So, there's this dragon. Well, it's not a real dragon, more of a, um, virtual dragon. The Thaumaturgical Physicists of Losa Llamas want it as security. Their real mistake was employing Cheiro Mancini, alchemist and Virtual Ecology Technician (VET for short), to install it. I mean, if it wasn't for him the Scroles wouldn't have been disturbed, and the Damnations would have stayed under control, and as for the Prime Evil ... In 101 Damnations, Andrew Harman introduces a whole new set of characters to the twin kingdoms of Rhyngill and Cranachan - and proves that they are just as incompetent as his previous heroes!
It's never easy addressing a crowd. Especially when the crowd is the entire world - live - and you're stuck for inspiration. And after the scientific proof that the Turin Shroud is real proves too difficult for Pope Joshua Angeles to use, all seems lost for him. However, when something crash-lands off the Irish coast and destroys the Chapel of St Tib's, he becomes very inspired. Unfortunately so do the US Military and the Secret Services of every major world power. Can Major-General Gelding III prevent the Pope proving that aliens exist - live on CNN? Will Father O'Suilleabhain have to mount the St Tib's Chapel Roof Repair Fund? When the angry parents of two eloping aliens appear at the edge of the solar system and start powering annihilation systems, it begins to look like no one will be around long enough to find out. Surely it'll take a miracle to save the planet?
Everybody needs a holiday, and demons are no exception. There may be an important election going on in the hellish city of Mortropolis, but most minds are on forthcoming breaks - maybe possession of a teenage nymphomaniac for a fortnight, or canoeing down the Styx with a packed lunch... But life in and around Cranachan was no picnic. Well, what with mad desert tribesman ram-raiding their farms, a series of mysterious murders, and the temperature hotting up it was almost as if Hell was breaking loose - literally!
Life as Clerk-in-Charge of Avocado Preservation in the Mountain City of Axototl was a real cushy number. Hurling a few bones about the place, peering into the future, foreseeing all the forthcoming problems screaming your way and making plans to dodge destiny's hurled brickbats. Piece of cake. Or at least it would have been if Quintzi Cohatl actually possessed anything even remotely resembling foresight. After forty years in the job his lies were getting a bit thin. So when a travelling salesman offered him a bargain crystal (with Scry Movie Channel option) how could he refuse? Certainly Merlot and the proto-mage Hogshead would have preferred it if he had. Then they wouldn't have a clump of murdered wizards dumped in the River Slove on their hands. And as for the folks of Axolotl - they wouldn't have had to discover the amazing explosive potential of a few hundred prize melons.
When Audrey Williams comes around from an eight-week coma it seems that an experiment in animal therapy is working - having animals present in the recovery rooms actually does speed up recovery. But when an unfortunate incident with a can of Mr Sheen results in the untimely death of a golden hamster, things start to take a turn for the stranger ...Look out for more information on this book and others on the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk
All is not well in the kingdom of Rhyngill. Despite regular payment of tithes, including PAYE (Pay As You Eat), the citizens are all tired and underfed. Firkin, a lad who is definitely alpha plus in the get-up-and-go department, blames the king, and sets out to find an assassin who will rid the kingdom of its ruler. But little does he know that the real villain is someone else entirely - or that the origins of his friends' troubles involve lemmings, pigeons and heavy earth-moving equipment. It takes a pieman, a magician and a knight with a North Country accent to help Firkin see the error of his ways!
Never mind anti-anti-anti missiles or thermonuclear chilled eels, the Ultimate Weapons are Rana Militaria: The Frogs of War. Have your head off as soon as look at you they would. Hidden in a forgotten village of Losa Llamas, they are discovered by the slimy Snydewinder, ex-Lord Chancellor of Rhyngill and a thoroughly bad lot. And after a temporary halt, his world domination plans are back on track. Little do Firkin and his friends know that, when they attempt to help King Klayth out of a hole, they will fall headfirst into a whirl of time travel, Thaumaturgical Physicists and extremely unpleasant amphibians!
