Beautifully drawn coming-of-age story with sci-fi hook.

When Cohen Marah steps over his father's body in the basement embalming room of the family's funeral home, he has no idea that he is stepping into a labyrinth of memory. As the last one to see his father, Cohen is the primary suspect. Over the next week, Cohen's childhood memories come back in living color. The dramatic events that led to his father being asked to leave his pastoral position. The game of baseball that somehow kept them together. And the two children in the forest who became his friends--and enlisted him in a dark and dangerous undertaking. As the lines blur between what was real and what was imaginary, Cohen is faced with the question he's been avoiding: Did he kill his father? In Light from Distant Stars, master story weaver Shawn Smucker relays a tale both eerie and enchanting, one that will have you questioning reality and reaching out for what is true, good, and genuine.

"Delany has a grasp of the evolutionary nature of mythology, a subtle comic touch, and a lyric sense of the outsider making his unorthodox way in the world--or worlds--that give his work a dimension unusual..."

His reputation had been secure.He was the world's most feared supervillain!But then he saved the world...News cameras had captured every moment of the battle in which Doctor Fid single-handedly averted an alien invasion. As details emerge, the public discovers how close the Earth had come to inescapable subjugation...or to complete annihilation.In the aftermath, there are many who wonder if the veteran supervillain has changed his ways. There are many who think that Doctor Fid may not be a monster after all.Notoriety is important to many of Doctor Fid's long-term plans to punish the unworthy, and this shift in public perception threatens to undermine decades' worth of effort...But it also presents a tempting opportunity.New dangers arise, and through it all Doctor Fid must struggle to decide what role he will play. Can the notorious supervillain set aside his endless quest? Can Doctor Fid become the hero that the world needs?Or will he remain the villain that the world's heroes deserve?Any fan of the superhero genre will love this supervillainous novel. Read book two in the series that critics have called innovative, snarky and ridiculously fun!

Agapanthus was kidnapped when she was only two years old, but she doesn't remember it. In fact, she doesn't remember her home planet at all. All she knows is Deeyae, the land of two suns; the land of great, red waters. Her foster-family cares for her, and at first that's enough. But, as she grows older, Agapanthus is bothered by the differences between them. As an Exchanger, she's frail and tall, not short and strong. And, even though she was raised Deeyan, she certainly isn't treated like one. One day, an Exchanger boy completes the Deeyan rite-of-passage, and Agapanthus is inspired to try the same. But, when she teams up with him, her quest to become Deeyan transforms into her quest to find the truth--of who she is, and of which star she belongs to.

Our neighboring planets may have the answer to this question. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appear to be enormous oceans underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago. An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery. But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Ben Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities, showing the emotions, the controversy, and the egos involved in arguably the most important scientific pursuit ever begun.

Recent discoveries of planet-like objects circling other sun-like stars have stirred enormous interest in what other planets may exist in the universe, and whether they could support intelligent life. This book takes us into the midst of this search for extrasolar planets. Unlike other books, it focuses on the people behind the searches -- many known personally by the author -- and the extraordinary technology that is currently on the drawing boards. The author is an experienced, award-winning science journalist who was previously technology correspondent for the Financial Times of London. He has written on many topics in astronomy and astrobiology in over 35 different newspapers and magazines worldwide.

Will Rutledge needs a fresh start. After aging out of the foster care system, he and his brother, Kane, have nothing but each other. Maybe that’s why he agreed to his brother’s insane plan to kidnap a millionaire’s daughter for ransom. With his brains and his brother’s muscle, what could go wrong? Enter Hannah Cole. When her brother died, her family was left shattered. No amount of money could fill the hole in her home… not even if her dad has plenty of it. Hannah thought she knew darkness after a year of living with grief. That is, until she finds herself thrown into the trunk of a car and crying out to God for the first time since her brother died. Hannah and Will soon find themselves in close quarters, fighting the feelings they are developing for one another despite both their situation and seemingly insurmountable differences. Plans start to unravel and the two risk begging the question: Are some stars just too far apart to collide?

The history of modern helioseismology is only ten years old. In 1975 F-L Deubner separated for the first time the spatial and temporal pro perties of the solar five-minute oscillations, and was thus able to measure the dispersion relation for high-degree acoustic modes (p modes). The diagnostic value of these observations was appreciated immediately. Indeed, by comparing the observed relation with computations that had already been carried out by R.K. Ulrich, and subsequently by H. Ando and Y. Osaki, it was recognised that contemporary solar models that had been constructed with the low observed neutrino flux in mind were too hot in their outer layers. Moreover, their convection zones were too shallow. Since that time the observations have improved. There is now good reason to suppose that a sufficiently careful analysis will lead to a direct determination of the helium abundance in the solar convection zone, especially when foreseeable further improvements in the observations have been achieved. The data will also provide useful diagnostics of the uncertain equation of state of partially ionized plasmas, and they might also enable us to measure the large-scale structure of the convec tive flow.