In this thrilling prequel to The Electric Church, a young Avery Cates finds himself trying desperately to survive in the newly-established System of Federated Nations. When a hit on a Joint Council Undersecretary falls into his lap, Cates determines he’ll fulfill the contract, even if the people hiring don’t know it yet. As Cates learns the ropes, he meets someone who will one day be an old friend and struggles with the reality of what he’s about to do. Killing a man for money, he’s told, is a great and terrible thing. Contains the previously-released Avery Cates short stories “This Was Battle. This Was Joy,” “The Golden Badge,” “The Oldest Bastard on the Block,” “This Was Education,” “all orphans, at least,” and “The Sewer Rat.” @page { margin: 0.79in } p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120% }

Contains four previously published novellas: "The Black Wave," "The Last Mile," "The Ghost Fleet," and "The Salted Earth." Having fled Castelvecchio and the Archangel's forces, Avery Cates and crew have only one move left: To somehow locate and gain access to the Cochtopa facility. Buried under the mountains, that installation was a desperate apocalypse bunker set up in the final days of The System. All the data, equipment, and bullets Cates needs to destroy the Angels is there. So is any possibility of rebooting the human race before it's too late. Getting there won't be easy, and will reacquaint Cates with some people he'd rather not meet again. Across oceans, continents, and mountains, Cates watches his merry band of desperate world-savers shrink as he re-learns an old lesson from his Gunner days: The killing always falls to him.

Avery Cates is in charge of Cochtopa, the last bastion of System technology and military might left in the world. But with his allies down to three people and a ghostly voice in his head, it may not be enough to stop the Archangel from forcing suicide on a dying world. With the Archangel's forces on the march and time running out for the human race, Avery decides the only way forward is to go back to basics, back to doing what he's always done best: Being a Gunner. And killing people. Part Four of the novel The Machines of War, available separately.

In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last. "Some debuts simply set new bars in a genre. Jeff Somers' The Electric Church is one such book, a gritty noir story that challenges and surprises with every page. A novel that is equal parts Raymond Chandler and William Gibson. A major new talent has arrived -- and it's about time!" -- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author

A USA Today Bestseller! “Tender and healing... I’m prescribing a preorder to anyone who has ever felt lost. Stunning, kind, necessary.” —Sarah Gailey on book 1: A Psalm for the Wild-Built A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a story of kindness and love from one of the foremost practitioners of hopeful SF. After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“The foundational text that gave me life-changing context, helping me to understand who I was and who came before me.”—Tourmaline, activist and filmmaker Transgender Warriors is an essential read for trans people of all ages who want to learn about the towering figures who have come before them—and for everyone who is part of the fight for trans liberation This groundbreaking book—far ahead of its time when first published in 1996 and still galvanizing today—interweaves history, memoir, and gender studies to show that transgender people, far from being a modern phenomenon, have always existed and have exerted their influence throughout history. Leslie Feinberg—hirself a lifelong transgender revolutionary—reveals the origin of the check-one-box-only gender system and shows how zie found empowerment in the lives of transgender warriors around the world, from the Two Spirits of the Americas to the many genders of India, from the trans shamans of East Asia to the gender-bending Queen Nzinga of Angola, from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and beyond. This book was published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped the book with one of the available covers.