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Alien horror becomes a living nightmare as the Xenos, meaning "strangers", inflict mayhem on earth. International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of "cosmic skyjackings" is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course. National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Milita...
When experimental drilling on the pacific sea-bed breaks through the earth's thin mantle, vast quantities of nitrogen, trapped for untold millions of years, are released into the atmosphere. As a result, the oxygen in the air becomes dangerously diluted. Whole areas of America are thrown into chaos as the inhabitants literally fight for breath. Two men and two girls put to sea in a yacht in a desperate effort to escape the terror, but terror, in a different and no less deadly form, pursues them relentlessly.
The first comprehensive study of Chinese popular music in a Western language. Drawing on extensive interviews with singers, songwriters and critics, as well as cultural, sociological, musical, and textual analysis, the book portrays the disparate ways in which China's state-run popular music industry and burgeoning underground rock music subculture represented by Cui Jian have been instrumental to the cultural and political struggles that culminated in the Tienanmen democracy movement of 1989. It also examines the links between popular music and contemporary debates about cultural identity and modernization, as well as the close connections between rock music, youth culture, and student protest.
The 22nd Century. Dr. Charles Forbin is Earth's most powerful man. As mediator between Colossus, the Super Computer, and the rest of humanity, Forbin holds the key to Earth's fate. When Colossus, an awe-inspiring technological creation, suddenly became self-aware and took upon itself the task of righting humanity's wrongs with no regard for humans themselves, Forbin intervened. He took the decision to turn off his great machine - but could not do it alone. Forbin called upon invaders from Mars. The Martians did their fastidious work, shutting down Colossus. The Earth descended into chaos. Rival factions sparred for supremacy, with only Forbin to control the populace and maintain order. But now, the Martians have returned. And they want compensation. Forbin is asked to design a super Collector in order to solidify the Earth's supply of oxygen - or, a large proportion of it - to be handed over to the Martians. But to do so would condemn the lives of hundreds of millions of Earth's inhabitants. There is only one entity on Earth with the power to stop the Martians...Colossus must return.
Modern man's most persistent and powerful dream is about to come true. He is ready to travel through time. And who better to take the leap than Mark Elverson, a man with an inoperable heart condition? The far future can only be an improvement for him ... or can it?
The hugely powerful and pervasive presence of the Colossus supercomputer mechanically runs Earth and its myriad operations. Managed by its creator, Dr. Charles Forbin, it is incapable of lies and void of human emotion. It is not a robot and not human. As part of its brief to enhance the human race, it runs eerie emotion research centres, authorizing acts of savagery to measure resistance and feeling. Art and abstract creation are banned, and surveillance is constant. No one is free. The power of Colossus is spiralling out of control. The Sect worship it as a God, enforcing its word at every opportunity and seeking out traitors. The Fellowship secretly oppose it as a force of evil, and they risk their lives in a concentrated effort to destroy it and escape its domination. Meanwhile, as Forbin becomes increasingly disillusioned with what he has unleashed on the world, his wife, Cleo, becomes distant, with disastrous consequences.
The fossil fuel revolution is usually a tale of advances in energy production. Christopher Jones tells a tale of advances in energy access—canals, pipelines, wires delivering cheap, abundant power to cities at a distance from production sites. Between 1820 and 1930 these new transportation networks set the U.S. on a path to fossil fuel dependence.
While governmental policies and institutions may remain more or less the same for years, they can also change suddenly and unpredictably in response to new political agendas and crises. What causes stability or change in the political system? What role do political institutions play in this process? To investigate these questions, Policy Dynamics draws on the most extensive data set yet compiled for public policy issues in the United States. Spanning the past half-century, these data make it possible to trace policies and legislation, public and media attention to them, and governmental decisions over time and across institutions. Some chapters analyze particular policy areas, such as health care, national security, and immigration, while others focus on institutional questions such as congressional procedures and agendas and the differing responses by Congress and the Supreme Court to new issues. Policy Dynamics presents a radical vision of how the federal government evolves in response to new challenges-and the research tools that others may use to critique or extend that vision.
Charles Forbin has dedicated the last 10 years of his life to the construction of his own supercomputer, Colossus, rejecting romantic and social endeavours in order to create the United States' very first Artificially Intelligent defence system. Colossus is a supercomputer capable of taking in and analysing data rapidly, allowing it to make real-time decisions about the nation's defence. But Colossus soon exceeds even Forbin's calculated expectations, learning to think independently of the Colossus Programming Office, processing data over 100 times faster than Forbin and his team had originally anticipated. The President hands off full control of the nation's missiles and other defence protocols to Colossus and makes the announcement to the world that he has ensured peace. However, the USSR quickly announces that it too has a supercomputer, Guardian, with capabilities similar to that of Colossus. Forbin is concerned when Colossus asks - asks - to communicate with Guardian. The computer he built shouldn't be able to ask at al
When Agendas and Instability in American Politics appeared fifteen years ago, offering a profoundly original account of how policy issues rise and fall on the national agenda, the Journal of Politics predicted that it would “become a landmark study of public policy making and American politics.” That prediction proved true and, in this long-awaited second edition, Bryan Jones and Frank Baumgartner refine their influential argument and expand it to illuminate the workings of democracies beyond the United States. The authors retain all the substance of their contention that short-term, single-issue analyses cast public policy too narrowly as the result of cozy and dependable arrangements a...