Rick Partlow

Duty, Honor, Planet

Duty, Honor, Planet

Former Marine Jason McKay thinks his first assignment as a Military Intelligence officer—as the head of a protection detail for a Republic Senator’s daughter on her humanitarian mission to the star colonies—will be a boring waste of time. Until Aphrodite, the agricultural colony they’re touring, is invaded by an inhuman enemy that may threaten Earth, and McKay and his people are trapped far behind enemy lines.

Separated from his team during the attack, McKay has to try to keep Valerie O’Keefe, the idealistic daughter of a powerful politician, alive in the face of threats from an alien menace and a more mundane revolutionary front that is working to free the forced exiles from their servitude to the MultiCorps that run the colonies.

Meanwhile, McKay’s second in command, Shannon Stark, leads the remainder of the special operations unit in an effort to sabotage the invaders in their effort to loot the resources of Aphrodite and to learn more about their true identity.

Together, these two officers fight to survive, to protect the civilians in their charge… and to do their duty.

Atiq Rahimi

The Patience Stone

Rahimi (Earth and Ashes) won the 2008 Prix Goncourt for this brief, melodramatic novel set amid factional violence somewhere in Afghanistan or elsewhere. It follows the circumscribed movements of a Muslim woman largely confined to the house where she nurses her comatose husband, who's been shot by a fellow jihadist. A humorless, inflammatory mullah pays the woman unwelcome visits, and sexually menacing soldiers break into her house. Though such events generate tension and drama, the novel's cultural and historical milieu lacks specificity, and Rahimi may have erred in sketching the story's political context vaguely. For some readers, his intimate attention to objects and spaces may compensate for the grating confessional tenor that develops later, when the narrator divulges damning secrets to her husband's unresponsive body and fulfilling the book's premise a little too obviously by referring to him as her patience stone. McLean 's translation is faultless, but the narrator's reminiscences feel stilted; the patience-stone conceit borders on gimmickry; and incidents of a violent or sexual nature seem overdetermined.

Rick Partlow

Honor Bound

Duty, Honor, Planet

Honor Bound returns to the star-spanning human Republic of Duty, Honor, Planet five years after the attempted invasion of Earth by General Antonov’s Protectorate and their biomech army. The invasion was defeated, but in the aftermath, the Republic economy has collapsed, and President Jameson is defeated in the next election by former Senator Daniel O’Keefe.

After O’Keefe ends the former practice of allowing developing nations to dump their political and economic undesirables onto the star colonies, where they serve as cheap labor for the mines run by the monopolistic Multicorps, unrest begins to build in those nations and in the Colonial Guard military that represents them. The Multicorps are unhappy as well and pressure the government to allow them to produce biomechs of their own to replace the forced emigrants as a source for inexpensive labor.

Rumors begin to spread of a mutiny by the Colonial Guard in the colonies and of a possible assasination attempt or even a coup against the O’Keefe administration on Earth.

Amidst this turmoil, reports come in of a military outpost on the fringes of Republic space that has been completely wiped out, and all signs point to a return of General Antonov’s Protectorate from wherever they’ve been hiding the last five years. Jason McKay, now head of Spacefleet Intelligence, takes a star cruiser to investigate, while Shannon Stark, his second in command, sends an agent in undercover to investigate the rumored coup.

What they each find, light years away from each other, might mean that the two threats faced by the Republic government are not at all unrelated…

Deanna Raybourn

The Dead Travel Fast

A husband, a family, a comfortable life: Theodora Lestrange lives in terror of it all.

With a modest inheritance and the three gowns that comprise her entire wardrobe, Theodora leaves Edinburgh – and a disappointed suitor – far behind. She is bound for Rumania, where tales of vampires are still whispered, to visit an old friend and write the book that will bring her true independence.

She arrives at a magnificent, decaying castle in the Carpathians, replete with eccentric inhabitants: the ailing dowager; the troubled steward; her own fearful friend, Cosmina. But all are outstripped in dark glamour by the castle's master, Count Andrei Dragulescu.

Bewildering and bewitching in equal measure, the brooding nobleman ignites Theodora's imagination and awakens passions in her that she can neither deny nor conceal. His allure is superlative, his dominion over the superstitious town, absolute – Theodora may simply be one more person under his sway.

Before her sojourn is ended – or her novel completed – Theodora will have encountered things as strange and terrible as they are seductive. For obsession can prove fatal.and she is in danger of falling prey to more than desire.

Anastasia Rabiyah

The Stolen Warrior

Hessa feeds the men kept in her master’s holding cells-men meant for the fighting pits and destined to die there for the pleasure of Bisura’s crowds…unless they are kept for breeding. In the darkness she discovers a stolen warrior from the distant island of Chalois, a muscle bound giant of a man who draws her into a dangerous game of lust she doesn’t want to end. Servants of the Omi House are not allowed to decide their fate, but Hessa longs to be more than what she was born into, and if she can find a way out, she plans to bring her stolen warrior with her.

Diana Rowland

Blood of the Demon

Kara Gillian

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL, MAN AND DEMON, SHE’S ABOUT TO FACE THE ONE THING SHE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SURVIVE.

Welcome to the world of Kara Gillian, a cop with a gift. Not only does she have the power of “othersight” to see what most people can’t even imagine, but she’s become the exclusive summoner of a demon lord. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The fact is, with two troublesome cases on her docket and a handsome FBI agent under her skin, Kara needs the help of sexy, insatiable Lord Rhyzkahl more than he needs her. Because these two victims, linked by suspicious coincidence, haven’t just been murdered. Something has eaten their souls.

It’s a case with roots in the arcane, but whose evil has flowered among the rich, powerful, and corrupt in Beaulac, Louisiana. And as the killings continue, Kara soon realizes how much there’s still to learn about demons, men, and things that kill in the night—and how little time she has to learn it.

