Systems Science

Commander Jay Luckrun is a bit more than a dorky weirdo these days. He's a dungeon crawler of the multiverse and a relentless killer of thousands of men and monsters. People think he's to blame for the spread of the apocalypse, too! Some of that might be true, but Jay still thinks of himself as a hero of comedy. But when a secretive group of villains gets empowered by the System and attacks the people close to Jay, he might have to lean into his infamy more. He might have to go all out to seek vengeance.

Caleb Hanson assumed the most exciting part of his field trip scouting in Northern Minnesota would be a rare bird sighting. Instead, he was abducted by hive-minded hexapods and forced to be their children's teacher. Not the worst way to ride out the end of the world. Two years later, the apocalypse has finally come for Caleb. His savior-captors are murdered, leaving him as the last line of defense for the alien kids he's grown to know and love. Now, he'll have to bend his values or watch his students die.

When Stink learns that Pluto has flunked the Planet Test for being too shrimpy, he has no choice but to take a stand for the sake of little planets (and little people) everywhere. Will our humble hero, Stink Moody, be smart enough to defeat a panel of big-shot scientists and class know-it-all Riley Rottenberger? For the answer to this burning question, tune in - and prepare to have your universe rocked!

Not for John Lee. His search for answers for the System Quest has taken him deep into the Forbidden Zone, into the very arms of his enemies. He's betrayed family and friends and been betrayed in turn. The most powerful human in the System has come to the final leg of his journey. And still, he has no idea if what he will find will fill the burning need within him. For the Redeemer of the Dead will not stop, until the cries of the lost and the sacrificed are answered.

Marc and his party have finished their zeppelin and taken it out to try to discover other Safe Zones. Their intent is to set up trade routes between all the different Safe Zones in order to give them a better chance to survive. The second Safe Zone they discover with the zeppelin is nearly as large as Any Port. It even has its own ring of outlier Safe Zones, or a partial ring at least. It appears that several of the smaller Safe Zones have been taken and converted into dungeons. With the safety of the larger Safe Zone at stake, they bring the zeppelin down to help the larger Safe Zone.

In a violent world, peace always comes at a cost. And to pay for this expansive commodity, to give those he cares about a chance, Jack has to step up... Even if it means doing things he would have never imagined.

Lochlan Brady and his daughters have faced some of those dangers and worked to build a place where they and other survivors can start to rebuild civilization. The new world is one where power rules and Loch has found himself to be the most powerful around. It's thrust him into a position of responsibility for not just his daughters but all the other survivors. It's not one he wants but feels he has to take. They have shelter but now Loch and the other survivors must find sources of food and other resources needed to not just survive but to thrive in the Connected System.

In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber-crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers.

Slengral is summoned back to the Aglatha shinara by none other than queen matriarch, Zathexa—who happens to be his mother? With his sister and heir to the shinara dead, Slengrala is commanded to return home not only to fulfill his duty to mate and breed a new queen but to answer to the charges made against him.

Marc is all too aware that the end of the acclimatization year the System has provided to Earth is quickly drawing to a close and that others will be allowed onto the planet to start claiming areas shortly. Zeus has promised that his series of quests will get Marc, at least, to the maximum level reachable in that first year, but Marc is nervous that it isn't going to happen.

In this book, Katrina Hazzard-Donald explores African Americans' experience and practice of the herbal, healing folk belief tradition known as Hoodoo. Working against conventional scholarship, Hazzard-Donald argues that Hoodoo emerged first in three distinct regions she calls "regional Hoodoo clusters" and that after the turn of the 19th century, Hoodoo took on a national rather than regional profile.

Almost every society has professional judges, but from ancient Athens to modern Asia, cultures have wanted ordinary people involved in legal decisions. The use of juries comes with challenges; societies must determine how to select jurors, what cases jurors should decide and by what rules, and how to inform jurors about the law and evidence. This Very Short Introduction shows how and why societies around the world have used juries, charting the spread of the twelve-person jury from England to the British colonies in America, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean.

The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen....

As Reeves shows, the growing separation between the upper middle class and everyone else can be seen in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those at the top of the income ladder are becoming more effective at passing on their status to their children, reducing overall social mobility. The result is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults.

In an instant, life as it was known is gone, replaced by a System called The Connection. It doesn't come quietly as earthquakes rock the planet, the chosen survivors falling unconscious as the Connection takes their bodies and Adapts them. Lochlan Brady and his family were on their way home from a camping weekend when the Connection appears. He awakens with a new Adapted body, finding his wife missing. Now Loch must survive and thrive in this new world with his two teenage daughters, Harper and Piper. All Loch wants to do is protect his daughters and find his wife.

The mysterious Overlords destroyed all electronics on Earth, imposed a game-like System, and unleashed ravenous horrors upon the planet. Did you hear that Alex Dathers—yes, the Alex Dathers from Youtube with the channel about weapons and armor from the old days—killed a dragon? He actually killed a freakin’ dragon when he was only level 1. I heard it dropped him some epic loot and now he is going on a rampage through the System!

Until recently, microglia were thought to be merely the brain’s housekeepers, helpfully removing damaged cells. But a recent groundbreaking discovery revealed them to be capable of terrifying Jekyll and Hyde behavior. When triggered - and anything that stirs up the immune system in the body can activate microglia - they can morph into destroyers, impacting a wide range of issues from memory problems and anxiety to depression and Alzheimer’s. Under the right circumstances, however, microglia can be coaxed back into being angelic healers.

"Understanding Systems Engineering: A Practical Guide to Today’s Technology" explores modern systems engineering with a focus on integrating disciplines to manage complex systems throughout their lifecycle. Informed by the author’s diverse experience, the book addresses challenges professionals face and offers insights into the evolving field.

What is our immune system, and how does it work? A vast array of cells, proteins and chemicals spring into action whenever our bodies are damaged, but immunity is not something you can see, touch, or feel. It can fight off malicious bacteria and viruses, locate cancerous growths, and even rewire our brains—but sometimes our own tissues can get caught in its crossfire, with catastrophic consequences. Humans may be the most disease-ridden animals on the planet. Professor John Trowsdale shows how the immune system protects us, and how our bodies invest huge resources to keep it running.

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested. Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault. Why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget?