Author: Andrew Hunter Murray Publisher: Hutchinson ISBN: 9781786331915 Category : Conspiracies Languages : en Pages : 416
Book Description
_________________________________ 'A beautifully realised and thought-provoking thriller.' THE TIMES 'A taut, thrilling runaround' GUARDIAN 'Reminiscent of Robert Harris's high-concept conspiracy thrillers' FINANCIAL TIMES _________________________________ A WORLD HALF IN DARKNESS. A SECRET SHE MUST BRING TO LIGHT. 2059. The world has stopped turning. One half suffers an endless frozen night; the other, nothing but burning sun. Only in a slim twilit region between them can life survive. In an isolationist Britain, scientist Ellen Hopper receives a letter from a dying man. It contains a powerful and dangerous secret. One that those in power will kill to conceal... _________________________________ THE LAST DAY: an utterly original debut thriller, perfect for readers who loved Robert Harris' Fatherland, Emily St. John Mandel's Station 11, and The Wall by John Lanchester. _________________________________ 'Wonderful: boldly imagined and beautifully written - the best future-shock thriller for years.' LEE CHILD 'A tantalizing, suspenseful odyssey of frustration, deceit, treachery, torture, hope, despair and ingenious sleuthing... Murray has so thoroughly thought through the ramifications of his conceit and conjured up such a dramatic plot and stellar cast of characters that he might have set a new standard for such tales.' WASHINGTON POST 'A stunningly original thriller set in the world of tomorrow that will make you think about what's happening today.' HARLAN COBEN 'I read this hungrily ... Its intelligence and bravura characterisation will have you turning page after page. A fabulous achievement.' STEPHEN FRY 'A brilliant debut ... Fans of Robert Harris will love it' DAILY EXPRESS 'To say it's gripping is an understatement - I cancelled all my weekend plans to finish it' SARA PASCOE 'In his fascinating debut, Murray has crafted something original ... an interesting new twist on a post-apocalyptic tale.' KIRKUS 'Downright impossible to stop reading. The science is believable, the near-future world feels as real as our own, the characters are lively, and the plot is suspenseful. A near-perfect alternate-future thriller.' BOOKLIST 'Dark, believable and brilliantly written' JENNY COLGAN 'A thrilling page-turner, and a reminder to treasure our sunsets and sunrises while we still have them. I couldn't put this book down!' CHRISTINA DALCHER, author of VOX 'I loved the premise of this high-concept thriller ... a compelling read with some well-placed observations on the darkness of human nature and survival. The Last Day will keep you gripped to the very last page' C.J. TUDOR
Author: Karen Thompson Walker Publisher: Random House ISBN: 0679644385 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A stunner.”—Justin Cronin “It’s never the disasters you see coming that finally come to pass—it’s the ones you don’t expect at all,” says Julia, in this spellbinding novel of catastrophe and survival by a superb new writer. Luminous, suspenseful, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles tells the haunting and beautiful story of Julia and her family as they struggle to live in a time of extraordinary change. On an ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer; gravity is affected; the birds, the tides, human behavior, and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world that seems filled with danger and loss, Julia also must face surprising developments in herself, and in her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by her friends, the pain and vulnerability of first love, a growing sense of isolation, and a surprising, rebellious new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker gives us a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to go on in an ever-evolving world. “Gripping drama . . . flawlessly written; it could be the most assured debut by an American writer since Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City.”—The Denver Post “Pure magnificence.”—Nathan Englander “Provides solace with its wisdom, compassion, and elegance.”—Curtis Sittenfeld “Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.
Author: William Carpenter Publisher: Ravenio Books ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 49
Book Description
Much may be gathered, indirectly, from the arguments in these pages, as to the real nature of the Earth on which we live and of the heavenly bodies which were created for us. The reader is requested to be patient in this matter and not expect a whole flood of light to burst in upon him at once, through the dense clouds of opposition and prejudice which hang all around. Old ideas have to be gotten rid of, by some people, before they can entertain the new; and this will especially be the case in the matter of the Sun, about which we are taught, by Mr. Proctor, as follows: “The globe of the Sun is so much larger than that of the Earth that no less than 1,250,000 globes as large as the Earth would be wanted to make up together a globe as large as the Sun.” Whereas, we know that, as it is demonstrated that the Sun moves round over the Earth, its size is proportionately less. We can then easily understand that Day and Night, and the Seasons are brought about by his daily circuits round in a course concentric with the North, diminishing in their extent to the end of June, and increasing until the end of December, the equatorial region being the area covered by the Sun’s mean motion. If, then, these pages serve but to arouse the spirit of enquiry, the author will be satisfied.
Author: James Doyle Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 0500651183 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
A provocative introduction to science which enables children to ask the questions that interest them most. Why Can’t I Feel the Earth Spinning? is an irreverent and informative introduction to tricky questions about science. How do we know what dinosaurs looked like? Why does medicine taste so bad? Why don’t airplanes fall down? Why Can’t I Feel the Earth Spinning? encourages children to start asking and answering questions for themselves. The book is structured around twenty-two questions. Each section explores the question and answer with detailed illustrations, photographs, or diagrams and then asks further questions on a similar theme. Children learn about how their bodies work, why trees’ leaves are green, why people dream, and whether “The Cloud” is really a cloud. Written with humor and full of fun illustrations, Why Can’t I Feel the Earth Spinning? is the perfect primer for young inquisitive minds and budding scientists.
