In Our Own Worlds #2


Book Description

In celebration of Pride, Tor.com Publishing presents four critically acclaimed novellas featuring LGBTQ+ characters. With Miranda in Milan, debut author Katharine Duckett reimagines the consequences of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, casting Miranda into a Milanese pit of vipers and building a queer love story that lifts off the page in whirlwinds of feeling. After the tempest, after the reunion, after her father drowned his books, Miranda was meant to enter a brave new world. Naples awaited her, and Ferdinand, and a throne. Instead she finds herself in Milan, in her father’s castle, surrounded by hostile servants who treat her like a ghost. Whispers cling to her like spiderwebs, whispers that carry her dead mother’s name. And though he promised to give away his power, Milan is once again contorting around Prospero’s dark arts. With only Dorothea, her sole companion and confidant to aid her, Miranda must cut through the mystery and find the truth about her father, her mother, and herself. NPR calls Every Heart a Doorway "a mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy — a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics". Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Alex AWARD winner, World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award finalist, and Tiptree Honor List title. Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost. The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space in Lina Rather's debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black. Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own. When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself. Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is the Crawford Award-winning novella that Wired listed as one of their twenty-five all-time favorite books. Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with this striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery. Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight. The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive. The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Worlds of Their Own


Book Description

History is written by the winners; including the histories of science and scholarship. Unorthodoxies that flourish at the grassroots are often beneath the contempt of historians. Zetetic astronomy (flat-Earth science) was a household term in Victorian England, but not a single reference to it is found in conventional histories. We ignore such histories at our peril; the modern intelligent design movement is almost a carbon copy of the 19th century flat-Earth movement in its argumentative techniques. When orthodox science finds itself stumped, or a certain segment finds it unpalatable, the unorthodox may rush in to fill the void. The past two decades have brought a surge of interest in the history and philosophy of science. But how do we discern between pseudo and actual science? To fully understand what science is, we must understand what science is not. Written with penetrating insight into the minds of alternative thinkers, this book throws light on the differences between pseudo and actual science. The droll humor that permeates Worlds of Their Own makes it as enjoyable a read as it is enlightening. Despite its focus on unorthodox ideas, Worlds of Their Own is about human nature. Whether they drew their ideas from the Bible or nature, all the pseudoscientists discussed in this book were driven to communicate their truth to the misinformed world. None was afflicted with self-doubt. All defended their truth with similar standards of evidence, modes of reasoning, and methods of scholarship. Their counterparts are legion the blue-collar philosopher who refutes Einstein from his barstool, the preacher who refutes (but cannot define) evolution from his pulpit, the narcissist who promotes quackery courtesy of modern talk shows and infomercials. Each topic discussed in Worlds of Their Own covers a once-popular concept that persists to this day. Numerous works examine or debunk pseudoscientific ideas. Worlds of Their Own is unique in letting unorthodox thinkers speak for themselves. Readers will want to buy the book to learn how such people argued their cases against conventional views. Worlds of Their Own is a timeless book offering humor, substance, and analysis for a mainstream audience. Moreover, it is a unique source book on unorthodox ideas that nearly everyone has heard about but few fully understand. And the source material is rare. For example, the National Union Catalog lists only four U.S. libraries the Library of Congress, New York Public, Yale, and Duke that hold Carpenters One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe (1885). Bobs own extensive collection of flat-Earth literature as well as his collection of literature advocating various other unorthodoxies was donated to the University of Wisconsin after his death. It is housed there as the Robert Schadewald Collection on Pseudo-Science. This collection consists of 885 books and pamphlets (many from the 19th century) as well as 70 boxes of personal files and collected news clippings. Praise for Bob Schadewald: Perhaps the most important thing that Bob taught me has to do with the striking insights one can gain by first studying the history of one particular kind of crackpot science for example, the flat-Earth movement in past centuries and then realizing how reliable that knowledge can be for gaining insight into a seemingly unrelated pseudoscience of more contemporary times for example, the creation science movement that flourished in Iowa and across the country in recent decades, and is now returning as intelligent design today. Nobody, but nobody could make the case for this more convincingly than Bob Schadewald, and Lois has included some of Bobs best material doing so between the covers of Worlds of Their Own. John W. Patterson.emeritus Materials Science & Engineering, Iowa State University Bob Schadewald was an insightful thinker w




