Firestorm: Preventing and Overcoming Church Conflicts
- ISBN13: 9780801090912
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
"I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too highly." -David Weber, author of Out of the Dark
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
Taylor Anderson: Hi David! I just now--literally--got back from the WorldCon in Reno. It was fun--and I was also able to personally thank Steve Stirling for the nice blurb he gave my first book. Of course, I am also humbly honored by the very nice blurb you just gave me! If we're not careful, people might begin to suspect we are friends! Of course my meager, good opinion of everything you have written is a matter of record--and espoused at every opportunity!
David Weber: Friends! Friends!? How could anyone possibly suspect such a thing?! But I digress. You're certainly welcome to the cover blurb, since it's only accurate. I mean, us b! eing friends and all I probably would have lied for you if I'd! needed to, but what the heck? It's always nicer when you can say nice things because they're accurate. Helps add to your reputation for infallibility, you know.
Anyway, I've got How Firm a Foundation, which is, what--Safehold #4?--coming out in September. You've got one coming out next month, too, as I recall. So you want to tell me what you're going to do to Walker's crew and their friends this time?
Taylor Anderson: I am SOOOOO stoked to read How Firm a Foundation. Most of my reading lately has been old tech manuals, and I need some David Weber! I love how your "Merlin" manages to prod the Safehold tech development along. Artificial being or not, it has to be frustrating to have all that information--that will save lives--running around in his/her head and have to be so careful about revealing it in a logical progression. I'm still improving the "tech" in Firestorm: Destroyermen--which comes out October 4th--but the contrast! in how it is applied is fun to compare to the Safehold series.
Your "Merlin" knows…everything, but has to hold back while everyone else accepts what is possible, whereas my Destroyermen know what is possible, but don't necessarily know how, or how best to achieve it. Different frustrations. Your guys have to be a lot more careful! Of course the Grik are still there, with their mad Japanese advisor--but the Grik are starting to "get wise" almost in spite of Kurokawa. He gives them technology, but retains his own agenda. Battle will rage on the land, sea, and in the air!
David Weber: Well, as you know, I "snippet" excerpts of the books on my website, so we're several thousand words into How Firm a Foundation, already. That makes things…interesting from my ! perspective, since the fans can't wait to start suggesting wha! t my cha racters should be "inventing" next. I haven't even got steam engines past the proscriptions of the Inquisition yet, and some of these guys seem to think I should already be designing King Edward VII-class, pre-dreadnought battleships! I did just give the Charisians breech-loading caplocks, though. That's going to make life interesting for the other side. And Merlin is about to find out (sort of) what I stashed--I'm sorry, what the Archangel Langhorne stashed--under the Temple. It is a bit darker book, though, since the Church gets in a few licks of its own this time around. Your guys have had that experience, too, I think, haven't they?
One thing I'm pondering about is introducing a better propellant than black powder. I'd have to be really careful about that, dealing with the anti-technology proscriptions, but back when Safehold was first settled, the Church did set up the rote preparation and production of fertilizers on a relatively large-scale. It'! s occurred to me that if I want to introduce nitrocellulose, I might have a platform for that in the fertilizer industry. Or perhaps I should say in the fertilizer pre-industry, since we're not exactly talking about current day DuPont levels of production. What do you think? Practical or would I be stretching things too far?
Taylor Anderson: I haven't done "snippets," but I still get a lot of suggestions and speculation on my web site and through direct contacts. I think it's fun and exciting that so many people are thinking about our books. Some of the suggestions are a little strange--okay, sometimes all I can do is just stare--but Destroyermen is a kind of strange story! The contrast between "They couldn't really do that," and "Why don't they have atomic weapons yet?" from one contact to the next can be amusing though. Things take time, particularly when your characters have to find the things to build the things to build the things they! need.
