In Nose for St. Patrick, Tooten has a sudden dislike to another service dog. The ensuring trouble brings to light a crime that they solve in this free, delightful novella.Meet Tooten and Ter, an unlikely crime-busting duo. Terrance has been dropped into the Colorado foster system and is lucky enough to find a great foster dad. He also gets the best companion ever in Tooten, a small mixed breed dog who is in training to be a service animal. Together, Tooten and Ter stumble into shady dealings and manage to solve the cases with just a little help from Ter's foster dad, a retired police captain.In Nose for St. Patrick, Tooten has a sudden dislike to another service dog. The ensuring trouble brings to light a crime that they solve in this free, delightful novella.

Death is only the beginning in this fast-paced, science fantasy novella. Caught in the fray of treachery and deceit, Dia Thorpe must unravel the mysteries of her past before her past unintentionally stabs her in the back. She is hurled into a peril fraught journey of incredible discoveries and evil twists. An interplanetary adventure to learn who she is, all the while avoiding the wrath of a God.Death is only the beginning in this fast-paced, science fantasy novella. Caught in the fray of treachery and deceit, Dia Thorpe must unravel the mysteries of her past before her past unintentionally stabs her in the back. She is hurled into a peril fraught journey of incredible discoveries and evil twists. An interplanetary adventure to learn who she is, all the while avoiding the wrath of a God; a logic-bound being, driven by the will to end all suffering. Quickly.Who saved her from imprisonment on Earth? Why? What explained her ability to heal? Did answers to Dia's questions lie in the beautiful city of Avalon?This is a fiction novella of 23,000 words and is part 1 in the Silvaera’s Spire series.Extract:“It’s ready.” Said Kant, who had been busying himself behind a panel in the far corner. “Are you ready?” Dia hadn’t even considered this. The importance of seeing Daniel again was paramount. She looked down at her sword in its sheath and her almost impenetrable outfit, then across to the gun which was now hanging from a loop on her skirt. “I am ready.” She finally replied, her voice calm but serious.Kant wordlessly shifted closer to Dia and clasped her hand. A moment later the room and everything in existence had simply gone, including Dia herself. She could neither feel nor sense.Then Kant was there, she could feel him. Then she could see green light. It was overwhelming at first, but after a few seconds, Dia’s eyes adjusted to the brightness and the green focused into individual objects. There were great trees, vines, bushes and long grasses in all directions but one; to Dia’s side there was a path cutting its way through the jungle. She knew where this led. She remembered it now. It was a path created by herself and Daniel long ago, before peace had become war. Before Ssus. She felt comforted somewhat by the sights before her and the familiar smells of foliage. Beckoning Kant to follow, she began to follow the path through the undergrowth.They walked onwards for some time. It wasn’t a difficult walk as the path somehow prevented itself from becoming overgrown. When they came to rivers or great chasms, there were bridges which seemed far too sophisticated for the area. Once, the path took them directly through a mountain, the underground passageway lit by white-flamed torches which apparently never burned out.

In the years following his and Francis Crick's towering discovery of DNA, James Watson was obsessed with finding two things: RNA and a wife. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is the marvelous chronicle of those pursuits. Watson effortlessly glides between his heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious debacles in the field of love and his heady inquiries in the field of science. He also reflects with touching candor on some of science's other titans, from fellow Nobelists Linus Pauling and the incorrigible Richard Feynman to Russian physicist George Gamow, who loved whiskey, limericks, and card tricks as much as he did molecules and genes. What emerges is a refreshingly human portrait of a group of geniuses and a candid, often surprising account of how science is done.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Five short stories about growing up and growing old and what happens along the way. What would you do? How would you react? Do you know enough now to make the decision? Have a read and see how you feel when you are finished. You just might be surprised.This is a tale of life inside a home computer, as seen from the viewpoint of one of its tiny components - Billy the Bit. He and the other inhabitants of the computer do the actual work of making things happen for its human user.If you have ever wanted to understand how a computer operates - without studying electronics and microcircuits - this story explains how, by telling the story of how one tiny element nearly brings the system to a halt.A painless way to learn the workings of a PC, which will enable readers to understand the basics of what is going on under the covers whilst enjoying an amusing tale. Although originally aimed at children, adult experts in the field may enjoy the author's visualisation of the functions of a computer's elements.

"Lightman's best book since Einstein's Dreams . . . a piercing story of social dissolution in damaged Cambodia . . . an important story of global women's rights." —Annie Proulx The stories of one Cambodian family are intricately braided together in Alan Lightman's first work of fiction in seven years. Three Flames portrays the struggles of a Cambodian farming family against the extreme patriarchal attitudes of their society and a cruel and dictatorial father, set in a rural community that is slowly being exposed to the modern world and its values. Ryna is a mother fighting against memories of her father's death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and her powerful desire for revenge. Daughter Nita is married off at sixteen to a wandering husband, while her sister Thida is sent to the city to work in the factories to settle their father's gambling debt. Kamal, the only son, dreams of marrying the most beautiful girl in the village and...

