The Bleeding Edge

The USA Today–bestselling authors of Home Invasion return with another timely thriller that puts readers on the frontlines of the battle for America. The Shady Hill Mobile Home Park isn't shady or hilly—this is West Texas after all. To military vet John Howard Stark, it's home. And worth fighting for. When a vicious drug cartel starts terrorizing the residents of Shady Hill, the Feds and the local police run for cover. But the good people of Shady Hill make a stand, electing Stark as their chief of police. Once a rancher, always a Texan, Stark and his fellow patriots send the cartel into a bloodthirsty fury by daring to fight back. When the bad guys start slaughtering innocent high school students, the God-fearing folks of Shady Hill find themselves deep in the heart of a bloody battle. It’s a desperate fight for survival that can only end in liberty . . . or death.

"Brilliantly written...a joy to read...Bleeding Edge is totally gonzo, totally wonderful. It really is good to have Thomas Pynchon around, doing what he does best." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Exemplary...dazzling and ludicrous." - Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Maxine Tarnow runs a fine little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side. All is ticking over nice and normal, until she starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler’s aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, and an array of bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course. Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance? Hey. Who wants to know?

It's hammered into us from birth that 'all good things come at a price'. Today, that price looks apocalyptic, with wars, exploitation and environmental collapse in every part of the globe. Some suggest that the carnage is "a price worth paying" for technological progress. No pain, no gain. But technology is precisely the business of minimising the costs and impacts of existence... and by whole orders of magnitude. By now, all human beings should be leading creative, leisure-filled lives in a pristine world of burgeoning diversity. So how did it go so wrong? In a word, inequality. In The Bleeding Edge, Bob Hughes argues that unequal societies are incapable of using new technologies well. Wherever elites exist, self-preservation decrees that they must take control of new technologies to protect and entrench their status, rather than satisfy people's needs. Hughes pursues the latest discoveries about the effects of social inequality on human health, into the field of human environmental impact, and traces today's ecological crisis back to the rise of the world's first elites, 5,000 years ago. He argues that new technologies have never emerged from elites or from the clash of competitive forces, but from largely voluntary, egalitarian collaborations of the kind that produced the world's first working computers. Finally, Hughes shows that an egalitarian world is not 'pie in the sky' but our evolutionary homeland, the glue that holds societies together, and the "cradle of invention" from which all our best ideas emerge. The book concludes: 'Let's assume that the commitment to human equality that's written into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means exactly what it says, and take it from there.'

The Good Book. You might have clutched it in your church pew on Sunday mornings. You know the one? With the pebbled black soft cover, the words HOLY BIBLE stamped in gold ink. Perhaps it strengthened your faith, comforted you in dark times. Multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated John F.D. Taff has assembled a Last Supper of Dark Apostles to turn some of those "good book" parables on their heads--twisting Bible stories into sinister horror tales. Blasphemous? Heretical? We sincerely hope so. As you read on, remember one thing, though. There's no comfort to be found in The Bad Book. No comfort at all. Including stories by Philip Fracassi Kristi DeMeester John Langan ...and many more... Includes story illustrations by Giuseppe Balestra.

Did you know... Medical interventions have become the third leading cause of death in America. An estimated 10 percent of Americans are implanted with medical devices -- like pacemakers, artificial hips, cardiac stents, etc. The overwhelming majority of high-risk implanted devices have never undergone a single clinical trial. In The Danger Within Us, award-winning journalist Jeanne Lenzer brings these horrifying statistics to life through the story of one working class man who, after his "cure" nearly kills him, ends up in a battle for justice against the medical establishment. His crusade leads Lenzer on a journey through the dark underbelly of the medical device industry, a fascinating and disturbing world that hasn't been written about before. What Lenzer exposes will shock readers: rampant corruption, elaborate cover-ups, shameless profiteering, and astonishing lack of oversight, all of which leads to dangerous devices (from artificial hips to pacemakers) going to market and into our bodies. In the vein of America's Bitter Pill and A Civil Action, The Danger Within Us is a stirring call for reform and a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of American healthcare. "Before you get anything implanted in your body, read this book."-Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated

The ground beneath the book publishing industry dramatically shifted in 2007, the year the Kindle and the iPhone debuted. Widespread consumer demand for these and other devices has brought the pace of digital change in book publishing from "it might happen sometime" to "it's happening right now"--and it is happening faster than anyone predicted. Yet this is only a transitional phase. Book: A Futurist's Manifesto is your guide to what comes next, when all books are truly digital, connected, and ubiquitous. Through this collection of essays from thought leaders and practitioners, you'll become familiar with a wide range of developments occurring in the wake of this digital book shakeup: Discover new tools that are rapidly transforming how content is created, managed, and distributed Understand the increasingly critical role that metadata plays in making book content discoverable in an era of abundance Look inside some of the publishing projects that are at the bleeding edge of this digital revolution Learn how some digital books can evolve moment to moment, based on reader feedback

An NYPD detective discovers an enclave of Islamic militants in Colorado in this conspiracy thriller by the authors of Border War. When NYPD detective John Ward tries to bust a street vendor peddling phony Rolexes, he’s suspended from the force—the latest casualty of political correctness. He decides to leave the city and visit his ex-wife and daughter in Colorado. When he arrives in the peaceful town of Basalt, he makes a shocking discovery: Muslim immigrants are taking over, buying up buildings, purchasing land, setting up training camps and planning . . . what? Like an army, they’ve descended on the town. They’ve set up their homes like military barracks, forcing their way of life on the community and bending the law against their neighbors. As Ward begins to dig, he uncovers a terrifying truth: The enemy is here, on American soil. And if we don’t stand and fight--like our nation’s forefathers—we can kiss freedom goodbye.

In the wake of a bitter divorce, ex-paratrooper and businessman Larry Baldwin leaves New York to make a new life for himself. Outside Atlanta, he meets Cody West, whose exotic beauty and unflinching honesty have set her apart in a small southern town where everything rests on appearances and nothing is what it seems.

Preparing for the apocalypse is only the beginning in this survivalist thriller by the USA Today–bestselling authors of Stand Your Ground. Six weeks ago, former US Marine Patrick Larkin purchased shares in a massive, state-of-the-art underground missile silo for his family. It was a decision based on easing his wildest fears of nuclear holocaust. But then reality strikes with devastating suddenness, razing cities in a searing flash across the nation. No one knows who pulled the trigger. No one knows if the last day on Earth will ever end. But Larkin and his family are the lucky ones—or so they think . . . Holed up in their fortified sanctuary, with a maximum capacity of four hundred people, the bunker is pushed to its limits—and so are the people locked inside. Tensions rise. Panic erupts. Outside, armed marauders surround the bunker—and they want in. Larkin must convince the others that if they want to survive, they must work together . . . and kill without mercy.

It's a new beginning for Dick Grayson, as novelist Benjamin Percy takes the vigilante on a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled adventure in Nightwing Vol. 7, a great jumping on point for new readers! Change is on the horizon. A new technologist sets his sights on BlŸdhaven, creating a holographic, interconnected city where everyone is an individual and part of a larger network. It's the internet made physical. Gentrification on gigabyte-laced steroids. But when this new utopia encroaches on his turf, Nightwing starts to uncover a sinister plot based not on revenge...but on a reckoning. Incoming creative team of horror novelist and Green Arrow alumn Benjamin Percy and artist Chris Mooneyham (Boom Studios's Planet of the Apes) will take Nightwing on a digital nightmare that will have long-lasting ramifications for the DC Universe in NightwingVol. 7! This great new jumping-on point is perfect for readers wanting to catch up with Dick Grayson! Collects #44-49 and Annual #1.