DIE FOR THE COMPANY, LIVE FOR THE PAY And the ultimate pay-off is DH-17, an Earth-like planet hundreds of light years from human habitation. Ruthless corporations vie over the prize remotely, and war is in full swing. But soldiers recruited to fight in the extremities of deep space come with their own problems: from A.I. minds in full rebellion, to Carlos 'the Terrorist' and his team of dead mercenaries, reincarnated from a bloodier period in earth's history for one purpose only - to kill. But as old rivalries emerge and new ones form, Carlos must decide whether he's willing for fight for the company or die for himself. Ken MacLeod continues the Corporation Wars trilogy in this action-packed science fiction adventure told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality, and an A.I. revolution.
Ken MacLeod continues the Corporation Wars trilogy in this action-packed science fiction adventure told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality, and an A.I. revolution. And the ultimate pay-off is DH-17, an Earth-like planet hundreds of light years from human habitation. Ruthless corporations vie over the prize remotely, and war is in full swing. But soldiers recruited to fight in the extremities of deep space come with their own problems: from A.I. minds in full rebellion, to Carlos 'the Terrorist' and his team of dead mercenaries, reincarnated from a bloodier period in earth's history for one purpose only - to kill. But as old rivalries emerge and new ones form, Carlos must decide whether he's willing for fight for the company or die for himself. DIE FOR THE COMPANY, LIVE FOR THE PAY.
Ken MacLeod concludes the Corporation Wars trilogy in this action-packed science fiction adventure told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality, and an A.I revolution. The enemy is out in the open. The Reaction has seized control of a resource-rich moon. Now it's enslaving conscious robots -- and luring the Corporations into lucrative deals. Taransay is out in the jungle. Her friends are inside a smart boulder on the slope of an active volcano. The planet is super-habitable -- for its own life, not hers. But soon, the alien infestation growing on her robot body is the least of her problems. Carlos is out of patience. With the Reaction arming for conquest, the Corporations trading with the enemy and the Direction planning to stamp out the rebel robots and their allies for good, he has to fight fire with fire. Seba is out of time. Deep inside the enemy stronghold, the free robots have to spark a new revolt before the whole world falls in on them. b>As battle looms, the robots must become their own last hope. The Corporation WarsThe Corporation Wars: Dissidence The Corporation Wars: InsurgenceThe Corporation Wars: Emergence
From Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author Ken MacLeod, an action-packed space opera told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality, and an A.I. revolution. In deep space, ruthless corporations vie for control of scattered mining colonies, and war is an ever-present threat. Led by Seba, a newly sentient mining reboot, an AI revolution grows. Fighting them is Carlos, a grunt who is reincarnated over and over again to keep the "freeboots" in check. But he's not sure whether he's on the right side. Against a backdrop of interstellar drone combat Carlos and Seba must either find a way to rise above the games their masters are playing or die. And even dying might not be the end of it. The Corporation WarsThe Corporation Wars: Dissidence The Corporation Wars: InsurgenceThe Corporation Wars: Emergence
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who—against fierce resistance from within their own ranks—changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars. The Insurgents is the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, led by General David Petraeus, who plotted to revolutionize one of the largest, oldest, and most hidebound institutions—the United States military. Their aim was to build a new Army that could fight the new kind of war in the post–Cold War age: not massive wars on vast battlefields, but “small wars” in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists. These would be wars not only of fighting but of “nation building,” often not of necessity but of choice. Based on secret documents, private emails, and interviews with more than one hundred key characters, including Petraeus, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of the wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one mounted at home by ambitious, self-consciously intellectual officers—Petraeus, John Nagl, H. R. McMaster, and others—many of them classmates or colleagues in West Point’s Social Science Department who rose through the ranks, seized with an idea of how to fight these wars better. Amid the crisis, they forged a community (some of them called it a cabal or mafia) and adapted their enemies’ techniques to overhaul the culture and institutions of their own Army. Fred Kaplan describes how these men and women maneuvered the idea through the bureaucracy and made it official policy. This is a story of power, politics, ideas, and personalities—and how they converged to reshape the twenty-first-century American military. But it is also a cautionary tale about how creative doctrine can harden into dogma, how smart strategists—today’s “best and brightest”—can win the battles at home but not the wars abroad. Petraeus and his fellow insurgents made the US military more adaptive to the conflicts of the modern era, but they also created the tools—and made it more tempting—for political leaders to wade into wars that they would be wise to avoid.
A Washington Post Bestseller Three Principles for Managing—and Avoiding—the Problems of Growth Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What’s more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further—and can actively lead to decline. The key insight from Zook and Allen’s research is that managing these choke points requires a “founder’s mentality”—behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder—to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers: • An insurgent’s clear mission and purpose • An unambiguous owner mindset • A relentless obsession with the front line Based on the authors’ decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder’s Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds—not just start-ups—and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader—not only a founder—can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.
In humanity's future, intelligence thrives from the Oort-cloud fringes of star systems to the furnaces beneath planetary crusts--not on the surfaces. There are differences among the powerful intelligences on how to deal with surface life-forms such as human beings. When humans finally achieve space travel, they become involved in the politics of the gods.
Mathematician Lakshmi Nayak receives a letter from her future self about faster-than-light travel. The equations work, and the letter itself seems to prove the possibility will someday be realized. But her paper on the topic is fiercely criticized, and she’s warned away by a sinister Alliance agent. After defecting to the Union, she gets an unexpected offer: “I can build your ship.” Shipbuilder John Grant learns of a secret project, which unknown to the world has been traveling to the stars for decades: Black Horizon. Biologist Emma Hazeldene works for Black Horizon on an alien world, Apis, whose life has clearly come from Earth, investigating rock formations that are thought to be an alien, crystal-like intelligence. But refugees exiled to a hard life in the wilds of Apis already know more than the scientists have ever suspected. Everything changes when the rocks wake up, with dire results. As secrets emerge and rival powers seize advantage, three worlds are shaken to their foundations—and all involved have to fight for their lives, and their futures. Science fiction legend Ken MacLeod begins a new space opera trilogy by imagining humankind on the precipice of discovery—the invention of faster-than-light travel unlocks a universe of new possibilities, and new dangers.
The most useful forms of outside support for an insurgent movement include safe havens, financial support, political backing, and direct military assistance. Because states are able to provide all of these types of assistance, their support has had a profound impact on the effectiveness of many rebel movements since the end of the Cold War. However, state support is no longer the only, or indeed necessarily the most important, game in town. Diasporas have played a particularly important role in sustaining several strong insurgencies. More rarely, refugees, guerrilla groups, or other types of non-state supporters play a significant role in creating or sustaining an insurgency, offering fighters, training, or other forms of assistance. This report assesses post-Cold War trends in external support for insurgent movements. It describes the frequency that states, diasporas, refugees, and other non-state actors back guerrilla movements. It also assesses the motivations of these actors and which types of support matter most. This book concludes by assessing the implications for analysts of insurgent movements.
With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . . “A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World. “Exceptional and engrossing.”—New York Post “Ambitious . . . ingenious.”—Newsday
