Worlds Between

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • An outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens the very fabric of the multiverse in this stunning debut, a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging. WINNER OF THE COMPTON CROOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD • “Gorgeous writing, mind-bending world-building, razor-sharp social commentary, and a main character who demands your attention—and your allegiance.”—Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—NPR, Library Journal, Book Riot Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total. On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now what once made her marginalized has finally become an unexpected source of power. She has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security. But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world but the entire multiverse. “Clever characters, surprise twists, plenty of action, and a plot that highlights social and racial inequities in astute prose.”—Library Journal (starred review)

Six years ago, schoolgirls Evelyn and Philippa Hapwell were swept from a war-time bunker to a fantasy kingdom. Now almost grown-up, they've returned to the real world, but grieving Evie will do almost anything to go back to the magical Woodlands that holds her heart ...

A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

In Worlds Between, book two of the River of Lakes series, readers are immersed in the idyllic setting of the fishing camp Maureen and Brian have built with Joe Loon's clan along the English River. The visit of IRA sympathizers, the building of a hydro-electric dam, and a dangerous accident provide a chilling reminder that old threats still lurk even as new dangers emerge. Even as she celebrates the extraordinary birth of her child, Maureen continues to battle the ghosts of her IRA past. Brian grasps at the fraying promises of Eden as his world is torn apart. The Ojibway find their land and traditions further curtailed by the encroachment of the modern world. And This Man watches out over all.In this evocative series spanning oceans and decades, award-winning author Carl Nordgren weaves a tale about the power of dreams and the dangers of ghosts who haunt our past.

This book presents a series of pioneering studies which together constitute a reappraisal of our understanding of the relationship between gender and history.

The recent resurgence of academic interest in caves has demonstrated the central roles they played as arenas for ritual, ceremony and performance, and their importance within later prehistoric cosmologies. Caves represent very particular types of archaeological site and require novel approaches to their recording, interpretation and presentation. This is especially true in understanding the ritual use of caves, when the less tangible aspects of these environments would have been fundamental to the practices taking place within them. Between Worlds explores new theoretical frameworks that examine the agency of these enduring 'natural' places and the complex interplay between environment, taphonomy and human activity. It also showcases the application of innovative technologies, such as 3D laser-scanning and acoustic modelling, which provide new and exciting ways of capturing the experiential qualities of these enigmatic sites. Together, these developments offer more nuanced understandings of the role of caves in prehistoric ritual, and allow for more effective communication, management and presentation of cave archaeology to a wide range of audiences.

The global debt and adjustment crisis has challenged the World Bank to become the leading agency in North-South finance and development. The many dimensions of this challenge--which must be comprehensively addressed by the Bank's new president--are the subject of this important volume in the Overseas Development Council's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives series. The Bank's ability to design and implement a comprehensive response to global economic needs is threatened by competing objectives and uncertain priorities. Can the Bank design programs attractive to private investors that also serve the very poor? Can it emphasize efficiency while transferring technologies that maximize labor absorption? Can it aggressively condition loans on policy reforms without attracting the criticism that has accompanied IMF programs? Can it meet the needs of the 1990s with the internal organization and staff of the early 1980s? The contributors to this volume assess the role that the World Bank can play in the period ahead. They argue for new financial and policy initiatives and for new conceptual approaches to development, as well as for a restructuring of the Bank as it takes on new systematic responsibilities in the new decade.

Education in a Time Between Worlds seeks to reframe this historical moment as an opportunity to create a global society of educational abundance. Educational systems must be transformed beyond recognition if humanity is to survive the planetary crises currently underway.