If you're asking my opinion on propellants, I'd! have to suggest sticking with black powder for a while. Your caplock breechloaders will be easy to convert, certainly. I'm converting rifle-muskets to a type of "Allin" breechloader myself. But you can actually get better performance out of black powder in such weapons since they weren't designed (or alloyed and treated) for the higher pressures "smokeless" produces. You'd have to make some major leaps in metallurgy to support jacketed bullets as well, and without them, you're stuck with black powder velocities anyway. Besides, your battles are so much more artistic with plenty of fire and smoke!
Of course, then comes logistics! Ha! As you always show so well, getting "new" stuff to the pointy end--and supplying it--is the greatest challenge of all…but then that's pretty fun to write and read about too, isn't it? Wow. I can't wait to be taunted with what you Langhorne stashed! People who know we are friends ask me all the time what "it" is and don't really believe ! me when I tell them "I don't know!" If I did, I wouldn't rat--and I don't WANT to know until it unfolds on the pages in front of me!
David Weber: I'm inclined to stick with black powder for small arms for quite a while, for a lot of reasons, including the ones you've mentioned. I'm not too sure about how major a jump I'd have to make to support jacketed bullets--the Safehold-ian tech structure doesn't match up perfectly with any particular, in Earth's history, thanks to all of the "technologies without the science" tucked away in the Holy Writ. That means it wouldn't be beyond the reach of allowable technologies (and Safehold-current techniques) to form copper jackets and then compress the lead into them. I'm inclined to agree with you about the conversion process, and I'm also inclined to think that converting the smokeless powders would also require a drop in caliber, if I want to take advantage of the higher velocities flatter trajectorie! s without beating my poor riflemen to death!
I was lo! oking at improved propellants more from the perspective of naval gunnery, field artillery, and shell-fillers (I know, I know--not a "propellant". So sue me!) and that sort of thing. Can't have really long-range gunnery without predictable propellant burn times, and I don't think I can get that kind of quality control out of black powder. At the same time, I have to be thinking in terms of reasonably attainable technologies. And you'd better believe I plan on putting my head together with yours when I actually start converting to cartridges and repeaters!
Of course, my life is even more interesting in the next couple of months than yours is, because I [he said, blushing modestly and looking down at his toes] have a new book coming out in October, as well! I finally got around to writing that young adult novel I've wanted to write for so long for Baen's publishing, A Beautiful Friendship, next month. Trust me; it's a very different change of pace from the Safehold book! s!
Taylor Anderson: Oh I know about A Beautiful Friendship, you prolific devil. I've already pre-ordered it too. You're right of course. No real reason why better steels would be proscribed I guess. That's what I meant about jacketed bullets, by the way. Not the bullets themselves, but the barrels that will have to survive them--especially if you increase your rate of fire dramatically! Hehe. Once you eliminate that gas-gushing vent in a muzzle-loader, black powder is amazingly consistent in cartridges--but you still need a whopping heavy (and abusive) bullet to carry your energy along. Flat shooters they ain't.
It's no secret that "my" Destroyermen have been working on guncotton and other things. They have the recipe--from that same, valuable little manual we both have!--but the recipe needs a little adjustment when you're not sure what to use for cotton, for example!
Experimentation can be exciting, and a lot of the fun is ! letting the characters come up with their own angles. Like I'v! e said, as capable as my Destroyermen are, there are a lot of things they don't know how to do, and they often come up with weird, "wrong," but adequate procedures. Also, with their fascination for gizmos, the Lemurians are beginning to come up with some slap your forehead notions and applications that might never have occurred to humans--which begs the question: why did they occur to me?
I'm all for juicing up naval artillery--or any artillery at all, as you know--but at sea, particularly, greater range is wasted without some advanced means of fire control. Even rifling won't help much. It's all in the timing, if you know what I mean. Oh, I've got the perfect repeater for you! I can't--actually won't use it--for the same reason I won't use another conversion we discussed, and I would love to see you use (hint). They just wouldn't make sense for my guys and their different starting point. For YOU however…they might even pass the proscriptions!
