Drowning World

This fast-paced narrative by the author of 'Crash' and 'Empire of the Sun' is a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.

“A fast, fun read for fans of Foster’s fantastic alien worlds . . . Driven by political intrigue and wilderness adventure, this is SF of noble vintage.”—Booklist Fluva, the Drowning World, is a rain-drenched planet on the fringes of the Commonwealth whose indigenous species, the warlike Sakuntala, and its immigrant species, the hardworking Deyzara, stand on the brink of civil war. The wettest place on Fluva is Viisiiviisii, an immense jungle thriving with exotic plants and deadly predators. Endless rains have made the jungle a treasure trove of rare and valuable botanicals. A man can get rich there. Or die trying. Bio-prospector Shadrach Hasselemoga has come to seek his fortune—if he survives the terrain once his sabotaged ship goes down. When a Sakuntala and a Deyzara are dispatched to rescue the unfortunate soul, their ship crashes, too. Now, in order to survive, the three unlikely allies must do something that no one has ever done before: escape the Viisiiviisii before it consumes them. . . . “[A] rousing SF adventure packed with action, intriguing human and alien characters, and a message of strength through diversity.”—Library Journal “Surefire entertainment . . . The author’s mastery of his exotic setting cannot be denied.”—Publishers Weekly

New love. Exotic destinations. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure. What could go wrong? City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that's as exhilarating as it is terrifying. Somewhere mid-Pacific, she finds herself battling to keep the old boat, the new relationship, and her floundering sanity afloat. . . . This sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and always poignant memoir is set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations. Equal parts love story and travel memoir, Love with a Chance of Drowning is witty, charming, and proof positive that there are some risks worth taking.

Is your business looking out? The world today is drowning in data. There is a treasure trove of valuable and underutilized insights that can be gleaned from information companies and people leave behind on the internet - our 'digital breadcrumbs' - from job postings, to online news, social media, online ad spend, patent applications and more. As a result, we're at the cusp of a major shift in the way businesses are managed and governed - moving from a focus solely on lagging, internal data, toward analyses that also encompass industry-wide, external data to paint a more complete picture of a brand's opportunities and threats and uncover forward-looking insights, in real time. Tomorrow's most successful brands are already embracing Outside Insight, benefitting from an information advantage while their competition is left behind. Drawing on practical examples of transformative, data-led decisions made by brands like Apple, Facebook, Barack Obama and many more, in Outside Insight, Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen illustrates the future of corporate decision-making and offers a detailed plan for business leaders to implement Outside Insight thinking into their company mindset and processes.

"A literary knockout with the loudest of beating hearts." John Corey Whaley, Printz Award winner of Where Things Come Back Olivia has spent her whole life struggling to escape her dead mother’s shadow. But when her father can’t even look at her because Olivia reminds him of her mother, and her grandmother mistakenly calls her “Lillian,” shaking a reputation she didn’t ask for is next to impossible. Olivia is used to leaning on her best friend, Jamie; her handsome but hot-tempered boyfriend, Max; and their wild-child friend, Maggie, for the reality check that her small Louisiana town can’t provide. But when a terrible fight between Jamie and his father turns deadly, all Olivia can think to do is grab her friends and run. In a flash, Olivia, Jamie, Max, and Maggie become fugitives on the back roads of Louisiana. They’re headed to New Orleans, where they hope to find a solution to an unfixable problem. But with their faces displayed on all the news stations, their journey becomes a harrowing game of hide-and-seek from the police—and so-called allies, who just might be the real enemy. Shalanda Stanley’s breathtaking debut novel explores the deep ties between legacy, loyalty, and love, even as it asks the question: How far would you go to save a friend?

When you look through the porthole of your berth aboard the ship, what do you see? The raging ocean? A lone iceberg? The world as it once was, now receding into the distance? Likewise, when you peer through your telescope at the distant boat, what do you see? An approaching storm? A drowning man? The future, drifting forever out of reach? In their latest book, Doctor Falke's Oraculum, Kahn & Selesnick invite you to look through the peep hole where you shall find scenes of people trying to parse that which is to come, speak with those departed, or just finding their pleasure amid the florid decay of a world in decline. For when personal and societal mythologies supersede facts, when the promise of virtual realities threaten to supersede the real thing, what better way to approach an uncertain future than through the arcane method of augury-after all, is not prophecy the original fake news?The Oraculum continues the adventures of the Truppe Fledermaus, a cabaret troupe of anxious mummers and would-be mystics who catalogue their absurdist attempts to augur a future that seems increasingly in peril due to environmental pressures and global turmoil. Presented as an unbound collection of photographs and text, the Oraculum is by turns a travelogue, an oracle, an art book, a box of prints, a meditation on the future, and an instruction manual of interpretative dance moves. The loose nature of the pages allow the viewer to treat this volume as a bibliomancy oracle where pages can be shuffled and selected at random to receive messages and prophecy, much as one uses the tarot and other cartomancy decks.The artists also examine the notion of the carnivalesque-traditionally the carnival was a time when the normal order of society was upended and reversed, so that at least for a day the fool might become king, men and women might cross dress, and sacred ceremonies and normal mores were spoofed. The Truppe ask you to consider: is it the carnival that is upside-down, or perhaps the real world that it purports to burlesque?

A complex, haunting novel that explores a schizophrenic young artist’s struggles with her perception of reality… including an intriguing ghostly woman who appears to her in the most mysterious ways. India Morgan Phelps—Imp to her friends—is trying to write her memoir, but she struggles with the unreliability of her own mind. Suffering from schizophrenia, as well as comorbid anxiety and OCD, Imp has a difficult time separating fantasy from reality. But for her, it’s most important to tell her “truth.” And for Imp, that truth comes through a stream-of-consciousness tale of her love story with her transgender girlfriend, as well as Imp’s obsession with a mysterious woman whom she finds naked and mute at the side of the road. Imp must push past her mental illness—or work with it—to piece together her memories and tell her story. A rich exploration of mental illness, gender identity, and creative process, The Drowning Girl delivers an eerie and powerful story of a woman’s efforts to discover the truth that’s locked away in her own head. “Caitlín R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard […] of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic—those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness.”—Peter Straub