Filtrer
Prix
Keith Roberts
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1588: Queen Elizabeth is felled by an assassin's bullet. Within the week, the Spanish Armada had set sail, and its victory changed the course of history.
1968: England is still dominated by the Church of Rome. There are no telephones, no television, no nuclear power. As Catholicism and the Inquisition tighten their grip, rebellion is growing. -
The Realm of Kiteworld has survived nuclear catastrophe and is governed by a feudal and militant religious oligarchy - the Church Variant.
In the outer Badlands, real or imagined Demons are kept at bay by flying defensive structures of giant interlocking Cody kites piloted by an elite and brave Corps of Observers.
Through a series of Kite stories we are drawn compellingly into a strange but recognizable world where loyalty to the Corps is everything and non-conformity is a sin. Keith Roberts depicts the fortunes, passions and failings of his characters against this background of a fragile and superstitious society. As the fanatical Ultras embark on a religious campaign of destruction, the Realm starts to disintegrate fast. -
Men hammered at phones as the lines burned their hands; distributor caps split, engines flashed into flame as gasoline from torn lines doused their blocks; computers rebelled, barraged their operators with lunatic results. An army of poltergeists was loose, ripping and snapping, jamming beyond all repair the machinery of war.
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America and Russian both explode huge H-bombs simultaneously. The tests go wrong, cracking the seabed, rupturing continents and engulfing cities. The Thames flattens into a flood plain, London is drowned.
Now comes cosmic retribution - giant wasps, monstrous and deadly, directed by a supernatural intelligence, invade a reeling world. In England, isolated guerrillas fight on¿ -
A garage owner is called on to repair an Unidentified Flying Object; the seductive rhythmic pulse emanating from beyond a continental shelf village mysteriously beckons the younger submarine generation; a small town cinema projectionist screens 3-D rushes for a 24th century film crew; a divorce case in which the co-respondent is a synthetic human...
Keith Roberts injects his own brand of immediacy and realism through his punchy, readably style and his considerable technical know-how into these stories, ten rare new gems in the dazzling treasury of SF. -
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE the hazardous evolution of mankind continues. And in primeval response to the disaster, humanity's solutions to catastrophe carve the harsh new world in violent patterns of magic and myth, rite and religion. Brave images scar the ancient hills, the clash of swords and the ageless power of sexuality sign-post another, bloodsoaked path to civilisation.
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'We reap and we thresh; grain for half the world. We are the Grain Kings raised of old.'
They call them the Grain Kings. Gigantic mechanical monarchs of the wheat-bearing plains that were once the frozen Alaskan wastes. Whole eco-systems in themselves, they can supply the food so desperately needed by the teeming millions of our overpopulated planet. But even now, as the whole world waits in hungry suspense, the great powers battle for control of the prairies and two competing combine harvesters find they are heading on a course of collision. A collision with catastrophic consequences - not only for the hundreds of crewmen aboard each massive machine but for the future survival of all mankind. -
Welcome to a haunted world; the world of Keith Roberts' powerful and unique imagination. These stories show Roberts' fascination for the curious and unclassifiable; and as ever, his mastery of character and detail. 'Susan' introduces the reader to a schoolgirl with awesome psychic powers; but the sensitive treatment turns a shock situation into a brilliant fable, while 'The Scarlet Lady', predating Stephen King's Christine, has the genuine stench of petrol, oil and demons. 'The Eastern Windows' chillingly continues the theme; by contrast, 'Winderwood' introduces us to a fearsome locale that Roberts insists is real. 'Mrs. Cibber' transports the reader, with complete conviction, to the smog-ridden London of the fifties and unfolds the strange tale of a young graphic designer haunted by a woman from the eighteenth century. 'The Snake Princess', equally atmospheric, tells the story of a boy's doomed, bizarre love, while 'Everything in the Garden' presents the tour de force of a haunting within a haunting.
