Thousands of travelers become stuck after ISIS attacks the United States, leaving the nation's physical, electrical, and technological infrastructure in tatters. Jim Powell and his co-workers are stranded in a hotel in Richmond, Virginia, about five hundred miles from home. He and several others embark on a journey to try to get back home, by any means possible, in a world with scarce law enforcement where the rules of civilized society no longer apply.
A legendary detective uncovers Hong Kong’s darkest crimes: “An ambitious narrative brilliantly executed . . . What an achievement!” (John Burdett, author of Bangkok 8). From award-winning author Chan Ho-kei, The Borrowed tells the story of Kwan Chun-dok, a detective who’s worked in Hong Kong fifty years. Across six decades of Hong Kong’s volatile history, the narrative follows Kwan through the Leftist Riot of 1967, when a bombing plot threatens many lives; the conflict between the HK Police and ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in 1977; the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989; the Handover in 1997; and the present day of 2013, when Kwan is called on to solve his final case, the murder of a local billionaire, in a modern Hong Kong that increasingly resembles a police state. Along the way we meet Communist rioters, ultra-violent gangsters, pop singers enmeshed in the high-stakes machinery of star-making, and a people always caught in the shifting balance of political power, whether in London or Beijing. Tracing a broad historical arc, The Borrowed reveals just how closely everything is connected, how history repeats itself, and how we have come full circle to repeat the political upheaval and societal unrest of the past. It is a gripping, brilliantly constructed novel from a talented new voice.
Over the last century mankind has irrevocably damaged the environment through the unscrupulous greed of big business and our own willful ignorance. Here are the strikingly poignant accounts of disasters whose names live in infamy: Chernobyl, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island, Love Canal, Minamata and others. And with these, the extraordinary and inspirational stories of the countless men and women who fought bravely to protect the communities and environments at risk.
"An ELECTRIFYING story of survival . . . " In his bestselling novels, The Borrowed World and Ashes of the Unspeakable, Franklin Horton showed us a nation facing societal collapse from a coordinated ISIS attack on the American infrastructure. Most of the country is without power, communication, and fuel. As a result of the attack, a group of business travelers in Virginia found themselves among the millions stranded on the highways with no idea how they would be getting home. In this third installment, Legion of Despair, the country is teetering on the brink of anarchy. While one of the stranded travelers, Jim Powell, made it home and is working to establish a safe, sustainable enclave for his family, his co-workers Gary and Alice are not faring as well. After spending hundreds of painful miles dreaming of his reunion with his family, Gary arrives home only to find his family under attack. Now he must face the painful decision as to whether his family's plan to bug-in is viable or whether they may need greater numbers and a better location to survive in this collapsing nation. While Gary's homecoming is bittersweet, he has at least found his way into the arms of his family. His co-worker Alice has awakened on the cold, concrete floor of a basement in Bluefield, Virginia. She is bound and chained to a support column. She doesn't know if she will ever see her son or husband again. All she knows for certain is that the man in front of her has already brutally killed her friend, Rebecca, and unless she finds a way out, he will kill her, too.
"It's been around nine long months since the United States spiraled into chaos due to a cascading systems failure. The die-off everyone predicted has begun and after a hard winter nearly every other house sits empty with the owners dead or unaccounted for. Lately the power has flickered on and off a few times, raising hopes that power restoration is coming soon. But how do you put the genie back in the bottle? Violence is everywhere. Disease is rampant. Hundreds of thousands are dead. Insurance can never pay for the damage and loss that has occurred. The economy will take years to restore, if it can be restored at all. From the recesses of a fractured government comes a plan to restore order and rescue what remains of the population. The first step comes with restoring power. But what if having access to electricity came at such a price that many -- like Jim Powell, his friends, and his neighbors -- would rather face a future in the dark."--Back cover.
We Borrowed Gentleness interrogates the innateness of pain and forms of destruction—through natural disaster, through God, through family, and through the power structures and patriarchal violence that embeds itself in language and cultural memory. Poems critique and challenge the patriarchal narratives that dominate American history. The poems leave the question open of whether man, men, a father and son, are redeemable after the surge of rising white nationalism in America. And yet, there are poems that find, still, bits of joy and perhaps a shred of hope. By juxtaposing poems of louder narrative imagination with quieter poems that explore intimate failings within a family, often portrayed with a realist aesthetic, the book attempts to work through the essential fault in man, in men—in the structures that they design and maintain.
The final book in the award-winning Knights of the Borrowed Dark trilogy, perfect for fans of Skulduggery Pleasant. 'You have no idea what real war is . . . but I'm afraid you're going to find out.' There's nothing like an apocalypse to kick off the school year. Denizen Hardwick has travelled to Daybreak, the ancestral home of the Order of the Borrowed Dark, to continue his training as a knight. But lessons have barely begun before an unexpected arrival appears with news that throws the fortress into uproar. The Endless King has fallen, his dark realm rising in a brutal civil war. When the conflict strikes closer to home, Denizen and his friends face their greatest challenge yet. For if Daybreak falls, so does the world . . . 'Action-packed, atmospheric and powerfully imagined' - Sunday Times
This imaginative new fantasy will charm fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice and Rick Riordan. Denizen Hardwick is an orphan, and his life is, well, normal. Sure, in storybooks orphans are rescued from drudgery when they discover they are a wizard or a warrior or a prophesized king. But this is real life—orphans are just kids without parents. At least that’s what Denizen thought. . . . On a particularly dark night, the gates of Crosscaper Orphanage open to a car that almost growls with power. The car and the man in it retrieve Denizen with the promise of introducing him to a long-lost aunt. But on the ride into the city, they are attacked. Denizen soon learns that monsters can grow out of the shadows. And there is an ancient order of knights who keep them at bay. Denizen has a unique connection to these knights, but everything they tell him feels like a half-truth. If Denizen joins the order, is he fulfilling his destiny, or turning his back on everything his family did to keep him alive?
