“As great as I’d hoped...Andrea Cort and her universe have terrific scope for future development.” —i09 The place is One One One, a gigantic enclosed space station constructed by the AIsource, a mysterious software collective that may be the most advanced, most powerful creatures in the known universe. They have seeded the world with creatures of their own devising, and invited a delegation of human beings to observe. But now the little research community has been rocked by murder...and it appears that the AIsource may be playing a deeper game. Enter Andrea Cort. Prosecutor. War Criminal. Misanthrope. Genius. She has been sent to get to the bottom of these heinous crimes. But she is facing enemies both human and more than human...and the solution to the mystery just might change her very relationship to the world she knows... Praise for Emissaries from the Dead “A brilliantly executed novel, fully successful as both science fiction and murder mystery. Indeed, it evidences a writer at the peak of his career, and it shows none of the flaws one expects from first novels... Emissaries from the Dead is one of the best science fiction novels of the year so far, and it can be recommended especially to fans of science fiction mysteries.” —SciFi Weekly “A uniquely absorbing read. It envelops you in a truly exotic and alien environment, and gives you a heroine to root for... It offers mystery, action, a few good jolts, and a bit of the old redemption sans mawkishness. All of the ingredients for a story sure to knock ’em dead.” —SF Reviews “Adam-Troy Castro’s Emissaries from the Dead is SF at its best: Silence of the Lambs as Larry Niven might have written it. A clever, thought-provoking page-turner. Bravo!” —Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Rollback “Adam-Troy Castro has given us the ultimate high-wire thriller.” —Jack McDevitt

Brook Ziporyn's carefully crafted, richly annotated translation of the complete writings of Zhuangzi—including a lucid Introduction, a Glossary of Essential Terms, and a Bibliography—provides readers with an engaging and provocative deep dive into this magical work.

Lectures and Discourses - II, Swami Vivekananda, the revered spiritual luminary, embarks on a captivating exploration of the human spirit and its eternal quest for truth. Through a collection of transformative lectures and enlightening discourses, Vivekananda imparts profound wisdom and guidance, unraveling the mysteries of existence and offering timeless insights for personal growth and societal upliftment. Within the pages of this illuminating work, Vivekananda delves into a diverse range of topics, captivating readers with his keen intellect and profound understanding of life's intricacies. From the nature of consciousness and the power of meditation to the principles of Vedanta and the pursuit of spiritual liberation, he weaves a tapestry of profound teachings that transcend the boundaries of time and culture. Lectures and Discourses - II serves as a guiding light, illuminating the path to self-realization and unveiling the eternal truths that lie within each individual.

With its emphasis on early modern emissaries and their role in England's expansionary ventures and cross-cultural encounters across the globe, this collection of essays takes the messenger figure as a focal point for the discussion of transnational exchange and intercourse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It sees the emissary as embodying the processes of representation and communication within the world of the text, itself an 'emissary' that strives to communicate and re-present certain perceptions of the 'real.' Drawing attention to the limits and licenses of communication, the emissary is a reminder of the alien quality of foreign language and the symbolic power of performative gestures and rituals. Contributions to this collection examine different kinds of cross-cultural activities (e.g. diplomacy, trade, translation, espionage, missionary endeavors) in different world areas (e.g. Asia, the Mediterranean, the Levant, the New World) via different critical methods and approaches. They take up the literary and cultural productions and representations of ambassadors, factors, traders, translators, spies, middlemen, merchants, missionaries, and other agents, who served as complex conduits for the global transport of goods, religious ideologies, and socio-cultural practices throughout the early modern period. Authors in the collection investigate the multiple ways in which the emissary became enmeshed in emerging discourses of racial, religious, gender, and class differences. They consider how the emissary's role might have contributed to an idealized progressive vision of a borderless world or, conversely, permeated and dissolved borders and boundaries between peoples only to further specific group interests.

Cultural Writing. Jalal Toufic is a writer, film theorist, and video artist presently living in Lebanon. His video and installation works, which include Radical Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ (1997), have been shown at the San Francisco Cinematheque; the Pacific Film Archive; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; and elsewhere. He edited the special Discourse issue Gilles Deleuze: A Reason to Believe in this World. FORTHCOMING is a fascinating blend of political theory, film theory, and cross-genre writing -- an essential book for those interested in contemporary thought and culture.