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Keith Robert's The Lordly Ones offers a wide variety of sf and fantasy (and even a ghost story). The title story is a vision of near-future Britain collapsing in social disorder told from the viewpoint of a slow-witted lavatory attendant. Another take, "The Comfort Station", approaches a similar situation from a quite different perspective. In other stories we see Roberts in a more light-hearted vein: "The Checkout", another of his series of stories about a modern-day witch, Anita, or "Diva", a tale of singer of unique abilities. In "Ariadne Potts" a man's wish brings a classical statue to life, with, inevitably, unfortunate results. "The Castle and the Hoop" is an atmospheric ghost story set around the pubs of Southwark. And "Sphairistike" is perhaps the only sf story ever to centre on the game of tennis.
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As author and illustrator, Keith Roberts did more than most to define the look of UK science fiction magazines in the 1960s. In addition to his BFSA Award wins, he was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. He is perhaps best known for his seminal alternate history novel, Pavane, but his work covered a broad range of SF's tropes and settings, as can be seen from the titles collected in this omnibus: The Chalk Giants, Kiteworld and The Grain Kings.
THE CHALK GIANTS: After the apocalypse the hazardous evolution of mankind continues. And in primeval response to the disaster, humanity's solutions to catastrophe carve the harsh new world in violent patterns of magic and myth, rite and religion. Brave images scar the ancient hills, the clash of swords and the ageless power of sexuality sign-post another, bloodsoaked path to civilisation.
KITEWORLD: Powerful churches have long kept their grip on the people with a theology of fear that makes formidable demons out of the poor, weak mutants of the surrounding badlands. To ward off these specters, an elaborate, tradition-encrusted system of kites with hex signs or armed observers fly over the realm. The men of this Kite Corps, performing hazardous duty to sustain a myth, are driven to find a separate peace, to transform, if they can, disillusionment into enlightenment, to move forward from an assumption of guilt to an assumption of responsibility.
THE GRAIN KINGS: They call them The Grain Kings. Gigantic mechanical monarchs of the wheat-bearing plains that were once the frozen Alaskan wastes. Whole eco-systems in themselves, they can supply the food so desperately needed by the teeming millions of our overpopulated planet. But even now, as the whole world waits in hungry suspense, the great powers battle for control of the prairies and two competing combine harvesters find they are heading on a course of collision. -
Most people think witches are old and ugly - but ANITA isn't.
ANITA doesn't cackle and hiss as she works dark curses, either. Oh, she casts witch's spells and incantations, but not the usual kind.
ANITA's main interest is boys, just like any other girl her age. And she doesn't really need things like love potions - not with her face and figure.
But ANITA is a witch, and she's young and a little reckless. Which means she sometimes makes mistakes (usually with boys), and when she does... all Hell might break loose.... -
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1987
Meet Gráinne: blue-stocking seductress, darling of the media, painfully human yet mysterious as her great namesake, the proud girl-goddess who plunged all Ireland into war and shadow... -
Kaeti and her companions inhabit a strange world; a 'theatre of the mind' where the unexpected is commonplace, where ghosts, vampires and even the odd goddess may be encountered at any turn. It is a tribute to the author's skill that Kaeti's world seems, at all times, as real as our own, sometimes uncomfortably so. Whether satirising the mores of the Thames Valley or exposing the curious antics of the publishing world, Roberts is equally at home. He explores the gamut of human emotions; high comedy alternates with terror, the most delicate of love scenes are set against the iron dreariness of Death Row. Always though, at the focus, is Kaeti; witty and resourceful, resilient and vulnerable by turns. Some characters may change their roles with lightning speed, like the players i n a repertory company - but Kaeti remains. As does London. Robert always displays a knowledge of a city haunted by its own past, and a love for its highways and byways, that will surprise old fans and win him many new admirers.
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Ladies from Hell contains five long stories.
"The Shack at Great Cross Halt" describes a Britain dominated by motorways, juggernauts and a tyranny, in which the unfortunates of society eke out a miserable existence scavenging items that fall off lorries.
"The Ministry of Children" shows comprehensive schools having become terrifying battlegrounds dominated by vicious gangs.
