Border Crosser

Johnny Rico is back. After risking his life as an Afghanistan stop-loss soldier, an experience he described in the cult phenomenon Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green, he now dares to embed himself on both sides of America’s most dangerous domestic conflict–the war for and against illegal immigration–in an exhilarating new exercise in immersion journalism. The gonzo author–part Hunter Thompson, part George Plimpton–explores a seemingly insoluble issue by getting his hands dirty and his boots on the ground. As a “typically spoiled American” who doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish, he takes it upon himself to try to cross the Mexican border into the United States illegally. Eager to tell the story from all sides–or simply to get good material for his book–Rico also travels treacherously with the Border Patrol, meets extreme immigrant advocates who publish maps for illegals, visits a modern-day “underground railroad” in Texas, and hunts for miscreants with angry vigilantes. In such hot spots as the Tecate Line, a forty-five-mile stretch of hills on California’s southern fringe, and Arizona’s Amnesty Trail, the single busiest part of the U.S. border, Rico encounters Los Zetas, the paramilitatry group that has taken over Mexico’s drug cartels, interviews the volunteer Minutemen, who believe in an imminent and apocalyptic Mexican invasion, and tries to recruit coyotes (human smugglers, usually fortified by meth and cocaine). In his heedless and openly opportunistic style, Rico unearths more truths about this explosive subject than most traditional reporters could ever hope to. Border Crosser is another knockout from this new-generation journalist, at once a concerned citizen, courageous spy, and unparalleled author.

In a galaxy gone insane only mad person would fight for freedom. That person is Eris, a charismatic spy with a violent borderline personality and emotional amnesia—she doesn’t remember her loyalties. This allows her to pass from world to world without mental scanners detecting her long-term intentions, making her a “border crosser.” The Asylum cabal has artificially amplified Eris’s condition so that she’ll cause interstellar chaos for the limited time she survives. When Eris discovers the Asylum’s manipulation of her, she sets out to find its hidden leaders and destroy them. From decadent old Earth to the frontier estates of Mars, Eris hunts her first quarry, the Asylum’s architect of genocides. Her chase then leads her out to the stars, where she discovers still deadlier dangers from humanity’s past and her own. As she fights galaxy-spanning nightmares, Eris knows that her dream of revenge will fail unless she can somehow recover her own mind. “An electric shock to the senses from page one, Doyle's twisty story caroms from sex and psyche to AI and the destruction of worlds. Our conductor on this non-stop ride, Eris—a worthy heir to Buffy and Xena—is the unique and ferocious hero we didn't know we needed.” —Ashley Gable, writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Person of Interest. “Darkly comic and slyly allusive, Border Crosser is a ripping good tale shot through with mordant social commentary. A fresh and intelligent take on forbidden AI, religious zealotry, borderline personality, sex, art, and genocide—not necessarily in that order—that stuck in my head and left me hankering for a sequel.” —Jo Miller, winner of four Emmy Awards, writer for The Daily Show (2009-2015), and late-night comedy showrunner. “This is not your parents' space opera! A cross between the Stainless Steel Rat, Jerry Cornelius, and Tank Girl, the titular agent is the antihero for our times. Doyle impresses with a strong voice, a unique narrator, and a challenging far-future setting that dangerously mirrors our present world.” —Alex Shvartsman, author of The Middling Affliction. "Here is a novel that starts at a gallop and then accelerates. Tom Doyle’s invention is sly and continuous, his command of the ins and outs of science fiction adventure is exhilarating. And in the redoubtable Eris, he has created a character who is smart and sexy and more than a little twisted. Border Crosser is a book you won’t soon forget." —James Patrick Kelly, Nebula Award winning author of Burn. "Tom Doyle’s Border Crosser is a hyperkinetic tour of a sprawling solar system and galaxy in a dark and delirious future. Doyle explores the deep, painful and unpleasant aspects of the psyche, showcasing some of the more repellent examples of human behavior, yet manages to bring a surprising amount of decency and affection to his story. The book speeds along at a breakneck pace, and will astonish you, wrench your heart, snatch your breath away, make you laugh, and move you." —Richard Paul Russo, author of Ship of Fools. "The bastard love-child of Philip K. Dick and the Marquis De Sade, BORDER CROSSER will sink into your mind like one of Frank Herbert's stone burners. This is revolutionary science fiction." —David J. Williams, author of The Mirrored Heavens.

