Grand Deception exposes the highly confidential and secret lives of the World’s top two political leaders. When it is discovered that the Presidents may be targeted by adversaries who want to destroy the World’s balance of power, a countdown begins. If successful, unknown forces could accelerate the transformation of Earth into a New World Order controlled by a OneWorld Government. Faced with possibly their most challenging and dangerous case, Nikki Austen, former DC homicide detective tur...

Imagine if you will that your evening news has just announced that Vampires are real. It's not a hoax ...Midnight Rising is a colleciton of seven tales that delve into what that may look like in today's society. Which will be your favorite?

You woke up dead. You're in an empty valley. Shortly, someone appears and tells you the valley is called the 'In-Between' place. What do you do?This is the writing prompt that spurred our thirteen contributors to spin their tales.What do you think happens? Which tale will be your favorite?Featured Contributors:Feliciano Arrieta Jr.Bee BrownCheryl CampbellE. W. FarnsworthMichael GranthamMorgan JensenNick Johnson...

The proceedings of Towards a Sustainable Construction Future address a diverse range of topics within civil engineering, construction and geomatics. The volume explores themes spanning emerging developments in AI and new technologies to the practical essentials of recycling and waste management, and from the ethical frameworks of construction economics and ethics to the exactness and accuracy of geomatics and surveying. It seeks to address traditional gaps between design, construc...

The Concrete Solutions series of International Conferences on Concrete Repair began in 2003, with a conference held in St. Malo, France in association with INSA Rennes, followed by the second conference in 2006 ( with INSA again, at St. Malo, France), and the third conference in 2009 (in Padova and Venice, in association with the University of Pado

Concrete repair continues to be a subject of major interest to engineers and technologists worldwide. The concrete repair budget for the UK alone currently runs at some UKP 220 per annum. Some estimates have indicated that, worldwide, in 2010 the expenditure for maintenance and repair work will represent about 85% of the total expenditure in the co

Advances in science and technology no longer change how we live, they determine it. In the not-too-distant future, techno-scientific developments may make individuals stronger, smarter, healthier and more productive--but to what end?Addressing this question, speculative fiction has created an abundance of transhuman characters, protagonists with extraordinary strength, intelligence or abilities. Often they are antiheroes, openly rejecting--or rejected by--society and acting on immo...

The Concrete Solutions series of International Conferences on Concrete Repair began in 2003 with a conference held in St. Malo, France in association with INSA Rennes. Subsequent conferences have seen us partnering with the University of Padua in 2009 and with TU Dresden in 2011. This conference is being held for the first time in the UK, in associ

In Japan, obsessive adult fans and collectors of manga and anime are known as otaku. When the underground otaku subculture first emerged in the 1970s, participants were looked down on within mainstream Japanese society as strange, antisocial loners. Today otaku have had a huge impact on popular culture not only in Japan but also throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States.Hiroki Azuma’s Otaku offers a critical, philosophical, and historical inquiry into the cha...

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) is the giant imagination behind so much recent popular culture—both movies directly based on his writings, such as Blade Runner (based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and The Adjustment Bureau plus cult favorites such as A Scanner Darkly, Imposter, Next, Screamers, and Paycheck and works revealing his ...

Science Fiction has proved notoriously difficult to define. It has been explained as a combination of romance, science and prophecy; as a genre based on an imagined alternative to the reader's environment; and as a form of fantastic fiction and historical literature. It has also been argued that science fiction narratives are the most engaged, socially relevant, and responsive to the modern technological environment. This Very Short Introduction doesn't offer a history of science ...

Anime and Philosophy focuses on some of the most-loved, most-intriguing anime films and series, as well as lesser-known works, to find what lies at their core. Astro Boy, Dragon Ball Z, Ghost in the Shell, and Spirited Away are just a few of the films analyzed in this book. In these stories about monsters, robots, children, and spirits who grapple with the important questions in life we find insight crucial to our times: lessons on morality, justice, and heroism...