Robots are merely machines until they escape the bounds of programming and reveal that spark called free will. Yet that gift of consciousness may be only an illusion, a facade of elaborate imitation. Not even Turing's test can prove otherwise. But there is a way they can show their soul. If they were asked to help save humankind, could they? If so, would they?

First Lieutenant Shaara was dead this morning. Her captain is furious at her. She wasted company resources getting herself killed, and it’s coming out of her paycheck. Now, she’s sitting across from the first other human being she’s seen in six years. His name is Adnan. He claims to come from Earth—but that’s impossible. Earth died a long time ago. If Adnan’s telling the truth, he and the decaying ship the captain pulled him off are nearly a thousand years old. Wherever he’s from, he’s Shaara’s responsibility now. Which is the last thing she needs. But it’s either that, or the captain sells Adnan into slavery. Shaara knows what that would mean. Most humans do. And something inside her won’t let her abandon Adnan to it: revenant memories, stabbed awake by the look in his eyes. Facing those memories won’t be easy. It’d be far easier to ignore the feeling driving her forward. Far easier to let it all go to hell, and drift back to sleep. Until a shadowy new faction starts stoking the fires of war. They’re looking for Adnan; Earth’s last survivor holds the key to unleash a terrible, indiscriminate vengeance on the galaxy that wronged them. Who they are is a mystery—to everyone but Shaara. Hard as she’s tried to forget, she knows them all too well. Which means she’s the only one who can stop them. The question is: does she want to? Maybe the galaxy’s earned a little vengeance. The first book in the trilogy, Oblivion's Cloak, won First Place in the Space Opera category at the 2023 Cygnus Awards!

First Lieutenant Shaara was dead this morning. Her captain is furious at her. She wasted company resources getting herself killed, and it’s coming out of her paycheck. Now, she’s sitting across from the first other human being she’s seen in six years. His name is Adnan. He claims to come from Earth—but that’s impossible. Earth died a long time ago. If Adnan’s telling the truth, he and the decaying ship the captain pulled him off are nearly a thousand years old. Wherever he’s from, he’s Shaara’s responsibility now. Which is the last thing she needs. But it’s either that, or the captain sells Adnan into slavery. Shaara knows what that would mean. Most humans do. And something inside her won’t let her abandon Adnan to it: revenant memories, stabbed awake by the look in his eyes. Facing those memories won’t be easy. It’d be far easier to ignore the feeling driving her forward. Far easier to let it all go to hell, and drift back to sleep. Until a shadowy new faction starts stoking the fires of war. They’re looking for Adnan; Earth’s last survivor holds the key to unleash a terrible, indiscriminate vengeance on the galaxy that wronged them. Who they are is a mystery—to everyone but Shaara. Hard as she’s tried to forget, she knows them all too well. Which means she’s the only one who can stop them. The question is: does she want to? Maybe the galaxy’s earned a little vengeance.

Examines the cultural construction of senility in Japan and the moral implications of dependent behavior for older Japanese. Taming Oblivion examines the cultural construction of senility in Japan and the moral implications of dependent behavior for older Japanese. While the biomedical construction of senility-as-pathology has become increasingly the norm in North America, in Japan a folk category of senility exists known as boke. Although symptomatically and conceptually overlapping with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of senile dementia, boke is distinguished from unambiguously pathological conditions. Rather than being viewed as a disease, boke is seen as an illness over which people have some degree of control. John Traphagan’s ethnographic study of older Japanese explores their experiences as they contemplate and attempt to prevent or delay the boke condition. John W. Traphagan is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Gerontological Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton.

Two colonies set out from Earth. One would travel the solar system and return in fifty years. The other, by design, would never come back. The crew of the returning ship, however, finds that during its absence, it missed a rather crucial planetary event: the Apocalypse. Soon the last remaining humans--those in the second, wandering colony--are about to be thrust into a final battle for souls between the forces of good and evil. Evil is much better prepared for the fight, though. The futures of both mankind and the afterlife depend upon the actions of all the humans caught in the struggles. Even though the forces they are up against are no less powerful than deity, humans with enough willpower can sometimes do amazing things...

Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe — the alternative of which is oblivion.” R. Buckminster Fuller. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller

It’s 2035 and people are frightened. Soon, mankind won’t be able to live on earth for a good 200 years and only a handful of countries are building spacecraft to save those few lucky enough to have a seat. Randal Wagner tells his story from leaving his home on earth, to surviving in a world where mankind is on the hours devours list. Have others been here before his arrival? If so, who were they and where are they now? Je

Oblivion or Utopia: the Prospects for Africa explains that most of the problems on the continent stem from the fact that, although the continent may be politically independent, it is not economically independent. Efforts to reverse the continent's continuing underdevelopment have failed to date, including trillions of dollars in aid, because they have not been consciously aimed at enabling Africa to turn its vast natural resources into wealth, which is the only known way of ensuring economic independence. Based on a comprehensive exploration of impediments to reach the goal of economic independence required for self definition, the book proposes a five step strategy which can enable the continent to turn its natural resources into wealth by: 1.

The Edge of Oblivion: The Looming Threat of Socialism in the United States By: Charles K. Kelly In The Edge of Oblivion, author Charles K. Kelly demonstrates the growing threat of socialism in modern America. He provides in-depth details of American history, political trends, case law, various events, and social concerns of our present day to provide explanations as to how we have gotten to this point as a democratic nation. While providing real examples of the threat of socialism throughout the world, Kelly foresees what America’s future may become by succumbing to socialist ideologies in hopes that we can stop this threat before it is too late.

'The most important study on this subject in years, perhaps ever' Phillip Knightley, SUNDAY TIMES A history of drug-taking, telling the story across five centuries of addicts and users: monarchs, prime ministers, great writers and composers, wounded soldiers, overworked physicians, oppressed housewives, exhausted labourers, high-powered businessmen, playboys, sex workers, pop stars, seedy losers, stressed adolescents, defiant schoolchildren, the victims of the ghetto, and happy young people on a spree. It is also the history of one bad idea, prohibition. 'You'll find almost everything you ever wanted to know about drugs in this work, except how to get hold of them' Simon Garfield, FINANCIAL TIMES 'Everyone with any influence on government policy should read this book and wake up before it is too late' Phillip Knightley, SUNDAY TIMES