Download or read book The Line of Polity written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2013-12-18 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outlink station Miranda has been destroyed by a nanomycelium, and the very nature of this sabotage suggests that the alien bioconstruct Dragon - a creature as untrustworthy as it is gigantic - is somehow involved. Sent out on a titanic Polity dreadnought, the Occam Razor, agent Cormac must investigate the disaster. Meanwhile, on the remote planet Masada, the long-term rebellion can never rise above-ground, as the slave population is subjugated by orbital laser arrays controlled by the Theocracy in their cylinder worlds, and by the fact that they cannot safely leave their labour compounds. For the wilderness of Masada lacks breathable air ... and out there roam monstrous predators called hooders and siluroynes, not to mention the weird and terrible gabbleducks.

Download or read book Gridlinked written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human. The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow. Despite the sub-zero temperature of Samarkand, Cormac discovers signs of life: they are two 'dracomen', alien beasts contrived by an extra-galactic entity calling itself 'Dragon', which is a huge creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometre in diameter. Caught between the byzantine wiles of the Dragon and the lethal fury of Pelter, Cormac needs to skip very nimbly indeed to rescue the Samarkand project and protect his own life. Gridlinked is the first sci-fi thriller in Neal Asher's compelling Agent Cormac series.

Download or read book Brass Man written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brass Man is the third novel in Neal Asher's popular Agent Cormac series. On the primitive world Cull, a knight errant called Anderson hunts a dragon, not knowing that elsewhere is a resurrected brass killing machine, Mr Crane, assisting in a similar hunt. Learning that this old enemy still lives, agent Cormac pursues, while scientist Mika begins discovering the horrifying truth about an ancient alien technology. Each day is a survival struggle for the people of Cull. Ferocious insectile monsters roam their planet, as they try to escape to their forefathers’ starship still orbiting far above them. But an entity with questionable motives, calling itself Dragon, assists them with genetic by-blows created out of humans and the hideous local monsters. And now the supposedly geologically inactive planet itself is increasingly suffering earthquakes . . .

Download or read book Prador Moon written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neal Asher takes on first contact, Polity style. This original novel recounts the first contact between the aggressive Prador aliens, and the Polity Collective as it is forced to retool its society to a war footing. The overwhelming brute force of the Prador dreadnaughts causes several worlds and space stations to be overrun. Prador Moon follows the initial Polity defeats, to the first draws, and culminates in what might be the first Polity victory, told from the point of view of two unlikely heroes. For the first time in the US in eBook format.

Download or read book The Soldier written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a far corner of space, on the very borders between humanity’s Polity worlds and the kingdom of the vicious crab-like prador, is an immediate threat to all sentient life: an accretion disc, a solar system designed by the long-dead Jain race and swarming with living technology powerful enough to destroy entire civilizations. Neither the Polity or the prador want the other in full control of the disc, so they’ve placed an impartial third party in charge of the weapons platform guarding the technology from escaping into the galaxy: Orlandine, a part-human, part-AI haiman. She’s assisted by Dragon, a mysterious, spaceship-sized alien entity who has long been suspicious of Jain technology and who suspects the disc is a trap lying-in-wait. Meanwhile, the android Angel is planning an attack on the Polity, and is searching for a terrible weapon to carry out his plans?a Jain super-soldier. But what exactly the super-soldier is, and what it could be used for if it fell into the wrong hands, will bring Angel and Orlandine’s missions to a head in a way that could forever change the balance of power in the Polity universe. In The Soldier, British science fiction writer Neal Asher kicks off another Polity-based trilogy in signature fashion, concocting a mind-melting plot filled with far-future technology, lethal weaponry, and bizarre alien creations.

Download or read book Comparative Politics written by Jan-Erik Lane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores, using a set of data from 150 countries, whether there are any evolutionary mechanisms in politics that guide mankind towards the rule of law regime, domestically and globally.

