The Big Sigma Collection: Volume 2 is a must for any fan of Joseph R. Lallo’s thrilling sci-fi adventure series. It includes the final three novels: - Temporal Contingency: After traveling the galaxy, the time has finally come for Lex pierce the veil of time itself. - Indra Station: Lex’s last big chance to get back to his first love, racing, may end in tragedy as he gets caught up in a clash of criminal rivals. - Nova Igniter: It all comes to this. A once mindless swarm of self-replicating machines now serves a single will. And available for sale for the first time, a bonus short story: - Meeting of the Mas: The many instances of Ma, the snarky AI companion of Karter Dee, put their heads together to see what’s to be done about their friend Lex.
Following his last adventure, Trevor "Lex" Alexander's life has managed to return to normal. He's back to splitting his time between delivering packages and transporting passengers, along with the occasional foray into testing highly experimental equipment. He's even gotten back together with his girlfriend Michella Modane, who has been launched to stardom by her coverage of the Bypass Gemini incident. Yes, things are going quite well for Lex. But in his life, luck like this never lasts long. Sure enough, while he is preparing for a rare visit from Michella, he receives word that the reclusive inventor Karter Dee has been kidnapped. The eccentric and slightly deranged inventor's checkered past has made getting the authorities involved out of the question. That has left "Ma", the AI in charge of cooking his meals and reining in his insanity, with few options. She has reached out to Lex as one of the few people she can trust, and needs him to help assemble a team of Karter's former allies to take him back before his latest contraptions can be put to work terrorizing the populace at the hands of his captors.
The Book of Deacon is the first book of The Book of Deacon series by Joseph R. Lallo. Myranda Celeste’s world has been built on a legacy of bloodshed. For more than a century, her homeland the Northern Alliance has fought the Kingdom of Tressor in what has come to be known as the Perpetual War. While her people look upon the conflict with reverence, Myranda’s hate for the war has made her an outcast. When she finds a precious sword among the equipment of a fallen warrior, she believes her luck may have changed. Little does she imagine that the treasure will draw her into an adventure of wizards and warriors, soldiers and rebels, and beasts both noble and monstrous. The journey will teach her much about her potential, about the origins of the war, and about the threat her world truly faces. Will Myranda unlock the secret of bringing peace once and for all, or will the world be lost to the Perpetual War?
In a distant future, Trevor "Lex" Alexander was shaping up to be the next great race pilot until a fixed race got him banned from the sport. Reduced to making freelance deliveries, he thinks his life can't get any worse. That's when a package manages to get him mixed up with mobsters, a megacorp, and a mad scientist. Now his life depends on learning what their plans are, and how he can stop them.
What is Big Data, and why should you care? Big data knows where you've been and who your friends are. It knows what you like and what makes you angry. It can predict what you'll buy, where you'll be the victim of crime and when you'll have a heart attack. Big data knows you better than you know yourself, or so it claims. But how well do you know big data? You've probably seen the phrase in newspaper headlines, at work in a marketing meeting, or on a fitness-tracking gadget. But can you understand it without being a Silicon Valley nerd who writes computer programs for fun? Yes. Yes, you can. Timandra Harkness writes comedy, not computer code. The only programmes she makes are on the radio. If you can read a newspaper you can read this book. Starting with the basics – what IS data? And what makes it big? – Timandra takes you on a whirlwind tour of how people are using big data today: from science to smart cities, business to politics, self-quantification to the Internet of Things. Finally, she asks the big questions about where it's taking us; is it too big for its boots, or does it think too small? Are you a data point or a human being? Will this book be full of rhetorical questions? No. It also contains puns, asides, unlikely stories and engaging people, inspiring feats and thought-provoking dilemmas. Leaving you armed and ready to decide what you think about one of the decade's big ideas: big data.
Artificial Evolution is the third book in the Big Sigma series, building upon the story and characters introduced by Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes. Lex, Michella and Squee are once again joined by the mercenaries Silo and Garotte. Along the way they'll need plenty of help from mad engineer Karter Dee and his AI Ma. After butting heads with the megacorporation known as VectorCorp it was only a matter of time before Lex Alexander and his girlfriend Michella Modane would face the consequences. It is remarkable what a single corporate agent with the resources of a multi-global conglomerate can do to a person's career. In the space of a few days Lex is looking for work and Michella is feeling pressure from the network to ease off the hard-hitting stories. Not one to be silenced, Michella quickly hatches a plan to continue her investigations under the guise of a fluff story about a so-called extraterrestrial, and who better to be her personal driver than Lex? Meanwhile, mercenaries Silo and Garotte are still nipping at the heels of the terrorist group known as the Neo-Luddites. Rumors of an attempt to secure a devastating weapon bring the pair to a forgotten little planet in an undeveloped corner of the galaxy. Circumstances require that local authorities lay claim to the terrorists' apparent target, but what sort of threat could one gangly collection of anatomical curiosities pose to the galaxy? The answer to that question will put our heroes to the test and leave a whole world hanging in the balance.
