Jack Holloway works alone, for reasons he doesn't care to talk about. Hundreds of miles from ZaraCorp's headquarters on planet, 178 light-years from the corporation's headquarters on Earth, Jack is content as an independent contractor, prospecting and surveying at his own pace. As for his past, that's not up for discussion.
Then, in the wake of an accidental cliff collapse, Jack discovers a seam of unimaginably valuable jewels, to which he manages to lay legal claim just as ZaraCorp is cancelling their contract with him for his part in causing the collapse. Briefly in the catbird seat, legally speaking, Jack pressures ZaraCorp into recognizing his claim, and cuts them in as partners to help extract the wealth.
But there's another wrinkle to ZaraCorp's relationship with the planet Zarathustra. Their entire legal right to exploit the verdant Earth-like planet, the basis of the wealth they derive from extracting its resources, is based on being able to certify to the authorities on Earth that Zarathustra is home to no sentient species.
Then a small furry biped—trusting, appealing, and ridiculously cute—shows up at Jack's outback home. Followed by its family. As it dawns on Jack that despite their stature, these are people, he begins to suspect that ZaraCorp's claim to a planet's worth of wealth is very flimsy indeed…and that ZaraCorp may stop at nothing to eliminate the "fuzzys" before their existence becomes more widely known. Views: 1 115
In an effort to improve relations with the Earth, the Colonial Union has invited a contingent of diplomats from that planet to observe Ambassador Abumwe negotiate a trade deal with an alien species. Then something very bad happens to one of the Earthings, and with that, the relationship between humanitys two factions is on the cusp of disruption once more. Its a race to find out what really happened, and who is to blame. Views: 1 114
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people—at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:
Autonomy*—the desire to direct our own lives
Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose**—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.
Drive is bursting with big ideas—the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live. Views: 1 108
CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson has one simple task: Watch an ambassador’s dog while the diplomat is conducting sensitive negotiations with an alien race. But you know dogs - always getting into something. And when this dog gets into something that could launch an alien civil war, Wilson has to find a way to solve the conflict, fast, or be the one in the Colonial Union’s doghouse. Views: 1 101
A YA thriller about a teenage girl who discovers that her father is at the helm of an organization providing dangerous false messaging to society about global warming and other issues. Views: 1 100
Menagerie Manor is sure to delight fans of Durrell’s beloved classic My Family and Other Animals and other accounts of his lifelong fascination with members of the animal kingdom. With his unfailing charm, Durrell tells the story of how he finally fulfilled his childhood dream of founding his own private zoo, the Manor of Les Augres, on the English Channel island of Jersey. With the help of an enduring wife, a selfless staff, and a reluctant bank manager, the zoo grows, and readers are treated to a colorful parade of the zoo’s unusual animal inhabitants. Views: 1 093
A thrilling, suspense-filled space opera set in the near future and a forerunner of television hits like Star Trek and The Expanse.
Two hundred years after landing on the Moon, mankind has moved further out into the solar system. With permanent settlements now established on the Moon, Venus, and Mars, the inhabitants of these colonies have formed a political alliance called the Federation.
On the Moon, a government agent from Earth is tracking a suspected spy at a prominent observatory. His mission is complicated by the rise in tensions between Earth's government and the Federation over access to rare heavy metals. As the agent finds himself locked in a battle for life and death on the eerie, lunar landscape, the larger conflict explodes across space, leaving mankind’s future in doubt. Views: 1 090
Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered. Views: 1 088
Contains two stories from the world of The Windup Girl:
1) “The Calorie Man” (2005) - Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2005.
2) “Yellow Card Man” (2006) - Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2006. Views: 1 086
Captain Sophia Coloma of the Clarke has a simple task: Ferry around representatives from Earth in an aging spaceship that the Colonial Union hopes to sell to them. But nothing is as simple as it seems, and Coloma discovers the ship she's showing off holds suprises of its own...and it's not the only one with secrets. Views: 1 084
Oliver Sacks is best known as an explorer of the human mind, a neurologist with a gift for the complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions that fuel the phenomenal success of his books. But he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt. Now the best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat brings his ceaseless curiosity and eye for the wondrous to the province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Views: 1 082
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: Consisting of 21 short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during, and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement. Views: 1 077
Subterranean Press is proud to present an election-oriented short story by John Scalzi on Whatever.
When his city council representative is hit by a bus, David Sawyer decides to run for the newly-vacated seat. One problem: He's a human in an alien-majority district that hasn't voted in a human in half a century. Can Sawyer pull it off in a race that includes a politically smooth, physically gelatinous front runner, a carnivore whose entire platform is on the right to consume pets, and two literally bile-spewing sisters? A tale of aliens, politics and humor from the author of "Old Man's War" and "The Android's Dream". Views: 1 072
A team of physicists develops the "trigger, " a directional device that can cause the explosion of munitions at will: in a gun, in a terrorist storehouse, in a minefield, anywhere. This novel by two bestselling sci-fi authors details the wrenching changes wrought by such a scientific feat--with nothing less than global peace at stake. Views: 1 070