Download or read book Jack Four written by Neal Asher and published by Night Shade Books. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This high-octane adventure is set in the same world as Neal Asher's acclaimed Polity universe. It's a thrilling, fast-paced standalone novel, perfect for fans of Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter. Created to die–determined to live . . . Jack Four–one of twenty human clones–has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity’s Polity worlds would have this information. The prador’s king has been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into a creature even more monstrous than the prador themselves. And his children, the King’s Guard, have undergone similar changes. They were infected by the virus during the last humans-versus-prador war, now lapsed into an uneasy truce. But the prador are always looking for new weapons – and their experimentation program might give them the edge they seek. Suzeal trades human slaves out of the Stratogaster Space Station, re-engineering them to serve the prador. She thinks the rewards are worth the risks, but all that is about to change. The Station was once a zoo, containing monsters from across known space. All the monsters now dwell on the planet below, but they aren’t as contained as they seem. And a vengeful clone may be the worst danger of all. ‘Neal Asher’s books are like an adrenaline shot targeted directly for the brain’ John Scalzi, author of the Old Man’s War series 'Magnificently awesome. Then Asher turns it up to eleven' Peter F. Hamilton, author of Salvation and others, on Asher's The Soldier

Download or read book The Metamorphosis of the World written by Ulrich Beck and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world that is increasingly difficult to understand. It is not just changing: it is metamorphosing. Change implies that some things change but other things remain the same capitalism changes, but some aspects of capitalism remain as they always were. Metamorphosis implies a much more radical transformation in which the old certainties of modern society are falling away and something quite new is emerging. To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present. Take climate change: much of the debate about climate change has focused on whether or not it is really happening, and if it is, what we can do to stop or contain it. But this emphasis on solutions blinds us to the fact that climate change is an agent of metamorphosis. It has already altered our way of being in the world the way we live in the world, think about the world and seek to act upon the world through our actions and politics. Rising sea levels are creating new landscapes of inequality drawing new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation-states but elevations above sea level. It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it. The theory of metamorphosis goes beyond theory of world risk society: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but the positive side effects of bads. They produce normative horizons of common goods and propel us beyond the national frame towards a cosmopolitan outlook.

Download or read book The Human written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Human, the final book in Neal Asher’s epic Rise of the Jain trilogy, an entire galaxy hangs in the balance as the ancient and powerful Jain threat emerges anew . . . A Jain warship has risen from the depths of space, emerging with a deadly grudge and a wealth of ancient yet lethal technology. It is determined to hunt down the alien Client, and will annihilate all those who stand in its way. So Orlandine must prepare humanity’s defense. Both humanity and the Prador thought their ancient foe—the Jain—had perished in a past age. And they resolve to destroy these outliers at any cost. Orlandine wants the Client’s inside knowledge to act, but the Client has her own agenda. Earth Central therefore looks to the Prador for alliance, after the Jain destroy their fleet. However, not everyone is happy with this, and some will do anything to shatter this fragile coalition. As the Jain warship makes its way across the galaxy, it seems unstoppable. Human and Prador forces alike struggle to withstand its devastating weaponry. Orlandine’s life work is to neutralize Jain technology, so if she can't triumph, no one can. But will she become what she’s vowed to destroy?

Download or read book The Skinner written by Neal Asher and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Spatterjay ... where sudden death is the normal way of life.

Download or read book Down to Earth written by Bruno Latour and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-11-26 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present ecological mutation has organized the whole political landscape for the last thirty years. This could explain the deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightmare for most people. What holds these three phenomena together is the conviction, shared by some powerful people, that the ecological threat is real and that the only way for them to survive is to abandon any pretense at sharing a common future with the rest of the world. Hence their flight offshore and their massive investment in climate change denial. The Left has been slow to turn its attention to this new situation. It is still organized along an axis that goes from investment in local values to the hope of globalization and just at the time when, everywhere, people dissatisfied with the ideal of modernity are turning back to the protection of national or even ethnic borders. This is why it is urgent to shift sideways and to define politics as what leads toward the Earth and not toward the global or the national. Belonging to a territory is the phenomenon most in need of rethinking and careful redescription; learning new ways to inhabit the Earth is our biggest challenge. Bringing us down to earth is the task of politics today.

Download or read book Making Capitalism Fit For Society written by Colin Crouch and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalism is the only complex system known to us that can provide an efficient and innovative economy, but the financial crisis has brought out the pernicious side of capitalism and shown that it remains dependent on the state to rescue it from its own deficiencies. Can capitalism be reshaped so that it is fit for society, or must we acquiesce to the neoliberal view that society will be at its best when markets are given free rein in all areas of life? The aim of this book is to show that the acceptance of capitalism and the market does not require us to accept the full neoliberal agenda of unrestrained markets, insecurity in our working lives, and neglect of the environment and of public services. In particular, it should not mean supporting the growing dominance of public life by corporate wealth. The world’s most successful mature economies are those that fully embrace both the discipline of the market and the need for protection against its negative outcomes. Indeed, a continuing, unresolved clash between these two forces is itself a major source of vitality and innovation for economy and society. But maintenance of that tension depends on the enduring strength of trade unions and other critical groups in civil society - a strength that is threatened by neoliberalism’s increasingly intolerant onward march. Outlining the principles for a renewed and more assertive social democracy, this timely and important book shows that real possibilities exist to create a better world than that which is being offered by the wealthy elites who dominate our public and private lives.

Download or read book The Warship written by Neal Asher and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dangers of ancient technology loom over the Polity in the sequel to The Soldier, Neal Asher’s latest action-packed space opera series. The haiman Orlandine, charged with safeguarding lethal Jain tech swirling inside an accretion disc located in the distant reaches of space, has weaponized a black hole to eliminate the threat. But others are suspicious of her motives, and both the Polity AIs and the leaders of the alien prador kingdom dispatch fleets of warships in anticipation of conflict. As the black hole continues to eat its way through the planets in the accretion disc, making its way towards a dead sun, it becomes clear the disc has been hiding a larger secret. Nefarious forces with ulterior motives have manipulated Orlandine into deploying the black hole, triggering a series of larger events that will uncover a danger far older than even the Polity itself. From British science fiction writer Neal Asher, The War Ship picks up right where its predecessor, The Soldier, left off, showcasing Asher’s unique take on cutting-edge and fast-paced science fiction.

Download or read book Hermeneutics written by Paul Ricoeur and published by Polity. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Ricoeur’s contribution to the theory of interpretation, or hermeneutics, is considerable: he ranks among the masters of this discipline alongside Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer. In addition to major works like The Conflict of Interpretations, he wrote many articles and shorter texts which deserve to be discovered and rediscovered. These allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the development of his work over time and to appreciate the full range of his contribution. Some of the texts examine the nature of metaphor while others guide the reader through the many challenges of the hermeneutic problem - from the symbol to the text, then to the text as action, taking full account of the ethical implications. Here one encounters Ricoeur’s reflections on the future of hermeneutics and his abiding concern to explore the relations between hermeneutics and analytical philosophy. Ricoeur’s contribution to biblical hermeneutics has also been decisive. Two masterful studies in this volume attest to Ricoeur’s attempt to explore the relations between revelation and truth, on the one hand, and between myths of salvation and reason, on the other. This book - the second volume of Ricoeur’s writings and lectures - brings together texts which appeared between 1972 and 2006. It is published under the auspices of Le Fonds Ricoeur.

