Shell Game While on the routine mission to retrieve a research drone for recycling, the U.S.S. Enterprise™ encounters a Romulan space station adrift within Federation borders. Exploring the lifeless station, the crew finds ghostly apparitions flitting at the edges of sight. Soon the U.S.S. Enterprise is also inexplicably without power. Captain Kirk and his crew must now solve the mystery of the strange apparitions before the Starship suffers the station's fate. The situation becomes desperate when a Romulan warship arrives looking for the station, and the Romulan Commander accuses the Federation of treachery. Before Captain Kirk can save the Starship Enterprise from complete destruction, he must avoid becoming drawn into a deadly shell game -- a game that will leave no winners and no survivors...

When Quark holds a poker tournament on Deep Space NineTM someone from almost every sentient race -- Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Vulcans, Ferengi -- shows up for what is sure to be the highest-stakes game of all time. But when one player is killed, the stakes get higher than even these big-money players had counted on. With the station rocked by subspace waves that threaten its destruction, Commander Sisko and Security Chief Odo must hunt down the killer in time to save the players, a killer who has information that can save those onboard Deep Space Nine from the invisible enemy they do not even know they face, a killer who holds all the cards...

Beethoven and Rossini have always been more than a pair of famous composers. Even during their lifetimes, they were well on the way to becoming 'Beethoven and Rossini' – a symbolic duo, who represented a contrast fundamental to Western music. This contrast was to shape the composition, performance, reception and historiography of music throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini puts leading scholars of opera and instrumental music into dialogue with each other, with the aim of unpicking the origins, consequences and fallacies of the opposition between the two composers and what they came to represent. In fifteen chapters, contributors explore topics ranging from the concert lives of early nineteenth-century capitals to the mythmaking of early cinema, and from the close analysis of individual works by Beethoven and Rossini to the cultural politics of nineteenth-century music histories.

THREE SIDES TO EVERY WAR… In 3069, the extremist Word of Blake group attacked the capital of the Free Worlds League and declared its leader, Captain-General Thomas Marik, to be a fraud. House Marik fell into disgrace, and after eight centuries, the Free Worlds League shattered. Three captains-general now vie to reunite the realm: • Anson Marik of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth prides himself on possessing Marik blood, and seeks to rule on its strength. • Lester Cameron-Jones of the Regulan Fiefs knows the Marik bloodline is defunct; only a new royal house can resurrect the League. • Jessica Marik of the Oriente Protectorate is on a mission to redeem her father's name: the false Thomas Marik, and the very man who helped destroy the League. The world of Marik becomes a battleground as the three contenders prove they will go to any lengths to further their causes. But only Jessica Marik appears to remember that the Free Worlds League was forged not through military might alone, but also through alliances of trust. They will all find the price for their ambitions is higher than they could ever have imagined. Who will be willing to pay to achieve their dream?

KIERON GILLEN, JAMIE McKELVIE, and MATTHEW WILSON return with an Eisner Award-nominated modern fantasy where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. Revel in the opulence of this oversized hardback! Revel in it! Collects THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #1-11

The American political reformer Herbert Croly wrote, "For better or worse, democracy cannot be disentangled from an aspiration toward human perfectibility." Democratic Faith is at once a trenchant analysis and a powerful critique of this underlying assumption that informs democratic theory. Patrick Deneen argues that among democracy's most ardent supporters there is an oft-expressed belief in the need to "transform" human beings in order to reconcile the sometimes disappointing reality of human self-interest with the democratic ideal of selfless commitment. This "transformative impulse" is frequently couched in religious language, such as the need for political "redemption." This is all the more striking given the frequent accompanying condemnation of traditional religious belief that informs the "democratic faith.? At the same time, because so often this democratic ideal fails to materialize, democratic faith is often subject to a particularly intense form of disappointment. A mutually reinforcing cycle of faith and disillusionment is frequently exhibited by those who profess a democratic faith--in effect imperiling democratic commitments due to the cynicism of its most fervent erstwhile supporters. Deneen argues that democracy is ill-served by such faith. Instead, he proposes a form of "democratic realism" that recognizes democracy not as a regime with aspirations to perfection, but that justifies democracy as the regime most appropriate for imperfect humans. If democratic faith aspires to transformation, democratic realism insists on the central importance of humility, hope, and charity.

Last year, before The Recurrence, fans gathered from their lonely worlds at RAGNAROCK to wonder whether the gods were really about to return or not. Now, as the next RAGNAROCK approaches, everyone knows things are different. What's more, there are two gods still to emerge. Will anyone there get 'lucky?' Look at us whistle, shuffle feet, and avoid eye contact.

A former child actor searches for her true self in this novel-within-a-novel from a leader of the international feminist movement. Before she even turned fourteen, Julian Travis made enough money as a TV star to support her mother for life in an apartment in one of Manhattan’s best buildings. But now, Julian is in her midforties and things are not so glamorous or easy. Her mother is slowly dying of Parkinson’s, her marriage of twenty years is steadily disintegrating, and money is scarce. Though Julian is a famed feminist spokeswoman and published poet, when she looks into the mirror, she doesn’t recognize herself. That and the novel she is writing are giving her a terrible time. Dry Your Smile takes readers on a journey into Julian’s past—from the precarious circumstances surrounding her birth to the lies and stories her mother wove about her absent father to her childhood diary and dreams, and her subsequent escape into the arms of a revolutionary artist and a bohemian life. In the present, Julian delves into the emotional baggage imparted by her Jewish stage-mom as a means of taking off the many masks she has worn over the years, and begins writing prose through the voice of her younger self. She also searches for a new future in a lesbian love affair with Iliana, a bisexual photographer and the one person who makes Julian feel beautiful. In the end, however, perhaps what Julian needs most is to separate herself from the expectations and images of others, and truly listen to the woman she has become. A roman à clef of author and poet Robin Morgan’s own struggles with what it means to be a female writer in the late twentieth century, Dry Your Smile is an intelligent and cathartic addition to any feminist library.

What lengths would you go to, in the fight against tyranny and oppression in a society of unchecked capitalism and technology run rampant, if you knew you could free millions from subjugation and death? Recruited to the newly formed A.C.T. (Anti-Corporation Taskforce), Frankie, a full body cyborg, leads her team in a fight against the unchecked power of the Corporations in the city of Neo-London in 2124AD. A plan is formulated to inflict the first significant damage to the power of the Corporations and free millions from the grip of these capitalist overlords. Frankie and her team must travel the world, visiting the war zone that is America, the mega cities of the far east and the industrial heartlands of Europe in their quest to take on the Corporations, while remaining hidden from them at the same time. The stakes are raised when the corporations reveal the lengths they will go to, to protect their own interests. Frankie must fight her way through war zones, corporate operatives, battle mechs and sabotage if she is going to really hurt the Corporations and change the world for the better. This new Cyberpunk action thriller, a sequel to The New Prometheus, is a must read for fans of Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, Appleseed, Akira, The Matrix, Robocop and Total Recall.