David ! Weber: Oh, yeah. I just finished, like a week or so ago, posting somewhere around a 5,000-word dissertation on the requirements for long-range naval gunnery on the Safehold forum on my website, because some of my readers were wondering how soon the Imperial Charisian Navy is going to go to long-range gunnery, by which some of them seemed to be thinking 20,000 or 30,000 yards. I had to explain that without centralized fire control to make sure all guns fired at exactly the right moment and on the right bearing, without inclinometers to be sure they fired at the right point in the ship's roll, without the ability to predict target movement, without accurate range-finding, and--especially--without predictable and repeatable propellant burn times (not to mention monitoring board erosion, temperature, humidity, propellant temperature, etc.), accurate naval gunnery at anything much over 6,000 yards is going to be problematical at best. I think that sort of "taking things! for granted" is part of the price we pay for living at the "u! ser end" of a technological world in the first place, but it starts coming home to you when you do the kind of thing you and I are doing in our books which is trying to build a technological infrastructure from scratch and figuring out how the wheel was invented in the first place!
Although, you know, thinking about it, what we're both doing in our different ways that's even more significant than the technology, I think, is looking at the values of the fictitious societies we've created. When you come down to it, technology is just tools -- it's what people do with those tools that distinguishes them from one another. Dark Age mentalities can do terrifying amounts of damage with modern technology. God knows we've seen enough of that in recent years, haven't we? I first came up with the concept for the Safehold books something like twenty years ago, and I've been mostly faithful to that original concept, but I can't pretend it hasn't been modified by things that have happened! in the real world since. I actually make an effort to avoid having that happen, but I don't think any author can do that, really. After all, we live in the real world! But what my heroes are doing on Safehold and what your Destroyermen and their allies are doing on your alternate Earth is trying to push back the darkness, and I think that's the real reason a lot of their fans want to know what happens next in both universes. I know I sure do, at any rate!
Taylor Anderson: Ha! Few things could be more difficult to comprehend than all the variables that prevent accurate long range naval gunnery. Just figuring out all those variables is hard enough, and then compensating for them all presents an incredibly daunting challenge. The first "modern" computers, in all their complexity, were devoted to just that. Powered torpedoes add even more wild variables. I'll have to read your post to see how you managed to explain it all in a mere 5,000 words! I imagin! e that if anyone could do it, it would be you!
Ultim! ately ho wever, I couldn't agree with you more; the people are the story. The technology is fun to research, bend to our specific applications, write about, and kick around with each other, but our characters--defined by their character--drive the stories. The "Safehold" and the people who inhabit it, that Nimue Alban's…memories…awoke to was every bit as alien as the world Matt Reddy and his crew of USS Walker encounter in Destroyermen. Both worlds are as remote as they can possibly be to what they knew before, and full of unfamiliar threats and challenges. It is how they--and those around them--deal with their apparently insurmountable obstacles that form the "souls" of each story. Both have a vision for how best to protect and secure the people--and worlds--they have inherited, and both are determined to accomplish their task regardless of the cost, particularly to themselves. In this day and age, it may seem quaint to some that people might be so determined to "d! o the right thing, as they see it, when nobody is looking," in a sense. But I believe that quality is still admired, and is, I hope, the most resonant chord we have struck with both our tales.
I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too highly." -David Weber, author ! of Out of the Dark
Lieutenant Commander Mat! thew Red dy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
"
Taylor Anderson: Hi David! I just now--literally--got back from the WorldCon in Reno. It was fun--a! nd I was also able to personally thank Steve Stirling for the nice blurb he gave my first book. Of course, I am also humbly honored by the very nice blurb you just gave me! If we're not careful, people might begin to suspect we are friends! Of course my meager, good opinion of everything you have written is a matter of record--and espoused at every opportunity!
