The Departure

In a world devoid of hope, is revenge the only way out? The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from here, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. It governs a corrupt world, where the poor are starving – and are policed by mechanized overseers wielding identity-reader guns. There are also too many people and too few resources, so the Committee has decided twelve billion people must die. So they prepare to unleash the full power of their Station’s weaponry to make this happen. Alan Saul wakes to this world, confined in a crate bound for a Calais incinerator. He doesn’t know why he’s there; he only remembers pain and his tormentor’s face. And he has company: Janus, a rogue intelligence, who is inhabiting forbidden hardware in his skull. As Janus shows his host a damaged Earth, Saul resolves to discover who he was – and kill his interrogator. Next he will take on the Committee and topple their debased regime. The Departure is the first fast-paced book in the Owner trilogy by acclaimed science fiction author Neal Asher. 'Delivers plenty of thrills' – SFX 'Fast, dramatic stuff . . . rapid pace, great action, messy consequences' – SFFWorld 'I had an absolute blast with this book . . . his work really does get better and better' – FalcataTimes

From the author of the #1 bestselling The Atlantis Gene comes a new novel in which the world’s past and future rests in the hands of five unwitting strangers in this definitive edition of A. G. Riddle's time-traveling, mind-bending speculative thriller. En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind. Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they’ve crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home? Five passengers seem to hold clues about what’s really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw, the son of a billionaire philanthropist. As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they’re letting on—answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past—to save our world . . . or end it. A wildly inventive and propulsive adventure full of hairpin twists, Departure is a thrilling tale that weaves together power, ambition, fate, memory, and love, from a bold and visionary talent.

Their mission was to build a second home for humanity - but who knows if humanity will survive long enough to reach it? Setting forth on a six-year journey to Gliese 581g - Zarmina’s World - Daniel Medry and a crew of fellow scientists planned to explore a brand-new world potentially ripe for colonization - but when a man-made virus wipes out most of Earth’s population and leaves the rest infertile, their exploration mission becomes humanity’s only hope for survival. Alone in deep space, a series of equipment malfunctions occur that might not be accidental - and as the crew struggles for survival, some suspect that one of their own intends to keep them from making planetfall. With time running out, Daniel must stop the saboteur before humanity's last hope for survival is snuffed out in the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space. Gliese 581: The Departure is an exhilarating sci-fi thriller. If you like dystopian future worlds, second-chance heroes, and suspenseful mysteries, then you’ll love Christine Shuck’s gripping intergalactic thrill-ride.

The adventure begins when Meg’s mother, Addie, vacationing in Florida, takes a spill. At the hospital, Addie bolts upright on her gurney and yells “I demand an autopsy!” before passing out cold. “One minute, she is unconscious, the next, she’s nuts,” observes Meg Federico in this hilarious and poignant memoir of taking care of eighty-year-old Addie and her relatively new (and equally old) husband, Walter, in their not-so-golden years. Addie’s accident is a portent of things to come over the next two years as Meg oversees her mother’s home care in the Departure Lounge, the nickname Meg gives Addie and Walter’s house in suburban New Jersey. It is a place of odd behaviors and clashing caregivers, where chaos and confusion reign supreme. Meg had expected that Addie and Walter would settle into a Rockwellian dotage of docile dependency. Instead the pair regress into terrible teens. Meg watches from the sidelines in disbelief as her mother and stepfather, forbidden by doctors to drink, conspire to order cases of scotch by phone; as Addie’s attendant accuses the evening staff of midnight voodoo; as the increasingly demented Walter’s sex drive becomes unbridled and mail-order sex aids are delivered to the front door. Meg jumps in to cope with the pandemonium–even as she struggles to manage her own family back in Nova Scotia. With a fresh voice and a keen eye for the absurd, Meg Federico writes a story that will resonate with the generation now caring for their parents. Welcome to the Departure Lounge is a moving and madcap chronicle of a family–their moments of joy, the memories they’d rather forget, and the just plain loopiness of their situation. “How’s life at the Departure Lounge?” Meg’s brother asks. Meg doesn’t know where to start. “Let’s just say the drinks are outrageous, and they never run out of nuts.”

What was Paul's attitude toward his own death? How did he act and what did he say and write in view of it? What hopes did he hold for himself beyond death? Alexander N. Kirk explores these questions through a close reading of four Pauline letters that look ahead to Paul's death and other relevant texts in the first two generations after Paul's death (AD 70-160). The author studies portraits of the departed Paul in Acts, 1 Clement, the letters of Ignatius, Polycarp's letter To the Philippians, and the Martyrdom of Paul. He also examines portraits of the departing Paul in 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, and 2 Timothy, arguing that Paul's death did not primarily present an existential challenge, but a pastoral one. Although touching upon several areas of recent scholarly interest, Alexander N. Kirk sets forth a new research question and fresh interpretations of early Christian and Pauline texts.

Come, come and hear of the strange and terrible tale of Miss Finch, an exacting woman befallen by mystery and abduction deep under the streets of London! New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman delivers another stunning hardcover graphic novel with longtime collaborator Michael Zulli (Creatures of the Night, The Sandman). This is the first comics adaptation of his popular story "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch," which saw print only in the U.K. edition of Gaiman’s award-winning work Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions and was recently interpreted for his Speaking in Tongues CD. The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch is a "mostly true story" that combines the author’s trademark magic realism with Zulli’s sumptuous paintings, and has been newly rewritten for this hardcover. Join a group of friends, with the stern Miss Finch in tow, as they enter musty caverns for a subterranean circus spectacle called "The Theatre of Night’s Dreaming." Come inside, get out of the pounding rain, and witness this strange world of vampires, ringmasters, illusions and the Cabinet of Wishes Fulfill’d.