Systems Science

Before he was the super confident, snarky AI saving Siv Gendin and his friends’ bacon on a regular basis, Silky worked with his first human companion, Eyana Ora, an Empathic Services agent. This was the mission where it all began. Two centuries before the Fall of the Benevolence. A simple covert mission to spy on the Krixis, a telepathic alien race, turns into a desperate bid to save mankind when Silky and Eyana uncover a plot to use a secret super-weapon. But the weapon, a lost piece of ancient technology, holds secrets that neither side expected.

Knowing where to start when learning a new skill can be a challenge, especially when the topic seems so vast. There can be so much information available that you can't even decide where to start. Or worse, you start down the path of learning and quickly discover too many concepts, commands, and nuances that aren't explained. What you learn in Linux for Beginners applies to any Linux environment including Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, RedHat, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Slackware, and more.

Weary and tired from playing galactic bounty hunter and assassin, John and his crew of intrepid human survivors find themselves in Spaks after their latest escapade bring more heat than ever. In the outcast station of rebels and pirates, John is caught up in galactic politics once again. As trouble approaches on the hyperdrive engines of his many enemies, John finds answers to the System Quest and even more questions in the Rebel Station.

More than any other institution in the country, Georgia State has overturned the assumption that poorer students are doomed to fail. Won't Lose This Dream describes how the architects of Georgia State's success harnessed the power of evolving data technologies, a "moneyball" strategy that helped them recognize and remove the obstacles that have held poor students back. Veteran journalist Andrew Gumbel uncovers the human stories behind these innovations, tracing real students as they realize lifelong dreams of graduating from college.

The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings in exceptional circumstances. But since 2017, the Court has dramatically expanded its use of the behind-the-scenes “shadow docket,” regularly making decisions that affect millions of Americans without public hearings and without explanation, through cryptic late-night rulings that leave lawyers—and citizens—scrambling. But Americans of all political stripes should be worried about what the shadow docket portends for the rule of law, argues Supreme Court expert Stephen Vladeck.

Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems compares the Copernican or Heliocentric system with the Ptolemaic or Peripatetic, system of the cosmos. Published in Florence in 1632, it resulted in him being tried before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, Galileo masterfully shows the truth of the Copernican system that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The Dialogue is one of the most important treatises ever written. A work of supreme clarity and accessibility, it remains as accessible now as when it was published.

The food system is broken, but there is a revolution underway to fix it. Bite Back presents an urgent call to action and a vision for disrupting corporate power in the food system, a vision shared with countless organizers and advocates worldwide.

Soon the torch will be passed to a new generation...but not just yet. Having saved the Federation one more time in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Capt. James T. Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise have finally gone their separate ways. Spock, McCoy, Sulu and the others are spread out across the galaxy, pursuing their individual destinies - until an interstellar crisis touches all their lives.

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to the highest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira's masterful investigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice in America.

Continuing the mission he began in Unification, Starfleet Ambassador Spock endeavors to impart the logic of the Vulcans to a small band of Romulans. But Spock and his students are taken hostage, and the Enterprise and Jean-Luc Picard are sent to secure the hostages' release. Read by Jonathan Frakes!

A clock hangs over the head of every mortal. Counting down to the inescapable day that the Goddess of Death claims them. That is the way of the world. The natural cycle of mortals. The Gods, however, were said to live for forever. To exist so far outside of the natural laws of the universe that even their crimes can't be punished. But Knell Coba, at great cost, realizes this is nothing but another lie.

Reluctant ruler of the settlements in British Columbia, John and his friends must now face even greater dangers as they seek to free other human settlements from Galactic control in North America. But John's enemies have begun to take notice of the burgeoning resistance and take steps to stop him and the human resistance including bringing in Master Class help. Can John navigate the treacherous waters of Galactic politics and human interests without compromising his beliefs or sacrificing his friends?

Fie abides by one rule: Look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime. When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses - and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: Protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.

All Vanessa Williams wanted for the holidays was to escape the demands of her parents’ social schedules and find a comfortable place to work on her book. Having the opportunity to do so while enjoying the comforts of a cabin on an alien world seemed like the perfect way to pass the season. Plans change, however, when her shuttle crashes in the inhospitable mountains and she finds herself waiting out the storm in an alien castle with a male whose burning gold eyes promise forbidden pleasures.

Nick Abrahams still holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him, however, does he try to change his life. He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire. In exchange for making a simple repair on Neptune’s moon Triton, he will return to Earth a multi-millionaire, enabling him to achieve his ‘impossible dream’ of buying his own California vineyard.

Fire is rarely out of the headlines, from large natural wildfires raging across the Australian or Californian countrysides to the burning of buildings such as the disasters of Grenfell tower and Notre Dame. Fire on these scales can represent a serious risk to human life and property. But the advent of fire made and controlled by humans also represented a crucial point in our evolution, allowing us to cook our food, forge our weapons, and warm our homes.

To gain his Master Class, John Lee made a deal with the Erethran Empire. Now, the empire has come to collect on the debt, forcing him to appear in their capital after his last fight. Thrown into Galactic politics of a militarized, system-based society, John will have to weigh consequences of the decisions he's been asked to make and confront the warped reality of a system-created empire. When politics, self-interest, and a human's stubbornness collide, the very stars are threatened.

John de Lancie, in his role as "Q," headlines a Star Trek cast and crew (directed by Jonathan Frakes!) in this fully dramatized adventure of the future and the adventures of the heroic Starfleet officer who must save the Federation!

Written by a cult survivor and renowned expert on cults and totalitarianism, Terror, Love and Brainwashing draws on the author's 25 years of study and research to explain how almost anyone, given the right set of circumstances, can be radically manipulated to engage in otherwise incomprehensible and often dangerous acts.

Two weeks into the System Apocalypse, and the transformations are just beginning. Mutated insects, carnivorous toads, and angry drop bears were not on the school curriculum, but when the apocalypse hits, you roll with it. Parenting a teenager has prepared Kira for the worst; she just didn’t expect that to include the end of the world. A menacing conglomerate of alien hunters is breathing down their necks, and new threats lurk just over the hills. Kira and the rest of the Australian survivors of Brisbane must level up, bolster defenses, and prepare for an incoming invasion.