David Weber: Friends! Friends!? How could anyone possibly suspect such a thing?! But I digress. You're certainly welcome to the cover blurb, since it's only accurate. I mean, us being friends and all I probably would have lied for you if I'd needed to, but what the heck? It's always nicer when you can say nice things because they're accurate. Helps add to your reputation for infallibility, you know.
Anyway, I've got How Firm a Foundation, which is, what--Safehold #4?--coming out in September. You've got one coming out next month, too, as I recall. So you want to tell m! e what you're going to do to Walker's crew and their friends t! his time ?
Taylor Anderson: I am SOOOOO stoked to read How Firm a Foundation. Most of my reading lately has been old tech manuals, and I need some David Weber! I love how your "Merlin" manages to prod the Safehold tech development along. Artificial being or not, it has to be frustrating to have all that information--that will save lives--running around in his/her head and have to be so careful about revealing it in a logical progression. I'm still improving the "tech" in Firestorm: Destroyermen--which comes out October 4th--but the contrast in how it is applied is fun to compare to the Safehold series.
Your "Merlin" knows…everything, but has to hold back while everyone else accepts what is possible, whereas my Destroyermen know what is possible, but don't necessarily know how, or how best to achieve it. Different frustrations. Your guys have to be a lot more careful! Of course the Grik are still there, with their mad Japanese adv! isor--but the Grik are starting to "get wise" almost in spite of Kurokawa. He gives them technology, but retains his own agenda. Battle will rage on the land, sea, and in the air!
David Weber: Well, as you know, I "snippet" excerpts of the books on my website, so we're several thousand words into How Firm a Foundation, already. That makes things…interesting from my perspective, since the fans can't wait to start suggesting what my characters should be "inventing" next. I haven't even got steam engines past the proscriptions of the Inquisition yet, and some of these guys seem to think I should already be designing King Edward VII-class, pre-dreadnought battleships! I did just give the Charisians breech-loading caplocks, though. That's going to make life inter! esting for the other side. And Merlin is about to find out (so! rt of) w hat I stashed--I'm sorry, what the Archangel Langhorne stashed--under the Temple. It is a bit darker book, though, since the Church gets in a few licks of its own this time around. Your guys have had that experience, too, I think, haven't they?
One thing I'm pondering about is introducing a better propellant than black powder. I'd have to be really careful about that, dealing with the anti-technology proscriptions, but back when Safehold was first settled, the Church did set up the rote preparation and production of fertilizers on a relatively large-scale. It's occurred to me that if I want to introduce nitrocellulose, I might have a platform for that in the fertilizer industry. Or perhaps I should say in the fertilizer pre-industry, since we're not exactly talking about current day DuPont levels of production. What do you think? Practical or would I be stretching things too far?
Taylor Anderson: I haven't done "snippets," but I s! till get a lot of suggestions and speculation on my web site and through direct contacts. I think it's fun and exciting that so many people are thinking about our books. Some of the suggestions are a little strange--okay, sometimes all I can do is just stare--but Destroyermen is a kind of strange story! The contrast between "They couldn't really do that," and "Why don't they have atomic weapons yet?" from one contact to the next can be amusing though. Things take time, particularly when your characters have to find the things to build the things to build the things they need.
If you're asking my opinion on propellants, I'd have to suggest sticking with black powder for a while. Your caplock breechloaders will be easy to convert, certainly. I'm converting rifle-muskets to a type of "Allin" breechloader myself. But you can actually get better performance out of black powder in such weapons since they weren't designed (or alloyed and treated) for the higher pre! ssures "smokeless" produces. You'd have to make some major lea! ps in me tallurgy to support jacketed bullets as well, and without them, you're stuck with black powder velocities anyway. Besides, your battles are so much more artistic with plenty of fire and smoke!
