Why are some autocrats more effective than others at retaining popular support even when their governments perform poorly? To develop insights into popular politics and governance across authoritarian regimes, this book stresses the importance of understanding autocratic blame games. Scott Williamson argues that how autocrats share power affects their ability to shift blame, so that they are less vulnerable to the public's grievances when they delegate decision-making powers to other polit...

Beautiful Australian birdlife is disappearing one by one as an international smuggling operation robs our rainforest. The thieves are after the exotic birds including the master prize ....... The black cockatoo.Can five local heroes band together to battle a quad bike pursuit, a deadly snake and a surprise traitor to release the birds and restore order to the forest!

Have you ever wanted to catch a thief? An international mastermind has made his way to Australia to steal the latest plans for the BEST SMARTWATCH ever! The thief will stop at nothing to complete his goal. He will break and enter, kidnap and take on the police and the military to achieve world domination!Standing in the way are five curious kids, who team together to investigate and create a plan to outsmart the evil thief. Can 5 ordinary kids bring this thief to justice?

What happens when the villain wins?Sick of dashing debonairs…?Fed up of being blinded by shining armor…?Sometimes, all a girl wants is a villain for a hero.Dancing across morally gray lines, these stories are naughty, devious, and downright delicious.How far are you willing to go to get what you want?These rebellious tales answer that question.Every character has a dubious shade of values. Dark secrets, wanto...

The Metal Man by Jack Williamson delivers one of the most unforgettable descent-into-the-unknown narratives in early science fiction. When Professor Thomas Kelvin’s search for radium reveals far more than rare minerals, he finds himself trapped inside a hidden crater world where gravity behaves strangely, metallic transformations creep through living flesh, and luminous entities drift through a toxic green mist. What begins as a scientific mission becomes a desperate strug...

A commercial flight over California becomes something far worse when George Cleland and a handful of passengers pass through a strange violet phenomenon hanging in the sky. Moments later, they crash into a dead world beneath a crimson heaven, surrounded by colossal black cliffs and a landscape where nothing should be able to live. Cut off from Earth, injured, starving, and desperate for water, the survivors struggle to understand the terrifying rules of this alien place before exhaustion d...

The Meteor Girl is an early science fiction story by Jack Williamson, first published in 1931. It follows a young telegraph operator whose ordinary night shift is disrupted when a meteor crashes nearby — bringing with it something far stranger than stone. The encounter pulls him into a mystery that blends young love, cosmic possibility, and the unknown forces that move between worlds. Williamson uses simple, direct prose to create a sense of widening wonder as the familiar gives w...

Six expeditions have vanished on a world that looks harmless from orbit. The seventh crew arrives armed with a genetic micro-probe and a single objective: uncover why every ship that landed never returned. What they find is a jungle that hides its intentions behind tangled growth and suffocating silence. No animals. No movement. Only plants—and genes more complex than anything known to human science.Lance Llandark volunteered for this mission for a reason he never shared. His wife ...

In a glass-roofed New York of 2432, where climate is controlled and breakfast arrives at the push of a button, Eric Stokes-Harding makes his living writing about savage jungles and fearless men. His readers crave danger from a safe distance. He and his new wife crave something more. They are tired of comfort. Tired of safety. Tired of living under glass.When a revolutionary device called the Cosmic Express offers the impossible—instant transport by converting matter into radiant en...

Out in the asteroid belt, Thad Allen survives on grit, welding arcs, and the faint hope that one rich strike will change his life. When he intercepts a drifting Earth rocket called the Red Dragon, he expects salvage law, maybe a disabled crew, maybe a broken drive. Instead he finds dried blood, abandoned cabins, and a dog trembling at shadows no human eye can see.The ship carries treasure beyond calculation—ingots of rare metals, mountains of cut gems, and a crystal chest ...

Other than food, shelter, and clothing, reading is the very next best thing that you can do for your children to prepare them for their future. Not only does reading enrich the mind but it helps young personalities grow and bloom into a sense of purpose with an understanding of what life is about.Readers are leaders in all walks of life, and the gift of reading is a legacy for a lifetime. There is a void between young people of today and those from decades ago. Rea...

Protestantism, at its best, grounds both its religious and its social critique in the faith of the prophets and the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as understood and lived by the church. Its teachings and desired practice stand in start contrast to complacent religion that seems to be at ease with imperial greed, domination, and violence. Resistance and Theological Ethics collects the edited and updated essays that emerged from the meeting of the Theological Educators for Presbyterian S...