"The Big Fans" concerns an experiment in wind-powered electricity which accidentally unleashes an apocalyptic storm of effects.
"Our Lady of Destruction" ironically depicts a future in which a Stalinist British government taxes 'non-productive' people (i.e. artists) at over 100% and assigns them individual Overseers to regulate their work.
"Missa Privata" shows an opera singer in a communist-dominated Britain making a defiant individual gesture which will bring about her own ruin.
These are not stories of spaceships and alien worlds; rather they are studies of imminent social change, written out of passionate concern about the directions in which our society may be heading - stories, in fact, in the great Orwellian tradition. Most importantly, they are stories about people: believable, defiant individuals struggling against oppressive forces. -
Kaeti branches out, moves farther from her beloved London. In the process she makes a whole range of new, intriguing friends; and lands herself in some scrapes startling even by her standards. The shadows she sprays on the pavement of a Thames Valley town come alive to haunt her; later, the magic Tiger Sweater she acquires does more than haunt the subjects of her wrath. While for a time her latest experience of France also looks like being her last. In a Thames-side hotel she conjures Hell on request; on a deserted airfield, and in the Green Palace, Glasgow, Hell returns to haunt her. In the West Country, she meets an eighteenth century benefactress; or is she? Certainly the experience lands Kaeti in hospital; for a while it seems she's about to cross the Bridge of Dreams herself. Finally she circles back to London' but a London neither you nor she has never seen...
But it's all in a day's work for Kaeti, the Bow Bells actress who is in touch with things magical and eternal. -
Raised, tested, trained and indoctrinated in the Blocks, Molly Zero is being groomed for the governing Elite.
Rebelling against her fate, she flees. An innocent searching for truth, Molly finds the world outside the Blocks alien and frightening. Her flight plunges her first into the heart of a small community. Next, attracted by their eccentric gaiety, she joins the travelling gypsies, roaming the country in Commercial Air Cushion Vehicles. And then Molly gets caught up in urban terrorism... -
Clinical Ocular Prosthetics
Keith R. Pine, Brian H. Sloan, Robert J. Jacobs
- Springer
- 10 Juillet 2015
- 9783319190570
This is the first textbook to offer a comprehensive account of ocular prosthetics and the evidence used to underpin and support this field of healthcare. It does so by bringing together information from ophthalmology, prosthetic eye and contact lens literature, and from experts actively engaged in these fields.The book describes the psychological, anatomical and physiological aspects of eye loss as well as surgical procedures for removing the eye, patient evaluation, constructing prosthetic eyes (including prosthetic and surgical techniques for dealing with socket complications), the socket's response to prosthetic eyes, prosthetic eye maintenance and the history of prosthetic eyes.Though primarily intended for prosthetists, ophthalmologists, ophthalmic nurses, optometrists and students in the fields of ocular medicine, maxillofacial medicine and anaplastology, the book also offers a useful resource for other health workers and family members who care for prosthetic eye patients, and for those patients seeking a deeper understanding of the issues affecting them than they can find elsewhere.
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Changes in society, the pluralistic nature of the citizens and the geographic breadth of America preclude a common definition of what is indecent, profane, or obscene. What may appear to be 'dirty discourse' to some may be considered to be laudable satire to others. In this fascinating book, renowned media scholars and authors, Robert Hilliard and Michael Keith, examine the history and nature of indecent program content in American radio.
Examines the blue side of the airways with a first-ever analysis of the history and nature of off-color program content.
Explores the treatment of once-forbidden topics in the electronic media, investigating the beliefs, attitudes and actions of those who present such material, those who condemn it, and those who defend it.
Written from a social and cultural perspective, concentrates on the means of greatest distribution - radio, with its phenomenal growth of "shock jocks" and rap music lyrics.
Provides coverage of television and the Internet, showing how and why broadcasting has evolved from the ribald antics of the Roaring 20's to today's streaming cybersex, contrasting the standards and actions of the FCC v. the First Amendment amidst the over-the-air and in-the-court battles of over-the-top radio.