Download or read book Dark Intelligence Transformation Book 1 written by Neal Asher and published by Tor UK. This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume in a no-holds-barred adventure set in Asher's popular Polity universe One man will transcend death to seek vengeance. One woman will transform herself to gain power. And no one will emerge unscathed... Thorvald Spear wakes in hospital, where he finds he's been brought back from the dead. What's more, he died in a human vs. alien war which ended a whole century ago. But when he relives his traumatic final moments, he finds the spark to keep on living. That spark is vengeance. Trapped and desperate on a world surrounded by alien Prador forces, Spear had seen a rescue ship arriving. But instead of providing backup, Penny Royal, the AI within the destroyer turned rogue. It annihilated friendly forces in a frenzy of destruction, and, years later, it's still free. Spear vows to track it across worlds and do whatever it takes to bring it down. Isobel Satomi ran a successful crime syndicate. But after competitors attacked, she needed more power. Yet she got more than she bargained for when she negotiated with Penny Royal. She paid it to turn her part-AI herself, but the upgrades hid a horrifying secret. The Dark AI had triggered a transformation in Isobel that would turn her into a monster, rapidly evolving into something far from human. Spear hires Isobel to take him to the Penny Royal AI's last known whereabouts. But he cheats her in the process and he becomes a target for her vengeance. And as she is evolves further into a monstrous predator, rage soon wins over reason. Will Spear finish his hunt, before he becomes the hunted? PRAISE FOR THE TRANSFORMATION SERIES "One of his best works so far ... Asher is a modern master of Sci-Fi" Starburst magazine "Beautifully paced ... does just as well as at slam-bang action scenes as at painting frightening pictures" Publishers Weekly, starred review "Blends large portions of horror and mystery into an SF tale of revenge and redemption ... a complex and satisfying work" Library Journal, starred review "Hardboiled, fast-paced space opera epic ... Asher's books are similar to the world of Iain M. Banks' Culture universe, but the Polity is arguably a much darker and more vicious environment - and all the better for it" TheRegister.co.uk

Download or read book Runcible Tales written by Neal Asher and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-06 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a 'chapbook' of five short stories so not very long (about 30,000 words). It consists of: Always With You - Webster engages on a mission to destroy a Prador planet breaker. It helps if you have Horace Blegg on your side, and an internal medic, but are these enough to overcome overwhelming odds?Blue Holes and Bloody Waters - marine biologist Karl finds that humans haven't quite adapted enough - or have they? Features the first mention of the retro Anti-Grav cars featured in "Gridlinked" that I have come acrossDragon in the Flower - Ian Cormac's first encounter with Dragon - this is printed word-for-word in "Gridlinked", so this should be the Runcible Tale most familiar to Neal Asher readersThe Gire and the Bibrat - Telepath John Tennyson is given more than a helping hand by Agent Prime Cause in his search for the location of a scream...Walking John and Bird - John Walker consults Horace Blegg and Dragon with questions concerning his link with Bird, a seemingly invincible entity. Trouble is, especially where Dragon is concerned, he may not like the answers.

Download or read book Genreflecting written by Diana Tixier Herald and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-05-24 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Librarians who work with readers will find this well-loved guide to be a treasure trove of information. With descriptive annotations of thousands of genre titles mapped by genre and subgenre, this is the readers' advisor's go-to reference. Next to author, genre is the characteristic that readers use most to select reading material and the most trustworthy consideration for finding books readers will enjoy. With its detailed classification and pithy descriptions of titles, this book gives users valuable insights into what makes genre fiction appeal to readers. It is an invaluable aid for helping readers find books that they will enjoy reading. Providing a handy roadmap to popular genre literature, this guide helps librarians answer the perennial and often confounding question "What can I read next?" Herald and Stavole-Carter briefly describe thousands of popular fiction titles, classifying them into standard genres such as science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical fiction, and mystery. Within each genre, titles are broken down into more specific subgenres and themes. Detailed author, title, and subject indexes provide further access. As in previous editions, the focus of the guide is on recent releases and perennial reader favorites. In addition to covering new titles, this edition focuses more narrowly on the core genres and includes basic readers' advisory principles and techniques.