A World on Fire, Amanda Foreman examines the fraught relations from multiple angles while she introduces characters both humble and grand, bringing them to vivid life over the course of her sweeping and brilliant narrative.Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman has woven together their experiences to form a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy. Through the eyes of these brave volunteers we see the details of the struggle for life and the great and powerful forces that threatened to demolish a nation.In the drawing rooms of London and the offices of Washington, on muddy fields and aboard packed ships, Foreman reveals the decisions made, the beliefs held and contested, and the personal triumphs and sacrifices that ultimately led to the reunification of America. A World on Fire is a complex and groundbreaking work that will surely cement Amanda Foreman’s position as one of the most influential historians of our time.

THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN HISTORY OF WESTEROS AND THE LANDS BEYOND • WITH HUNDREDS OF PAGES OF ALL-NEW MATERIAL FROM GEORGE R. R. MARTIN If the past is prologue, then George R. R. Martin’s masterwork—the most inventive and entertaining fantasy saga of our time—warrants one hell of an introduction. At long last, it has arrived with The World of Ice & Fire. This lavishly illustrated volume is a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, providing vividly constructed accounts of the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring rebellions that lead to the events of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones. In a collaboration that’s been years in the making, Martin has teamed with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson, the founders of the renowned fan site Westeros.org—perhaps the only people who know this world almost as well as its visionary creator. Collected here is all the accumulated knowledge, scholarly speculation, and inherited folk tales of maesters and septons, maegi and singers, including• full-color artwork and maps, with more than 170 original pieces• full family trees for Houses Stark, Lannister, and Targaryen• in-depth explorations of the history and culture of Westeros• 100% all-new material, more than half of which Martin wrote specifically for this book The definitive companion piece to George R. R. Martin’s dazzlingly conceived universe, The World of Ice & Fire is indeed proof that the pen is mightier than a storm of swords. From the Hardcover edition.Review'Of those who work in the grand epic fantasy tradition, George R.R. Martin is by far the best' Time Magazine 'Colossal, staggering... Martin captures all the intoxicating complexity of the Wars of the Roses or Imperial Rome in his imaginary world ... one of the greats of fantasy literature' SFX 'The sheer-mind-boggling scope of this epic has sent other fantasy writers away shaking their heads ... Its ambition: to construct the Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias' Guardian About the AuthorGeorge R. R. Martin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the acclaimed series A Song of Ice and Fire—A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons—as well as Tuf Voyaging, Fevre Dream, The Armageddon Rag, Dying of the Light, Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), and Dreamsongs Volumes I and II. He is also the creator of The Lands of Ice and Fire, a collection of maps from A Song of Ice and Fire featuring original artwork from illustrator and cartographer Jonathan Roberts. As a writer-producer, Martin has worked on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and pilots that were never made. He lives with the lovely Parris in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson founded and run the popular site Westeros.org, which is the definitive source for all things George R. R. Martin.

