Genetic World

The fourth book in the best-selling The World Walker series. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Maybe Seb Varden is in a good position to find out. Depending on your point of view, he has either spent a few days, six months, or 17 years playing a potentially deadly game. At stake: the freedom of the alien who saved his life, the future of all intelligent species in the universe, and his sanity. Not only does Seb not fully understand the rules, but it's just possible the game itself is rigged.

Spectacular fossil finds make today's headlines; new technology unlocks secrets of skeletons unearthed 100 years ago. Still, evolution is often poorly represented by the media and misunderstood by the public. A potent antidote to pseudoscience, Written in Stone is an engrossing history of evolutionary discovery for anyone who has marveled at the variety and richness of life.

As starving, travel-weary people overrun High Meadow, Tillie and Angus must do a delicate dance to keep the doors open. Angus has set the boundaries for their new territory, and Martin is tasked with keeping it safe. Tillie struggles to get everyone fed while keeping an eye on the stores for winter. Wisp helps where he can, vetting the newcomers and finding stragglers, but not every person comes under his scrutiny.

On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life, seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich.

An apocalypse ruined all of Dessa's plans. She's reunited with her brother and plans to hide with him and her friends, while waiting out the zombie apocalypse in safety. But an unexpected crisis throws Dessa's group into a race against time. They need some zombie-blocker meds, and they need them fast. Unfortunately, Dessa and her friends will soon learn that the outside world has more than just zombies standing in their way.

The stability of the Survivor’s Alliance is still fragile. They made it through the winter, but now it’s flu season. Every year the virus changes just a little. Tillie and Angus are trying to prepare for every scenario, even the possibility that they will be the first to go. Nick is working to bridge the gap in supplies until the spring crops come in. Wisp and Bridget are preparing for the birth of their child. But there are changes coming that no one expected.

Ashton Chayton was born with a powerful gift, a unique inhuman telepathic ability. Orphaned and raised by the hyper-intelligent Red Wolves of Opan, he is pursued by merciless and powerful enemies.

Kalin Taylor is on the path to success. He's just won a scholarship to the prestigious Sanderson College of Arts and Science to study medicine. He's also about to do something very, very stupid in the name of becoming one of the 'in' kids at college. It sounded simple at the time. Sneak into a branch of the top-secret, interstellar scientific company GenTech, take a photo of the genetically engineered creature Project Tau that's supposedly inside, and sneak back out again. Cue membership of the college frat house, cue popularity and an improved lifestyle, right?

In Unfit for Purpose, biologist and broadcaster Adam Hart explores the mismatch between our fundamental biology and the modern world we have created. In each chapter Adam reveals the many ways in which biological adaptations that evolved to help us survive and thrive now work against us. For example, in the modern world stress is a killer, but how did 'fight or flight' instincts turn from life-savers to life-takers? Obesity might be a disease now, but is it really just a troublesome side-effect of our complex evolutionary past?

Josh Ridley is an overworked, underappreciated accountant caught up in life’s grind. All that changes when he is offered an adventure vacation that allows him to be miniaturized and placed in an unforgiving terrain filled with demons and demon lords, or to laymen...killer insects. In Betaloome, an infested terrarium with a land area equivalent to hundreds of square miles, Josh’s new god-like abilities make him adored by women, admired by men, and able to slay monsters.

Set in the very near future, the plot evolves quickly, moving from a scientist who finds himself killing his coconspirator to a prison corporation CEO who devises the deaths of 13 inmates in order to cover up his larger crimes to a famous criminologist/mystery writer who becomes entangled with a beautiful, violet-eyed geneticist and tries to uncover why she is being targeted.

Mark is a student of robotics with a budding career track. Still in high school, he has a fellowship with the local university working with the renowned Professor David. But just before the end of the school year, Mark becomes a quadriplegic, closing the doors to his future. But Professor David is contacted by his best friend, Tyler Davis, who was recently promoted to the project lead for a new company called Synaptergy. This company is working on a new brain-to-robotic interface that promises to restore the lives of those who have lost the use of their limbs.

From the cup of coffee that jump-starts the day to dangerously addictive drugs, the recreational use of plants with psychoactive properties has a long history among humans. But, as with many things, it turns out that other animals got there first. From parrots to primates, consuming medicinal chemicals is an instinctive behavior that helps countless organisms fight infection and treat disease. But the similarities don't end there: Like us, many creatures also consume substances that have no apparent benefit...except for inducing intoxication.

The Big Ratchet is the story of the ratchets: the technologies and innovations, big and small, that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers on the savannahs of Africa to shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket. Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. The Big Ratchet is the story of how it happened.

The president arrives at High Meadow with his entourage of bureaucrats and faux-military. Tillie and Angus don’t have time for any distractions as a massive wildfire bears down on their settlement. It will take more than hard work and good intentions to get them through this catastrophe. Martin is leery about sending all of his men to aid those in the path of the fire, thereby leaving their borders unprotected.

Despite unimaginable odds, Marine Lieutenant Gant Maker has once again done the impossible, defeating the alien Vacra’s invasion force and nullifying their unstoppable doomsday device. With their armada destroyed and their fleet crippled, the Vacra resort to the inconceivable: They sue for peace via an unexpected envoy. Fresh off his highly improbable victory, Maker now finds himself faced with the unenviable and undesirable task of escorting the Vacra representative home. However, he soon learns that the stakes are far higher than he ever imagined.

It's the 22nd century, and human cloning has become a reality. In three days, the first replicant will be made at Phoenvartis, a Swiss pharma-tech company. As the head of the development team, Rollie must decide which genetic samples to use to produce the replicant. He has been directed by his boss to use the samples provided by the World Council, which governs Earth and colony planets.

Hatcher and his band of survivors want more than to simply survive. They abandon their industrial shelter and set out to begin rebuilding their lives in an attempt to salvage their humanity. The Marauders have been broken, but Simon refuses to surrender. Gathering a handful of his enforcers, he sets about getting his revenge...and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the turmoil. The Ragers are starving...and evolving. They don’t care who wins the war between the Survivors and the Marauders, they just want to pick their teeth with the bones of the losers.

To many of us, tropical forests are the domain of movies and novels. These dense, primordial wildernesses are beautiful to picture but irrelevant to our lives. Jungle tells a different story. Archaeologist Patrick Roberts argues that tropical forests have shaped nearly every aspect of life on earth. They made the planet habitable, enabled the rise of dinosaurs and mammals, and spread flowering plants around the globe. New evidence also shows that humans evolved in jungles, developing agriculture and infrastructure unlike anything found elsewhere.

In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism.