Systems Science

Fie abides by one rule: Look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime. When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses - and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: Protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.

The Devil's Heart is a legendary object of unsurpassed power and mystery. Worlds that believe in magic consider it Darkness's mightiest talisman; and worlds of science consider it a lost artifact of some ancient and forgotten race. Some say the Heart enables its possessor to control people's minds and to amass wealth enough for a dozen lifetimes, while others think it capable of raising the dead, perhaps even changing the flow of time itself. But to all, the location of this fabled object has remained a mystery, until now.

Preet Bharara has spent much of his life examining our legal system, pushing to make it better, and prosecuting those looking to subvert it. Bharara believes in our system and knows it must be protected, but to do so, he argues, we must also acknowledge and allow for flaws both in our justice system and in human nature. Bharara uses the many illustrative anecdotes and case histories from his storied, formidable career - the successes as well as the failures - to shed light on the realities of the legal system and the consequences of taking action.

Ten years have passed since Captain Kirk and the Enterprise™ crew brought back humpbacked whales from the 20th century to communicate with the mysterious Probe which threatened Earth. The Probe is returning to Earth and has plotted its course, and the Enterprise must continue to delve into the mystery of its language, and its cosmic purpose to save Earth once again.

Recent elections in the advanced Western democracies have undermined the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten back all challenges - from both the left and the right. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, only months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift in the politics of the rich democracies. In Anti-System Politics, Jonathan Hopkin traces the evolution of this shift and argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the post-war model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s.

Three years ago, Lift asked a goddess to stop her from growing older - a wish she believed was granted. Now, in Edgedancer, the barely teenage nascent Knight Radiant finds that time stands still for no one. Although the young Azish emperor granted her safe haven from an executioner she knows only as Darkness, court life is suffocating the free-spirited Lift, who can't help heading to Yeddaw when she hears the relentless Darkness is there hunting people like her with budding powers. The downtrodden in Yeddaw have no champion, and Lift knows she must seize this awesome responsibility.

A clock hangs over the head of every mortal. Counting down to the inescapable day that the Goddess of Death claims them. That is the way of the world. The natural cycle of mortals. The Gods, however, were said to live for forever. To exist so far outside of the natural laws of the universe that even their crimes can't be punished. But Knell Coba, at great cost, realizes this is nothing but another lie.

In 1983, Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain, both serving life sentences at the U.S. Prison in Marion, Illinois, separately murdered two correction officers on the same day. The Bureau of Prisons condemned both men to the severest punishment that could legally be imposed, one created specifically for them. It was unofficially called "no human contact." Each initially spent nine months in a mattress-sized cell where the lights burned twenty-four hours a day. They were clothed only in boxer shorts, completely sealed off from the outside world with only their minds to occupy their time.

A compelling new set of interviews on our changing and turbulent times with Noam Chomsky, one of the world's foremost thinkers...

In this new collection of conversations, conducted from 2010 to 2012, Noam Chomsky explores the most immediate and urgent concerns: the future of democracy in the Arab world, the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the European financial crisis, the breakdown of American mainstream political institutions, and the rise of the Occupy movement. As always, Chomsky presents his ideas vividly and accessibly, with uncompromising principle and clarifying insight.

In no more than the blink of an eye, a naïve optimism about technology’s liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. System Error exposes the root of our current predicament - how big tech’s relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get- and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.

One hundred years ago, 4 crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise™ crossed the dimensional barrier and found a mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned, thankful that the accident which had brought them there could not be duplicated...or so they thought. But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Their plan is to destroy from within, to replace a Federation Starship with one of their own.

We can encounter chaos in every system around us - even the smallest and simplest ones. Any system can fall into chaos, which prevents us to accurately predict its behavior. Even a small change in the initial conditions can lead to unexpectedly large-scale consequences. Therefore, we can often enter in panic, blame actors for events they are not responsible for, and our sense of security in the world can generally decrease.

When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose—in ourselves and as a society—when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets. And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people.

Even centuries later, the final decades of the 20th century are still regarded as one of the darkest and most perilous chapters in the history of humanity. Now, as an ancient and forbidden technology tempts mankind once more, Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise must probe deep into the secrets of the past, to discover the true origins of the dreaded Eugenics Wars - and of perhaps the greatest foe he has ever faced.

Like many doctors and nutrition experts, bestselling author Dr. Steven Gundry has long endorsed the ketogenic diet—a style of eating that heavily restricts carbohydrate intake to make the body burn fat for fuel. Because ketosis offers a variety of health benefits, including weight loss, reduced risk of illness, and enhanced energy, Dr. Gundry believed his patients’ efforts to adhere to the challenging regimen was worthwhile. That is, until his research uncovered a shocking truth: We’ve gotten keto all wrong.

Many yearn for a different realm, where the allure of enchanting women, otherworldly abilities, and thrilling adventures beckons. But what if you were born into a world where you're regarded as nothing more than a mere tool, utterly unsuited for their intended purposes? Plunged into the depths of despair, having lost that which he cherished most, the unmistakable chime of a notification altered not only his destiny but the very fabric of all existence. Yet, whether this change was for the better or worse remained uncertain.

For the past 25 years, scientists have challenged conventional views of evolution and have developed revolutionary theories with profound implications. Fritjof Capra has been at the forefront of this revolution and now, in The Web of Life, he offers a brilliant synthesis of these exciting breakthroughs.

The world ended. Greg's real life finally began. For twenty-eight years, Greg survived the corporate trenches. Premium dark roast at 7 AM. Then, Rachel from HR policing the microwave. Brad stealing credit in projects. Then civilization collapsed. The dead rose. Society crumbled. Greg has never been happier.

A mad scientist. A murdered James Kirk. A universe collapsing onto itself! Featuring a dramatic reading by Leonard Nimoy and George Takei, and enhanced with sound effects and an original score!

Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a “family policing system” that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation.