A thousand miles of wilderness. Innumerable dangers. Uneasy alliances. A bond forged in blood. The odds are great, and survival has never been more uncertain. Vampires and humans have always been bitter enemies, destined to push each other to extinction. But when a group of scientists develops a genetic enhancement meant to boost the effectiveness of human hunters, tragic results threaten to bring about the destruction of vampires and humans alike. After the fallout of Year Zero and rise of mutated hybrids known as morphs, the remaining humans retreat into five fortresses. All seems well until Easthaven is attacked in an assault that leaves only thirty survivors. Enter Marcus Warren, one of the most powerful hunters in existence. Reluctantly, Marcus assumes leadership and decides that the group's only chance of survival is to cross a thousand miles of wilderness to Ashland. Forced to trust a hybrid named Clio and a vampire called Aya, Marcus and the others set out. Dangers lurk everywhere, and enemies seem destined to destroy them...if they don't destroy each other first.

In this witty, incisive guide to critical thinking the author provides you with the tools to allow you to question beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they’re talking about. These days there are many people whom we need to question: politicians, lawyers, doctors, teachers, clergy members, bankers, car salesmen, and your boss. This book will empower you with the ability to spot faulty reasoning and, by asking the right sorts of questions, hold people accountable not only for what they believe but how they behave. By using this book you’ll learn to analyze your own thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, and why you act on them (or don’t). This, in turn, will help you to understand why others might hold opposing views. And the best way to change our own or others’ behavior or attitudes is to gain greater clarity about underlying motives and thought processes. In a media-driven world of talking heads, gurus, urban legends, and hype, learning to think more clearly and critically, and helping others to do the same, is one of the most important things you can do.

Unlike any other time in history, we are inundated with information from many sources of media, and depending on one’s ideology, the results can be fractious. Everyone’s racing to catch up to what is reliable, dependable, and true – all the while, feeling deep, emotional, attachments to our personal understanding of important issues. It has unfortunately become fashionable to claim that what people feel about issues should be taken as seriously as the facts about those issues. Emotional attachment to specific viewpoints and the facts about the world are often two completely different things, and we need to keep them distinct. The skill set of Critical Thinking allows us to better separate facts from feelings and acknowledges that there is value to our beliefs, our ideas, and our opinions and that some are simply better than others. But what makes these objects of the mind and influences of behavior good, bad, better, or worse? Luckily, much of the hard work has already been done. Philosophers, mathematicians, logicians, scientists, writers, and many others have developed the Critical Thinking tools that require all of us to make such valued distinctions. Here, DiCarlo has taken six of the most important tools and distilled them into a skill set that is easy to remember and practical to apply in everyday life. This skill set provides anyone with the capacity to be mature, diplomatic, and fair, and to disagree in a civil manner. For the majority of us, developing such skills will not happen overnight ... or in a week, or a month. It is something that is ongoing and requires continuous practice, development, and use. And in today’s age of immediacy, with information and opinion just a click away, there seems to be less and less time in which to practice such skills. Perhaps this is one of the reasons so many people are feeling their way through issues rather than thinking critically about them. With a better understanding of the tenets of critical thinking, though, readers will come away from this book with a renewed sense of engagement with thoughts, opinions, feelings, and facts.

In a world of post truth politics, alternative facts, and fake news, there really are better and worse ways to think about things and that disagreement need not lead to incivility, hatred, or violence. The title of the book implies that some ideas are better than others. But what makes them better? Luckily, much of the hard work has already been done. Philosophers, mathematicians, logicians, scientists, writers, and many others have developed the Critical Thinking skills that allow all of us to make such valued distinctions. I have taken these skills, and distilled them into six steps. After learning these Six Steps, you will more effectively communicate what it is you believe and why it is you believe it so that people will have an easier time understanding you. You will be empowered with the ability to better understand what people are saying and to know why it is they are saying it. Your thinking will become better as well because what emerges from your ability to understand and use these skills is an element of diplomacy and fairness when having discussions about important issues. And this leads directly to more civilized disagreement.