Download or read book Use of Weapons written by Iain M. Banks and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2008-12-22 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past. Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

Download or read book Ace of Shades written by Amanda Foody and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A teenage girl goes searching for her mother in the City of Sin in this YA fantasy from the New York Times–bestselling coauthor of All of Us Villains. Welcome to New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets . . . and secrets hide in every shadow. It’s no place for a properly raised young lady. But when her mother goes missing, Enne Salta leaves her finishing school—and her reputation—behind. Following her mother’s trail, she finds herself in the city where no one survives uncorrupted. Frightened and alone, Enne’s only clue leads her to Levi Glaiyser—a street lord and con man in desperate need of the compensation Enne offers. Their search sends this unlikely duo through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets, and into the clutches of a ruthless Mafia donna. But as Levi’s enemies close in on them, a deadly secret from Enne’s past comes to light and she must surrender herself to the City of Sin —to a vicious game of execution . . . Where the players never win.

Download or read book Draw Your Weapons written by Sarah Sentilles and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-03 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Draw Your Weapons is essential reading in a time of global upheaval—a unique, impassioned and vital guide to peaceful, creative resistance in a violent era • A dazzling combination of memoir, history, reporting, visual culture, literature and theology which proposes that art can offer the tools for remaking the world • Centres on the stories of two very different men—one a former-soldier stationed at Abu Ghraib, and a consciencious objector from World War II. Both men respond to war, and reclaim their dignity, by making art • Sentilles almost became an episcopal priest. She holds a Doctorate of Theology from Harvard Divinity School and her ‘break-up with God’ was the subject of an earlier book • Sentilles is also the co-creator of Drone Alert Sutras, a project that prompts participants to create video responses to US drone attacks as they happen • Will appeal to fans of Rebecca Solnit, John Berger and Ta-Nehisi Coates

Download or read book Potential Weapons written by Jocelyn Lieu and published by . This book was released on 2004-04 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First to fade were the names, then the faces, until she couldn't be sure the people once called family ever really existed. Sometimes, when she wandered through Chinatown, she wondered whether this middle-aged man or that young mother with the sullen girl was related to her. Relatives. Strangers. There was no way to know. In this vivid, elegantly written debut, Jocelyn Lieu explores the risks of self-discovery. The characters in Potential Weapons lead bi-cultural lives, their ethnicity not obvious at first glance. What are you anyway? someone asks. But it is only when cultures clash, when memory is forced into the present moment, that this question can begin to be answered. In the title story, Abi, a young Chinese American woman, attends a Klan rally, in protest, with her white mother. Once there, they are stripped of all "potential weapons," including her mother's cane. Diana visits the home of her lover's parents, Holocaust survivors: the mystery of cultural difference and the haunting music of Gulf War TV coverage permeate the encounter. Through a chance meeting in New York's Chinatown, Mar discovers her estranged Aunt Pearl, who turns out to be the family's most intriguing secret, a link to a past colored by the struggle to survive.

Download or read book The Storm Crow written by Kalyn Josephson and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First print run includes exclusive gold foil casing! Eragon meets And I Darken in this thrilling new fantasy debut that follows a fallen princess as she ignites a rebellion to bring back the magical elemental crows that were taken from her people. In the tropical kingdom of Rhodaire, magical, elemental Crows are part of every aspect of life...until the Illucian empire invades, destroying everything. That terrible night has thrown Princess Anthia into a deep depression. Her sister Caliza is busy running the kingdom after their mother's death, but all Thia can do is think of all she has lost. But when Caliza is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the crown prince of Illucia, Thia is finally spurred into action. And after stumbling upon a hidden Crow egg in the rubble of a rookery, she and her sister devise a dangerous plan to hatch the egg in secret and get back what was taken from them.

Download or read book Why Did Hitler Hate the Jews written by Peter den Hertog and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This investigation into the Nazi leader’s mindset is “an inherently fascinating study . . . a work of meticulously presented and seminal scholarship”(Midwest Book Review). Adolf Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism is often attributed to external cultural and environmental factors. But as historian Peter den Hertog notes in this book, most of Hitler’s contemporaries experienced the same culture and environment and didn’t turn into rabid Jew-haters, let alone perpetrators of genocide. In this study, the author investigates what we do know about the roots of the German leader’s anti-Semitism. He also takes the significant step of mapping out what we do not know in detail, opening pathways to further research. Focusing not only on history but on psychology, forensic psychiatry, and related fields, he reveals how Hitler was a man with highly paranoid traits, and clarifies the causes behind this paranoia while explaining its connection to his anti-Semitism. The author also explores, and answers, whether the Führer gave one specific instruction ordering the elimination of Europe’s Jews, and, if so, when this took place. Peter den Hertog is able to provide an all-encompassing explanation for Hitler’s anti-Semitism by combining insights from many different disciplines—and makes clearer how Hitler’s own particular brand of anti-Semitism could lead the way to the Holocaust.

Download or read book Pen in Hand written by Tim Parks and published by Alma Books. This book was released on 2019-04-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can other people like the books we don't like? What benefit can we get from rereading a work? Can we read better? If so, how? These and many other questions, ranging from the field of writing to that of reading and translation, are given a comprehensive answer in a series of stimulating and challenging literary essays that will be a perfect read for all book explorers and practitioners of the pen.After delighting us with his novels and many volumes of non-fiction, Tim Parks - who is not only an acclaimed author and a translator, but also a celebrated literary essayist - gives us a book to enjoy, savour and, most importantly, reread.

