The Eden Paradox

In a world beset by political turmoil, environmental collapse, and a predatory new religion, Eden, a recently discovered planet, is man's last hope. But two missions have failed to return. Blake Alexander and his crew lead the final attempt to bring back good news.

At the heart of evolution lies a bewildering paradox. Natural selection favors above all the individual that leaves the most offspring—a superorganism of sorts that Jonathan Silvertown here calls the "Darwinian demon." But if such a demon existed, this highly successful organism would populate the entire world with its own kind, beating out other species and eventually extinguishing biodiversity as we know it. Why then, if evolution favors this demon, is the world filled with so many different life forms? What keeps this Darwinian demon in check? If humankind is now the greatest threat to biodiversity on the planet, have we become the Darwinian demon? Demons in Eden considers these questions using the latest scientific discoveries from the plant world. Readers join Silvertown as he explores the astonishing diversity of plant life in regions as spectacular as the verdant climes of Japan, the lush grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, the shallow wetlands and teeming freshwaters of Florida, the tropical rainforests of southeast Mexico, and the Canary Islands archipelago, whose evolutionary novelties—and exotic plant life—have earned it the sobriquet "the Galapagos of botany." Along the way, Silvertown looks closely at the evolution of plant diversity in these locales and explains why such variety persists in light of ecological patterns and evolutionary processes. In novel and useful ways, he also investigates the current state of plant diversity on the planet to show the ever-challenging threats posed by invasive species and humans. Bringing the secret life of plants into more colorful and vivid focus than ever before, Demons in Eden is an empathic and impassioned exploration of modern plant ecology that unlocks evolutionary mysteries of the natural world.

First contact did not go well. Survivors are fleeing Earth, into a hostile galaxy where alien intelligence and weaponry rule. Can a deserted planet offer refuge? Or will the genetically engineered Alicians finish the job started on Eden? While Blake fends off attacks, Micah seeks allies, but his plan backfires, and humanity finds itself on trial for its very right to exist. This stunning sequel to "The Eden Paradox" launches us into political intrigue and an intergalactic war of survival. Praise for Eden's Trial "Lightning fast. New worlds and new enemies entwined with the main characters nearly as closely as their lovers - "Lydia Manx, Piker Press "A Science Fiction thriller with terrific images and revelations" -Gary Gibson, author of "The Shoal Sequence" "What I love about this sequel is that the scale explodes to include multifarious alien races and civilizations with ancient scores to settle" -Author and screenwriter Gideon Roberton "An exciting ride into an expanded universe. Kirwan strikes a great balance of keeping the story riveting while delving deeper into characters development" - Mark DeNicuolo, FAA, USA "Eden's Trial" is the second book in Barry Kirwan's four-part space opera, "The Eden Paradox Series."

Human error is here to stay. This perhaps obvious statement has a profound implication for society when faced with the types of hazardous system accidents that have occurred over the past three decades. Such accidents have been strongly influenced by human error, yet many system designs in existence or being planned and built do not take human error into consideration.; "A Guide to Practical Human Reliability Assessment" is a practical and pragmatic guide to the techniques and approaches of human reliability assessment HRA. lt offers the reader explanatory and practical methods which have been applied and have worked in high technology and high risk assessments - particularly but not exclusively to potentially hazardous industries such as exist in process control, nuclear power, chemical and petrochemical industries. A Guide to Practical Human Reliability Assessment offers the practitioner a comprehensive tool-kit of different approaches along with guidance on selecting different methods for different applications. It covers the risk assessment and the HRA process, as well as methods of task analysis, error identification, quantification, representation of errors in the risk analysis, followed by error reduction analysis, quality assurance and documentation. There are also a number of detailed case studies from nuclear, chemical, offshore, and marine HRA'S, exemplfying the image of techniques and the impact of HRA in existing and design-stage systems.

What if Adam, Eve, death, murder, debt, wars, and even the last days of Jesus were all part of a common biblical pattern? Have you ever asked why God did something a certain way? In The Sin Paradox, author D. B. Evans shares his revelatory answers to a number of important questions he asked to God—who late one night answered him in a whispered word. What did Adam and Eve do? What kind of fruit did they eat? Why did Satan take the form of a serpent? Why did Satan do it? Why did Jesus have to die? Why did he have to die the way he did? Why did the last days of Jesus’s life play out the way they did? How does the sinful act of Adam and Eve permeate all of subsequent human existence and actions, such as wars, debt, greed, and all the other sins humankind experiences? Could the sin committed in Eden still be happening today? What if all these questions could be answered within a common biblical thread? The Sin Paradox provides a case against Adam, Eve, and the Serpent—not of guilt or innocence of those involved, but of whether the evidence points to the actual crime they committed.

After eighteen years, the quarantine that has protected humanity's survivors on the planet Esperia is about to end. Mankind won't stand a chance without external help. Yet in the middle of a galactic war, who is concerned about one small planet when worlds fall every day? Eden's Revenge is the heart-stopping third episode in the Eden Saga. "Awe-inspiring aliens are swept up in an epic narrative." Sophia McDougall, best-selling SF author of Savage City "Brilliant plotting, sizzling action, the tension and pull of the story keep it steamrollering along." Gideon Roberton, screenwriter and author. ..".an outstanding finale. I read the last half straight through--couldn't put it down." Jacob Millican, reviewer, USA.

Tanner uses Kierkegaard's thought, in particular his theory of anxiety, to enrich a bold new reading of Milton's Paradise Lost. He argues that for Milton and Kierkegaard, the path to sin and to salvation lies through anxiety, and that both writers include anxiety within the compass of paradise. The first half of the book explores anxiety in Eden before the Fall, original sin, the aetiology of evil, and prelapsarian knowledge. The second half examines anxiety after the Fall, offering original insights into such issues as the demonic personality, remorse, despair, and faith.

What will happen if (perhaps when) humanity makes contact with another civilisation on a different planet? In 1974 a message was beamed towards the stars by the giant Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, a brief blast of radio waves designed to alert extraterrestrial civilisations to our existence. Of course, we don't know if such civilisations really exist. For the past six decades a small cadre of researchers have been on a quest to find out, as part of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far, SETI has found no evidence of extraterrestrial life, but with more than a hundred billion stars in our Galaxy alone to search, the odds of quick success are stacked against us. The silence from the stars is prompting some researchers to transmit more messages into space, in an effort to provoke a response from any civilisations out there that might otherwise be staying quiet. However, the act of transmitting raises troubling questions about the process of contact. In The Contact Paradox, author Keith Cooper looks at how far SETI has come since its modest beginnings, and where it is going, by speaking to the leading names in the field and beyond. SETI forces us to confront our nature in a way that we seldom have before – where did we come from, where are we going, and who are we in the cosmic context of things? This book considers the assumptions that we make in our search for extraterrestrial life, and explores how those assumptions can teach us about ourselves.

A “certainly weird . . . strangely wonderful . . . [and] often irresistible” search to find the real Garden of Eden (The New York Times Book Review). Where, precisely, was God’s Paradise? St. Augustine had a theory. So did medieval monks, John Calvin and Christopher Columbus. But when Darwin’s theory of evolution changed our understanding of human origins, shouldn’t the desire to put a literal Eden on the map have faded away? Not so fast. This “gloriously researched, pluckily written historical and anecdotal assay of humankind’s age-old quixotic quest for the exact location of the Biblical garden” (Elle) explores an obsession that has consumed scientists and theologians alike for centuries. To this day, the search continues, taken up by amateur explorers, clergymen, scholars, engineers and educators—romantic seekers all who started with the same simple-sounding Bible verses, only to end up at a different spot on the globe: Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, the North Pole, Mesopotamia, China, Iraq—and Ohio. Inspired by an Eden seeker in her own family, “Wilensky-Lanford approaches her subjects with respect, enthusiasm and conscientious research” (San Francisco Chronicle) as she traverses a century-spanning history provoking surprising insights into where we came from, what we did wrong, and where we go from here. And it all makes for “a lively journey” (Kirkus Reviews).

Only in the world of the theater can Nat Field find an escape from the tragedies that have shadowed his young life. So he is thrilled when he is chosen to join an American drama troupe traveling to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new replica of the famous Globe theater. Shortly after arriving in England, Nat goes to bed ill and awakens transported back in time four hundred years -- to another London, and another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amid the bustle and excitement of an Elizabethan theatrical production, Nat finds the warm, nurturing father figure missing from his life -- in none other than William Shakespeare himself. Does Nat have to remain trapped in the past forever, or give up the friendship he's so longed for in his own time?