Systems Science

On a planet code-named Gateway stands a mysterious portal to the past, the Guardian of Forever. Spock, Kirk, and McCoy have just returned from a voyage through the gateway with a young man named Zar - Spock's own son from ancient Sarpeidon! But while Spock and the brilliant, primitive youth try to bridge a gap of centuries and cultures, Gateway is seized by the Romulans...Featuring a dramatic reading by Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan, and enhanced with sound effects and an original score!

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.

In June 1985, a young Black man named Darryl Hunt was falsely convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a white copyeditor at the local paper. Many in the community believed him innocent and crusaded for his release even as subsequent trials and appeals reinforced his sentence. Finally, in 2003, the tireless efforts of his attorney combined with an award-winning series of articles by Phoebe Zerwick in the Winston-Salem Journal led to the DNA evidence that exonerated Hunt.

The Commander of Champions thrives in this environment. His powers can only grow stronger from here. Commander Jay Luckrun has a lot of names. One of those names is Beheader of the 72 Immortals. Everywhere he goes, many people and creatures are afraid of him for what he's achieved with his overpowered magic. Their fear is so great that Jay and his pantheon are facing the greatest fight Earth has ever witnessed—A war with the USA.

Jebediah Trapper is a ticking time bomb. After sort of saving the day months ago, he's got a nuclear bomb attached to him in the Fate Dimension, where magic and potential collide. Jeb just wants to defuse himself before he collapses into a sickly pile of green goo or ignites in a city-destroying blast. There's just one problem: The world doesn't slow down because you've got a nuclear hangnail. Mab, Queen of the Fae wants him for unknown, yet most likely sinister reasons. A mysterious, abhorrent entity is making him an offer he can't refuse, and the undead are getting organized.

Benjamin's life was perfect. He'd just graduated from college and landed his dream job; he was finally ready to make his own way in life. However, before he could do that, he and his buddies decided to go on one last camping trip that changed everything. Suddenly, the five of them were ripped from their campsite on Earth by powerful magics, brought face-to-face with the might of the rune mages, and forced to become pawns in larger schemes.

Claire's home has burned to the ground. Displaced and plagued by nightmares, Claire can't rest as she continues her quest to eliminate every target. And though she gets stronger by the day, so do her targets. Her skills will be put to the limit as she does everything in her power to reach Target 75.

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us. When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values behind them. Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.

Emotions, affect regulation, and interpersonal social behavior are psychological processes that define how people react to events, environmental difficulties, and other people. These processes build our sense of self, help us form connections, and influence whether we feel comfortable in different situations or with different individuals. Despite the fact that these processes may be witnessed scientifically and subjectively, they constitute a complex interplay between our psychological experience and physiological control.

This explosive finale to Star Trek, The Next Generation centers on the Q Continuum's decision to destroy humanity's existence in space and time, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard's chance to sacrifice everything and save mankind. Featuring a dramatic reading by Jonathan Frakes and enhanced with sound effects and an original score!

From the best-selling author of A Vast Conspiracy and The Run of His Life comes Too Close to Call - the definitive story of the Bush-Gore presidential recount. A political and legal analyst of unparalleled journalistic skill, Jeffrey Toobin is the ideal writer to distill the events of the 36 anxiety-filled days that culminated in one of the most stunning Supreme Court decisions in history.

How did the world’s greatest systems thinkers handled crises, invented revolutionary ideas, and solved complex problems? How did the field of systems thinking develop? Who were the pioneers in the field? Learn about the answers in Lessons from Systems Thinkers, from Norbert Wiener’s pioneering contribution on positive and negative feedback to Warren McCulloch’s research on feedback mechanisms in neurology, from Gregory Bateson’s double bind and how it affects family relationships to Margaret Mead’s systems approach to cultural anthropology.

It's been 10 years since Handry was wrenched away from his family and friends, forced to wander a world he no longer understood. But with the help of the Ancients, he has cobbled together a life, of sorts, for himself and his fellow outcasts. Wandering from village to village, welcoming the folk that the townships abandon, fighting the monsters the villagers cannot - or dare not - his ever-growing band of misfits has become the stuff of legend, a story told by parents to keep unruly children in line.

They never wanted to get involved. Captain Riker has finally left Starfleet and is hoping to make it rich as a merchant astronaut, flying his ship the Phantom 500. Space is not a safe place, though. There are Lycans still lurking after the end of the Mars Wars and then there is the corrupt Starfleet. However, Riker and his crew are about to find that there are many more surprises that space has to offer that are about to determine the fate of Earth itself. He is joined on the Phantom 500 by his blue haired pilot, Aurora, and a huge hulking alien, Kakura. Together they are trying to import ...

Self Comes to Mind is a nuanced and original chronicle of the evolution of the human brain. It reveals how the brain's development of a self becomes a challenge to nature's indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution.

When Ramzan steals from the Chechnyan Mafia to create a better life for his sister, he knows he’s pissing off the wrong people. They want their money, and they’ve created a diabolical method of extracting information from their enemies. Full Immersion Virtual Reality sounds great, until he learns the horrors this incredible technology can cook up. Can Ramzan protect his secrets and maintain his sanity against this psychological onslaught? He’s gotta stay sharp, and he’s gotta stay sane, if he has a hope of escaping....

In the aftermath of their last battle, several of Quinn's allies are still healing. In the meantime, while the Library and Lynx are still regaining all their memory pathways, Quinn must help resolve the mystery of the Ashiron pillar. But that's not their only problem. In order to expand the Library's power, more branches must be opened, but it's difficult to do that when not everyone is willing to return their books.

Many yearn for a different realm, where the allure of enchanting women, otherworldly abilities, and thrilling adventures beckons. But what if you were born into a world where you're regarded as nothing more than a mere tool, utterly unsuited for their intended purposes? Plunged into the depths of despair, having lost that which he cherished most, the unmistakable chime of a notification altered not only his destiny but the very fabric of all existence. Yet, whether this change was for the better or worse remained uncertain.

The smallest planet in our solar system is also the closest to the sun. That means on Mercury, one year is just 88 days long! Discover more facts about the small but mighty Mercury.

In 1983, Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain, both serving life sentences at the U.S. Prison in Marion, Illinois, separately murdered two correction officers on the same day. The Bureau of Prisons condemned both men to the severest punishment that could legally be imposed, one created specifically for them. It was unofficially called "no human contact." Each initially spent nine months in a mattress-sized cell where the lights burned twenty-four hours a day. They were clothed only in boxer shorts, completely sealed off from the outside world with only their minds to occupy their time.