Worlds Before Our Own


Book Description

Twenty-two years beforeTechnology of the Gods... Seventeen years beforeFingerprints of the Gods... Fifteen years beforeForbidden Archaeology... There was...Worlds Before Our Own, Brad Steiger's groundbreaking argument for the existence of a global prehistoric civilization. The evidence Steiger had amassed for such a claim was based primarily upon finds of "erratics" mysterious "man-made" artifacts found in the deepest, most primordial geological strata. When Worlds Before Our Own was first published, it was met with scathing reviews--even demands that the book be taken from the shelves and burned. Steiger's desire to determine humankind's true origins has always been one of his greatest areas of interest, and he was shocked that both the scientific and religious establishments had reacted so negatively to the theories put forward in the book. Hostile reviewers fumed that Steiger had no right to reveal archaeological discoveries that could threaten the traditional timetables of human evolution. Eventually critics began to hail the book as "mostly brilliant" and "daring," and in the past couple of decades the concepts first presented in Worlds Before Our Own have garnered tremendous critical and popular support. This is the book that started it all. Brad Steiger's first explorations of the strange and unexplained appeared in 1956. He is the author/coauthor of 164 books in the paranormal, UFO, and prehistoric mystery fields, including such titles as Mysteries of Time and Space, Project Blue Book, Revelation: The Divine Fire, Conspiracies and Secret Societies, Strange Guests, and Shadow World."




Creativity, Problem Solving, and Aesthetics in Engineering


Book Description

This book illuminates what engineering is and how it relates to other disciplines such as art, architecture, law, economics, science, technology, and even religion. The author explains, from an intrinsic as well as descriptive perspective, why engineering is essential for our collective well-being, and how, like medicine, it is undertaken by people, and for people, to improve the human condition. He brings out the 'magic' of engineering practice as well as addressing the darker aspects such as warfare and the misuse of the internet. A too commonly held view assumes that the practice of engineers is a cold, purely quantitative and wholly technical enterprise of applying know science, and devoid of creativity or aestheticism. In 2013 the United States National Academy of Engineering launched a campaign called “Changing the Conversation, Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering” with four messages to impart about engineers: that they make a world of difference; are creative problem solvers; that they help shape the future, and are essential to health, happiness, and safety. In this volume, Professor Blockley incorporate these messages into an engaging exposition of engineering accomplishment in all of its evolving diversity, from the technician to the academic research engineer, illustrating the continuum of thinking and purpose from the fixer of the gas boiler to the designers of the A380 and the iPhone.




Texts and Their Worlds Ii


Book Description




What Is a Person?


Book Description

What is a person? This fundamental question is a perennial concern of philosophers and theologians. But, Christian Smith here argues, it also lies at the center of the social scientist’s quest to interpret and explain social life. In this ambitious book, Smith presents a new model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society. Finding much current thinking on personhood to be confusing or misleading, Smith finds inspiration in critical realism and personalism. Drawing on these ideas, he constructs a theory of personhood that forges a middle path between the extremes of positivist science and relativism. Smith then builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and William Sewell to demonstrate the importance of personhood to our understanding of social structures. From there he broadens his scope to consider how we can know what is good in personal and social life and what sociology can tell us about human rights and dignity. Innovative, critical, and constructive, What Is a Person? offers an inspiring vision of a social science committed to pursuing causal explanations, interpretive understanding, and general knowledge in the service of truth and the moral good.




Our Own Hymn-book


Book Description







Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience


Book Description

Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience is an exploration of the ideas and public discussions that have shaped and defined the experience of Kenyan coastal Muslims. Focusing on Kenyan postcolonial history, Kai Kresse isolates the ideas that coastal Muslims have used to separate themselves from their "upcountry Christian" countrymen. Kresse looks back to key moments and key texts—pamphlets, newspapers, lectures, speeches, radio discussions—as a way to map out the postcolonial experience and how it is negotiated in the coastal Muslim community. On one level, this is a historical ethnography of how and why the content of public discussion matters so much to communities at particular points in time. Kresse shows how intellectual practices can lead to a regional understanding of the world and society. On another level, this ethnography of the postcolonial experience also reveals dimensions of intellectual practice in religious communities and thus provides an alternative model that offers a non-Western way to understand regional conceptual frameworks and intellectual practice.




Memory and Methodology


Book Description

The increasing centrality of memory to work being done across a wide range of disciplines has brought along with it vexed questions and far-reaching changes in the way knowledge is pursued. This timely collection provides a forum for demonstrating how various disciplines are addressing these concerns. Is an historian's approach to memory similar to that of theorists in media or cultural studies, or are their understandings in fact contradictory? Which methods of analysis are most appropriate in which contexts? What are the relations between individual and social memory? Why should we study memory and how can it enrich other research? What does its study bring to our understanding of subjectivity, identity and power? In addressing these knotty questions, Memory and Methodology showcases a rich and diverse range of research on memory. Leading scholars in anthropology, history, film and cultural studies address topics including places of memory; trauma, film and popular memory; memory texts; collaborative memory work and technologies of memory. This timely and interdisciplinary study represents a major contribution to our understanding of how memory is shaping contemporary academic research and of how people shape and are shaped by memory.