London, the near future. Ever-increasing social inequalities have seen the birth of a flourishing kidnapping industry. To counter such a constant, overhanging threat, private security companies employing highly trained bodyguards have sprung into existence. Ellie Braxton works for the Damocles agency, the most renowned of those companies. Tasked with protecting the son of an important British industry magnate, she and her team find themselves faced with terribly efficient and remarkably motivated opponents...
Four novellas that focus on the events of the second Damocles Gulf Crusade Two centuries ago, the Imperium of Man and the upstart Tau Empire fought to a standstill in the Damocles Gulf. Now, as the 41st millennium draws to a close, the tau have returned. As the world of Agrellan falls under attack, the White Scars and Raven Guard rush to its defence, but with the skilled Commander Shadowsun leading the alien forces, the Space Marines and their allies are hard pressed. Kor'sarro Khan, Huntmaster of the White Scars, swears that he will win the day in the most direct way possible - by taking Shadowsun's head.
Ellie’s mission of protecting a rich young man is getting increasingly difficult: her young client is too visible, too unruly. She manages to thwart another kidnapping attempt – albeit by taking enormous personal risks – and requests her charge now be kept in seclusion. But even the most secret hideouts aren’t safe when the enemy is so determined. And the political and economic stakes are high – not to mention personal grudges...
Walt is back among the living thanks to Ellie and a massive dose of the Damocles agency’s superdrug. Meanwhile, their client Ava Troy narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. But the man who threatened her is a lone wolf, so who is behind the previous attacks? Religious extremists? Or an even less savoury group? What secrets is Miss Troy hiding? And can Ellie keep her existential doubts in check much longer?
Perfect Child is a company specialised in medically assisted procreation – for extremely wealthy customers. An activity that isn’t to everyone’s taste, and the CEO, Ava Troy, has received many threats. Enter Ellie Braxton, assigned as Ava’s bodyguard. Unfortunately, Ellie isn’t doing too well. Her teammate and mentor, Walt, is still in a coma, and she’s having many doubts about her life choices. But can she really afford such a luxury...
When the supernatural forces maintaining the fragile balance of power in this world start to unravel, Josh Miller, a young college grad and expectant father, is caught in the middle of a vast conspiracy threatening to tear apart the foundations of humanity as we know it. As myth and reality collide, Josh finds himself on the frontline of a battle against an enemy dating back to the beginning of time itself. Comic legends KLAUS JANSON (Daredevil, Dark Knight Returns) and PABLO RAIMONDI (X-Factor, Book of Doom) proudly present SACRED CREATURES, their first-ever creator-owned series. Collects SACRED CREATURES #1-6
Setting out to exterminate the upstart Tau Empire before it becomes a threat, the Ultramarines under Captain Atheus discover that the xenos may be more of a menace than they originally believed… The Imperium of Man takes its bloody revenge upon the expansionist tau in a war of dizzying spectacle. For the first time, the daredevil warriors of the Ultramarines Assault Company go to war en masse, fighting in the skies, in the streets, and even in the prototype testing facilities of the tau Earth caste. However, Sergeants Sicarius and Numitor must overcome their hunger for glory as the brightest stars of the Tau Empire, Commanders Farsight and Shadowsun, hunt them to the brink of disaster. Tempers run short as battle-brothers fall, ammunition runs out and the course of the war takes ever-darker twists and turns. With two warrior cultures struggling for a vital edge and the body count spiralling towards a terrible conclusion, can notions of honour and duty survive at all?
Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek
