Operation Sleeping Dragon

In a desperate attempt to avoid defeat, the Japanese High Command devise Operation Sleeping Dragon. A sub carrying the virus disappears in the last days of WWII so the operation remained a secret, until now.

China, the greatest empire the world had ever known, is weak and divided after a series of humiliating defeats in the Opium Wars, and the divine Empress' court harbours many who deeply resent the westerners who inflicted and now take advantage of these losses. Japan, on the other hand, has embraced the West with open arms. After centuries of isolation the Japanese now march forwards and accept technologies that, a few decades before, would have been regarded as witchcraft. Possessed of the East's most modern army, Japan now looks avariciously towards its neighbours. The next decade will decide whether the ancient empires of the East survive or are washed away, and every one of the Great Powers wants their slice.

World War II rages on in the European and Pacific fronts. Troy, ‘Tank’, Connors, an American soldier serving in France is severely wounded. He is discharged from the military and returns home to North Carolina to rehabilitate. Back home he and his young wife must somehow put their lives back together. His life is again turned upside down when he accepts a job at an unknown government town with no name or address in the mountains of New Mexico. There, he joins an elite group of scientists working on a top secret government program; the Manhattan Project, building the first atomic bomb. The twists and turns mount as Tank, at one point, is wrongly accused of international espionage. Tank becomes a hunted man. He has few allies on his side. In the climax scene it takes a daring move to save himself.

Former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey and former Romanian acting spy chief Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 1978, describe why Russia remains an extremely dangerous force in the world, and they finally and definitively put to rest the question of who killed President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. All evidence points to the fact that the assassination—carried out by Lee Harvey Oswald—was ordered by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, acting through what was essentially the Russian leader’s personal army, the KGB (now known as the FSB). This evidence, which is codified as most things in foreign intelligence are, has never before been jointly decoded by a top U.S. foreign intelligence leader and a former Soviet Bloc spy chief familiar with KGB patterns and codes. Meanwhile, dozens of conspiracy theorists have written books about the JFK assassination during the past fifty-six years. Most of these theories blame America and were largely triggered by the KGB disinformation campaign implemented in the intense effort to remove Russia’s own fingerprints that blamed in turn Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, secretive groups of American oilmen, Howard Hughes, Fidel Castro, and the Mafia. Russian propaganda sowed hatred and contempt for the U.S. quite effectively, and its operations have morphed into many forms, including the recruitment of global terror groups and the backing of enemy nation- states. Yet it was the JFK assassination, with its explosive aftermath of false conspiracy theories, that set the model for blaming America first.

From Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt comes the eighth installment in the popular The Academy series—Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good. Hutch has been the Academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war. Despite taking part in the recent scientific breakthrough that rejuvenates the human body and expands one’s lifespan, Hutch finds herself as a famous interstellar pilot with little to do, until a message from an alien race arrives. The message is a piece of music from an unexplored area. Despite the fact that this alien race could pose a great danger and that this message could have taken several thousand years to travel, the program prepares the last interstellar ship for the journey. As the paranoia grows, Hutch and her crew make an early escape—but what they find at the other end of the galaxy is completely unexpected.

Revised and expanded edition of the punk classic with six new interviews and a new introduction, bringing the definitive book of conversations with the underground's greatest minds up to 2007. New interviews include talks with bands like The Gossip and Maritime, a conversation with punk legend Bob Mould and many more. Punk Planet has consistently explored the crossover of punk with activism, reflecting the currents of the underground while simultaneously challenging the bleak centrism of today's popular culture.