The Cybernetic Tea Shop

Clara Gutierrez is an AI repair technician and a wanderer. Her childhood with her migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering for too long, so she moves from place to place across retro-futuristic America. Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master's dream for the shop while slowly breaking down. They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on... A F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance. A story about artificial intelligence and real kindness, about love, and the feeling of watching steam rising softly from a teacup on a bright and quiet morning.

Death hides in the shadows. Following a sneak attack by the Azoren Federation, Captain Faith Benson seeks an alliance to save the Kedraalian Republic. But the threat is worse than anyone could have known, and the lines between enemy and ally constantly shift. With an unstable ideological zealot commanding a dangerous component of her allied fleet, Faith finds herself caught between enemies bent on genocidal solutions. Millions of lives depend on her every command. With her own government remaining conveniently silent on the tricky balance she walks, the choices she makes stand to end not only her career but the people she has dedicated her life to defending. Collecting books four, five, and six of the War in Shadow Saga, Last Shadow concludes the thrilling military science fiction space opera tale. If you enjoy high-energy action and intrigue, you’ll love this series.

What would you do to save your people? Captain Faith Benson brought the most powerful task force ever assembled into Gulmar space to form an alliance against their mutual enemies, the Azoren Federation. That alliance went out the window when the Gulmar capital was destroyed by an even greater threat: the Khanate. Now Benson and the last of the Gulmar security forces must travel to the Azoren home world of Himmel to strike a deal with their psychotic enemies. Without that deal, there's no chance they can stand against this new enemy. But the terms of the alliance may be worse than anyone expected, and it may cost Benson everything she holds dear. Get your copy of Shadow Pawn today, and dive into the thrilling world of intrigue and twisted betrayal.

A provocative new account of how India moved relentlessly from its hope-filled founding in 1947 to the dramatic economic and democratic breakdowns of today. When Indian leaders first took control of their government in 1947, they proclaimed the ideals of national unity and secular democracy. Through the first half century of nation-building, leaders could point to uneven but measurable progress on key goals, and after the mid-1980s, dire poverty declined for a few decades, inspiring declarations of victory. But today, a vast majority of Indians live in a state of underemployment and are one crisis away from despair. Public goods—health, education, cities, air and water, and the judiciary—are in woeful condition. And good jobs will remain scarce as long as that is the case. The lack of jobs will further undermine democracy, which will further undermine job creation. India is Broken provides the most persuasive account available of this economic catch-22. Challenging prevailing narratives, Mody contends that successive post-independence leaders, starting with its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, failed to confront India's true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead. As a popular frustration grew, and corruption in politics became pervasive, India's economic growth relied increasingly on unregulated finance and environmentally destructive construction. The rise of a violent Hindutva has buried all prior norms in civic life and public accountability. Combining statistical data with creative media, such as literature and cinema, to create strong, accessible, people-driven narratives, this book is a meditation on the interplay between democracy and economic progress, with lessons extending far beyond India. Mody proposes a path forward that is fraught with its own peril, but which nevertheless offers something resembling hope.

What's more frightening: The mask? Or the reason it's worn? Forced to flee her lover, the witch Wren Nocturne knows she still owes a debt. She must exact vengeance for those who resurrected her. Alone, and masquerading as an abused Firefly, she struggles to satisfy the blood curse threatening to tear her soul apart. With nightmarish beasts blocking her way, Wren’s search becomes a cat and mouse game with another powerful witch. Summer Helsdottir has returned, and this time, she's hunting Wren. Meanwhile, a steadfast Kaito Miyazaki races to find his lover before another technomancer tracks her down. Ready to put everything on the line to reconnect with Wren and keep his witch from facing a second death, he's hot on her trail but always one step behind. Will he catch up before either a witch-killing technomancer, soul-eating curse, or dangerous creature turns his beloved to dust? Wren is counting on her disguise to keep her safe but with peril at every turn, she may need more than magic to escape her fate.

World Weavers is the first ever study on the relationship between globalization and science fiction. Scientific innovations provide citizens of different nations with a unique common ground and the means to establish new connections with distant lands. This study attempts to investigate how our world has grown more and more interconnected not only due to technological advances, but also to a shared interest in those advances and to what they might lead to in the future. Science fiction has long been both literally and metaphorically linked to the emerging global village. It now takes on the task of exploring how the cybernetic revolution might transform the world and keep it one step ahead of the real world, despite ever-accelerating developments. As residents of a world that is undeniably globalized, science-fictional and virtual, it is incumbent on us to fully understand just how we came to live in such a world, and to envisage where this world may be heading next. World Weavers represents one small but significant step toward achieving such knowledge.

Every aspect of the science fiction classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is analyzed in a variety of quirky ways in this collection of essays. Topics include the logistics of the restaurant at the end of the universe, how the Internet is creating the real Hitchhiker's Guide, an assessment of Vogon poetry, and an analysis of computing. The essays are written by both science fiction greats, such as Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Stephen Baxter, Jacqueline Carey, and Alastair Reynolds, and up-and-coming writers.