The remarkable debut novel from Marek Sindelka, Aberrant is a multifaceted work that mixes and mashes together a variety of genres and styles to create a heady concoction of crime story, horror story (inspired by the Japanese tradition of kaidan), ecological revenge fantasy, and Siberian shamanism. Nothing is what it seems. What appears to be human is actually a shell occupied by an alien spirit, or demon, and what appears to be an unassuming plant is an aggressive parasite that harbors a poisonous substance within, or manifests itself as an assassin, a phantom with no real substance who pursues his victims across Europe and through a post-apocalyptic Prague ravaged by floods. The blind see, and the seeing are blind. Through these devices, Sindelka weaves a tale of three childhood friends, the errant paths their lives take, and the world of rare plant smuggling - and the consequences of taking the wrong plant - to show the rickety foundation of illusions on which our relationship to the environment, and to one another, rests. It is a world of aberrations, anomalies, and mistakes. "The story unfolds, appropriately, like some over-nourished plant, with roots and tendrils inexorably spreading in all directions and over the years, entangling, penetrating--and frequently strangling. Aberrant is by turns lyrical, poignant, and visceral--all fertilised by the author's wide-ranging poetic imagination." -- John Howard, Wormwood "Impressively, Sindelka sustains the narrative tension, and the story - largely by balancing evocative description with just enough (often slightly strange and mysterious) action. [...] Meanwhile, the mysterious plant at the heart of the novel, and its nature, are guardedly revealed over the course of the story, so that it is always a sort of significant and dark presence, yet whose full import - its true essence, and their consequences - is only fully understood near the end." -- M.A. Orthofer, The Complete Review "From its opening panorama to its dire final chapters, Aberrant reads like an art-house thriller. Ripe and vivid, this first novel is a testament to Sindelka's skill and meticulous research, as well as his honest esteem for an often ignored but ever-present natural world. One closes the book feeling fatigued and uneasy, just as intended." -- Hannah Weber, Necessary Fiction

Gods once wielded this kind of power. Now it's ours. The forces of the universe respond to our will and we shape a world in our image. We are the celebrities, the heroes, the villains, the legends, the shining icons of our times. We are novas, and we will bring about a new golden Age... and you will like it. This sourcebook details the Aberrant world as it stands in the year 2008.

Gods once wielded this kind of power. Now it's ours. The forces of the universe respond to our will and we shape a world in our image. We are the celebrities, the heroes, the villains, the legends, the shining icons of our times. We are novas, and we will bring about a new golden Age... and you will like it. The Aberrant Players Guide has everything you need to expand and empower your character even further, from ingenious new ways of using Eufiber to powers that can only be described as "cosmic." This massive book contains new insights into what the life of a nova is really like, rules for creating and using gadgets, new and devastating capabilities, expanded Backgrounds, the full skinny on the N! network, a catalog of nova-only organizations and much more.

An aberrant belief is extreme or unusual in nature. In the most serious cases these beliefs cause emotional distress in those who hold them, and typify the core symptoms of psychological disorders. Each of the chapters in this volume seeks to examine the role that biases in reasoning can play in the formation of aberrant beliefs. The chapters consider several conjectures about the role of reasoning in aberrant belief, including the role of the jumping to conclusion bias in delusional beliefs, the probabilistic bias in paranormal beliefs, the role of danger confirming reasoning in phobias, and the controversial notion that people with schizophrenia do not succumb to specific forms of reasoning bias. There are also chapters evaluating different theoretical perspectives, and suggestions for future research. Aberrant Beliefs and Reasoning is the first volume presenting an overview of contemporary research in this growing subject area. It will be essential reading for academics and students in the fields of human reasoning, cognitive psychology and philosophy, and will also be of great interest to clinicians and psychiatrists.