Of course, then comes logistics! Ha! As you always show so well, getting "new" stuff to the pointy end--and supplying it--is the greatest challenge of all…but then that's pretty fun to write and read about too, isn't it? Wow. I can't wait to be taunted with what you Langhorne stashed! People who know we are friends ask me all the time what "it" is and don't really believe me when I tell them "I don't know!" If I did, I wouldn't rat--and I don't WANT to know until it unfolds on the pages in front of me!
David Weber: I'm inclined to stick with black powder for small arms for quite a while, for a lot of reasons, including the ones you've mentioned. I'm not too sure about how major a jump I'd have to make to support jacketed bullets--the Safehol! d-ian tech structure doesn't match up perfectly with any particular, in Earth's history, thanks to all of the "technologies without the science" tucked away in the Holy Writ. That means it wouldn't be beyond the reach of allowable technologies (and Safehold-current techniques) to form copper jackets and then compress the lead into them. I'm inclined to agree with you about the conversion process, and I'm also inclined to think that converting the smokeless powders would also require a drop in caliber, if I want to take advantage of the higher velocities flatter trajectories without beating my poor riflemen to death!
I was looking at improved propellants more from the perspective of naval gunnery, field artillery, and shell-fillers (I know, I know--not a "propellant". So sue me!) and that sort of thing. Can't have really long-range gunnery without predictable propellant burn times, and I don't think I can get that kind of quality control out of black powder.! At the same time, I have to be thinking in terms of reasonabl! y attain able technologies. And you'd better believe I plan on putting my head together with yours when I actually start converting to cartridges and repeaters!
Of course, my life is even more interesting in the next couple of months than yours is, because I [he said, blushing modestly and looking down at his toes] have a new book coming out in October, as well! I finally got around to writing that young adult novel I've wanted to write for so long for Baen's publishing, A Beautiful Friendship, next month. Trust me; it's a very different change of pace from the Safehold books!
Taylor Anderson: Oh I know about A Beautiful Friendship, you prolific devil. I've already pre-ordered it too. You're right of course. No real reason why better steels would be proscribed I guess. That's what I meant about jacketed bullets, by the way. Not the bullets themselves, but the barrels that will have to survive them--especially if you increase your rate! of fire dramatically! Hehe. Once you eliminate that gas-gushing vent in a muzzle-loader, black powder is amazingly consistent in cartridges--but you still need a whopping heavy (and abusive) bullet to carry your energy along. Flat shooters they ain't.
It's no secret that "my" Destroyermen have been working on guncotton and other things. They have the recipe--from that same, valuable little manual we both have!--but the recipe needs a little adjustment when you're not sure what to use for cotton, for example!
Experimentation can be exciting, and a lot of the fun is letting the characters come up with their own angles. Like I've said, as capable as my Destroyermen are, there are a lot of things they don't know how to do, and they often come up with weird, "wrong," but adequate procedures. Also, with their fascination for gizmos, the Lemurians are beginning to come up with some slap your forehead notions and applications that might never have occurred to hu! mans--which begs the question: why did they occur to me?
!I'm all for juicing up naval artillery--or any artillery at all, as you know--but at sea, particularly, greater range is wasted without some advanced means of fire control. Even rifling won't help much. It's all in the timing, if you know what I mean. Oh, I've got the perfect repeater for you! I can't--actually won't use it--for the same reason I won't use another conversion we discussed, and I would love to see you use (hint). They just wouldn't make sense for my guys and their different starting point. For YOU however…they might even pass the proscriptions!
David Weber: Oh, yeah. I just finished, like a week or so ago, posting somewhere around a 5,000-word dissertation on the requirements for long-range naval gunnery on the Safehold forum on my website, because some of my readers were wondering how soon the Imperial Charisian Navy is going to go to long-range gunnery, by which some of them seemed to be thinking 20,000 or 30,000 yards. I had t! o explain that without centralized fire control to make sure all guns fired at exactly the right moment and on the right bearing, without inclinometers to be sure they fired at the right point in the ship's roll, without the ability to predict target movement, without accurate range-finding, and--especially--without predictable and repeatable propellant burn times (not to mention monitoring board erosion, temperature, humidity, propellant temperature, etc.), accurate naval gunnery at anything much over 6,000 yards is going to be problematical at best. I think that sort of "taking things for granted" is part of the price we pay for living at the "user end" of a technological world in the first place, but it starts coming home to you when you do the kind of thing you and I are doing in our books which is trying to build a technological infrastructure from scratch and figuring out how the wheel was invented in the first place!
