The Divers Game

From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? The Divers’ Game explores the consequences of violence through two festivals, and through the dramatic and excruciating examination of a woman’s final moments. Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience. With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerizing talents.

Joel Ross debuts a thrilling adventure series in which living in the sky is the new reality and a few determined slum kids just might become heroes. This Texas Bluebonnet selection—a fantasy filled with daring and hope and a wonderfully imaginative world—is perfect for fans of Rick Riordan and Brandon Mull. Once the Fog started rising, the earth was covered with a deadly white mist until nothing remained but the mountaintops. Now humanity clings to its highest peaks, called the Rooftop, where the wealthy Five Families rule over the lower slopes and floating junkyards. Thirteen-year-old Chess and his friends Hazel, Bea, and Swedish sail their rickety air raft over the deadly Fog, scavenging the ruins for anything they can sell to survive. But now survival isn't enough. They must risk everything to get to the miraculous city of Port Oro, the only place where their beloved Mrs. E can be cured of fogsickness. Yet the ruthless Lord Kodoc is hot on their trail, for Chess has a precious secret, one that Kodoc is desperate to use against him. Now Chess will face any danger to protect his friends, even if it means confronting what he fears the most.

The New York Times and USA Today bestselling series Betrayal and sacrifice in the skies ... Ten years ago, Hell Diver Xavier "X" Rodriguez fell to Earth. Those he left behind went on without him aboard the airship he once called home. Michael Everhart--the boy once known as Tin--has grown into a man and the commander of Hell Diver Raptor Team. While Michael dives to help keep the Hive in the air, Captain Leon Jordan rules with an iron fist at the helm of the ship. But unrest stirs under his strict leadership as a prophecy of hope sweeps the lower decks. When a mysterious distress signal calls the Hell Divers to the surface, Michael and his loyal team begin to uncover long-buried truths and the secrets Captain Jordan will do anything to keep. They dive so humanity survives ... but will they survive the ultimate betrayal? Nicholas Sansbury Smith delivers another heart-pounding thriller in Hell Divers II: Ghosts, the second book in the acclaimed science fiction series.

From the acclaimed author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers comes a tensely drawn, spellbinding literary thriller that gets to the heart of what defines us as human beings—the singular identity we create for ourselves in the world and the myriad alternative identities that lie just below the surface. In Vendela Vida’s taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. Almost immediately, while checking into her hotel, she is robbed, her passport and all identification stolen. The crime is investigated by the police, but the woman feels there is a strange complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities—she knows she’ll never see her possessions again. Stripped of her identity, she feels both burdened by the crime and liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone at all. Then, a chance encounter with a film crew provides an intriguing opportunity: A producer sizes her up and asks, would she be willing to be the body-double for a movie star filming in the city? And so begins a strange journey in which she’ll become a stand-in—both on-set and off—for a reclusive celebrity who can no longer circulate freely in society while gradually moving further away from the person she was when she arrived in Morocco. Infused with vibrant, lush detail and enveloped in an intoxicating atmosphere—while barely pausing to catch its breath—The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is a riveting, entrancing novel that explores freedom, power and the mutability of identity.

Sometime in the near future, Lionel, a computer nerd, lives alone with his sick cat, Buddha. His flat overlooks the high street where only a few rundown shops remain in business, including his friend, the old Caribbean gentleman Mr Barber. Lionel, mixed race, born in Kenya, was adopted by a white family. But, apart from his gorgeous, abrasive sister Lilith - his best friend and harshest critic - his family have deserted him. Lionel plays games because he's a coward who can't handle human interaction, Lilith says, before one of her frequent disappearances. But when Lionel puts his headset on, and enters CawrQuest he becomes Ludi, the fighter and the lover. He's free. Here he doesn't need to face his past, bullied by his adoptive brothers, and the shocking event he refuses to remember. Still, the 'real' world won't go away. Nor will Crystal, the haunted Anime girl who needs to be saved from the 'adult health centre' opposite his flat. Soon nothing adds up. Why are people beginning to look at him nervously? Why do the outcasts at work suddenly want to be his friend? Has Lilith finally disappeared for good? As reality and the game blur, Lionel and Ludi are assaulted on all sides. As Lionel struggles to unravel what's happening to him, Ludi tries to rescue the people he loves before the game is altered forever.

***LONG-LISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*** A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village. The woman is an "examiner," charged with teaching the man a series of simple functions—this is a chair, this is a fork, this is how you meet people. Still, the man is haunted by strange dreams, and when he meets a charismatic, volatile young woman named Hilda at a party, it throws everything he has learned into question. What is this village? And why is he here? A fascinating novel of love, illness, despair, and betrayal, A Cure for Suicide is the most captivating novel yet from one of our most audacious and original young writers.

Teenage Breq escapes the grim streets of a resource low, nearfuture world to take a job as a 'corpse diver' in a massive online SciFi game, Bane. Breq finds himself in a dangerous, lifethreatening adventure within the game as he searches for the reason for the death of his best friend. With landscapes and settings that evoke the SciFi classics our hero must level up his character as fast as he can, so as to be able to take on and defeat a sinister, masked figure. Especially as the threat posed by the unknown character is not limited to events within the game.