If We Were Electric
If We Were Electric

Author: Patrick Earl Ryan

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 0820358088

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If We Were Electric’s twelve stories celebrate New Orleans in all of its beautiful peculiarities: macabre and magical, muddy and exquisite, sensual and spiritual. The stunning debut collection finds its characters in moments of desire and despair, often stuck on the verge of a great metamorphosis, but burdened by some unreasonable love. These are stories about missed opportunities, about people on the outside who don’t fit in, about the consequences of not mustering enough courage to overcome the binds. In “Feux Follet,” an old man’s grief attracts supernatural lights in the dark Louisiana swamps. An exploding transformer’s raw, unnerving energy in the title story matches the strange, ferocious temper of an unlucky hustler. “Blackout” sets the profound numbness of a young man physically abused by his mentally unstable partner beside the meaningful beauty of an unexpected moment of joy with someone else. The teenage narrator in “Before Las Blancas” is so overwhelmed by his sexuality that he abandons everything and everyone he’s known to live in a happy illusion . . . in Mexico. And “Where It Takes Us” is a poignant, understated snapshot of a gay man who accompanies his straight, HIV-positive brother to the race track to bond again.

Maybe We're Electric
Maybe We're Electric

Author: Val Emmich

Publisher: Poppy

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0316535699

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From Val Emmich, the bestselling author of Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel, comes a deeply affecting story of two teens who find themselves thrown together overnight during a snowstorm and discover a surprising connection—perfect for fans of Nina LaCour, David Arnold, and Robin Benway. Tegan Everly is quiet. Known around school simply as the girl with the hand, she's usually only her most outspoken self with her friend Neel, and right now they're not exactly talking. When Tegan is ambushed by her mom with a truth she can't face, she flees home in a snowstorm, finding refuge at a forgotten local attraction—the tiny Thomas Edison museum. She's not alone for long. In walks Mac Durant. Striking, magnetic, a gifted athlete, Mac Durant is the classmate adored by all. Tegan can't stand him. Even his name sounds fake. Except the Mac Durant she thinks she knows isn't the one before her now—this Mac is rattled and asking her for help. Over one unforgettable night spent consuming antique records and corner-shop provisions, Tegan and Mac cast aside their public personas and family pressures long enough to forge an unexpectedly charged bond and—in the very spot in New Jersey that inspired Edison's boldest creations—totally reinvent themselves. But could Tegan's most shameful secret destroy what they've built? Emotionally vivid and endlessly charming, Maybe We're Electric is an artfully woven meditation on how pain can connect us—we can carry it alone in darkness or share the burden and watch the world light up again.

The Electric Kingdom
The Electric Kingdom

Author: David Arnold

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0593202244

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New York Times bestseller David Arnold's most ambitious novel to date; Station Eleven meets The 5th Wave in a genre-smashing story of survival, hope, and love amid a ravaged earth. When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. The Electric Kingdom is a sweeping exploration of art, storytelling, eternal life, and above all, a testament to the notion that even in an exterminated world, one person might find beauty in another.

The Electric Church
The Electric Church

Author: Jeff Somers

Publisher: Hachette+ORM

Published: 2007-09-25

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0316019380

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In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last. "Some debuts simply set new bars in a genre. Jeff Somers' The Electric Church is one such book, a gritty noir story that challenges and surprises with every page. A novel that is equal parts Raymond Chandler and William Gibson. A major new talent has arrived -- and it's about time!" -- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author

What If We Were Somewhere Else
What If We Were Somewhere Else

Author: Wendy J. Fox

Publisher: Santa Fe Writers Project

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1951631064

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What If We Were Somewhere Else is the question everyone asks in these linked stories as they try to figure out how to move on from job losses, broken relationships, and fractured families. Following the employees of a nameless corporation and their loved ones, these stories examine the connections they forge and the choices they make as they try to make their lives mean something in the soulless, unforgiving hollowness of corporate life. Looking hard at the families to which we are born and the families we make, What If We Were Somewhere Else asks its own questions about what it means to work, love, and age against the uncertain backdrop of modern America.

The Electric State
The Electric State

Author: Simon Stålenhag

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1501181432

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NPR Best Books of 2018 A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story, perfect for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

Screwed Up World 2
Screwed Up World 2

Author: Tim Shumaker

Publisher: Page Publishing Inc

Published: 2020-01-19

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1644623218

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Screwed-Up World 2 is the continuing saga about six teens who wake up in a zombie apocalypse. In the first book, which is out, they start out as teenagers and learn how to survive in a zombie world. In the second book, they had grown up and still fought to survive. They made friends along the way and lost them as well. They have to learn how to cope with the loss of those friends and keep moving. Jay Storm tells his story about his life in a zombie world as he writes in his journal in the hopes someone finds his journal and learns how to live in the zombie world he lived in.

Numbers Don't Lie
Numbers Don't Lie

Author: Vaclav Smil

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0525507817

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"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning."--Bill Gates, GatesNotes From the author of How the World Really Works, an essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production. Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy? From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them, to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie, Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples, Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential, with a mix of science, history, and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.