This collection explores the many ways in which the Netflix series Sense8 transcends television. As its characters transcend physical and psychological borders of gender and geography, so the series itself transcends those between television, new media platforms and new screen technologies, while dissolving those between its producers, stars, audiences and fans. Sense8 united, inspired and energized a global community of fans that realized its own power by means of online interaction and a successful campaign to secure a series finale. The series' playful but poignant exploration of globalization, empathy, transnationalism, queer and trans aesthetics, gender fluidity, imagined communities and communities of sentiment also inspired the interdisciplinary range of contributors to this volume. In this collection, leading academics illuminate Sense8 as a progressive and challenging series that points to vital, multifarious, contemporary social, political, aesthetic and philosophical concerns. Sense8: Transcending Television is much more than an academic examination of a series; it is an account and analysis of the way that we all receive, communicate and consider ourselves as participants in global communities that are social, political and cultural, and now both physical and virtual too.

This collection explores the many ways in which the Netflix series Sense8 transcends television. As its characters transcend physical and psychological borders of gender and geography, so the series itself transcends those between television, new media platforms and new screen technologies, while dissolving those between its producers, stars, audiences and fans. Sense8 united, inspired and energized a global community of fans that realized its own power by means of online interaction and a successful campaign to secure a series finale. The series' playful but poignant exploration of globalization, empathy, transnationalism, queer and trans aesthetics, gender fluidity, imagined communities and communities of sentiment also inspired the interdisciplinary range of contributors to this volume. In this collection, leading academics illuminate Sense8 as a progressive and challenging series that points to vital, multifarious, contemporary social, political, aesthetic and philosophical concerns. Sense8: Transcending Television is much more than an academic examination of a series; it is an account and analysis of the way that we all receive, communicate and consider ourselves as participants in global communities that are social, political and cultural, and now both physical and virtual too.

For fans of Blake Crouch, the propulsive first book in the genre-bending Silvers trilogy, in which six ordinary people become extraordinary when they find themselves the sole survivors of an apocalypse that lands them on an Earth far different from our own—one on which they have X-Men-like powers to manipulate time. Without warning, the world comes to an end. The sky looms frigid white. The electric grid falters. Airplanes everywhere crash to the ground, and finally, the sky comes down in a crushing sheet of light, taking out everything and everyone with it—except for Hannah and Amanda Given. Saved from destruction by three fearsome and powerful beings who adorn them each with an irremovable silver bracelet, the Given sisters suddenly find themselves on a strange new Earth where restaurants move through the air like flying saucers and the fabric of time itself is manipulated by common household appliances. Upon arrival to this alternate America, Hannah and Amanda are taken to a science laboratory where they meet four other survivors from their world, all of whom wear matching silver bracelets—a mordant cartoonist, a shy teenage girl, a brilliant young Australian, and a troubled ex-prodigy. While being poked and prodded by scientists who may be friends or enemies, the group discovers that it’s not only their world that is different—they are different. Each has the power to manipulate time with their bare hands…a power they can’t always control. With no one but each other to trust, “the Silvers” must find out what exactly happened to their world and why it was that they were spared. But with unexpected new enemies emerging from around every corner, their quest for answers will quickly become a cross-country quest for survival.

Book 1 of the Nexus Trilogy - Continued in Book 2: Crux In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage - for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes. From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand - Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion. Shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlisted for the Prometheus Award Shortlisted for the Kitschies Award An NPR Best Book of 2013! "Good. Scary good." - Wired "Provocative... A double-edged vision of the post-human."- The Wall Street Journal "A lightning bolt of a novel, with a sense of awe missing from a lot of current fiction."- Ars Technica "Starred Review. Naam turns in a stellar performance in his debut SF novel... What matters here is the remarkable scope and narrative power of the story."- Booklist "A superbly plotted high-tension technothriller ... full of delicious, thoughtful moral ambiguity ... a hell of a read."- Cory Doctorow "A gripping piece of near future speculation... all the grit and pace of the Bourne films."- Alastair Reynolds, author of Revelation Space "A sharp, chilling look at our likely future."- Charles Stross, author of Singularity Sky and Halting State "The most brilliant hard SF thriller I've read in years. Reminds me of Michael Crichton at his best."- Brenda Cooper, author of The Creative Fire "A rich cast of characters...the action scenes are crisp, the glimpses of future tech and culture are mesmerizing."- Publishers Weekly "Any old writer can take you on a roller coaster ride, but it takes a wizard like Ramez Naam to take you on the same ride while he builds the roller coaster a few feet in front of you."- John Barnes, author of Directive 51 "Michael Crichton-like."- SFX Magazine "An incredibly imaginative, action-packed intellectual romp!"- Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of The Unincorporated Man "The only serious successor to Michael Crichton."- Scott Harrison, author of Archangel

The Breakfast Club meets The Silver Linings Playbook in this powerful, provocative, and heartfelt novel about twelve endearing strangers who come together to make the most of their final days, from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author J. Michael Straczynski. Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world. The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip. By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.

From mindfulness in schools to meditation apps, mental health is bursting out of the psychiatrist's chair and into our everyday conversations. As awareness of mental health increases, so does its predominance in popular culture, which makes for a particularly interesting investigation into the representation of these concerns on our most ubiquitous streaming service: Netflix. These eight essays explore how the service's original content jumps into those conversations, creating helpful--or harmful--messaging about the inner workings of our minds. From toxic masculinity to PTSD, adolescence to motherhood, mental health touches our lives in myriad ways. This interdisciplinary collection explores these intersections, examining how representations of mental health on our screens shape our understanding of it in our lives.

“[The] successful writer for TV, movies, and comics makes his debut as a memoirist with a stunning chronicle of survival”—introduction by Neil Gaiman (Kirkus). Joseph Michael Straczynski is the legendary writer behind Babylon 5, Sense8, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling and Marvel’s Thor, among many other beloved movies, TV shows and comics. In Becoming Superman, he reveals how the power of creativity and imagination enabled him to overcome the horrors of his youth and a dysfunctional family haunted by madness, murder, and a terrible secret. Joe’s early life nearly defies belief. Raised by damaged adults—a con-man grandfather and a manipulative grandmother, a violent, drunken father and a mother who was repeatedly institutionalized—Joe grew up in abject poverty, living in slums and projects when not on the road, crisscrossing the country in his father’s desperate attempts to escape the consequences of his past. Joe found refuge in comic books and his own dreams—imaginary worlds where superheroes used their amazing powers to overcome any adversity. The deeper he read, the more he came to realize that he, too, had a superpower: the ability to tell stories. But even as he found success, Joe could not escape a shocking family secret involving mass murder that he uncovered over the course of decades. Becoming Superman is the startling true story of a little boy who became the hero of his own life.