In his famous Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver described the quaint politics of the tiny people of Lilliput. In this sequel he adds his account of their equally quaint economy. He tells us the Lilliputians, bored with the endless prosperity of a Garden of Eden, reorganized their economy as an exciting game of chance controlled by the mysterious invisible hand of The Almighty Sprug.Luke Rosenhart is your average straight-A student, always trying to do things the right way, always reliable, always responsible.He’s just an average kid, and doesn’t want that to change.But one field trip, on a rainy Autumn day, to a still-under-construction zoo turns his life and the lives of Ned Detwiler, his best pal, Brooke O’Mackey, the girl from across the road, Robyn Diaz, the quiet bookworm from the country outskirts of town and Smithy, the new kid in town who doesn’t talk very much, upside down.An alien, who crash-landed into the unfinished hippo habitat, tells the five fourteen-year-olds that their planet is under threat by the Intergalactic criminal Gemini who intends to completely wipe out the entire human race, with help from some other aliens who want nothing more than to have the beautiful planet Earth all to themselves.So what can a straight-A student, a class clown, a girl from across the road, a bookworm and a loner, do about that?Well, with the powers the alien gives them, they can do lots!Save a little girl from a burning building, mess up the dentist’s office, and aid in a school food fight!Now they have to figure out how to stop Gemini before it’s too late! On top of that, they have to find out what powers they have, how to use them, how not to use them, how to keep everything a secret so as not to panic everyone and, most important of all, learn to work as a team.If you are in the mood for jokes, super powers, hilarious situations, ordinary kids turned superheroes, a save-the-day story and aliens (both good and bad), then the Upbeats is sure to brighten your day!

Clarke's masterful evocation of the far future of humanity, considered his finest novel. Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar. For millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rule the stars. But then, as legend has it, the invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.

Two of science fiction’s most renowned writers join forces for a storytelling sensation. The historic collaboration between Frederik Pohl and his fellow founding father of the genre, Arthur C. Clarke, is both a momentous literary event and a fittingly grand farewell from the late, great visionary author of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Last Theorem is a story of one man’s mathematical obsession, and a celebration of the human spirit and the scientific method. It is also a gripping intellectual thriller in which humanity, facing extermination from all-but-omnipotent aliens, the Grand Galactics, must overcome differences of politics and religion and come together . . . or perish. In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat scrawled a note in the margin of a book about an enigmatic theorem: “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.” He also neglected to record his proof elsewhere. Thus began a search for the Holy Grail of mathematics–a search that didn’t end until 1994, when Andrew Wiles published a 150-page proof. But the proof was burdensome, overlong, and utilized mathematical techniques undreamed of in Fermat’s time, and so it left many critics unsatisfied–including young Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan with a special gift for mathematics and a passion for the famous “Last Theorem.” When Ranjit writes a three-page proof of the theorem that relies exclusively on knowledge available to Fermat, his achievement is hailed as a work of genius, bringing him fame and fortune. But it also brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency and a shadowy United Nations outfit called Pax per Fidem, or Peace Through Transparency, whose secretive workings belie its name. Suddenly Ranjit–together with his wife, Myra de Soyza, an expert in artificial intelligence, and their burgeoning family–finds himself swept up in world-shaking events, his genius for abstract mathematical thought put to uses that are both concrete and potentially deadly. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, an alien fleet is approaching the planet at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Their mission: to exterminate the dangerous species of primates known as homo sapiens. From the Hardcover edition.

A sci-fi short story. When scientists finally discovered the secret of consciousness – the C particle – they also discovered what the mystics had known all along: everything is conscious (in its own way). At least, those things that interact with the C particle. That includes pretty much all matter, anyway. And, in theory noted by but a few, all dark matter...A sci-fi short story. When scientists finally discovered the secret of consciousness – the C particle – they also discovered what the mystics had known all along: everything is conscious (in its own way). At least, those things that interact with the C particle. That includes pretty much all matter, anyway. And indeed, anti-matter, but that is of no importance, there being hardly any of the stuff around this part of the Universe. And, in theory noted by but a few, all dark matter..."Spider" McCool was a psychic investigator. But when he read about dark matter in a science magazine one day, he had an epiphany. Ghosts? No! Aliens! Or, better, both! At last, a scientific explanation for ghosts that didn't involve self-delusion.

A Kindle bestseller.Mike had no idea where the memory stick came from, or that it held plans to decimate human numbers to solve the global population crisis. What he did know was that he was now on the run, trying to evade shadowy figures who want both the USB back and no loose ends. Using a false identity he tries to outrun his pursuers. When that fails he has only one choice left. Fight back.This story is not about legal aspects of our emotional presumptions. It’s about the real life consequences of the judgments that we all make about others. Sometimes, the smallest judgment can have tragic consequences. Perhaps that’s why we have been warned against judging.Karen Bronsky lived a enviable life with a successful devoted husband and a darling child. But something caused her to want just a little more from life. Karen must lose part of her life to find what’s really important to her.Jan Murray thought that she had everything that she needed for happiness. She has looks that most young women would envy. She knew it, and flaunted it. She never knew what it was like to be unnoticed by men. But she will learn that true happiness is not found in the adoration of physical appearances.Stan Bronsky is a good man and husband. He is hard driving and successful in business. But he will learn that success can be fleeting and very costly when he experiences a momentary lapse of judgment and character.Robert Louis Gatewood suffered tragic early life experiences and has carried scars that have shaped his thinking and behavior. He will find new direction in an unexpected moment of encounter.As the lives of these four people weave together through what they perceive to be chance circumstances, they will experience a plethora of emotional experiences and share the uncomfortable consequences of being misjudged, or of having misjudged another.

HardPress Classic Books Series