Author: Neil F. Comins Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 142995793X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 506
Book Description
"What if?" questions stimulate people to think in new ways, to refresh old ideas, and to make new discoveries. In What If the Earth Had Two Moons, Neil Comins leads us on a fascinating ten-world journey as we explore what our planet would be like under alternative astronomical conditions. In each case, the Earth would be different, often in surprising ways. The title chapter, for example, gives us a second moon orbiting closer to Earth than the one we have now. The night sky is a lot brighter, but that won't last forever. Eventually the moons collide, with one extra-massive moon emerging after a period during which Earth sports a Saturn-like ring. This and nine and other speculative essays provide us with insights into the Earth as it exists today, while shedding new light on the burgeoning search for life on planets orbiting other stars. Appealing to adult and young adult alike, this book is a fascinating journey through physics and astronomy, and follows on the author's previous bestseller, What if the Moon Didn't Exist?, with completely new scenarios backed by the latest astronomical research.
Author: Alanna Mitchell Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101985186 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
The mystery of Earth's invisible, life-supporting power Alanna Mitchell's globe-trotting history of the science of electromagnetism and the Earth's magnetic field--right up to the latest indications that the North and South Poles may soon reverse, with apocalyptic results--will soon change the way you think about our planet. Award-winning journalist Alanna Mitchell's science storytelling introduce intriguing characters--from the thirteenth-century French investigations into magnetism and the Victorian-era discover that electricity and magnetism emerge from the same fundamental force to the latest research. No one has ever told so eloquently how the Earth itself came to be seen as a magnet, spinning in space with two poles, and that those poles have dramatically reversed many time, often coinciding with mass extinctions. The most recent reversal was 780,000 years ago. Mitchell explores indications that the Earth's magnetic force field is decaying faster than previously thought. When the poles switch, a process that takes many years, the Earth is unprotected from solar radiation storms that would, among other disturbances, wipe out much and possible all of our electromagnetic technology. Navigation for all kinds of animals is disrupted without a stable, magnetic North Pole. But can you imagine no satellites, no Internet, no smartphones--maybe no power grids at all? Alanna Mitchell offers a beautifully crafted narrative history of surprising ideas and science, illuminating invisible parts of our own planet that are constantly changing around us.
Author: Dennis D. McCarthy Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107197287 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 403
Book Description
This accessible reference presents the evolution of concepts of time and methods of time keeping, for historians, scientists, engineers, and educators. The second edition has been updated throughout to describe twentieth- and twenty-first-century advances, progress in devices, time and cosmology, the redefinition of SI units, and the future of UTC.
Author: Parallax Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN: 9781463655907 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
Samuel Birley Rowbotham, under the pseudonym 'Parallax', lectured for two decades up and down Britain promoting his unique flat earth theory. This book, in which he lays out his world system, went through three editions, starting with a 16 page pamphlet published in 1849 and a second edition of 221 pages published in 1865. The third edition of 1881 (which had inflated to 430 pages) was used as the basis of this etext. Rowbotham was an accomplished debater who reputedly steamrollered all opponents, and his followers, who included many well-educated people, were equally tenacious. One of them, John Hampden, got involved in a bet with the famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace about the flat earth. An experiment which Hampden proposed didn't resolve the issue, and the two ended up in court in 1876. The judge ruled against Hampton, who started a long campaign of legal harassment of Wallace. Rowbotham hints at the incident in this book. Rowbotham believed that the earth is flat. The contients float on an infinite ocean which somehow has a layer of fire underneath it. The lands we know are surrounded by an infinite wilderness of ice and snow, beyond the Antarctic ocean, bordered by an immense circular ice-cliff. What we call the North Pole is in the center of the earth. The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geography, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertantly illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severly squashed South America and Africa, and Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19th century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long! The Zetetic Sun, moon, planets and stars are all only a few hundred miles above the surface of the earth. The sun orbits the north pole once a day at a constant altitude. The moon is both self-illuminated and semi-transparent. Eclipses can be explained by some unknown object occulting the sun or moon. Zetetic cosmology is 'faith-based', based, that is, on a literal interpretation of selected Biblical quotes. Hell is exactly as advertised, directly below us. Heaven is not a state of mind, it is a real place, somewhere above us. He uses Ussherian Biblical chronology to mock the concept that stars could be millions of light years away. He attacks the concept of a plurality of worlds because no other world than this one is mentioned in the Bible. Rowbotham never adequately explains his alternative astronomy. If the Copernican theory so adequately explains planetary motions, why discard it, and what would he use in its place? What is the sun orbiting around once a day and how does it work like a spotlight, not a 'point source'? If the moon is self-luminous, what creates its phases? If gravity appears to work here on earth, why doesn't it apply to the celestial objects just a few hundred miles up? To make his system work he had to throw out a great deal of science, including the scientific method itself, using instead what he calls a 'Zetetic' method. As far as I can see this is simply a license to employ circular reasoning (e.g., the earth is flat, hence we can see distant lighthouses, hence the earth is flat). Zetetic Astronomy is a key work of flat-earth thought, just as Donnelly's Atlantis, the Antediluvian World is still considered required reading on the subject of Atlantis. If you ever have to debate the flat earth pro or con, this book is a complete agenda of each point that you'll have to argue.
Author: Robert Charles Wilson Publisher: Tor Books ISBN: 1429915439 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 468
Book Description
From the author of Axis and Vortex, the first Hugo Award-winning novel in the environmental apocalyptic Spin Trilogy... One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Author: Richard Muller Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: Category : Physics Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
Learn the science behind the headlines in this work that outlines the tools of terrorists, the dangers of nuclear power, and the reality of global warming.
Author: Andrew Hunter Murray
Author: Karen Thompson Walker
Author: William Carpenter 
Author: James Doyle
Author: Neil F. Comins
Author: Alanna Mitchell
Author: Dennis D. McCarthy
Author: Parallax
Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Author: Richard Muller