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...

Building upon the expertise and strategies outlined in The Warren Buffett Way, author Robert G. Hagstrom reveals how to profitably manage stocks once you select them. In The Warren Buffett Portfolio, Hagstrom introduces the next wave of investment strategy, called focus investing, a comprehensive investment strategy used with spectacular results by Buffett. Focus investing directs investors to select a concentrated group of businesses by examining their management and fin...

Five intergalactic criminal masterminds raid the tranquil world of Mount Pleasant, leaving behind only ruin and slaughter—and the orphaned child Kirth Gersen, who comes to manhood swearing to take bloody revenge. Now Gersen roams the galaxy, bringing vengeance to the Demon Princes one by one, in Jack Vance’s classic series of hardboiled space opera.Someone is stealing the children of the galaxy’s elite, and Kirth Gersen suspects that the kidnapper is Kokor Hekkus—s...

"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...

Algernon Blackwood, a journalist and broadcast narrator, was one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. Included here are thirteen of his stories.The title story, “The Touch of Pan,” explores the lingering presence of myth in everyday life. In “The Glamour of the Snow,” Blackwood winds a tale about a man’s infatuation with a supernatural winter beauty. In “The Attic,” the ghost of an usurer haunts the old Chateaux and, on the ann...

Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston return to their Ender's Game prequel series with this first volume of an all-new trilogy about the Second Formic War in The Swarm.The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces, and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear in...

A guide to changing how you think about numbers and mathematics, from the prodigy changing the way the world thinks about math.We all know math is important: we live in the age of big data, our lives are increasingly governed by algorithms, and we're constantly faced with a barrage of statistics about everything from politics to our health. But what might be less obvious is how math factors into your daily life, and what memorizing all of those formulae in school h...

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...