Back from Oblivion and into Reality


Book Description

This is my second book. It is a sequel to my first book, Wings of the Bullet. It is called Back from Oblivion and into Reality. It is a continuation of the ongoing true story of Ralph (now I am using Rudy, my real nickname). Throughout history, teenagers like me have helped to bear the brunt of war. Many were killed. Others were wounded, some horribly. All, however, often came home to an unforgiving nation. In past wars, the young veterans came home from war and tried to blend into their new situations as best they could. Little lasting admiration or glory was theirs to help them through these difficult times of adjustment. Not until the end of WWII did our nation realize the dedication and sacrifice of its returning veterans. The people opened their hearts in appreciation. The Veterans Administration (VA) and many local and state agencies passed important legislations for the returning vets. Our Congress passed the GI Bill of Rights, which educated an entire generation and made our country the great nation it is today . . . In my second book, my sequel, I continue the ongoing true story. Changes of Fate During my lifetime, I have had experiences that had suddenly changed the direction of my life. I call them changes of fate. An example of this is in my first book, Wings of the Bullet. When I was seventeen, my friend and I and another boy, who wanted to come along with us, went to enlist in the navy; but without any intention to do so, we enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Years later, when I was in college, a bottle of beer changed me from being an accountant into being a teacher. When you read this book, you will learn how this happened. Think about your own life. Have you ever experienced a change of fate? If so, take note and think about other changes of fate you may have experienced. I began to identify more and more incidents that seemed to change the direction of my life. As you read my books, try doing the same. You may even want to make a list of them as I have started to do. I began to wonder, are these really real experiences or just a change of luck? Or are they a matter of coincidence or maybe your imagination, or could they be an act of divine providence? What do you think?




Oblivion


Book Description

In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness -- a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown (The Soul Is Not a Smithy). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way (The Suffering Channel). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring (Oblivion). Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate.




Utopia or Oblivion


Book Description

Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe — the alternative of which is oblivion.” R. Buckminster Fuller. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller




Consigned to Oblivion


Book Description

A coming-of-age novel that explores complex, transcendental patterns of thought and grounds them in a captivating narrative, rooted in existentialism, healing, and self discovery.




Halo: Oblivion


Book Description

A Master Chief story and original full-length novel set in the Halo universe—based on the New York Times bestselling video game series! 2526. It has been more than a year since humanity first encountered the hostile military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant, and several weeks after the United Nations Space Command’s devastating counterattack of Operation: SILENT STORM was deemed an overwhelming success. The UNSC has put its faith in the hands of the Spartans, led by the legendary Master Chief, John-117: enhanced super-soldiers raised and trained from childhood via a clandestine black ops project to be living weapons. But the Covenant—enraged and fearful of their enemy’s unexpected strategies and prowess—is not taking its recent defeat lightly, and is now fully determined to eradicate humanity from existence, brutally overrunning the ill-fated planets of the Outer Colonies faster than retreats can be ordered. If the UNSC has any chance of stemming the tide of the war, the Master Chief and Blue Team must drop onto an empty, hellish world in order to capture a disabled Covenant frigate filled with valuable technology. It has all the makings of a trap, but the bait is far too tempting to ignore—and this tantalizing prize is being offered by a disgraced and vengeful Covenant fleetmaster, whose sole opportunity for redemption lies in extinguishing humanity’s only hope of survival…





Book Description




Oblivion


Book Description

Forced by her nightmares to return to Varen's desolate dreamworld, Isobel fears that her world and her own sanity will be overtaken by the schemes of ghostly demon Lilith.




The Films of Michael Mann


Book Description

Is Michael Mann an auteur? Mann is a formidable filmmaking personality, no doubt, but the notion that today's celebrity cult of director immediately correlates with the mysterious sect of 'auteur' is questionable and deserves to be investigated. In doing so this book strives to emulate the methodology of the man himself, by ranging over not only the films he has made, from 1979’s The Jericho Mile to 2015's Blackhat, but also the scope of intellectual interests that they exemplify in an attempt to mine the commonalities, themes and traits that may suggest the presence of an auteur. Through his investigation of Mann's filmography and the personality that flows through it, author Deryck Swan provides the reader with accessible and new ways of thinking about his films to date, including, amongst myriad other things, references to painter Morris Louis, desert modernism, West Coast prison culture, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Strain Theory, journalist Mike Royko, Chicago's Auditorium building and a largely forgotten Charles Bronson film.




FIRE AND POWDER


Book Description

SOONER THAN GOLD is based loosely on the true story of Eliza Alicia Lynch who, in 1848, at the age of 13, fled Ireland to escape the Great Famine; who at 18 was the highest-paid and most sought-after courtesan in all of Paris; who, as mistress of the dictator, Francisco Solano López, became Regent of Paraguay and the richest woman in the world. Together with López, she involved that country in a bloody war, the result of which was total disaster.




Oblivion's Galaxy - The Complete Trilogy


Book Description

First Lieutenant Shaara was dead this morning. Her captain is furious at her. She wasted company resources getting herself killed, and it’s coming out of her paycheck. Now, she’s sitting across from the first other human being she’s seen in six years. His name is Adnan. He claims to come from Earth—but that’s impossible. Earth died a long time ago. If Adnan’s telling the truth, he and the decaying ship the captain pulled him off are nearly a thousand years old. Wherever he’s from, he’s Shaara’s responsibility now. Which is the last thing she needs. But it’s either that, or the captain sells Adnan into slavery. Shaara knows what that would mean. Most humans do. And something inside her won’t let her abandon Adnan to it: revenant memories, stabbed awake by the look in his eyes. Facing those memories won’t be easy. It’d be far easier to ignore the feeling driving her forward. Far easier to let it all go to hell, and drift back to sleep. Until a shadowy new faction starts stoking the fires of war. They’re looking for Adnan; Earth’s last survivor holds the key to unleash a terrible, indiscriminate vengeance on the galaxy that wronged them. Who they are is a mystery—to everyone but Shaara. Hard as she’s tried to forget, she knows them all too well. Which means she’s the only one who can stop them. The question is: does she want to? Maybe the galaxy’s earned a little vengeance. The first book in the trilogy, Oblivion's Cloak, won First Place in the Space Opera category at the 2023 Cygnus Awards!