From a fresh and gritty new urban voice comes the powerful tale of a boy yearning to escape from the projects, and the life-altering choices he makes.

The Gates were there on Phobos when mankind first arrived. Inert, unyielding, impossibly alien constructs, for twenty years they sat lifeless, mute testaments to their long-vanished creators, their secrets hidden. Then one day, they sprang to life... Meet Corporal Flynn Taggart, United States Marine Corps; serial number 888-23-9912. He's the best warrior the twenty-first century has to offer, which is a damn good thing. Because Flynn Taggart is all that's standing between the hell that just dropped in on Mars and an unsuspectingg planet Earth...

"Named after a hurricane, Camille is the rebellious 16-year-old daughter of a New Orleans bar-owner who grows up in the shadow of Bourbon Street, raised on stories of hauntings, lusty encounters and voodoo magic. And even though her family loses their home in a hurricane, she counts herself among the lucky until she discovers that her 18-year-old Creole neighbor whom she secretly loves died heroically in the storm. Devastated by Antwone's death, Camille begins taking unnecessary risks as if to prove she can be safe in an unsafe world. Her downward spiral is stopped by a spirit intercession. Based on the strength of her love and with the help of a dead voodoo queen, Camille wills Antwone back to earth. Because she is the only one who can see him--not his grandmother or his ex-girlfriend--she takes a kind of ownership of him in death that she never had in life. But gradually, she seeks something in their union beyond sex or love or passion--an understanding of the thin line between life and death itself and a need to find answers where none might lie. Camille's story unfolds as a Mardi Gras memoir, one girl's journey through the parties and parades as her community comes together and rises up from the chaos following the devastating storm. Like all good tales born of the bayou, hers involves the dead, the living, and the one trapped in the brackish waters between heaven and hell--a story of true love and true disaster."--

Hyper-reality. The area between the thriving mass of humanity known as the Sprawl and the digital refuge of Cyberspace. This is your playground. As a Showrunner, you can see and manipulate the flow of digital data through the real world – for you, reality is limitless. Welcome to Reality's Edge, a skirmish wargame set in a dystopian cyberpunk future, where players take on the roles of Showrunners – mercenary hackers who lead small teams of trusted operatives and disposable freelancers. Funded by shadow backers, the Showrunners accept jobs from faceless clients for profit, glory, and better chrome... always better chrome. Battles take place in the concrete jungle known as the Sprawl, but Showrunners must remain wary of the threat posed by Cyberspace. Hacking is pivotal to the game, with data nodes, robots, machines, and even enemy chrome presenting potential targets for a cunning Console Cowboy. In an ongoing campaign, each skirmish offers you the opportunity to earn experience and equipment, from advanced weaponry and synthetics to cyber-implants, biological enhancements, clones, and much more. This is a world obsessed with whether something can be done, not whether it should.

Kendu leads the life of an average hustler, with his beautiful wife Diamond at home and a smooth operation that he runs with his best friend Deuce. When Kendu and Deuce cross the wrong person, though, Kendu's life suddenly takes a turn for the worst. Now in debt to his enemy, Kendu must choose his next move wisely or it could cost him everything. Add to the mix a concerned wife; a disloyal partner; and Perry, a successful businessman by day and a coldhearted serial killer by night, and you've got a recipe for pure mayhem. Follow Boston George as he takes you on an unforgettable journey, reminding you that it's not always wise to keep your enemies close.

In December 1993, gaming changed forever. id Software's seminal shooter DOOM was released, and it shook the foundations of the medium. Daniel Pinchbeck brings together the complete story of DOOM for the first time. This book takes a look at the early days of first-person gaming and the video game studio system. It discusses the prototypes and the groundbreaking technology that drove the game forward and offers a detailed analysis of gameplay and level design. Pinchbeck also examines DOOM's contributions to wider gaming culture, such as online multiplay and the modding community, and the first-person gaming genre, focusing on DOOM's status as a foundational title and the development of the genre since 1993. Pinchbeck draws extensively from primary data: from the game itself, from the massive fan culture surrounding the title, and from interviews with the developers who made it. This book is not only the definitive work on DOOM but a snapshot of a period of gaming history, a manifesto for a development ethos, and a celebration of game culture at its best.

The year is 2144...and the battle over Earth's precious resources has raged for a century. With global economies in ruins and all-out world war more than a possibility, the U.S government turned to the Union Aerospace Corporation, giving it carte blanche on the legendary red planet of Mars in a desperate bid to construct an off-world outpost that might provide resources, a military advantage...as well as something so secret that even members of government don't have a clue about it.... Special Ops Marine Lieutenant John Kane was once a careerist simply glad to have a job, and couldn't care less about politics just as long as Uncle Sam's check cleared. But that was before he listened to his conscience and disobeyed a direct order. Busted down to private, Kane has been reassigned to the "U.S. Space Marines" -- the private army of the UAC -- with the prospect of becoming little more than a glorified security guard on Mars.... Now Lt. Kane's fate leads him to Mars City -- part environmental community, part lab center, and all owned and protected by the UAC. It's a strange world with a fatal environment, and the thousands who live and work within the city have already begun to think of themselves as Martians. And away from Mars City, at the strange ancient sites uncovered on the planet, a small squad of marines stand guard while scientists uncover wall glyphs and search for artifacts, having already found something that is so far amazing and inexplicable -- including the relic called "U1," nicknamed "the Soul Cube" -- and unknown to all, the bringer of destructive chaos and unspeakable horror....