A sweeping, revisionist historical analysis of telecommunications networks, from the dawn of the republic to the 21st century. Telecommunications networks are vast, intricate, hugely costly systems for exchanging messages and information-within cities and across continents. From the Post Office and the telegraph to today's internet, these networks have sown domestic division while also acting as sources of international power. In Crossed Wires, Dan Schiller, who has conducted archival research on US telecommunications for more than forty years, recovers the extraordinary social history of the major network systems of the United States. Drawing on arrays of archival documents and secondary sources, Schiller reveals that this history has been shaped by sharp social and political conflict and is embedded in the larger history of an expansionary US political economy. Schiller argues that networks have enabled US imperialism through a a recurrent "American system" of cross-border communications. Three other key findings wind through the book. First, business users of networks--more than carriers, and certainly more than residential users--have repeatedly determined how telecommunications systems have developed. Second, despite their current importance for virtually every sphere of social life, networks have been consecrated above all to aiding the circulation of commodities. Finally, although the preferences of executives and officials have broadly determined outcomes, these elites have repeatedly had to contend against the ideas and organizations of workers, social movement activists, and other reformers. This authoritative and comprehensive revisionist history of US telecommunications argues that not technology but a dominative--and contested--political economy drove the evolution of this critical industry.

Blindness was a blessing compared to that thing that happened to Walter Marsh's most vital senses.

The trios of Muse, Mercury and The Badger have one last stop before returning home: The swinging 60’s! They literally drop in on a young Judo Girl battling cat burglar Hepcat. She’s been tracking the crafty thief across the globe, as he’s been stealing parts for Captain Steel. The Muse decides to help Judo Girl as she breaks into Captain’s Steel secret lair, James Bond style! There they discover that Steel has been assembling a powerful device. One that can free him from time and space itself. And it means a possible way home for Muse, Mercury and The Badger! This is the thrilling conclusion to the Crossed Wires mini series. Will Badger ever return home to his dimension? And what happens when Muse and Mercury finish their dark showdown? Guest starring Judo Girl!

Twenty-four very short stories, twelve science fiction and twelve fantasy. From the future to now, from fairies to androids, from outer space to right next door, each of these short tales can be read in minutes. Explore worlds defined in small spaces, easy to pick up and read when you only have a moment to spare. Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories proves that sometimes, less really is more. When a demon crosses into our world, the battle to defeat it also crosses the borders of realities in a deadly game of Cat and Mouse. Invisible friends. The stuff of childhood imagination. Or are they? A Girl and Her Imp might have something to say about that. Set in the world of the Yo-Yo Files series by the author. There’s Something in the Water, and for one vacationing family, that something means more than they imagine. Red is the Color of one starship captain’s face when a first contact diplomatic dinner takes a wrong turn over a salad. In the battle between mankind and the robots determined to exterminate them, one craftsman finds a way to create his own Bone Song. Maintenance robots are great. They take the burden of routine jobs off human workers so they can devote their talent to the trickier jobs. But Crossed Wires can make a useful tool into a deadly opponent. These and eighteen other miniature tales are waiting in Crosses Wires and Other Very Short Stories.

This is the story of Mina, a girl at a Sheffield call centre whose next customer in the queue is Peter, a Cambridge geography don who has crashed his car into a tree stump when swerving to avoid a cat. CROSSED WIRES is an old-fashioned fairy tale. It is about the small joys and tribulations of parenthood; about one-ness and two-ness; about symmetry and coincidence; about the things that separate us and the things that bring us together.

TEST OF Faith… Pastor Josh Easterling is about to baptize sixteen-year-old Crys Cleary when he suddenly drops dead into the baptistry. Turns out some faulty wiring in the microphone led to his untimely and tragic electrocution. Officer Trudy Roundtree looks into a case of possible tampering and discovers the good reverend was murdered. The question is why…. Trudy, who knows the small-town oddities and eccentricities of Ogeechee, Georgia, inside and out, suspects the truth might involve the girl Crys. One by one her parents, her boyfriend and now her preacher have died. The poor girl believes she is cursed and keeps running away so her beloved grandfather won't be the next victim. As Trudy works overtime to keep one eye on Crys and another on some break-ins across town, she looks deeper into Crys's past. What she uncovers is a killer wily enough to hide in plain sight.

In this dramatic 4-issue crossover, the 10th Muse teams up with Mike Baron’s fan favorite “The Badger.” When the time stream is weakened, The10th Muse is thrust into a dark future where Mt. Olympus has been destroyed, and the pantheon of the Gods is now hunted. There she fights a twisted version of Mercury. In the heat of battle, the teleporting Mercury loses control of his power, and transports them to the world of “The Badger.”