The Elite
The Elite

Author: D.J. Wilson

Publisher: WrittenWord Press

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 0615692966

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There are two kinds of people in this world: the colonists that immigrated to Earth first and those that followed them. Something happened to those first immigrants, no one knows what, but they were changed. The biological changes were subtle except their lifespan was dramatically shortened to something like seventy or eighty years and they procreated at a ridiculously high rate. The psychological changes were more dramatic. They warred with each other. They fought each other for dominance. They had this strange compulsion to hoard things. The most notable change, though, was that they had forgotten nearly all of the philosophical and scientific knowledge accumulated over millennia. To say their technology was crude would be an understatement. They lived like animals. It made things difficult for those that came later. At first they made no effort to hide the differences. They used technology openly. But the colonists reacted strangely. They either thought those later immigrants were gods and started worshipping them or they thought they were demons and tried to kill them. Eventually, the later immigrants 'went underground' and formed a human subculture that has stood for tens of thousands of years. We, those first immigrants, know them simply as 'the elite'. The elite have spent millennia reeducating us and reintroducing us to technology. Some of the elite think they have gone as far as they should. To reveal the final secrets would be more than we could handle. Others believe that if the final secrets are not revealed, the earth's environment will be destroyed. The battle lines are drawn. Unfortunately, those battle lines cut straight through the lives of Clayton Jeffries and Kate Young - unknowing innocents that simply want to know what happened to his daughters and her brother. The answer will change them...and the world forever.

Ocean
Ocean

Author:

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-07-21

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 0756657067

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Breathtaking, powerful, and all-encompassing in its sheer scope and visual impact, Ocean sweeps you away on an incredible journeyinto the depths of our astonishing marine world. As the site where life first formed on Earth, a key element of the climate, and a fragile resource, oceans areof vital importance to our planet. This is a definitive visual guide to the world's oceans - including the geological and physical processes that affectthe ocean floor, the key habitat zones, the rich diversity of marine life.

On the Edge
On the Edge

Author: Roger McCoy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-07-18

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0199974160

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With our access to Google Maps, Global Positioning Systems, and Atlases that cover all regions and terrains and tell us precisely how to get from one place to another, we tend to forget there was ever a time when the world was unknown and uncharted--a mystery waiting to be solved. In On the Edge, Roger McCoy tells the captivating--and often harrowing--story of the 400 year effort to map North America's Coasts. Much of the book is based on the narratives of mariners who sought a passage through the continent to Asia and produced maps as a byproduct of their journeys. These courageous explorers had to rely on the most rudimentary mapping tools and to contend with unimaginably harsh conditions: ship-crushing ice floes; the threat of frostbite, scurvy, and starvation; gold fever and mutiny; ice that could lock them in for months on end; and, inevitably, the failure to find the elusive Northwest passage. Telling the story from the explorers' perspective, McCoy allows readers to see how maps of their voyages were made and why they were so full of errors, as well as how they gradually acquired greater accuracy, especially after the longitude problem was solved. On the Edge tracks the dramatic voyages of John Cabot, John Davis, Captain Cook, Henry Hudson, Martin Frobisher, John Franklin (who nearly starved to death and become known in England as "the man who ate his boots"), and others, concluding with Robert Peary, Otto Sverdrup, and Vihjalmur Steffanson in the early twentieth century. Drawing upon diaries, journals, and other primary sources--and including a set of maps charting the progress of exploration over time--On the Edge shows exactly how we came to know the shape of our continent.