Science Reality

Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems, and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

Organizational consultant Adrian Pei describes key challenges ethnic minorities face in majority culture organizations. He unpacks how historical forces shape contemporary realities and what both minority and majority cultures need to know in order to work together fruitfully.

Over the past few decades, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only four percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown. Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of the quest to find this “dark” matter and an even more bizarre substance called “dark energy”. This is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science, and solving it will bring fame, funding, and certainly a Nobel Prize.

What does it mean to be human in the 21st century? How do we be real people in a world of online personas and "authentic" simulated experiences? In this innovative examination of our present reality, award-winning writer Laurence Scott charts the ways our traditional mental models of the world have started to fray. Effortlessly applying philosophy to the quotidian, Scott "makes banal things shimmer with meaning" (Guardian).

The Last Hand of the Oversight still patrols the border between the natural and supranatural, holding a candle to the darkness. But this new Hand is unproven, its fresh members untrained, its veterans weary and battle-scarred. Their vulnerability brings new enemies into the city and surprising new allies from across the sea.

Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.

For centuries, the two Great Guilds have controlled the world of Dematr. The Mechanics and the Mages have been bitter rivals, agreeing only on the need to keep the world they rule from changing. But now a Storm approaches, one that could sweep away everything that humans have built. Only one person has any chance of uniting enough of the world behind her to stop the Storm, but the Great Guilds and many others will stop at nothing to defeat her.

America once a thriving and prosperous nation, now an empty decaying wasteland - everything changed in the blink of an eye. In Grid Down: Reality Bites, a high-altitude nuclear blast causing an EMP (electrical magnetic pulse) destroys the power grid, catapulting life as they knew it, back to the 1800's. The saga continues in Grid Down Perceptions of Reality (Volume 2, Part 1), as Amy, Preston, Michael, Joe, and Jane desperately struggle to survive the chaos that ensues.

Composed from exhaustive research and hundreds of personal interviews, the Stay Awhile and Listen series divulges the fated meeting that brought the two Blizzards together, the clashes that tore them apart, and their transformation from grassroots democracy to corporate empire. At the center of it all - Diablo, a hack-and-slash adventure through the darkest recesses of Hell that changed online gaming forever.

In Love and Math, renowned mathematician Edward Frenkel reveals a side of math we've never seen, suffused with all the beauty and elegance of a work of art. In this heartfelt and passionate book, Frenkel shows that mathematics, far from occupying a specialist niche, goes to the heart of all matter, uniting us across cultures, time, and space.

A high-altitude nuclear blast causing an EMP (electrical magnetic pulse) destroys the power grid, catapulting life as they knew it, back to the 1800's. Now a postapocalyptic world, they must rely on their primal instincts to escape destruction, disease and death. In this book, the story of Grid Down continues, following Clint and Junior with their small band of survivors. When we last left Clint and Junior, both were suffering gunshot wounds while trying to escape after an attack on a group of Rainbow Warriors.

Embark on a mind-expanding journey through the nature of reality itself! Is our universe one of many? Are we living in a simulation? What does quantum physics tell us about the fabric of reality? "The Beginner's Guide to Reality" breaks down these profound questions into three fascinating, accessible books that will forever change how you view existence.

Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain have survived every attempt to stop them, but their enemies are determined to kill Mari, the only one who can save her world from a storm of destruction. As armies begin to gather and cities seethe with tension, Mari, Alain, and their friends must prepare to confront the storm in the place it first appeared: the broken kingdom of Tiae.

When Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain took down the Dark Mechanics and Dark Mages at Dorcastle, they thought they’d covered their involvement well enough to divert their Guilds’ suspicions. The assassins sent after them by their Guilds, which had trained them from childhood, indicate otherwise. Armed with the knowledge that their respective Guilds are now trying to kill them, and knowing their strengths are greater together, they reunite.

Trapped within the dead city of Marandur, Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain must escape both merciless barbarians and the pitiless Imperial Legion. Beyond those dangers lie the mightiest and most unforgiving powers in the world of Dematr: the Great Guilds that rule the world with iron fists.

When Ky Hernández bonded with his familiar, Zuri, his life changed forever. Their connection turned him into a practicing witch and led him to his calling as a medimagical professional. However, it totally tanked his love life - what guy would settle for eternal second place behind a parrot? So, Ky keeps his witchy nature under wraps and sticks to hookups with humans, which can never go anywhere.

Gnat the Devourer is becoming a more prominent figure in grand space politics. Sure, he may not be totally independent yet, but he has enough leeway to be able to differentiate Earth's interests from those of its Geckho suzerains and act exclusively for the good of his own kind. Gnat must balance obligations to his almighty suzerains against a desire to advance humanity's position in space, and his home planet's search for ever more allies.

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.

Lovelorn kangaroo shifter Hamish Mulherne, drummer for the mega-hit rock band Hunter’s Moon, waited years for the band’s jaguar shifter bassist to notice him. Instead, she’s just gotten married and is in a thriving poly relationship. How is Hamish supposed to compete with that? But with everyone else in the band mated and revoltingly happy, he needs somebody. Since he can’t expect true love to strike twice, he signs up with Supernatural Selection. Because what the hell?

Bridging the gap between tech mania and the experience of being inside the human body, Dawn of the New Everything is a look at what it means to be human at a moment of unprecedented technological possibility. Through a fascinating look back over his life in technology, Jaron Lanier, an interdisciplinary scientist and father of the term virtual reality, exposes VR's ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species and gives listeners a new perspective on how the brain and body connect to the world.