The Chimera's Curse


Book Description

A fantasy series about a secret society sworn to protect mythical creatures and the girl who becomes its most important member.




Chimera's Children


Book Description

A comprehensive survey of the current context and ethical implications of human-nonhuman genetic combinations. The idea of human-nonhuman combinations has been a recurrent theme throughout the history of humanity. From the myths of the Minotaur and the centaurs in ancient Greece to the dogheads of the Middle Ages right through to the monsters of modern science fiction, these beings have always been a source of fascination. In recent years, however, biomedical advances have demonstrated the potential to make these entities a reality through the creation of inter-species combinations. As a result, pressing and perplexing ethical questions arise. Introducing the reader to the historical context of human-nonhuman experimentation and potential future developments, this volume offers clarification, analysis and a thorough overview of the ethical challenges relating to human-nonhuman chimeras, true hybrids, cybrids and other combinations. This book is the first accessible survey of the different ethical dilemmas facing contemporary society in the creation of human-nonhuman embryonic, foetal and postnatal entities. These include important cultural, legal, philosophical and religious perspectives. As such it will act as a springboard for future debate.




Daughter of Smoke & Bone


Book Description

The first book in the New York Times bestselling epic fantasy trilogy by award-winning author Laini Taylor Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out. When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?




Chimeras, Hybrids, and Interspecies Research


Book Description

In his 2006 State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush asked the U.S. Congress to prohibit the "most egregious abuses of medical research," such as the "creation of animal–human hybrids." The president's message echoed that of a 2004 report by the President's Council on Bioethics, which recommended that hybrid human–animal embryos be banned by Congress. Discussions of early interspecies research, in which cells or DNA are interchanged between humans and nonhumans at early stages of development, can often devolve into sweeping statements, colorful imagery, and confusing policy. Although today's policy advisory groups are becoming more informed, debate is still limited by the interchangeable use of terms such as chimeras and hybrids, a tendency to treat all forms of interspecies alike, the failure to distinguish between laboratory research and procreation, and not enough serious policy justification. Andrea Bonnicksen seeks to understand reasons behind support of and disdain for interspecies research in such areas as chimerism, hybridization, interspecies nuclear transfer, cross-species embryo transfer, and transgenics. She highlights two claims critics make against early interspecies studies: that the research will violate human dignity and that it can lead to procreation. Are these claims sufficient to justify restrictive policy? Bonnicksen carefully illustrates the challenges of making policy for sensitive and often sensationalized research—research that touches deep-seated values and that probes the boundary between human and nonhuman animals.




Chimera


Book Description

The deadliest threats… …Come from within. Can Anna escape the demons of her past? Hers isn’t the only life at stake. Pearce is on the run, but he won’t rest until he’s taken back control of AbGen. And he’ll destroy anyone who tries to stand in his way. Has freedom cost Anna her edge? In the face of a deadly new threat, she must find a way to unite AbGen and the Ishmaelians under a new leader. If she fails, the fate of every living absa will be sealed. With Scott by her side, can Anna triumph over the final adversity, or will she make the ultimate sacrifice? You’ll love this gripping urban fantasy because there comes a time when every hero must choose to stand and fight. Get it now.




The Children's Encyclopedia


Book Description




The Custom-Made Child?


Book Description

Women most fully experience the consequences of human reproductive technologies. Men who convene to evaluate such technologies discuss "them": the women who must accept, avoid, or even resist these technologies; the women who consume technologies they did not devise; the women who are the objects of policies made by men. So often the input of women is neither sought nor listened to. The privileged insights and perspectives that women bring to the consideration of technologies in human reproduction are the subject of these volumes, which constitute the revised and edited record of a Workshop on "Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction Technology: Analysis by Women" (EIRTAW), held in June, 1979, at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Some 80 members of the workshop, 90 percent of them women (from 24 states), represented diverse occupations and personal histories, different races and classes, varied political commitments. They included doctors, nurses, and scientists, lay midwives, consumer advocates, historians, and sociologists, lawyers, policy analysts, and ethicists. Each session, however, made plain that ethics is an everyday concern for women in general, as well as an academic profession for some.




Chimera


Book Description

In CHIMERAJohn Barth injects his signature wit into the tales of Scheherezade of the Thousand and One Nights, Perseus, the slayer of Medusa, and Bellerophon, who tamed the winged horse Pegasus. In a book that the Washington Post called "stylishly maned, tragically songful, and serpentinely elegant,” Barth retells these tales from varying perspectives, examining the myths’ relationship to reality and their resonance with the contemporary world. A winner of the National Book Award, this feisty, witty, sometimes bawdy book provoked Playboy to comment, "There’s every chance in the world that John Barth is a genius.”




Death Stalks the Fire Child


Book Description

Death Stalks the Fire Child is the fourth and final book of the Fire Child series. In Return of the Fire Child, T.J. grudgingly accepts his destiny as the Fire Child, protector of the Inner World, a civilization located within the core of the Earth. Along with his three teen friends, Scott, Chad and Crash, he returns to the land of his birth to battle the evil that threatens not only his world, but also the surface world where he had been raised. Pursued by a Gorgon and her legion of cats, his friends soon learn that the Inner World is a land filled with strange creatures and dangerous beasts such as the boys had never imagined. In Quest of the Fire Child, T.J. seeks to establish himself as the protector of his world and faces new dangers from ruthless men and creatures that wish to destroy him. Once again he calls upon his three friends who, along with the wolf boy, Criton, risk their lives attempting to bring peace to a world in turmoil. It is during this time that T.J. learns that Scott is his half-brother and the bond between the two boys becomes stronger than ever as they see how their fates are intertwined. Fortress of the Fire Child finds T.J. and his friends facing further dangers in the form of Aquatis, a ruthless shape shifter who once battled the Fire Childs father and who seeks revenge against the son. Intrigue also continues as Mathias, T.J.s arch enemy, reappears and attempts to regain the throne of Stonemass, the chief city of the Inner World. Additional danger ensues as an army of mercenaries attempts to attack the Fortress, the home of the Fire Child. Now in Death Stalks the Fire Child, T.J. finds himself battling enemies on two separate fronts and he must rely upon the strength of his friends and their newly acquired powers to face one enemy while he faces the other. While Scott and the others hurry to protect Stonemass from a horde of mutant lizards, T.J. travels to the swampland to face the evil Slurpus who controls Liviatin, the most powerful creature the Fire Child has ever had to face.




Chimeras


Book Description

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A TROUBLED MAN The world of Chimeras is very like our own. But for one difference. In Christopher Evans' evocatively portrayed land, some people have an incredible gift. They can create dazzling works of art from the nothingness of the space before them. Moving statues of incandescent gold shimmer into life, literally out of the air. The very best artists conjure wonderful pageants of soldiers glorious in battle or rich Lords helping the common man. They bring a little magic into the drudgery of the peasants' lives - and re-write history into the bargain. Chimeras tells the story of Vendavo, the greatest artist of them all. He's the man sought after by Jormalu, the new leader of the ruthless Hierarchy, to produce images, statues and public performances in his honour. Vendavo agrees - it is prestigious work. But there are rumblings of discontent in the land and rumours of revolution. If it succeeds, Vendavo might be compromised.