This book is published under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. The editors present essential methods and tools to support a holistic approach to the challenge of system upgrades and innovation in the context of high-value products and services. The approach presented here is based on three main pillars: an adaptation mechanism based on a broad understanding of system dependencies; efficient use of system knowledge through involvement of actors throughout the process; and technological solutions to e...

Ender's Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel...At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children--the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth's scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten--a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth's history. B...

"Cory Doctorow's four futuristic novellas are aided by four well-chosen narrators who each capture the essence of their given story." — AudioFile MagazineFrom New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, Radicalized is four urgent SF novellas of America's present and future within one audiobook.Told through one of the most on-pulse genre voices of our generation, Radicalized is a timely audiobook comp...

**"The ideal presentation of any book of mine is to have excellent actors perform it in audio-only format." — Orson Scott Card"Card's phenomenal emotional depth comes through in the quiet, carefully paced speech of each performer...This is a wonderful way to experience Card's best-known and most celebrated work." — Publisher's Weekly on Ender's GameThis program is read by Stefan Rudnicki and a full cast including Emily Rankin, Kirby Heyborne, Orson Scott C...

1941, and Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie is ferrying documents between Dublin and war-torn London. When Ireland's greatest actor is arrested in Soho, after the brutal murder of a gay man, Stefan extricates him from an embarrassing situation. But suddenly he is looking at a series of murders, stretching across Britain and Ireland. The deaths were never investigated deeply as they were not considered a priority. And there are reasons to look away now. It's not only that the killer may ...

A former war hero designs a weapon the whole world is trying to get their hands on. As world events show signs of the apocalypse, what price will he pay to save his country? From the co-author of the renowned Left Behind series, this epic story chronicles the unfolding end of the world.Joshua Jordan, former US spy-plane hero now turned weapons designer, has come up with a devastatingly effective new missile defense system—the Return to Sender laser weapon. But glob...

Charming and lyrical, The Fairies of Sadieville concludes Alex Bledsoe’s widely-praised contemporary fantasy series about the fairy descendants of Appalachia.“This is real.” Three small words on a film canister found by graduate students Justin and Veronica, who discover a long-lost silent movie from more than a century ago. The startlingly realistic footage shows a young girl transforming into a winged being. Looking for proof behind this claim, they travel to th...

Award-winning writer Ben Bova returns with another tense political thriller starring Jake Ross, science advisor to Senator Frank Tomlinson, as they continue their complex power maneuvers they began in Power Play and Power Surge.Dr. Jake Ross came to Washington to try to make a difference, but he’s learned the only way to get something done in Washington, assuming your ideals survive the corrosive atmosphere, is to gather power. Ross has gathered a great deal, ridi...

"Chess Story," also known as "The Royal Game," is Stefan Zweig's compelling novella that unfolds on a passenger steamer. It narrates the psychological duel between Mirko Czentovic, a chess champion with a mysterious past, and Dr. B, a reclusive genius. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the story explores themes of isolation, obsession, and the struggle for intellectual sanity.As the chess game intensifies, so do the inner battles of the characters, revealing the profound im...

"Extraordinary stuff wonderfully executed... another top-class novel, a brilliant addition to this series, an outstanding read." - Amazon reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐----------In this dead city, the vultures are circling...Berlin 1944. The beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. And the beginning of a dark journey for Garda detective Stefan Gillespie as he makes his way through war-ravaged Europe to the German capital. H...

In The Holocaust by Bullets, Father Patrick Desbois documented for the first time the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during World War II, based on wartime documents, interviews with locals, and the application of modern forensic practices on long-hidden gravesites. Nearly a decade of further work by his team, drawing on interviews with 5,000 neighbors of the Jews, has resulted in stunning new findings about the extent and nature of the genocide.The mass killings to...

The story of The First Formic War continues in Earth Awakens.Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card's bestselling novel Ender's Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, i...