When the first fissures became visible to the naked eye in August 2007, suddenly the most powerful men in the world were three men who were never elected to public office. They were the leaders of the world’s three most important central banks: Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank. Over the next five years, they and their fellow central bankers deployed trillions of dollars, pounds and euros to contain the waves of panic that threatened to bring down the global financial system, moving on a scale and with a speed that had no precedent.Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the seventeenth century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the Age of Greenspan, bringing the reader into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are – the possessors of extraordinary power over our collective fate.  What they chose to do with those powers is the heart of the story Irwin tells.Irwin covered the Fed and other central banks from the earliest days of the crisis for the Washington Post, enjoying privileged access to leading central bankers and people close to them. His account, based on reporting that took place in 27 cities in 11 countries, is the holistic, truly global story of the central bankers’ role in the world economy we have been missing.  It is a landmark reckoning with central bankers and their power, with the great financial crisis of our time, and with the history of the relationship between capitalism and the state. Definitive, revelatory, and riveting, The Alchemists shows us where money comes from—and where it may well be going.About the AuthorNeil Irwin is a Washington Post columnist and economics editor of the Post’s Wonkblog web site. From 2007 to 2012, he led coverage of the global financial crisis, recession, and aftermath as the Post’s beat reporter covering the Federal Reserve and other central banks. He has an MBA from Columbia University, where he was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism. Irwin appears regularly on television analyzing economic topics, including on MSNBC, CNBC, and the PBS Newshour. He lives in Washington.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Introduction:Opening the SpigotOn August 9, 2007, Jean-Claude Trichet awoke at his childhood home of Saint-Malo, on the coast of Brittany, ready for a day puttering about in his motorboat and enjoying the company of his grandchildren. It was time for his summer respite after a busy year as president of the European Central Bank. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, had also planned a leisurely Thursday: He would make his way from his ?at in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood to the Kennington Oval, on the city’s south side, to watch the British national cricket team play India. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, was alone among the three men who would guide the world through the convulsions of the half decade to come in having scheduled a regular workday. His security detail was to drive him from his Capitol Hill row house to the Treasury Department, where he had an early breakfast with Secretary Henry Paulson. Bernanke would eat oatmeal. For the three men, the day would not go quite as planned.At about 7:30 a.m., Trichet’s phone rang. Francesco Papadia, the head of the ECB’s markets desk, was on the line from the central bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt. “We have a problem,” Papadia said.Gigantic French bank BNP Paribas had announced that it was suspending withdrawals from three investment funds it managed. The funds were invested heavily in U.S. home-mortgage-backed securities that had become nearly impossible to value. Customers’ money would be locked up until the bank could ?gure out exactly how much the investments were worth. In itself, it was a tiny development: The three relatively obscure funds held only €1.6 billion in assets.But the announcement con?rmed the worst fears of bankers across Europe. They’d been worried for weeks about the losses they were facing on U.S. home loans. Supposedly ultrasecure mortgage bonds that had traded freely earlier in 2007 had by late July hardly been trading at all. As more and more people who’d taken out risky loans to buy a house in Tampa or Cleveland or Phoenix found themselves unable to pay them back, all the assumptions on which those loans had been made started to be called into question. Maybe all those AAA-rated securities weren’t really AAA after all. Had the banks poured vast sums into bonds that weren’t worth what they’d seemed to be? And if BNP Paribas couldn’t ?gure out how much its own funds were worth, how could any other bank know its real exposure to mortgage-backed securities?It’s not for nothing that the word “credit” derives from the Latin creditus, “trusted.” Banks use highly rated securities as almost the equivalent of cash— whenever they need more dollars or euros, they hand the bonds over to another bank as collateral. It’s one of the basic ways they ensure they have exactly the amount of money they need to meet their obligations on any given day. But when it came to those mortgage-backed securities in early August 2007, that simple exchange suddenly became complicated. The problem wasn’t just that the securities were worth less than they’d been before—after all, banks can deal with losses. It’s that no one knew just how much less—and whether, if one bank had lent money to another down the street in exchange for mortgage-backed securities, it would ever get paid back.Papadia and his staff spoke regularly with treasurers at twenty major European banks known as the money market contact group, and its members had been warning for days that, as one ECB official put it, an “infarction” was imminent. That Thursday morning, it hit: After the BNP Paribas announcement, with each bank out only for itself, the usual supply of cash was fast evaporating. “Trust was shaken today,” Deutsche Bank chief european economist Thomas Mayer told the New York Times. As one executive of a major global bank said later, “It was something none of us had experienced. It was as if your entire life you had turned the spigot and water came out. And now there was no water.”It’s a more precise metaphor than it may seem, for liquidity is exactly what was disappearing in the banking system that day. No longer were euros, dollars, and pounds as easy to come by as water. History has taught again and again that when banks shut down and hoard their money, so too do the economies they serve. A banker who’s unwilling to lend to other bankers is likely also to be unwilling to lend to the businesses and households that need money to build a factory or buy a house. If unchecked, the banking crisis in Europe could in? ict untold damage on the world economy. Suddenly, the European habit of taking a lengthy late summer vacation had become very inconvenient.Gather the Executive Board, Trichet instructed Papadia. He needed to talk to the six officials from across Europe who share the collective authority to deploy the resources of the central bank—including the ability to create euros from thin air. ECB staff in Frankfurt began calling around to various villas and retreats in Spain, Italy, and Greece to arrange an emergency conference call. Trichet normally used the walled medieval port town of Saint-Malo as a retreat from the world, a place where he could enjoy the water and read poetry and philosophy. But now it would become the nerve center from which he would manage the ?rst phase of the ?rst great ?nancial crisis of the twenty-? rst century.By 10 a.m., the full Executive Board was on the line. Trichet was emphatic: “There is only one thing we can do, which is to give liquidity.” The ECB, he insisted, must ?ood the banking system with euros. He was proposing that the central bank ful?ll its traditional role as “lender of last resort,” stepping in when private banks were pulling back, and using a novel means to do so. The ECB would abandon its usual practice of pumping some ?xed amount of money into the banking system and instead make an unlimited number of euros available to the banks that needed them. The technical term for what Trichet and the Executive Board did at 12:30 p.m. central European time is to offer a “? xed-rate tender with full allotment.”Translation: Come and get it, guys. We’ll give you as many euros as you need at 4 percent. Some forty-nine banks took €95 billion.The Federal Reserve Bank of New York maintains a markets desk to monitor what’s going on across the world of ?nance, but during the early hours of the morning on the East Coast that Thursday, only a handful of young staffers were on duty to monitor overnight activity. It would take hours for the news to make its way to New York Fed president Timothy Geithner, who was on vacation on Cape Cod, and Bernanke, who was getting ready for his breakfast with Secretary Paulson.At 6:49 a.m., Bernanke received an e-mail from Brian Madigan, head of the Fed’s monetary affairs division, explaining that “as you’ve probably seen, markets have sold off again overnight” and updating him on activity in the European bond and stock markets. But Madigan hadn’t yet received word of the ECB’s action. It was nearly half an hour later, as Bernanke’s black Cadillac sped along Independence Avenue, driven by an officer of the Federal Reserve’s own police force, before the chairman received the ?rst word that the ECB had done something unusual. A 7:16, an e-mail arrived from David Skidmore, an offi cial in the Fed’s press office: “Apparently Deutsche Bank had two money market funds fail and the ECB is making tender off ers for dollar-denominated assets. Glenn Somerville of Reuters, who I’ve been talking to, is heading to the Treasury press room early.”The details were wrong: It was BNP Paribas, not Deutsche Bank, three funds, not two, and the tender offers were denominated in euros, not dollars. But the gist was right: The ECB had intervened in markets in a way it never had before. And the most powerful man at the Fed was ?nding out about it through garbled rumors from a Reuters reporter. By the time he sat down for oatmeal with Paulson at 7:30, it was clear that something big had happened, even if no one seemed to be sure exactly what it was.It wasn’t until 8:52 a.m. that Bernanke got a more accurate update, in the form of an e-mail from Kevin Warsh, a Fed governor who often acted as the chairman’s emissary to people in ?nancial markets and at other central banks. “This action by the ECB sends two signals,” wrote Warsh, who had been working the phones all morning. “First, they are ready to provide liquidity to ensure the smooth operation of European money markets. Second, they are providing liquidity at their policy rate, and thus far not viewing a liquidity squeeze as a more fundamental reason to adjust its policy stance.” The Americans quickly understood that Trichet was trying to draw a bright line between what the ECB was doing for the ?nancial system and what it was doing to address any underlying weakness in the European economy as a whole.After breakfast, Bernanke went to his office at the white marble Eccles Building in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. At 11 a.m., he met with a man named Lewis Ranieri, looking to pick his brain. In the 1980s, as a bond trader at investment bank Salomon Brothers, Ranieri had played a crucial role in developing the very concept of mortgage-backed securities. In other words, he’d more or less invented the markets that were now imploding. At 2 p.m., Bernanke met with Raymond Dalio and others from the world of ? nance. Dalio managed the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, with $120 billion under its control. He’d developed a sophisticated model for understanding what was happening with credit extension in the econ...

