“The best book I’ve read in years.” —Christine Feehan The incomparable C.L. Wilson brings her phenomenal Tairen Soul novels to Avon Books! Lord of the Fading Lands is the first book in the epic romantic adventure that combines sweeping fantasy with breathtaking paranormal romance. USA Today and New York Times bestseller C. L. Wilson dazzles with a magnificent, heart-soaring tale of passion and great destiny—of the tormented Fey King Rain, the woodcutter’s daughter Ellysetta, who would be queen, and their eternal quest for true love in the mystical Fading Lands.

The Fading Miracle provides a lucid account of economic policy in West Germany from the late 1940s up to the present. First published in hardback in 1992, this paperback edition has been updated to include events since then. The authors describe and evaluate the major policy controversies and decisions, and place particular emphasis on the characteristically German institutions of policy counselling and their role in policy formation. The book will be of interest to students and teachers of economics, and to all those with an interest in the development of the greatest economic power in Europe.

Imagine living in 1958, and knowing that the integrated circuit--the microchip--was about to be invented, and would revolutionize the world. Or imagine 1992, when the Internet was about to transform virtually every aspect of our lives. Incredibly, this book argues that we stand at such a moment right now--and not just in one field, but in many. In 2030, authors Rutger van Santen, Djan Khoe, and Bram Vermeer interview over two dozen scientific and technological experts on themes of health, sustainability and communication, asking them to look forward to the year 2030 and comment on the kind of research that will play a necessary role. If we know what technology will be imperative in 2030, the authors reason, what can we do now to influence future breakthroughs? Despite working in dissimilar fields, the experts called upon in the book - including Hans Blix (Head of the UN investigation in Iraq), Craig Venter (explorer of the human DNA), and Susan Greenfield (a leading world authority on the human brain), among many others - all emphasize the interconnectedness of our global networks in technology and communication, so tightly knit that the world's major conflicts are never isolated incidents. A fresh understanding of the regularities underlying these complex systems is more important than ever. Using bright, accessible language to discuss topics of universal interest and relevance, 2030 takes the position that we can, in fact, influence the course of history. It offers a new way of looking forward, a fresh perspective on sustainability, stability and crisis-prevention. For anyone interested in modern science, this book will showcase the technologies that will soon change the way we live.

Comparative essays by an international panel of historians offer fresh insights into the unfolding of the Reformation across Europe. From Saxony to the Baltic to Transylvania, each chapter draws out the variables that shaped the spread of the Reformation across comparable geographic spaces, offering new perspectives on this epochal subject.

This timely book offers you a solid understanding of the critical facets of homeland security, including threats, countermeasures, and privacy. You find important discussions on how to overcome challenges in today's information systems and how to analyze emerging phenomena in large complex systems. The book offers detailed guidance on the model-based design of trustworthy health information systems. Moreover, you get an in-depth overview of the detection, identification, and track of dangerous materials. This comprehensive resource also explores urban defense using mobile sensor platforms, focusing on both surveillance and protection. Supported with nearly 100 illustrations, Homeland Security Facets includes detailed case studies and real-world examples.

The astonishing new fantasy from the award-winning author of The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray A subterranean world of vast caverns, underground seas, crystalline forests. A civilisation born of darkness, in darkness, protected by shadows. A city of merchants, whose eyes have turned upward to the surface, where the lethal light of day beats down on their world. A conspiracy so vast that it will swallow them all ... A stunningly original fantasy from a multi-award winning author. With a beautiful baroque world, sharp characterisation and Chris Wooding's trademark insight into the fantasy genre, the dawning of Halflight is an event more than worth waiting for.

Child abuse, incest, child molestation, Halloween sadism, child pornography: although clearly not new problems, they have attracted more attention than ever before. Threatened Children asks why. Joel Best analyzes the rhetorical tools used by child advocates when making claims aimed at raising public anxiety and examines the media's role in transmitting reformers' claims and the public's response to the frightening statistics, compelling examples, and expanding definitions it confronts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from criminal justice records to news stories, from urban legends to public opinion surveys, Best reveals how the cultural construction of social problems evolves.

During the last hlO hundred years man has changed from living in equilibrium with the natural world which sustained him, to a new position in which he is now its undisputed ruler - and very often out of equilibrium - able in a matter of hours to reduce miles of forest to devastated, potential desert. This destructive and wasteful ability has increas~d dramatically over recent years. At the same time however the need for conservation, particularly of plants as a resource for the future, has also become apparent, along with the realisation that advanced technologies can produce more from existing agricultural and forest regions. This may to some extent relieve the heavy pressure on the vulnerable areas where short term over-exploitation leads to permanent destruction of whole ecosystems, and the attendant loss, for ever, of many of the animals and plants which originally lived there. There still remains today a vast number of plant species whose potential is unknown. Maybe they will never have more than aesthetic value to mankind. But who knows where, for example, the next anti cancer agent may be found. And anyway future generations may not be ready to accept such anthropocentric values, and the options should be kept open for the philosophical concept that all life on earth has a right to exist and that man has none to exterminate.