At SPLICE OF LIFE PATENTABLE BIOSCIENCE LTD the excitement of discovery is rising by the minute. Professor Crickson has seen the future - and it tastes like chicken. The Prof can unite vegetarians and carnivores by implanting the genes of said flavour into those of corn. Chicken Fed Corn. It's bound to outstrip his previous culinary inventions: Boil-in-the-Bag Gazpacho, Microwavable Steak Tartare and Oven-Bake Sushi. But someone - or something - has other ideas. As well as problems with a chicken rustler, the Professor finds vital pieces of equipment vanishing from his lab, and essential orders never arriving. Industrial espionage? If only it were that simple.
Kings have been known to get a bit shirty. Beheading jugglers for spilling gravy on the royal sleeve, murdering firstborn sons throughout the kingdom and so forth. Standard operational procedure. But Firkin's friend, young King Klayth? Surely not. Things Cannot Be What They Seem. Returning from their previous adventure, Firkin, Hogshead and Dawn find themselves dumped unceremoniously in the smoking wreckage of a village. Their village. Now they have to unpick the twisted stitches of Time which they caused in the first place. Unless they act quickly, the entire fabric of the Space-Tome Continuum could be at risk. Oh yes, they also have to find their friend Courgette. And their only tools are magic, blind stupidity and a sword called Exbenedict!
When two feyries, living underneath the quiet town of Camford, are ordered by their Queen to prove that salamanders do, in fact, exist, it calls for desperate measures. Thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering they do manage to bring to life some of the mythical creatures - but unfortunately they are not able to stop them escaping. The unsuspecting folk of Camford are in the for the shock of their lives, but for Laurel Miles the appearance of the salamanders heralds something far more cataclysmic. And you can't get much more cataclysmic than the end of the world ...!
Posthumanism in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut: Matter That Complains So re-examines the prevailing critical consensus that Kurt Vonnegut was a humanist writer. While more difficult elements of his work have often been the subject of scholarly attention, the tendency amongst critics writing on Vonnegut is to disavow them, or to subsume them within a liberal humanist framework. When Vonnegut’s work is read from a posthumanist perspective, however, the productive paradoxes of his work are more fully realised. Drawing on New Materialist, Eco-Critical and Systems Theory methodologies, this book highlights posthumanist themes in six of Vonnegut’s most famous novels, and emphasises the ways in which Vonnegut troubles human/non-human, natural/artificial, and material/discursive hierarchical binaries
Normative ethical theories generally purport to be explanatory--to tell us not just what is good, or what conduct is right, but why. Drawing on both historical and contemporary approaches, Mark Schroeder offers a distinctive picture of how such explanations must work, and of the specific commitments that they incur. According to Schroeder, explanatory moral theories can be perfectly general only if they are reductive, offering accounts of what it is for something to be good, right, or what someone ought to do. So ambitious, highly general normative ethical theorizing is continuous with metaethical inquiry. Moreover, he argues that such explanatory theories face a special challenge in accounting for reasons or obligations that are universally shared, and develops an autonomy-based strategy for meeting this challenge, in the case of requirements of rationality. Explaining the Reasons We Share pulls together over a decade of work by one of the leading figures in contemporary metaethics. One new and ten previously published papers weave together treatments of reasons, reduction, supervenience, instrumental rationality, and legislation, to paint a sharp contrast between two plausible but competing pictures of the nature and limits of moral explanation--one from Cudworth and one indebted to Kant. A substantive new introduction provides a map to reading these essays as a unified argument, and qualifies their conclusions in light of Schroeder's current views. Along with its sister volume, Expressing Our Attitudes, this volume advances the theme that metaethical inquiry is continuous with other areas of philosophy.
In The Best Australian Humorous Writing, Andrew O'Keefe and Steve Vizard corral our funniest minds and canniest observers into one entertaining anthology. The writers bring a unique antipodean mirth to everything that has touched our lives in recent times-from Sir Ian McKellen disrobing on stage to busting up the Logies, from the privatisation of Telstra to the curves of Nigella Lawson, from the perils of entertaining children to the perennial outrage that modern telecommunications offers. Among the contributors: Phillip Adams * David Astle * Graeme Blundell * The Chaser Kaz Cooke * Ian Cuthbertson * Mark Dapin * Catherine Deveny Frank Devine *Alexander Downer * Dame Edna Everage * Charles Firth Germaine Greer * Gideon Haigh * Marieke Hardy * Wendy Harmer Clive James * Danny Katz * Malcolm Knox * John Lethlean * Mungo MacCallum * Shane Maloney * Shaun Micallef * Paul Mitchell * Les Murray * Guy Rundle * Roy Slaven * Tony Wilson * Julia Zemiro
The Christ Is Dead, Long Live the Christ: A Philotheologic Prayer, a Hermeneutics of Healing is a call for renewal and reinvention. Following a brief examination of the historical Jesus (Yeshua, using his actual Aramaic/Hebrew name), the book moves into a phenomenological study of the image, idea, and the place of both in our felt experiences. Looking closer at what we think were the actual words of this wandering sage, the picture we arrive at is one that will surprise, possibly unsettle. Moved out of our traditional comfort zones, we find the need to question what we have been told were Yeshua's teachings, compelling us to further rethink messages on the afterlife, human finitude, so-called atonement theologies, and above all the "kingdom of God." Whatever this vision was--and might yet be--it seems central to Yeshua's efforts, and so we finally weigh these "kingdom" facets against a broader ideascape, offering suggestions for how a Yeshuan "kingdom" project situated within the panoply of a widely comprehended Judaic way-of-being might yield fresh life to we who find worth in the utterances and what they point towards, to we who wonder about a more human(e) world.
How much freedom of action does an ambitious reforming party have as it moves from opposition to government? Drawing on original research and first-hand interviews, Andrew Connell analyses the development of welfare reform policy following New Labour's ascent to power in 1997 to show how ideas, actors, and structures can constrain policy options. He looks at the contrasting ideas of Frank Field, Minister for Welfare Reform in 1997-8, and of Gordon Brown, and shows how Brown's approach eventually came to prevail. The book also includes a unique exposition of Field's political and social philosophy, showing how his consistent Christian socialist beliefs influenced his work as Minister for Welfare Reform. "Welfare Policy under New Labour" will be essential reading for scholars of contemporary politics and social policy and for those interested in New Labour and welfare reform.
The goal of this book is to foster a basic understanding of factor analytic techniques so that readers can use them in their own research and critically evaluate their use by other researchers. Both the underlying theory and correct application are emphasized. The theory is presented through the mathematical basis of the most common factor analytic models and several methods used in factor analysis. On the application side, considerable attention is given to the extraction problem, the rotation problem, and the interpretation of factor analytic results. Hence, readers are given a background of understanding in the the theory underlying factor analysis and then taken through the steps in executing a proper analysis -- from the initial problem of design through choice of correlation coefficient, factor extraction, factor rotation, factor interpretation, and writing up results. This revised edition includes introductions to newer methods -- such as confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling -- that have revolutionized factor analysis in recent years. To help remove some of the mystery underlying these newer, more complex methods, the introductory examples utilize EQS and LISREL. Updated material relating to the validation of the Comrey Personality Scales also has been added. Finally, program disks for running factor analyses on either an IBM-compatible PC or a mainframe with FORTRAN capabilities are available. The intended audience for this volume includes talented but mathematically unsophisticated advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and research workers seeking to acquire a basic understanding of the principles supporting factor analysis. Disks are available in 5.25" and 3.5" formats for both mainframe programs written in Fortran and IBM PCs and compatibles running a math co-processor.
Forty miles out into the Atlantic from the western isles of Scotland lies the archipelago of St Kilda. Home to human populations for more than 4000 years, the islands inhabitants were evacuated from the main island in 1930 leaving it as a haven for wildlife, a tourist destination and workplace for those studying and monitoring the islands ecology and its radar station built in the 1950s. Many of those writing about St Kilda have emphasised the remoteness and insularity of its environment, describing its population as having endured a wretched and isolated existence marooned on an archipelago miles from civilisation. In this book Andrew Fleming challenges such interpretations. His history of the islands reviews the archaeological evidence for the first inhabitants before 2000 BC, how they lived and survived, and how they became integrated into the wider world. Much of the book focuses on more recent times where documentary sources relay in great detail the lives of St Kildans over the past few centuries; how they farmed, administered justice, took on communal responsibilities, their religious, and other, beliefs, the impact of visitors to the islands, and how events outside of the islands had an impact on their lives. Described as a historical drama, this is an excellent story of a remote island community which has been mythologised by many commentators. Superb photographs do much of the work of description.
Hicks & Goo's Cases and Materials on Company Law guides students through the complexities of company law with a broad selection of source materials, extracts from governmental and non-governmental sources as well as traditional cases and materials, that are placed in context with clear commentary. It covers all the principal areas of company law including corporate governance issues and securities and insolvency. The book concentrates on how the law facilitates and regulates the operation of companies, both large and small, reflecting the realities of current practice. Each section is preceded by a concise introduction to help students understand the significance of the material presented. Similarly, each case is preceded by a statement of its legal significance and a summary of the main facts. The book has been fully updated to include classic materials whilst retaining the breadth of sources. The contents have been restructured to reflect the way the course is taught and chapter introductions have been developed to place each chapter in context and examine how these relate to the subject as a whole.
...provides everything you want in a case book: a stimulating, thought-provoking and up to date account of contract law. It combines both fantastic academic commentary and superbly selected materials making it simply one of the best contract law casebooks.' Student Law Journal This is the seventh, fully updated, edition of Professor Burrows' Casebook, offering law students the ideal way to discover and understand contract law through reading highlights from the leading cases. Designed to be used either on its own or to supplement a contract law textbook, this book covers the undergraduate contract law course in a series of clearly presented and carefully structured chapters. The author provides an expert introduction to each topic and his succinct notes and questions seek to guide students to a proper understanding of the cases. The relevant statutes are also set out along with a principled analysis of them. In addition to cross-references to further discussion in the leading textbooks, an innovative feature is the summary of leading academic articles in each chapter. The book is designed not to overwhelm students by its length but covers all aspects of the law of contract most commonly found in the undergraduate curriculum.
Offering an innovative approach to the Gothic, Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety breaks ground with a new materialist analysis of the genre, highlighting the ways that, since its origins in the eighteenth century, the Gothic has been intensely focused on “ominous matter” and “thing power.” In chapters attending to gothic bodies, spaces, books, and other objects, Gothic Things argues that the Gothic has always been about what happens when objects assume mysterious animacy or potency and when human beings are reduced to the status of just one thing among many—more powerful—others. In exploring how the Gothic insistently decenters the human, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock reveals human beings to be enmeshed in networks of human and nonhuman forces mostly outside of their control. Gothic Things thus resituates the Gothic as the uncanny doppelgänger of twenty-first-century critical and cultural theory, lurking just beneath the surface (and sometimes explicitly surfacing) as it haunts considerations of how human beings interact with objects and their environment. In these pages the Gothic offers a dark reflection of the contemporary “nonhuman turn,” expressing a twenty-first-century structure of feeling undergirded by anxiety over the fate of the human: spectrality, monstrosity, and apocalypse. Substituting horror for hope, the Gothic, Weinstock explains, has been a philosophical meditation on human relations to the nonhuman since its inception, raising significant questions about how we can counter anthropocentric thought in our quest to live more harmoniously with the world around us.
Blurred: Selves Made and Selves Making draws on resources from philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, neuroscience, and psychological research to present a uniquely realist self-concept. Continental, Analytic, and applied philosophy all play a part in this groundbreaking undertaking.
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