In 1932, Mittie Maude Lena Gordon spoke to a crowd of black Chicagoans at the old Jack Johnson boxing ring, rallying their support for emigration to West Africa. In 1937, Celia Jane Allen traveled to Jim Crow Mississippi to organize rural black workers around black nationalist causes. In the late 1940s, from her home in Kingston, Jamaica, Amy Jacques Garvey launched an extensive letter-writing campaign to defend the Greater Liberia Bill, which would relocate 13 million black Americans to West Africa.Gordon, Allen, and Jacques Garvey—as well as Maymie De Mena, Ethel Collins, Amy Ashwood, and Ethel Waddell—are part of an overlooked and understudied group of black women who take center stage in Set the World on Fire, the first book to examine how black nationalist women engaged in national and global politics from the early twentieth century to the 1960s. Historians of the era generally portray the period between the Garvey movement of the 1920s and the...

Acclaimed historian Amanda Foreman follows the phenomenal success of her New York Times bestseller Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire with her long-awaited second work of nonfiction: the fascinating story of the American Civil War and the major role played by Britain and its citizens in that epic struggle.Even before the first rumblings of secession shook the halls of Congress, British involvement in the coming schism was inevitable. Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making. In A World on Fire, Amanda Foreman examines the fraught relations from multiple angles while she introduces characters both humble and grand, bringing them to vivid life over the course of her sweeping and brilliant narrative.Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman has woven together their experiences to form a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy. Through the eyes of these brave volunteers we see the details of the struggle for life and the great and powerful forces that threatened to demolish a nation.In the drawing rooms of London and the offices of Washington, on muddy fields and aboard packed ships, Foreman reveals the decisions made, the beliefs held and contested, and the personal triumphs and sacrifices that ultimately led to the reunification of America. A World on Fire is a complex and groundbreaking work that will surely cement Amanda Foreman’s position as one of the most influential historians of our time.