Illustrates political pressures and legal considerations, including Supreme Court decisions, and efforts to protect children from media smut. -
IoT for Defense and National Security
Ananthram Swami, Keith Gremban, Robert Douglass, Stephan Gerali
- Wiley-IEEE Press
- 4 Janvier 2023
- 9781119892205
IoT for Defense and National Security Practical case-based guide illustrating the challenges and solutions of adopting IoT in both secure and hostile environments IoT for Defense and National Security covers topics on IoT security, architecture, robotics, sensing, policy, operations, and more, including the latest results from the premier IoT research initiative of the U.S. Defense Department, the Internet of Battle Things. The text also discusses challenges in converting defense industrial operations to IoT and summarizes policy recommendations for regulating government use of IoT in free societies. As a modern reference, this book covers multiple technologies in IoT including survivable tactical IoT using content-based routing, mobile ad-hoc networks, and electronically formed beams. Examples of IoT architectures include using KepServerEX for edge connectivity and AWS IoT Core and Amazon S3 for IoT data. To aid in reader comprehension, the text uses case studies illustrating the challenges and solutions for using robotic devices in defense applications, plus case studies on using IoT for a defense industrial base. Written by leading researchers and practitioners of IoT technology for defense and national security, IoT for Defense and National Security also includes information on: Changes in warfare driven by IoT weapons, logistics, and systems IoT resource allocation (monitoring existing resources and reallocating them in response to adversarial actions) Principles of AI-enabled processing for Internet of Battlefield Things, including machine learning and inference Vulnerabilities in tactical IoT communications, networks, servers and architectures, and strategies for securing them Adapting rapidly expanding commercial IoT to power IoT for defense For application engineers from defense-related companies as well as managers, policy makers, and academics, IoT for Defense and National Security is a one-of-a-kind resource, providing expansive coverage of an important yet sensitive topic that is often shielded from the public due to classified or restricted distributions.
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Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation
Robert V. Rohli, Anthony J. Vega, Keith G. Henderson
- Springer
- 21 Décembre 2024
- 9783031661426
This book provides a one-stop shop for coastal and marine scientists to understand processes that generate atmospheric circulation as integrated with terrestrial and oceanic circulation processes to create an Earth-ocean-atmosphere climate system. It uses the process approach in the first half of the book to set the stage for understanding circulation systems and then for explaining the circulation processes themselves, with the second half of the book dedicated to showing how these processes play themselves out across the Earth's terrestrial and marine surface. The processes explained in the first half of the book assume no prior knowledge of meteorology or oceanography. The regional section includes the major continents or subcontinents, along with their surrounding ocean environs. It begins with the area with which many/most readers are likely most familiar -the USA and Canada. From there, the tour of the world continues, beginning with the places that have atmospheric and oceanic circulation features that are most similar to the USA and Canada, all in the Northern Hemisphere-Europe, Southwestern Asia, and then East Asia. From there, the discussion builds on principles illustrated in the first half of the book and demonstrated in the beginning of the regional section of the book, while also adding concepts and principles of importance in the tropical and subtropical latitudes, by describing circulation features of South and Southeast Asia. This discussion carries forward naturally for a discussion of Africa, which experiences similar features of subtropical and tropical latitudes. From there, previous material can be applied and built upon further in the discussion of Latin America and the Caribbean. Australia and Oceania are the next area covered, followed by the polar latitudes. The book concludes with a brief review of the major atmospheric and oceanic circulation features around the world and with a reminder of the cascading primary and secondary impacts of the climate system.
The book is intended to fill a niche as both a textbook and a reference source for non-atmospheric specialists. Its purpose is to help coastal, environmental, engineering, and planning professionals to get "up to speed" regarding atmospheric and oceanic circulations and their impacts around the world. This would allow more effective communication with climate modelers, atmospheric and marine environmental consultants, and media. Our book-writing experience allows us to implement "best practices" based on cognitive theory to facilitate learning in the geosciences.