In the future dystopian society of Cabal, the government instills equality for all and offers its citizens the perfect system. There is food, shelter and jobs for everyone. The one requirement is to follow the rules without question, including the government's match in marriage and "The Day of the Chosen," a lottery that randomly selects families to conceive children as natural means hasn't existed in generations. Following her eighteenth birthday, Olivia Parker accepts her requirement to marry her childhood best friend, Joshua Warren, and is eager to start her work assignment and new life when it all comes abruptly to an end as she's arrested and thrown in prison. The only crime committed, her existence. Olivia is unlike the rest of the world born not from "The Day of the Chosen." The truth haunts the government and puts her life in grave danger as one simple fact would destroy the perfect system. With Joshua's help, Olivia breaks free of prison and is forced on the run. Together they set out to find the promised rebel town in search of a new home and new life together. Their situation seems less than promising as they reach the town of Haven. New rules and customs must be adhered to in order to stay. Leaving would mean most certain death in the large expanse of the Gravelands. Time is running out as the government mounts an attack to destroy Olivia and bury her secret with her. Thrown into a world unlike their own, they must quickly adapt to survive.

Unique focus on the relation between artistic research and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze Aberrant Nuptials explores the diversity and richness of the interactions between artistic research and Deleuze studies. “Aberrant nuptials” is the expression Gilles Deleuze uses to refer to productive encounters between systems characterised by fundamental difference. More than imitation, representation, or reproduction, these encounters foster creative flows of energy, generating new material configurations and intensive experiences. Within different understandings of artistic research, the contributors to this book—architects, composers, film-makers, painters, performers, philosophers, sculptors, and writers—map current practices at the intersection between music, art, and philosophy, contributing to an expansion of horizons and methodologies. Written by established Deleuze scholars who have been working on interferences between art and philosophy, and by musicians and artists who have been reflecting Deleuzian and Post-Deleuzian discourses in their artworks, this volume reflects the current relevance of artistic research and Deleuze studies for the arts.

Have you ever seen dinosaurs foraging for neo-impressionists in Georgia O'Keeffe's back-yard? Do you understand the fundamentals of cubicle-ism? Have you witnessed the Sistine bowl-off? We welcome you to Sunday Afternoon, Looking for the Car: The Aberrant Art of Barry Kite. Barry Kite employs his acute mind, his artist's eye and skill, and his unfailing sense of humor to create collages that skewer the icons of art, history, science, politics, and industry. He uses found imagery and completes each collage by applying his own photographic and hand-coloring techniques. His strangely beautiful images bring together incongruous elements in startlingly powerful visual statements. Author Alan Bisbort offers explanatory text about each collage presented, but he is careful to remind you that an important part of experiencing the world of Barry Kite is to bring your own interpretative talents to bear.

During vertebrate hematopoiesis many specialized cell types are formed with vastly different functions such as B cells, T cells, granulocytes, macrophages, erythrocytes and megakaryocytes. To tightly control the enormous proliferative potential of developing blood cells, an intricately balanced signaling and transcription network has evolved that ensures that the different cell types are formed at the right time and in the right numbers. Intricate regulatory mechanisms ensure that blood cells function properly and have a determined life span. Moreover, in the adaptive immune system, long-lived memory cells have evolved that ensure that when pathogens have been seen once they will never cause a problem again. In this book we will therefore make a journey from asking how more primitive organisms use the epigenetic regulatory machinery to balance growth with differentiation control towards digging deep into what controls the function of specialized cells of the human immune system. We will first discover that flies make blood but exist without blood vessels, why fish make blood cells in the kidney and which precise genetic circuitries are required for these developmental pathways. We will then learn the regulatory principles that drive the differentiation of mature blood cells from stem cells and what controls their function in mammals. In the process, we will find out what unites hematopoietic stem cells and endothelial cells. Finally, we will shed light on the molecular mechanisms that either alter hematopoietic cell differentiation or lead to the development of cells with impaired function.

Gods once wielded this kind of power. Now it's ours. The forces of the universe respond to our will and we shape a world in our image. We are the celebrities, the heroes, the villains, the legends, the shining icons of our times. We are novas, and we will bring about a new golden Age... and you will like it. The Aberrant Storytellers Screen presents all the charts and tables necessary to run Aberrant, as well as additional setting information and a ready-to-run story in a 72-page book.

Gods once wielded this kind of power.Now it's ours.The forces of the universe respond to our will and we shape a world in our image. We are the celebrities, the heroes, the villains, the legends, the shining icons of our times. We are novas, and we will bring about a new golden Age... and you will like it.Everything you need to know about nova mercenaries.