The sermons of Joni Tevis' youth filled her with dread, a sense “that an even worse story—one you hadn't read yet—could likewise come true." In this revelatory collection, she reckons with her childhood fears by exploring the uniquely American fascination with apocalypse. From a haunted widow's wildly expanding mansion, to atomic test sites in the Nevada desert, her settings are often places of destruction and loss.And yet Tevis transforms these eerie destinations into sites of creation as well, uncovering powerful points of connection. Whether she's relating her experience of motherhood or describing the timbre of Freddy Mercury's voice in “Somebody to Love," she relies on the same reverence for detail, the same sense of awe. And by anchoring her attention to the raw materials of our world—nails and beams, dirt and stone, bones and blood—she discovers grandeur in the seemingly mundane.Possessed throughout with eclectic intelligence and...

A trip with friends turns into a nightmare of epic proportions when a magic spell forces Kayla Evans to take an unexpected detour to nowhere-ville, New Mexico. The small town is full of crazies, mischievous baby fairies, talking animals and one hot hunk of a man who just won't leave her alone. In fact, he's following her everywhere, stealing kisses, and making her want a little crazy of her own. But Kayla has a life, and living in the middle of a desert is not her idea of a good time, even if it does come with one amazing, and sexy benefit – a sexy fire elemental determined to melt her socks off. To the rest of the world, ancient mythology is just that, fairy tales. But for Xander and his magical brothers, it's all too real. Born into a long line of powerful but cursed men, he is destined to wait for the goddess to summon a mate for him using a powerful magical spell. When the magic summons sassy and willful Kayla, Xander faces the ultimate test. Kayla may not be able to resist his seduction, but Xander craves more than physical pleasure, he is determined to claim her heart.

David and the dragons are back in the latest installment in the NY TIMES bestselling Last Dragon Chronicles!After destroying a trace of dark fire, David, Zanna, and the Pennykettle dragons vanished. In a brand-new world, Co:per:nica, which runs parallel to that of Crescent Lane, firebirds roam the ancient librarium, a museum for books. But when 12-year-old David and Rosanna accidentally injure one of the firebirds, they are suddenly thrust into a remarkable adventure. The evil Ix have taken over one of the firebirds, turning it to the side of darkness, but the birds have a secret:They know about the existence of dragons. And from across the universe, one may come to their aid....

Amazon.com ReviewIt speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. From Publishers WeeklyUsing only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and "a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity." Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

WORLD OF FIRE! Dev Harmer, reluctant agent of Interstellar Security Solutions, wakes up in a newly cloned host body on the planet Alighieri, ready for action. An infernal world, so close to its sun that its surface is regularly baked to 1,000°C, hot enough to turn rock to lava. But deep underground there are networks of tunnels connecting colonies of miners who dig for the precious Helium-3. Polis+, the AI race who are humankind’s great galactic rivals, want to claim the planet’s mineral wealth for their own. All that stands between them and this goal is Dev. But as well as Polis+’s agents, there are giant moleworms to contend with, and a spate of mysterious earthquakes, and the perils of the surface where a man can be burned to cinders if he gets caught unprotected on the day side...

For over a decade now, the reigning consensus has held that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated withunderdevelopment. In this astute, original, and surprising investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnicviolence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnicminority. These "market-dominant minorities" - Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in WestAfrica, Jews in post-communist Russia - become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidalrevenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world's most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend ofglobalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

Fire and Ice is a romantic comedy set in the Swiss Alps. Sparks fly when spirited chalet hostess Kate Finnigan slowly thaws her cold Swiss boss, Sebastien. Just when things heat up, he discovers that Kate is not who she says she is...

THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN HISTORY OF WESTEROS AND THE LANDS BEYONDWITH HUNDREDS OF PAGES OF ALL-NEW MATERIAL FROM GEORGE R. R. MARTINIf the past is prologue, then George R. R. Martin's masterwork--the most inventive and entertaining fantasy saga of our time--warrants one hell of an introduction. At long last, it has arrived with The World of Ice and Fire.This lavishly illustrated volume is a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, providing vividly constructed accounts of the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring rebellions that lead to the events of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO's Game of Thrones. In a collaboration that's been years in the making, Martin has teamed with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson, the founders of the renowned fan site Westeros.org--perhaps the only people who know this world almost as well as its visionary creator.Collected here is all the accumulated knowledge, scholarly...