Download or read book The Star Fraction written by Ken MacLeod and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-07-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moh Kohn is a security mercenary, his smart gun and killer reflexes for hire. Janis Taine is a scientist working on memory-enhancing drugs, fleeing the US/UN's technology cops. Jordan Brown is a teenager in the Christian enclave of Beulah City, dealing in theologically-correct software for the world's fundamentalists-and wants out. In a balkanized twenty-first century, where the "peace process" is deadlier than war, the US/UN's spy satellites have everyone in their sights. But the Watchmaker has other plans, and the lives of Moh, Janis, and Jordan are part of the program. A specter is haunting the fight for space and freedom, the specter of the betrayed revolution that happened before. . . . With The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod burst onto the SF scene and began the Fall Revolution sequence that continued with The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, and The Sky Road.

Download or read book Hunted written by Meagan Spooner and published by HarperTeen. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Meagan Spooner spins a thoroughly thrilling Beauty and the Beast story for the modern age, expertly woven with spellbinding romance, intrigue, and suspense that readers won’t soon be able to forget. Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones—and in her blood. After all, her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering its secrets. So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters out of their comfortable home among the aristocracy and back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. The Beast. Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange creature back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of magical creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin, or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Download or read book Weapons of the Civil War Cavalryman written by John Walter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the American Civil War, the mounted soldiers fighting on both sides of the conflict carried a wide array of weapons, from sabers and lances to carbines, revolvers, and other firearms. Though some sections of the cavalry placed their trust in the sabre, the advent of viable breechloading carbines -- especially repeaters such as the Spencer -- was to transform warfare within little more than a decade of General Lee's final surrender at Appomattox. However, output struggled to keep up with unprecedented demands on manufacturing technology and distribution in areas where communication was difficult and in states whose primary aim was to equip their own men rather than contribute to the arming of Federal or Confederate regiments. In addition, the almost unparalleled losses of men and equipment ensured that almost any firearm, effectual or not, was pressed into service. Consequently, the sheer variety of weaponry carried reflected the mounted soldiers' various roles in different theatres of operation, but also the availability -- or otherwise -- of weapons, notably on the Confederate side. Fully illustrated, this study assesses the effectiveness of the many different weapons arming the Civil War cavalryman and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the decisions made after 1865 concerning the armament of the US cavalry.

Download or read book A Choice of Weapons written by Gordon Parks and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gordon Parks's spectacular rise from poverty, personal hardships, and outright racism is astounding and inspiring." --from the foreword by Wing Young Huie

Download or read book The Weirdness written by Jeremy P. Bushnell and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary fiction meets the otherworldly in this “wonderfully weird and entertaining” urban fantasy for Millennial fans of Victor LaValle (Esquire). “An utterly charming, silly, and heartily entertaining coming-of-age story about a man-boy who learns to believe in himself by reckoning with evil.” —Boston Globe What do you do when you wake up hung over and late for work only to find a stranger on your couch? And what if that stranger turns out to be an Adversarial Manifestation—like Satan, say—who has brewed you a fresh cup of fair-trade coffee? And what if he offers you your life’s goal of making the bestseller list if only you find his missing Lucky Cat and, you know, sign over your soul? If you’re Billy Ridgeway, you take the coffee.

Download or read book Imaginary Weapons written by Sharon Weinberger and published by Nation Books. This book was released on 2007-05-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how a lunatic fringe science project became favored by Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

Download or read book The Book of the Sword written by Sir Richard Francis Burton and published by . This book was released on 1884 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Tools and Weapons written by Brad Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller. From Microsoft's president and one of the tech industry's broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. “A colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.” —Walter Isaacson Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation. In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech's relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.

Download or read book Medieval Weapons written by Robert D. Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-04-20 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating reference covers the weapons and armor used by warriors from the 4th to the 15th century and discusses how and why they changed over time. In the Middle Ages, the lack of standardized weapons meant that one warrior's arms were often quite different from another's, even when they were fighting on the same side. And with few major technological advances in that period, the evolution of those weapons over the centuries was incremental. But evolve they ultimately did, bringing arms, armor, and siege weapons to the threshold of the modern era. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, Medieval Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact covers the inexorable transformation from warrior in the mail shirt to fully armored knight, from the days of spears and swords to the large-scale adoption of the handgun. Medieval Weapons covers this fascinating expanse of centuries in chapters devoted to the early medieval, Carolingian, Crusade, and late medieval periods. Within each period, the book details how weapons and armor were developed, what weapons were used for different types of battles, and how weapons and armor both influenced, and were influenced by, changing tactics in battles and sieges.

Download or read book Electric Shock Weapons Tasers and Policing written by Abi Dymond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-24 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on five years of research, and drawing on criminology, science and technology studies (STS), socio-legal studies and social psychology, this book is the first non-medical book written on electric-shock weapons, of which the best well known is the TASER brand. The police’s ability to use force is one of their most crucial powers, yet one that has been relatively neglected by criminology. This book challenges some of the myths surrounding the use of these weapons and considers their human rights implications and impact on members of the public and officers alike. Drawing on STS, it also considers the role and impact of electric-shock technologies, examines the extent to which technologies and non-human agency may also play a role in shaping officer decision making and discretion, and contributes to long standing debates about police accountability. This is essential reading for policing scholars around the world, particularly those engaged with use of force, culture and accountability, as well as those engaged with Science and Technology studies.