Infernal

A fierce, searing response to the chaos of the war on terror—an utterly original and blackly comic debut In the early years of the Iraq War, a severely burned boy appears on a remote rock formation in the Akkad Valley. A shadowy, powerful group within the U.S. government speculates: Who is he? Where did he come from? And, crucially, what does he know? In pursuit of that information, an interrogator is summoned from his prison cell, and a hideous and forgotten apparatus of torture, which extracts "perfect confessions," is retrieved from the vaults. Over the course of four days, a cavalcade of voices rises up from the Akkad boy, each one striving to tell his or her own story. Some of these voices are familiar: Osama bin Laden, L. Paul Bremer, Condoleezza Rice, Mark Zuckerberg. Others are less so. But each one has a role in the world shaped by the war on terror. Each wants to tell us: This is the world as it exists in our innermost selves. This is what has been and what might be. This is The Infernal.

'If Jack Reacher came to Westeros and started beating the hell out of everybody, you’d have Mark De Jager’s Infernal ... daring, dangerous, and full of surprises' Sebastien de Castell, author of Traitor's Blade NO MEMORIES. NO MERCY. Stratus wakes alone, with no memory of his past. All he knows is his name and that he is not human. Possessing immense strength, powerful sorcery and an insatiable hunger, he sets out across a world blighted by dark magic. Hunted by relentless enemies, Stratus must learn who – and what – he truly is, or risk plunging the world into ruin...

Infernal Affairs has received journalistic, popular and corporate notice but little vigorous critical attention. In this book, Gina Marchetti explores the way this example of Hong Kong's cinematic eclecticism has crossed borders as a story, a commercial product and a work of art; and has had an undeniable impact on current Hong Kong cinema. Moreover, she uses this trilogy to highlight the way Hong Kong cinema continues to be inextricably intertwined with global film culture and the transnational movie market. Infernal Affairs served as the source for the Academy Award-winning film The Departed (2006). The Martin Scorsese-directed film won Oscars for best motion picture, director, adapted screenplay and film editing. This is the first time that an American film based on a Hong Kong production swept the Academy Awards by winning four top prizes.

This provocative and unique work reveals the remarkably influential role of futuristic literature on contemporary political power in America. Tracing this phenomenon from its roots in Victorian Britain, Rumors of War and Infernal Machines offers a fascinating exploration of how fictional speculations on emergent or imaginary military technologies profoundly influence the political agendas and actions of modern superpower states. Gannon convincingly demonstrates that military fiction anticipated and even influenced the evolution of the tank, the development of the airplane, and also the bitter political battles within Britain's War Office and the Admiralty. In the United States, future-fictions and Cold-War thrillers were an officially acknowledged factor in the Pentagon's research and development agendas, and often gave rise_and shape_to the nation's strategic development of technologies as diverse as automation, atomic weaponry, aerospace vehicles, and the Strategic Defense Initiative ('Star Wars'). His book reveals a striking relationship between the increasing political influence of speculative military fiction and the parallel rise of superpower states and their technocentric ideologies. With its detailed political, historical, and literary analysis of U.S. and British fascination with hi-tech warfare, this lively and revealing study will appeal to students, literary and cultural scholars, military and history enthusiasts, and general readers.

Grand Grimoire of Infernal Pacts is a modern interpretation of Goetic Theurgy (self-transformation via demonic powers) from a Luciferian approach. The aim of Goetic Theurgy is to utilize spirits and primal forces to attain insight and fulfill short and long term goals. The myth of "selling your soul" to the devil is revealed to be nothing more than a fantasy created by fearful minds, the true nature of the infernal pact is to enter a covenant with powers perceived as dangerous, control them and guide them according to your will for spiritual and carnal insight and power. The Grand Grimoire has been adapted to modern Luciferian practice, removing the Judeo-Christian prayers and literally restoring the infernal gods and spirits to their ancient pagan origins devoid of the duality of good and evil. The rites of invocation and evocation, visualizing and writing a pact of agreement between the spirit and sorcerer to achieve goals are clearly presented.