The United States is dead and the Democratic Unity killed it. After catastrophic wars and the Meltdown, The Unity rules from its East Coast citadel, leaving the outlands to savages and its strangely altered plants. Providing free health care, employment, and ThiZ (the drug of any really civilized life), the Unity mandates retirement at forty before fatigue and error contaminate a culture of youth, innovation and vigor. With liberating body implants, history’s finest democracy supervises every citizen for her/his/its own and the nation’s welfare. Seventeen-year-old Lieutenant Malila Chiu, is a veteran officer who, despite well-earned fame, finds her career in tatters. Vandalism at a distant station triggers her demotion. Facing denunciation ... or worse, Malila’s one option is to enter the outlands to repair the station herself. At first, the repairs go well. Dropping from fatigue, she wakes to find a hideously ancient savage has murdered her platoon and now holds a knife at her throat, making her the ... Outland Exile. “A powerful blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction and brass-knuckle social commentary ... Outland Exile ... is a towering tour de force of a novel ... “Relentlessly visionary, thematically profound and impeccably edited, it is one of those rare stories that both entertains and enlightens.”– Blue Ink Reviews “(T)his unique and entertaining dystopian adventure is full of well-drawn characters ... Boutwell has created his own version of the future ...” – James Burt of Forward Clarion “Boutwell’s prose is sharp and efficient... creat(ing) an immersive world where provocative ideas propel a darkly satisfying adventure.” -- Kirkus Review

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read! Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content: • An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series • An interview with Diana Gabaldon • An Outlander reader’s guide Praise for Outlander “Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle “History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News

What occurs within coma? What does the coma patient experience? How does the patient perceive the world outside of coma, if at all? The simple answer to these questions is that we don't know. Yet the sheer volume of literary and media texts would have us believe that we do. Examining representations of coma and brain injury across a variety of texts, this book investigates common tropes and linguistic devices used to portray the medical condition of coma, giving rise to universal mythologies and misconceptions in the public domain. Matthew Colbeck looks at how these texts represent, or fail to represent, long-term brain injury, drawing on narratives of coma survivors that have been produced and curated through writing groups he has run over the last 10 years. Discussing a diverse range of cultural works, including novels by Irvine Welsh, Stephen King, Tom McCarthy and Douglas Coupland, as well as film and media texts such as The Sopranos, Kill Bill, Coma and The Walking Dead, Colbeck provides an explanation for our fascination with coma. With a proliferation of misleading stories of survival in the media and in literature, this book explores the potential impact these have upon our own understanding of coma and its victims.

In the third and final book of The Healer's Trilogy fantasy novel series, Sharon Skinner brings the story of Kira to an epic conclusion. "You are who you are because of your choices," Heresta’s voice whispered in her head. "You cannot walk another’s path." With the Matriarch dead and Eilar’s protective barriers devastated, Kira’s homeland is at risk. Amid the resulting aftermath of fear and insecurity, mounting tensions cause a rift in the Eilaran leadership. Against the ruling council’s will, Kira embarks upon a hazardous quest to discover the workings of her mad half-brother Kavyn’s shattered focus stone. But will the strange stone turn out to be a boon for the imperiled land, or unleash a bane that will ultimately destroy Kira and the land and people she is determined to save.

Nominated for the 2019 Prometheus Award for Best Novel! Malila is dead by her own hand—at least, that is what she hopes General Jourdaine and the entire Unity will believe. Middle-aged eighteen-year-old Malila Chiu has no choice but to escape her homeland. Making common cause with the strange subterranean workers of the beltways, Malila perseveres toward freedom in the Scorched fields of America. Nearly naked, with no friends, no resources and only a scant idea of the route, Malila’s only real information comes from time in the outlands. While a captive of the old, harsh-and-tender-by-turns Jesse Johnstone, Malila learned of the lies told her by her homeland and the truths shown her by the arrogant and contradictory Jesse. She thinks she may love him. If only he were not so strange . . . Pursuing Malila and becoming more obsessed with each failure, Jourdaine moves closer at each turn. Jesse, once again the target for assassination from old enemies, escapes to the skies, using a huge new American R-ship, the Illinois, in his own attempt to find Malila. Spies, subterranean poet-socialists, virtual entities, interfaces, and people—both good and bad—wrestle the Fates for survival and supremacy in a twenty-second-century America.

From the author of the breathtaking bestsellers Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, the extraordinary saga continues. Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her and her body still cries out for him in her dreams. Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and pain awaiting her, the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite—or forever doom—her timeless love.

This book examines a range of royalist women’s cultural responses to war, dislocation, diaspora and exile through a rich variety of media across multiple geographies of the archipelago of the British Isles and as far as The Hague and Antwerp on the Continent, thereby uniquely documenting comparative links between women’s cultural production, types of exile and political allegiance. Offering the first full length study to therorize the royalist condition as one of diaspora, it chronologically charts a series of ruptures beginning with initial displacement and dispersal due to civil war in the early 1640s and concludes with examination of the homecoming for royalist exiles after the restoration in 1660. As it retrieves its subjects’ varied experiences of exile, and documents how these politically conscious women produce contrasting yet continuous forms of cultural, personal and political identities, it challenges conventional paradigms which all too neatly categorize royalism and exile during this seminal period in British and European history.

Twenty years ago, the journey began: Diana Gabaldon swept readers into her mesmerizing world brimming with history, romance, and adventure. To celebrate the series that has captured the hearts of millions, Doubleday Canada will be publishing a special anniversary edition for core Gabaldon fans and new readers alike. Unrivaled storytelling, unforgettable characters, and rich historical detail are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon's novels. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters: Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser. A spellbinding novel of passion and history, that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages, The Outlander takes readers on an unforgettable journey.

The masterful conclusion to the Exiles saga: Angus Wells is one of today's masters of epic fantasy. Now, continuing the thrilling new adventure begun in Exile's Children, he weaves his beguiling powers of magic into an unforgettable tale... Escaping a life of servitude under the evil Autarchy, a warrior, his beautiful wife, and a gifted Dreamer are refugees from the war-ravaged prison colony of Salvation. It was the young Davyd's dreams, magically bound to those of a far-off Seer, that guided their perilous flight to the land of the Matawaye. But even now they might not be safe. For a man whose gifts are eclipsed by Davyd's is looking for the perfect vengeance. Meanwhile, a renegade band of the Matawaye, forced out by their peaceable leaders, is wreaking havoc on Salvation. And there's worse to come. For the real threat has yet to descend on Salvation--and when it does, its bloodlust and magic could well mean the end of them all.

Cather's artistic voice speaks for and through the landscapes she loved in life. As several critics have noted, Cather's mind works by opposition, furiously spinning doubles of character, experience, temperament, and place. Locating the scenes she imagines in particular places, she forces her readers to merge character and place in a way no other American writer has ever done. Willa Cather's fiction is also suffused with the notion of exile. Her characters, often banished from a native or authentic landscape, are restless pilgrims who long for home - a comforting space, a rest from the arduous journey. In order to manage the condition of exile, Cather's characters must transform secular spaces into sacred places. In these sacred places, existence suddenly makes sense: order is created from chaos, as the history of the earth and the history of the individual merge and are reconciled. Indeed, these sacred places, with an aura of resolution and rightness in their very air, bring peace.