Surveys the evolution of the dinosaur population in North America, from the beginning of the age of reptiles to the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago

The Firstborn–the mysterious race of aliens who first became known to science fiction fans as the builders of the iconic black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey–have inhabited legendary master of science fiction Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s writing for decades. With Time’s Eye and Sunstorm, the first two books in their acclaimed Time Odyssey series, Clarke and his brilliant co-author Stephen Baxter imagined a near-future in which the Firstborn seek to stop the advance of human civilization by employing a technology indistinguishable from magic. Their first act was the Discontinuity, in which Earth was carved into sections from different eras of history, restitched into a patchwork world, and renamed Mir. Mir’s inhabitants included such notables as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and United Nations peacekeeper Bisesa Dutt. For reasons unknown to her, Bisesa entered into communication with an alien artifact of inscrutable purpose and godlike power–a power that eventually returned her to Earth. There, she played an instrumental role in humanity’s race against time to stop a doomsday event: a massive solar storm triggered by the alien Firstborn designed to eradicate all life from the planet. That fate was averted at an inconceivable price. Now, twenty-seven years later, the Firstborn are back. This time, they are pulling no punches: They have sent a “quantum bomb.” Speeding toward Earth, it is a device that human scientists can barely comprehend, that cannot be stopped or destroyed–and one that will obliterate Earth. Bisesa’s desperate quest for answers sends her first to Mars and then to Mir, which is itself threatened with extinction. The end seems inevitable. But as shocking new insights emerge into the nature of the Firstborn and their chilling plans for mankind, an unexpected ally appears from light-years away.

A stunning new companion series to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY from the world's most important SF writer and his acknowledged heir 1885, the North West Frontier. Rudyard Kipling is witness to a bizarre encounter between the British army and what appears to be an impossibly advanced piece of Russian technology. And then to a terrifying intervention by a helicopter from 2037. Before the full impact of this extraordinary event has even begun to sink in, Kipling, his friends and the helicopter crew stumble across Alexander the Great's army. Mankind's time odyssey has begun. It is a journey that will see Alexander avoid his premature death and carve out an Empire that expands from Carthage to China, beating the time-slipped army of Ghenghis Khan in a battle outside the ruins of Babylon in the process. And it will present mankind with two devastating truths. Aliens are amongst us and have been manipulating our past and our future. And that future extends only as far as 2037, for that is the date Earth will be destroyed. This is SF that spans countless centuries and carries cutting edge ideas on time travel and alien intervention. It shows two of the genre's masters at their groundbreaking best.

“Clarke and Baxter have mastered the art of saving the world in blockbuster style.”—Entertainment Weekly Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the mysterious and powerful Firstborn, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back just a day after her disappearance? Bisesa’s questions are answered when scientists discover an unnatural anomaly in the sun’s core—evidence of alien intervention more than two thousand years ago. Now plans set in motion by inscrutable observers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to eradicate all life on Earth in a bombardment of radiation. As the apocalypse looms, religious and political differences on Earth threaten to undermine every countereffort. And all the while, the Firstborn are watching. . . . Praise for Sunstorm “An absolute must for science fiction fans.”—All Things Considered, NPR “Enthralling . . . highly satisfying.”—The New York Times Book Review “Will keep readers turning pages.”—Publishers Weekly

A comparative study of two classic literary works, from a specialist in Joyce and Homer Time and Identity in “Ulysses” and the “Odyssey” offers a unique in-depth comparative study of two classic literary works, examining essential themes such as change, the self, and humans’ dependence on and isolation from others. Stephanie Nelson shows that in these texts, both Joyce and Homer address identity by looking at the paradox of time—that people are constantly changing yet remain the same across the years. In Nelson’s analysis, both Ulysses and the Odyssey explore dichotomies including the permanence of names and shifting of stories, independence and connection, and linear and cyclical narrative. Nelson discusses Homer’s contrast of ordinary to mythic time alongside Joyce’s contrast of “clocktime” to experienced time. She analyzes the characters Odysseus and Leopold Bloom, alienated from their previous selves; Telemachus and Stephen Dedalus, trapped by the past; and Penelope and Molly Bloom, able to recast time through weaving, storytelling, and memory. These concepts are also explored through Joyce’s radically different narrative styles and Homer’s timeless world of the gods. Nelson’s thorough knowledge of ancient Greece, Joyce, narratology, oral tradition, and translation results in a volume that speaks across literary specializations. This book makes the case that Ulysses and the Odyssey should be read together and that each work highlights and clarifies aspects of the other. As Joyce’s characters are portrayed as both flux and fixity, readers will see Homer’s hero fight his way out of myth and back into the constant changes of human existence. A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles

A BRILLIANT AND BEGUILING REIMAGINING OF ONE OF OUR GREATEST MYTHS BY A GIFTED YOUNG WRITER Zachary Mason's brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer's classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.

In 1984, John Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent white man in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was sent to Angola Prison and confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. However, Thompson adamantly proclaimed his innocence and just needed lawyers who believed that his trial had been mishandled and would step up to the plate against the powerful DA’s office. But who would fight for Thompson’s innocence when he didn’t have an alibi for the night of the murder and there were two key witnesses to confirm his guilt? Killing Time is about the eighteen-year quest for Thompson’s freedom from a wrongful murder conviction. After Philadelphia lawyers Michael Banks and Gordon Cooney take on his case, they struggle to find areas of misconduct in his previous trials while grappling with their questions about Thompson’s innocence. John Hollway and Ronald M. Gauthier have interviewed Thompson and the lawyers, and paint a realistic and compelling portrait of life on death row and the corruption in the Louisiana police and DA’s office. When it is found that evidence was mishandled in a previous trial that led to his death sentence in the murder case, Thompson is finally on his road to freedom—a journey that continues with his suit against Harry Connick, Sr. and the New Orleans DA’s office to this day.