Australian Berko by Simon Drake Terror. Sydney. A Crime Wave. Someone to Blame. Set in the darker side of post-Olympics Sydney, Australian Berko is the humorous, fast paced, action exploits of Wayne Berko the joker, accidental murderer, media manifested serial killer, cop and drug-lord executor, and righteously innocent modern day outlaw. He battles with the underworld of Sydney in the name of saving his drug-screaming sister Marisa and plans a devilish master stroke for the Crime Conference on Monday, but is yet to encounter the nature of the chaos that has led him there—Those that live by the sword, may die by the sword.

Sydney, 1957. Billy Glasheen is trying to make a living, whether running a gambling scam, shifting stolen jewels, or greasing the wheels during a hair-raising tour by Little Richard and his rock 'n' roll entourage. But Billy's schemes always cross with the plans of the city's big players, an unholy trinity of crooks, bent cops and politicians on the make. Now he's in the frame for murder and on the run from the cops, who'll happily send him down for it. Billy's no sleuth, but there's nowhere to turn for help. To prove it wasn't him, he'll have to find the real killer.

Following a global refugee crisis, Indonesia invades half of Australia and warlords emerge from the chaos of Occupied Australia. China steps in as the only superpower capable of restoring peace. Major Katherine Krue is ordered to take out an ex-Australian Army colonel, who commands a militia army and imports weapons of mass destruction.

Adam, a neo-human specifically designed for space travel, returns to Earth after a 99-year voyage to find that civilization has changed and unexpectedly lurched backwards. Traumatized by space, isolation, death, and the mutiny of his own crew, Adam has many secrets to hide.

Would aliens use Facebook to communicate with us rather than trust our politicians? Earth may be regarded as having an oddity, a zoo, or something of an amusement. The universe is a wild place, we're part of it, but what is it? To understand how Aliens sees us, we first have to understand our own history of exploration, contact and diplomacy, like when the Old World powers with the New World tribes. Earth history is littered with cruel jokes on unwitting peoples, where the collision of East Meets West ends with a party screwed over, or just wiped out of existence. Why should Earth's destiny among other races of the universe be any different? Fortunately, we can all agree on the implications of mixing with advanced alien cultures, yet technology shifts the means by which alien contact and diplomacy wants to integrate with our digital world. The responsibility for contact has moved from military elites and those in the know to the contrary, connected public. Soon, now, or a day in the future, we want to make real alien contact and our diplomacy either wants to have it subjugated and naively enslaved, or equipped with knowledge and technology that enables us to explore the stars.

At the peak of the financial crisis a high-flying team of egotistical, ambitious and international bankers flying to a global emergency financial bailout meeting are visited by a duo of egotistical, ambitious, intergalactic alien bankers. The alien bankers ask if earth requires an intergalactic bailout that could save earth's crumbling economy by selling a part of earth to the alien banker's clients from across the galaxy. For the hot shot earthling bankers, keen to win deals and redemption, it is a clash of greed, ego, plus classic over and under-valuation of their own planet. Also, the alien bankers might be a different species but the game is the same: Thanks to the financial crash earth is going cheap, yet what is it really worth? Who are the alien's clients and what are their goals and assets? For the deal to be closed requires the usual twists of brinkmanship hedged on universally accepted fundamentals of return on value, depreciation, and of course bonuses. As with every deal there is a hitch - and for this intergalactic merger and acquisition it could be the short-sightedness of the earthling bankers, or the greed of the alien bankers from across the universe, or the clients: the high-risk and no-assets parasitic Klonger race, looking to invest in a new planet to call home. Can the earthling bankers save earth without 'selling out' earth, get back their vision, and earn their capitalist redemption? Will the alien bankers alter the course of humanity, or is earth just too much of a risk? How will historians of the future, both human and the artificially intelligent, view this clash of civilizations?

This book interrogates the global utopian vision for smart energy technologies and the new energy consumer intended to realise it. It enriches and extends the possibilities of four residential smart strategies: energy feedback, dynamic pricing, home automation and micro-generation, focusing on how they are being integrated into everyday practice.

Based on a decade of taped conversations between Kati (Catherine) Veres, and her son Peter Veres, KATI’S STORY: RECOLLECTIONS OF TWO WORLDS is the multigenerational story of a Jewish family. It takes us from mid-nineteenth century villages in Hungary during the Austro-Hungarian Empire to cosmopolitan Budapest before, during, and after World War II, and finally to post-war New York City. It is also the story of a culture that transformed from tolerant to virulently intolerant in a single generation: Kati’s father served as an officer in the Hungarian army during WWI but was deported and killed during WWII. Sensing the coming disaster, Kati went to England to give birth to her first child, hoping that a British birth certificate would protect him against anti-Semitism. She returned to Budapest to be with her ailing parents, survived the war and its aftermath with her husband and two sons, and found a way to immigrate to New York to be near her brother, Gabor Carelli, who became a principal soloist at the Metropolitan Opera Company. In her new world she built on her sewing skills to become an assistant dress designer of high-end bridal gowns in the then vigorous New York garment industry and later a pattern maker at Simplicity Patterns. Augmenting Kati’s story is a large selection of family photographs and official documents, many in color, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, which remarkably survived the war and emigration in excellent condition. Also included are several color maps indicating places mentioned in the text, family trees, and footnotes about historical and geographical details.

Liam Michaels isn't just a wealthy art dealer and photographer. He is actually Azrael, the angel of death, an immortal sentinel created thousands of years ago before the dawn of man for the purpose of finding and destroying true evil. Azrael and his Core, a group of highly trained commandos, have just squashed attempted attacks on New York and Chicago by terrorists wielding neutron bombs. In the process, they discovered who was behind the threat: the Ba, an ancient warrior people controlled by a demon-the demon Azrael has been battling for more than three thousand years. Now the fight is about to come to a climax as Azrael and his team pursue the demon across the United States and Europe in a desperate effort to prevent a global nuclear holocaust. While this high-tech thriller rides the borders of the imagination and tangles with the unthinkable, the futuristic weaponry and advanced military systems employed by Azrael and his commandos arise from technologies that actually exist today in prototype form. In this chilling tale of terrorism, Azrael and the Core must utilize their most daring maneuvers, ingenious countertactics, and flat-out heroics in a brutal battle over the fate of the world.