Although, you know, thinking about it, wh! at we're both doing in our different ways that's even more sig! nificant than the technology, I think, is looking at the values of the fictitious societies we've created. When you come down to it, technology is just tools -- it's what people do with those tools that distinguishes them from one another. Dark Age mentalities can do terrifying amounts of damage with modern technology. God knows we've seen enough of that in recent years, haven't we? I first came up with the concept for the Safehold books something like twenty years ago, and I've been mostly faithful to that original concept, but I can't pretend it hasn't been modified by things that have happened in the real world since. I actually make an effort to avoid having that happen, but I don't think any author can do that, really. After all, we live in the real world! But what my heroes are doing on Safehold and what your Destroyermen and their allies are doing on your alternate Earth is trying to push back the darkness, and I think that's the real reason a lot of their fans want to know w! hat happens next in both universes. I know I sure do, at any rate!
Taylor Anderson: Ha! Few things could be more difficult to comprehend than all the variables that prevent accurate long range naval gunnery. Just figuring out all those variables is hard enough, and then compensating for them all presents an incredibly daunting challenge. The first "modern" computers, in all their complexity, were devoted to just that. Powered torpedoes add even more wild variables. I'll have to read your post to see how you managed to explain it all in a mere 5,000 words! I imagine that if anyone could do it, it would be you!
Ultimately however, I couldn't agree with you more; the people are the story. The technology is fun to research, bend to our specific applications, write about, and kick around with each other, but our characters--defined by their character--drive the stories. The "Safehold" and the people who inhabit it, that Nimue Alban's…! memories…awoke to was every bit as alien as the world Matt R! eddy and his crew of USS Walker encounter in Destroyermen. Both worlds are as remote as they can possibly be to what they knew before, and full of unfamiliar threats and challenges. It is how they--and those around them--deal with their apparently insurmountable obstacles that form the "souls" of each story. Both have a vision for how best to protect and secure the people--and worlds--they have inherited, and both are determined to accomplish their task regardless of the cost, particularly to themselves. In this day and age, it may seem quaint to some that people might be so determined to "do the right thing, as they see it, when nobody is looking," in a sense. But I believe that quality is still admired, and is, I hope, the most resonant chord we have struck with both our tales.
I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too highly." -David Weber, author of Out of the Dark
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find! themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
"The heat is on and time is running out! Howie Long, Hollywood's hottest new action hero. stars with Scott Glenn, William Forsythe and Suzy Amis in a searing, pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat adventure! "The match is lit." These chilling words spark a deadly chain if events when a prison break pits fearless smokejumper Jesse Graves (Long) against two devastating, seemingly unstoppable forces of nature: a raging inferno and a cunning, psychotic killer. Packed with spectacular stunts, scorching suspense and a cast that'll blow you away.A! raging forest fire in California's Lassen Volcanic National P! ark trap s exhausted firefighters, including Ranger Anna Pigeon, in its midst. Afterward, Anna finds two from her group have been killed. One a victim of the flames. The other, stabbed through the heart. Now, as a rampaging winter storm descends, cutting the survivors off from civilization, Anna must uncover the murderer in their midst.A raging fire in a national park seems an unlikely setting for a murder, but that's exactly the circumstances that crime-fighting park ranger and medic Anna Pigeon confronts in this mystery thriller. A suspicious fire breaks loose in Northern California's Lassen Volcanic Park and Pigeon assists in battling the blaze and treating the wounds of other fire fighters. As if that's not enough, Pigeon finds herself without food and water trapped with a group of fire fighters, one of whom is a murderer. She tries to figure out who the culprit is before he, or the weather, strikes again.Will your church be part of the thirty-three percent unable to spot ! the kindling of conflict before it flares up and results in the dismissal of a pastor? Firestorm describes the six successive phases of conflict and explains the causes of that conflict, strategies to cope with controversy, and what can be done in the firestorm's aftermath to restore faith and hope.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Accidental Husband Movie Poster (27 x 40 Inches - 69cm x 102cm) (2009) Style E -(Uma Thurman)(Colin Firth)(Jeffrey Dean Morgan)(Sam Shepard)
Monday, January 16, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Hunger: A Gone Novel
- ISBN13: 9780061449086
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.
