Where do we go when death takes us? What visions do we witness between our last blink and the sightless stare into the realms beyond? What horrors are captured in the corners of our dying eyes? If we could see those images, before death, would they resemble what lies within these pages? 16 brand new tales of horror fiction, from some of the most talented short story writers around featuring: Stephen Bacon, Stuart Young, Gary McMahon, Dave Jeffery, Mark West, Zach Black, Jan Edwards, Steven Savile and Steve Lockley, Katherine Tomlinson, Adrian Chamberlin, R. J. Gaulding, Ian Woodhead, Stuart Hughes, Stuart Neild, Richard Farren Barber, Johnny Mains
The universe, and what passes for reality, has its dark secrets—for those that dare to seek them out. But understanding the nature of reality holds no interest for Evyline Marron—she has only a shallow sense of its significance. Evyline’s pursuit is the human condition, one that finds her peering into the deceased heads of others, of which there has been something of a dearth of late. Then, quite out of the blue, the cerebral cortex of a notorious individual comes her way. An individual once possessed of some very peculiar notions indeed. Reality, it seems, is a façade behind which all manner of horrors can be hidden, horrors discoverable by only the most particular of minds. And that’s exactly what happens.
In the afterlife, the loudest sound is the screaming of the dead. Death isn’t always the end or the answer. Sam thought his suicide would be the end of his suffering, but he was wrong, as he wakes up in a never-ending graveyard. He soon realises he has an opportunity to be reunited with his departed twin brother, Paul. Yet they must cross through the many planes of the afterlife to find each other. They will need to escape the hordes of the dead, survive forests where burning corpses are nailed to trees, and navigate the feuds and machinations of the people who promise to help them along the way. Can Sam and Paul find each other in hell, or will the afterlife claim another two souls?
This book presents a new algebraic system whose interpretation coincides with the behaviour of Petri nets, enhanced with an inhibitory mechanism and four time models. Its goal is to provide a formal means of modelling dynamic tasks, and of testing and verifying properties, in contexts characterised by the parallel execution of actions. However, the task description differs from that of Petri nets. The algebra is a quasi-semiring, “quasi” because of its somewhat restricted distributivity axiom. Expressions of this algebra, the cause–effect structures, have a graphic presentation as nets, but with one kind of named nodes, each annotated by two expressions that specify the type of signal reception from predecessors and transmission to successors. Many structural and behavioural properties are stated with proofs, and illustrative sample tasks are included. The book is intended for all those interested or involved in parallel and distributed computing – students, researchers and practitioners alike.
The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces by Ray Vukcevich The first victim is found dead with a number painted all over his body. The second victim is also murdered by strangulation with a computer printer cable. And there seems to be something fishy about beautiful Prudence Deerfield, the woman who brings the case to Skylight Howells. Skylight confers with Dennis, and they both discuss the case with Scarface, Dieter, and Brian Dobson's other personalities before taking the case. Once they do, we're in for one of the wildest, wackiest mysteries to come down the pipe in years. You won't need six heads to crack this case, but they probably wouldn't hurt.
Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann’s father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver—cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying. Neumann struggled to put her life back in order and found herself haunted by a question: Was her father’s death a good death? The way we talk about dying and the way we actually die are two very different things, she discovered, and many of us are shielded from what death actually looks like. To gain a better understanding, Neumann became a hospice volunteer and set out to discover what a good death is today. She attended conferences, academic lectures, and grief sessions in church basements. She went to Montana to talk with the attorney who successfully argued for the legalization of aid in dying, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to listen to “pro-life” groups who believe the removal of feeding tubes from some patients is tantamount to murder. Above all, she listened to the stories of those who were close to death. What Neumann found is that death in contemporary America is much more complicated than we think. Medical technologies and increased life expectancies have changed the very definition of medical death. And although death is our common fate, it is also a divisive issue that we all experience differently. What constitutes a good death is unique to each of us, depending on our age, race, economic status, culture, and beliefs. What’s more, differing concepts of choice, autonomy, and consent make death a contested landscape, governed by social, medical, legal, and religious systems. In these pages, Neumann brings us intimate portraits of the nurses, patients, bishops, bioethicists, and activists who are shaping the way we die. The Good Death presents a fearless examination of how we approach death, and how those of us close to dying loved ones live in death’s wake.
Can one man save the Titanic? March 1912. A mysterious man appears aboard the Titanic on its doomed voyage. His mission? To save the ship. The result? A world where the United States never entered World War I, thus launching the secret history of the 20th Century. April 2012. Joseph Kennedy - grand-nephew of John F. Kennedy - lives in an America occupied in the East by Greater Germany and on the West Coast by Imperial Japan. He is one of six people who can restore history to its rightful order -- even though it would mean his own death. "A magnificent alternate history, set against the backdrop of one of the the greatest maritime disasters." Library Journal “Imaginative, monolithic, action-packed… The reader will not be disappointed.” — Bookseller and Publisher "Time travel, airships, the Titanic, Roswell ... Kowalski builds a decidedly original creature that blends military science fiction, conspiracy theory, alternate history, and even a dash of romance." Publishers Weekly "Kowalski effortlessly smashes together high art and grand adventure in this alt-history juggernaut." John Birmingham, acclaimed author of Weapons of Choice "Exciting action, twisty and ingenious characterisation, and complicated time-travel plotting, deftly handled." S.M. Stirling, NYT bestselling author of The Tears of the Sun "A non-stop chase that takes place across two thousand miles ... and one hundred years of perdurant time." Walter Jon Williams, NYT bestselling author of Deep State
