Showing results for "A History of the World" in Genre Fiction

From the best-selling author of Day of Infamy: In the bloodiest island combat of WWII, one group of men kept watch from behind Japanese lines. The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these coastwatchers kept lookout for squadrons of Japanese bombers headed for Allied positions.

This is one of the defining novels of English writer Julian Barnes. An entertaining melange of stories starting with a contemporary account of the launch of Noah's Ark takes us into unexpected areas of human foibles, activities, and tendencies.

The year is 1940 and war is blossoming across the globe. The Battle of Britain enters its last phase, and it remains to be seen if the Germans will be able to master the proud British into submission. Large air fleets fight for supremacy in the English skies, and the civilians pay the price with the British cities in flames.

Beginning with an unlikely stowaway’s account of life on board Noah’s Ark, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission....

In this thought-provoking masterpiece, H.G. Wells predicts the inventions that will inadvertently lead to mass destruction, forcing the world to "start over." You will see many similarities between H.G. Wells' new world and today's world due to the recent technological revolution. This stimulating novel will leave you wondering if and when the remaining predictions will come to pass!

Trying to squeeze an entire history of Chinese civilization into a brief, one volume account is a formidable task, but one that has succeeded brilliantly here. Hilda Hookham has provided us with a concise story that, while not getting too entangled with personalities and cultural issues, manages to navigate the swirling passage of events that comprise over 3,000 years of Chinese political history.

A classic guide to tricks and tactics for winning arguments, with commentary on the use of and defense against each tactic. The best summary of this audiobook is "being right doesn’t mean you’re gonna win, and this is why". It’s the ultimate guide to spotting the many different kinds of bull people pull in order to win over the crowd, rather than argue the point at hand. There’s very few of them that don’t immediately bring examples to mind, and having it laid out clearly like this is the perfect armour to stop people derailing you.

March 1942: Adolf Hitler is dead at the hands of the Royal Air Force. A vengeful Luftwaffe has exacted the Third Reich’s revenge on Great Britain, and London lies in flames. With the Royal Family fleeing to Canada and Great Britain’s Pacific colonies being ceded to Imperial Japan, the United States faces a stark, dangerous future alone. With a broad cast of characters underpinned by historical research, Acts of War examines the terrifying “What if…” of a German victory in Europe followed by upheaval in the Court of St. James.

Eighteen-year-old Scott Breckinridge just wants to be left alone to play combat games on his computer and rack up kills. His plans are drastically altered, however, when his great-grandfather Walter has to move in due to failing health. Appalled by Scott’s gruesome video games, Walter voices his extreme displeasure.

The war had taken everything from Lina Sucherin - her parents, sisters, a fledgling romance...even her faith in herself and her psychic abilities. All of it ripped away with the fall of the Third Reich and the brutal Soviet sack of Berlin. Three years later, amid the suspicion, paranoia, and fledgling brutality of communist East Germany, danger threatens the only people Lina cares about, forcing her to overcome her lingering self-doubt.

Rita Douglas is plucked from her dead-end job and trained as a reluctant US spy. All because she has the latent genetic talent to hop between alternate timelines - and infiltrate them. Her United States is waging a high-tech war, targeting assassins who can move between worlds to deliver death on a mass scale, and Rita will be their secret weapon.

In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain and many more.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the autobiographical account of T. E. Lawrence's role in the Arab Revolt against the Turkish Empire. The book is mostly set in the deserts of Arabia with a great deal of time spent marching through them with camels and the telling of the events through Lawrence's eyes.

From the author of the best-selling Contagion comes a new novel in the Living Dead series. When deadly earthquakes devastate the Caribbean, an ancient disease of almost unimaginable destructive force engulfs the globe. As the earth continues to convulse and the seas encroach, the dead rise with an appetite for human flesh. Survivors must learn to navigate a world in which they are now the hunted.

Three hundred million years ago, the galactic community was taken by surprise. A catastrophic war with a hostile entity threatened to destroy all life until the fight was postponed by a calamitous event known as the Great Conflation. With the majority of pre-Conflation empires in ruins and the Ascended Biologicals wiped out, the hastily formed Wanderer Enclave tasked its fleet with unearthing answers and continuing the fight. One lone ship has found something: an innocuous world it had marked for routine decontamination that may hold vital answers.

Life is going well for Maria. Welcomed into the Saward family, she has secured herself a job as a maid for Queen Alexandra and is living with her family in a beautiful cottage on the Royal Sandringham estate. The luxuries and privilege associated with the royal family are a far cry from the poverty and suffering she endured before, though the royals, like the nation, are tightening their belts. But when a mysterious relative turns up, seemingly on the run from the law, Maria's new-found happiness could be under threat.

Set during and after the First World War, A Very Long Engagement is the tale of a young woman's search for her fiancé who she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A Very Long Engagement is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.

Known for his New York Times best-selling alternate history novels, Flint is equally a master of shorter forms, and this second large volume gathers more of Flint's shorter works. Including several stories and a short novel set in Flint's celebrated Ring of Fire alternate history series. A commemorative novelette set in Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos universe. A story with Dave Freer, set in his and Flint's popular Rats, Bats, and Vats series. Several humorous short stories addressing Biblical literalism. A long novella in a Martian steampunk setting.

August 1, 1914, Berlin: Kaiser Wilhelm II cancels the German invasion of Belgium over the objections of his generals, sending his armies east against Russia instead of west to France, and sets off a chain of events that will radically change the course of modern history. Gray Tide in the East is the best-selling counterfactual history of the First World War, if the Germans had not invaded Belgium in 1914 and thereby brought Great Britain and, eventually, the United States into the war.

After months of mystery, the true power of the blue men has finally been revealed, plunging the fate of both new and old worlds into question. Working together with their new dragon allies, Britain and the United States must find some way to survive in a cosmos at war.... But when a new blue man threat is discovered, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and all the heroes of the new world, must rally for a dangerous mission - one that offers them only a slim chance of survival. The time has come for humanity to truly face the Empire....