Acclaimed writer Suzanne Collins, author of the New York Times bestselling The Underland Chronicles, delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in this searing novel set in! a future with unsettling parallels to our present.In the ruin! s of a p lace once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Acclaimed writer Suzanne Collins, author of the New York Times bestselling The Underland Chronicles, delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in this searing novel set in ! a future with unsettling parallels to our present.Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling fi! nal installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The H! unger Ga mes trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.Product Description
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
A Q&A with Suzanne Collins, Author of Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Boris by Jaapter Haar
Germinal by Emile Zola
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
(Photo © Cap Pryor)
With Hunger, British! filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has turned one of history’s most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience. In Northern Ireland’s Maze prison in 1981, twenty-seven-year-old Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands went on a hunger strike to protest the British government’s refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners, rather than as ordinary criminals. McQueen dramatizes prison existence and Sands’ final days in a way that is purely experiential, even abstract, a succession of images full of both beauty and horror. Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.
Stills from Hunger
 |  |  |
With the exception of Julian Schnabel, visual artists have had a tough time at the cinema, but like the American painter before him, Britain's Steve McQueen beat the odds with the award-winning Hunger. In his visceral depiction of a political hunger strike, McQueen emphasizes specific moments over plot mechanics. Guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) serves as a guide into the hell of Belfast's Maze Prison, circa 1981, where Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender in a remarkable performance) and his IRA brethren hunker down in blankets, since they refuse to don uniforms and can't wear their own clothes. They dump food on the floo! r, smear waste on the walls, and sleep with maggots in protest against their conditions. Even after moving the prisoners, the mistreatment continues, so they step up their campaign. It's no way to live, and it isn't easy to watch, but McQueen provides a reprieve through Sands's riveting conversation with Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), a scene his backers pressured him to cut, but the filmmaker wisely stood firm In his director's statement, McQueen says he wanted to "show what it was like to see, hear, smell, and touch in the H-Block." Because he avoids editorializing, it's as easy to condemn his subjects for their naïve idealism as it is to admire their singularity of purpose. Art background aside, McQueen clearly knows his U.K. film history, and appears to have spent time with the works of Alan Clarke (specifically Elephant) and Stanley Kubrick (see A Clockwork Orange), who share his fascination with the abuse of power, the horror of sudden violence! , and the splendor of the static shot. --Kathleen C. Fennes! sySu zanne Collins continues the amazing story of Katniss Everdeen in the phenomenal Hunger Games trilogy.
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.Suzanne Collins continues the amazing story of Katniss Everdeen in the phenomenal Hunger Games trilogy.
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and th! eir families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.
It's been three months since all the adults disappeared. Gone.
food ran out weeks ago and starvation is imminent. Meanwhile, the normal teens have grown resentful of the kids with powers. And when an unthinkable tragedy occurs, chaos descends upon the town. There is no longer right and wrong. Each kid is out for himself and even the good ones turn murderous.
But a larger problem lo! oms. The Darkness, a sinister creature that has lived buried d! eep in t he hills, begins calling to some of the teens in the FAYZ. Calling to them, guiding them, manipulating them.
The Darkness has awakened. And it is hungry.