From James Rollins, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sigma Force series, comes another electrifying combination of suspense, history, science, action, and ingenious speculation. Deep in the Rocky Mountains, a gruesome discovery—hundreds of mummified bodies—stir international attention and fervent controversy. Despite doubts about the bodies’ origins, the local Native American Heritage Commission lays claim to the prehistoric remains, along with the strange artifacts found in the same cavern: gold plates inscribed with an unfathomable script. During a riot at the dig site, an anthropologist dies horribly: burned to ash in a fiery explosion in plain view of television cameras. All evidence points to a radical group of Native Americans, including one agitator, a teenage firebrand who escapes with a vital clue to the murder and calls on the one person who might help: her uncle, Painter Crowe, director of Sigma Force. To protect his niece and uncover the truth, Painter will ignite a war across the nation’s most powerful intelligence agencies. Yet, an even greater threat looms as events in the Rocky Mountains have set in motion a frightening chain reaction, a geological meltdown that threatens the entire western half of the U.S. From the volcanic peaks of Iceland to the blistering deserts of the American Southwest, from the gold vaults of Fort Knox to the bubbling geysers of Yellowstone, Painter Crowe joins forces with Commander Gray Pierce to penetrate the shadowy heart of a dark cabal, one that has been manipulating American history since the founding of the thirteen colonies. But can he discover the truth—one that could topple governments—before it destroys all he holds dear?
Every story must begin somewhere. For the warrior who would come to be known as the fearsome Red Shadow, the story began in a forgotten glade deep in the land of Tressor. It was there that a pair of trackers, eager to retrieve a lost slave, instead found an orphaned malthrope. Had it been a human, it might have been treated with compassion, but in the eyes of human society a malthrope was a monster, a mix of fox and man believed to be a murderer and thief by its very nature. The beast was to be sold for a handful of silver, but fate intervened in the form of an old blind slave named Ben. Under the learned hand of the one human who believed in his potential, the young malthrope would instead be given the wisdom to take his first steps on the long journey to his destiny. The Rise of the Red Shadow chronicles the early life of one of the most mysterious figures of the The Book of Deacon trilogy, the creature called Lain. It tells of his years working and learning on a Tresson plantation until a dark day of vengeance and bloodshed finally set him free. From there you will follow as he finds his place in the world, learning what it is to be a malthrope, and turning to the purpose that will guide him for the rest of his days. It is a story of love, hate, and lessons hard-learned, revealing the painful choices one must make to become the hero the world needs.
Structophis is a heartwarming YA adventure from the author of The Book of Deacon, Bypass Gemini, and Free-Wrench. It is based upon a concept and artwork by ProjectENDO. In a small town in Colorado, Markus Spiros was just getting his life on track. By day he worked as a veterinary tech, by night he took classes. His steady little routine was rolling along nicely when his impulsive Uncle Dimitrios threw a wrench in the works. Thanks to an unannounced trip, Markus had to swing by his uncle’s bistro to tend to the ‘special oven.’ When he arrived, he discovered it wasn’t the oven that was special, it was the rare and exotic egg that had been incubating inside it. And now it had hatched. Suddenly, Markus found his life had become a good deal more complicated. The creature was a Structophis Gastrignae—a strange creature that was equal parts dragon and oven—and she’d become quite a big girl. Large as a refrigerator and curious as a toddler, the creature he’d dubbed Blodgette would have been a handful in any situation. Markus had bigger problems than figuring out how to take care of her, though. Owning such a rare and special beast was illegal, so should the cops learn of it, Markus would be destined for jail. Worse, there were certain unscrupulous people who would do anything to acquire Blodgette. Now, with the help of his old classmate Gale, Markus must scramble to stay two steps ahead of the authorities and a corrupt CEO, all while being the best ‘mommy’ he can be to his brand-new pizza dragon.
