Showing results by author "Christopher" in All Categories

The alliance between the Great Powers is starting to fall apart, the human economy cannot keep up with the urgent need for newer and better starships, and politicians are demanding an end to military spending. When a generation starship is detected approaching a British colony world, HMS Invincible is dispatched to intercept the aliens before they can make landfall. But the newcomers bring with them tidings of a new and deadly threat, an expansionist alien race far too close to the Human Sphere for comfort...and a sinister horror beyond human understanding.

For nearly a decade, Brett Velicovich was at the center of America's new warfare: using unmanned aerial vehicles - drones - to take down the world's deadliest terrorists across the globe. One of an elite handful in the entire military with the authority to select targets and issue death orders, he worked in concert with the full human and technological network of American intelligence - assets, analysts, spies, informants - and the military's elite operatives to stalk, capture, and eliminate high-value targets in al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Welcome to Gramayre - where witches, warlocks, elves, and gnomes are real; where a spoiled girl-queen and an army of teenage witches, and ragtag beggars battle an overwhelming force of rebel knights and time-travelling anarchists for the future of the most unique, and perhaps most important, planet in the galaxy.

Midshipman Martin Stockley is 15 years old and back in the Falcon for another tour at sea. Returning from a trip to the Nordics as part of a prize crew, he is unexpectedly summoned to the Admiralty. The following meeting with Admiral Lord Hood and William Wickham twists his career in the Navy in a direction he never expected and his talent for trouble is suddenly in demand. Add to the mix a beautiful widow and you have a story full of adventure, derring do, and romance.

We all need healthy, secure relationships in order to thrive—but they can be hard to build and maintain. Where do you start? According to marriage and family therapist Michelle Becker, the answer is with yourself. By learning to practice self-compassion, you are better able to respond to your partner with love and acceptance—even when they inevitably cannot meet your every need. This caring and insightful guide shows you how to stop defaulting to feelings of annoyance, disappointment, or detachment.

Humanity is on the ropes. Despite military victories, the sheer grinding power of the alien virus is taking its toll. The space navies are pushed to the limit, the colony worlds are fighting a desperate war against the infected, the economy is on the brink of utter collapse and Earth herself has come under attack. But there is one ray of hope. If a small force can penetrate to the heart of the alien empire and tear it apart, it might just win humanity enough time to save itself and win the war once and for all.

In the wake of Earth's collapse into chaos, Captain Hoshiko Stuart made the mistake of speaking her mind - and was exiled six months from Sol to a naval base in an unexplored and uncontacted sector. Placed in command of a single squadron of starships, she expected nothing but boredom. But when she discovers an alien race threatening to exterminate all other races within the sector, Hoshiko and her squadron are drawn into a war to stop them.

It's easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war, to see it solely as a series of errors, accidents and emotions gone awry. It's also easy to forget that war shouldn't happen - and most of the time, it doesn't. Around the world, there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a tiny fraction erupt into violence. Too many accounts of conflict forget this. With a counterintuitive approach, Blattman reminds us that most rivals loathe one another in peace. That's because war is too costly to fight.

Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is considered one of his most haunting and atmospheric character studies. A would-be playwright is at war with his egoistic mother while the town has become intoxicated by a sensational author. And as the alluring newcomer steals away Kosta’s only love, their new romance could have devastating consequences.

Elliot Richardson thought he’d lost everything. He’d come home from deployment to find his wife cheating on him, his sons strangers and his life in tatters. Driving away, unsure where he was going, he fell through an interdimensional rift and found himself in a very different world, a city of magic and mystery and dangers beyond his comprehension, a land spinning out of control. Innovations from the distant west unsettle the monarchy and challenge the position of the aristocrats and warlords who hold the kingdom in their grasp.

Ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions. Mrs. Hoffman was not as innocent as she appeared. A former government security expert, she had once worked for their own unit, but there's no one left who can remember her. When they uncover a link between her and a diplomat desperate to leave the country, it begins to look as if someone might have committed an impossible murder.

In the near future, political tensions between the United States and China are at an all-time high. Then a catastrophic explosion on the moon cleaves a vast gash in the lunar surface, and the massive electromagnetic pulse it unleashes obliterates Earth's electrical infrastructure. To plumb the depths of the newly created lunar fissure and excavate the source of the power surge, the feuding nations are forced to cooperate on a high-risk mission to return mankind to the moon.

A mystery illness is making people bake ancient cakes, speak dead languages and then fall asleep and never wake up. When Trilby Moffat's mother catches this strange sickness, Trilby must find her only other surviving relative, a 300-year-old aunt who lives in a secret antique shop on the edge of time. Ahead of Trilby lies an unusual inheritance, an opportunity that will never be repeated and a man in a top hat who will try to kill her...more than once.

Als Eragon auf der Jagd einen glänzenden blauen Stein findet, ahnt er nicht, dass dieser Fund sein Leben verändern wird. Doch plötzlich zeichnen sich auf dessen Oberfläche feine Risse. Ein Drachenjunges entschlüpft der Schale und beschert Eragon ein Vermächtnis, das älter ist als die Welt... Über Nacht wird Eragon in eine schicksalhafte Welt voller Magie und Macht geworfen.

At a time when humans were just starting to venture forth into the Galactic Union as mercenaries, Martin Quincy survived long enough to do something no one else had - he retired. There was only one problem. He got bored. What does a "Legend" do when even the merc life gets boring? He starts his own company! Along with Kal Turner, they marshaled their Torvasi and Andori troopers and began taking contracts. A force for good, Quincy went about the galaxy, killing aliens and getting paid, while righting all the wrongs he found along the way. His only problem was that he was successful.

The legendary explorer of the Titanic shares inside stories of danger, suspense, and discovery - plus previously untold stories about his own dyslexia and how it has shaped his life.

Throughout history, there has been a consistent crossover between show business and espionage, often producing some of the most extraordinary undercover agents, and occasionally leading to disastrous and dangerous failures. The fact that one relies on publicity and the other on secrecy might seem to rule out a successful symbiosis, but as both require high levels of creative thinking, improvisation, disguise and role-play, they inevitably attract some remarkably similar personalities. Stars and Spies is the first history of the interplay between the two worlds.

Five years ago, the human race became independent, as the Alphan Empire conceded it could no longer sustain its grip on Earth and withdrew, casting an unprepared humanity adrift on an interstellar sea of troubles. Since then, humanity has struggled mightily to secure its position in a galaxy full of hungry predators, many of whom see Earth as nothing more than a prize to be won. Now, one of the galaxy’s superpowers has set its sights on Earth, launching a covert campaign to weaken and isolate the human race before it moves in for the kill.

In 1829 the Spanish slave ship, Midas, left Mendiland (modern-day Sierra Leone) headed for the Americas. During the Atlantic crossing, the slaves revolted, taking control of the ship. Midas became a pirate vessel, attacking Spanish slavers and merchants alike. In the present day, while hunting for the Midas, Sam Reilly learns of an escalating number of mysterious deaths, superstitiously whispered to be the fault of Medusa’s Curse, and the only clue to stopping it is deciphering a Greek myth thousands of years in the making.

Since its formation in 1861, Italy has struggled to develop an effective political system and a secure sense of national identity. Christopher Duggan's acclaimed introduction charts the country's history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the present day, and surveys the difficulties Italy has faced during the last two centuries in creating a unified country. Duggan successfully weaves together political, economic, social and cultural history, and stresses the alternation between materialist and idealist programs for forging a nation-state.