From one of the prominent Chicano poets writing today comes a collection of poems to take your breath away. With dazzling speed and energy, Juan Felipe Herrera sends readers rocketing through verbal space in a celebration of the rhythms and textures of words that will make you want to shout, dance, and read out loud. Lika a wild ride in a fast car, Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream moves at breakneck speed, a post-Lorca journey across the new millennium terrain. Words careen through space and time, through blighted urban landscapes, past banjos and bees, past AIDS faces and mad friars, past severed heads and steel-toed border-crosser boots. To the rhythm of "The Blue Eyed Mambo that Unveils My Lover's Belly" and the sounds of the Last Mayan Acid rock band, Herrera races through the hallucinations of a nation that remains just outside of paradise. With dazzling poems that roar from the darkest corners of our minds toward an ecstatic celebration of the lushness of language, Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream is a celebration of a world that is both sacred and cruel, a world of "Poesy Chicano style undone wild" by one of the most daring poets of our time.

The story of three teens, members of the first generation to come of age after the United States splits into two countries, continues. When tragedy strikes Judith Braverman in the God Fearing States, Dani Fine is determined to leave the safety of home in the United Progressive Regions and once again sneak across the border to join Judith and the new Minyan of Resistance. She’s also eager to find out if the attraction she and Judith shared during their first meeting is still between them. Impatient for some visible act of defiance, Jeffrey Schwartz is worried that the Minyan is more focused on prayer than on actual resistance. But when the GFS president, running in a close re-election campaign against a self-proclaimed “Christian white supremacist,” vows to step up the government’s actions against the country’s Jews, the Minyan makes its move. Nothing that’s come before can prepare Judith, Dani and Jeffrey for the challenges they now face as their futures appear more and more uncertain. The Border Crosser is the second book in the highly praised Split Series.

As organizations continue to adapt and evolve to meet the challenges related to globalization and working with new collaboration technologies to bridge time and space, demands on employees’ time and attention continue to increase. Recognizing this problem and its implications, such as increased employee turnover, many companies are seeking ways to help their employees maintain a healthy balance between work and life. This book examines work-life conflict, i.e., the increasing lack of employees’ work-life balance, in the context of virtual teams and distributed work. It explores the negative impact on work-life conflict exacerbated by working across time zones, cultures, and geographical spaces. Further, it investigates specific causes of work-life conflict in distributed work environments. For researchers and practitioners in the HRM and OB domains, this book adds to the body of knowledge on work-life conflict, with a unique focus on the role of technology.

Based on fieldwork among undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers Illegal Traveller offers a narrative of the polysemic nature of borders, border politics, and rituals and performances of border-crossing. Interjecting personal experiences into ethnographic writing it is 'a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context'.

The Border Crosser Ian takes in the scene as the news camera zooms in as the police open the back of a panel truck. The heat waves shimmering up from the pavement speak to the extreme desert heat. One of the police officers turns and holds his hand over his mouth as he gets sick. The people in the back of the semi are dead and it is clear that many tried unsuccessfully to claw their way out. The camera man turns the camera to the field reporter who describes the scene and the awful smell associated with the horrible scene. This was the second such discovery in as many months. When the reporter poses the question of how or who would solve such a horrible problem. Ian knew immediately that he had been activated. Almost immediately after the news cast his phone displays a simple message, "call". Using one of his disposable phones Ian called the number that he has memorize. He got briefed on what was expected of him. As always he was reminded that he had a support team that he could leverage. Ian became Herman A. Lunquist senior FBI investigator. This was one of the most used identities that he had on record. He contacted the FBI regional office in Phoenix and arranged for a visit. His thorough understanding of the situation and his research into the region provide him with the break he needs to resolve the current situation. He knew any solution he accomplished would only be good for the near future. The pressure to cross the border into the US was not going to lessen. He discovers that a key person second in command of the local police department complicates the situation. And persons that are part of the border security office add more complexity to the situation. The two support a Mexican Cartel's human trafficking operation. Ian and the team come up short on the needed incriminating evidence to charge the police second in command. Ian utilizes both threat and bluff to extract a confession from the crooked assistant police chief. Ian leaves the Phoenix FBI office, and the local law enforcement leaders with a success story that they all embrace. Ian leaves on a helicopter that will take him directly home to the warmth of his Lesley.

Each time a border is crossed there are cultural, political, and social issues to be considered. Applying the metaphor of the 'border crossing' from one temporal or spatial territory into another, Border Crossing: Russian Literature into Film examines the way classic Russian texts have been altered to suit new cinematic environments. In these essays, international scholars examine how political and economic circumstances, from a shifting Soviet political landscape to the perceived demands of American and European markets, have played a crucial role in dictating how filmmakers transpose their cinematic hypertext into a new environment. Rather than focus on the degree of accuracy or fidelity with which these films address their originating texts, this innovative collection explores the role of ideological, political, and other cultural pressures that can affect the transformation of literary narratives into cinematic offerings.

This anthology of Gómez-Peña's performance chronicles, diary entries, poems, essays, and texts, sheds an extraordinary light on the life and work of this migrant provocateur.