Vilayanur S Ramachandran

The Emerging Mind: The Reith Lectures 2003

Автор на основе обследований огромного числа пациентов в области неврологии доходчиво, увлекательно и остроумно объясняет загадочные неврологические и психиатрические симптомы, приходя к выводу о том, что наука о мозге способна разрешать также и классические вопросы философии. Его исследования - это последние достижения в области изучения эволюционного развития мозга.

В.С.Рамачандран рассказывает о своей работе, просвещая и развлекая нас. Книга рассчитана на самый широкий крут читателей..

Вилейанур С.Рамачандран, доктор медицины, доктор философии, является директором Центра мозга и познания, профессором психологии и нейрофизиологии Калифорнийского университета (Сан-Диего), адъюнкт профессором биологии Солковского института. Рамачандран получил медицинское образование, а впоследствии — степень доктора философии в колледже Тринити (Trinity College) Кембриджского университета. Он имеет множество званий и наград, включая звание члена совета Аll Soul's College Оксфордского университета, почетную степень доктора Коннектикутского колледжа, Aliens Kappers золотую медаль Нидерландской королевской академии наук за заметный вклад в нейрофизиологию, золотую медаль Австралийского национального университета и почетное президентское звание Американской академии неврологии Прочел цикл лекций о работе мозга на праздновании двадцатипятилетней годовщины (серебряный юбилей) Общества нейрофизиологов (1995); сделал вступительные доклады на конференции по работе мозга, организованной Национальным институтом психического здоровья (NIMH) в библиотеке Конгресса, на Доркасских* чтениях в Колд-Спринг-Харборе (Cold Spring Harbor), на Адамсовских чтениях в Массачусетской клинике в Гарварде и чтениях, посвященных памяти Джонаса Солка, в Солковском институте».

Рамачандран опубликовал более 120 статей в научных журналах (включая «Scientific American»), Он является автором нашумевшей книги «Phantoms in the Brain» («Фантомы мозга»), которая была переведена на восемь языков и стала основой для двухсерийного фильма на Channel 4 Британского телевидения и на PBS в США. Журнал «Newsweek» недавно назвал его членом «клуба века» — одним из сотни самых выдающихся людей XXI столетия.

Ron Rash

Serena

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire, vowing to let no one stand in their way, especially those newly rallying around Teddy Roosevelt's nascent environmental movement.

Yet when Serena begins to suspect that George's allegiances may lie elsewhere, she unleashes her full fury on the young mountain woman who bore his illegitimate child the year before. Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a powerfully riveting story that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.

'Serena catapults Ron Rash to the front ranks of the best American novelists.' – Pat Conroy

'A complex and compelling study of human greed and the grimmest of lusts – that for wealth and power.An epic achievement.' – Jeffrey Lent, bestselling author of In the Fall.

Ron Rash

Burning Bright

A collection of stories

In Burning Bright, the stories span the years from the Civil War to the present day, and Rash's historical and modern settings are sewn together in a hauntingly beautiful patchwork of suspense and myth, populated by raw and unforgettable characters mined from the landscape of Appalachia. In "Back of Beyond," a pawnshop owner who profits from the stolen goods of local meth addicts – including his own nephew – comes to the aid of his brother and sister-in-law when they are threatened by their son. The pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer alone in Confederate territory takes revenge to protect her family in "Lincolnites." And in the title story, a woman from a small town marries an outsider; when an unknown arsonist starts fires in the Smoky Mountains, her husband becomes the key suspect.

In these stories, Rash brings to light a previously unexplored territory, hidden in plain sight – first a landscape, and then the dark yet lyrical heart and the alluringly melancholy soul of his characters and their home.

Anne Perry

A Christmas Beginning

Christmas

Superintendent Runcorn of Scotland Yard is spending Christmas on the wild and beautiful island of Anglesey off the north coast of Wales. On one of his solitary strolls, the lonely bachelor stumbles upon a lifeless body in the village churchyard. The unfortunate victim is quickly identified as Olivia Costain, the local vicar's younger sister.

In life, Olivia had been a free spirit, full of charm and grace. For Runcorn, she is a haunting reminder of Melisande Ewart, the one woman he's never been able to forget. Everyone on Anglesey is quick to insist that only a stranger to the island could have committed the heinous crime. But the evidence proves otherwise, and the unpopular work of discovering who among Olivia's friends and neighbors—and...

Anne Perry

A Christmas Grace

Christmas

With Christmas just around the corner, Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, Emily Radley, is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Leaving her husband and two children behind, Emily makes the long journey to an all-but-forgotten town in the county of Connemara, on the western coast of Ireland. She soon discovers that a tragic legacy haunts the once closeknit community.

Violent storms ravage the coast and keep alive painful memories of an unsolved murder and unsettling fears that a killer may still live among the residents of the lonely Irish town. Determined to lighten her aunt's heart and help the troubled...

Aaron Rosenberg

Beyond the Dark Portal

World of Warcraft

The aging orc shaman Ner'zhul has seized control of the Horde and reopened the Dark Portal. His brutal warriors once again encroach upon Azeroth, laying siege to the newly constructed stronghold of Nethergarde Keep. There, the archmage Khadgar and the Alliance commander, Turalyon, lead humanity and its elven and dwarven allies in fighting this new invasion.

Even so, disturbing questions arise. Khadgar learns of orcish incursions farther abroad: small groups of orcs who seem to pursue a goal other than simple conquest. Worse yet, black dragons have been sighted as well, and they appear to be aiding the orcs. To counter Ner'zhul's dark schemes, the Alliance must now invade the orcs' ruined homeworld of Draenor. Can Khadgar and his companions stop the nefarious shaman in time to stave off the destruction of two worlds?

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