Lionel Messi and the Art of Living is a bold and insightful examination of a world-famous sporting hero's career from an entirely new perspective, providing a context extending far beyond the soccer field. The idea that sports stars are role models is a cliché, but it is also true in a way that is rarely appreciated. Although the details of Messi's story are already well known, The Art of Living examines afresh and anew his highs and lows, his successes and failures, his ...

X Marks the Spot is a slender anthology produced to celebrate the first ten years of NewCon Press. It includes original fiction from Adam Roberts, Rozanne Rabinowitz, and Paul Melhuish, a poem by Donna Scott, aand a collaborative short story written by Ian Whates, Ian Watson, Hal Duncan, Chaz Brenchley, Sarah Singleton, Andrew Hook and others which has been out of print for nearly eight years, and a sectio...

Six piercing novellas and novelettes of philosophical science fiction, lovingly crafted by a prize-winning author to provoke and arouse.A sentient anti-meme sends emails to fight its rival in 'Meme'.A stranded starship crew engineers the development of a primitive alien race in 'Rescue Stories', runner-up in the BSFA 50th anniversary short fiction competition.Draw aside the social memeplex veils of man-made climate change in the controversial 'Truth', featured on th...

Children's and young people’s right to participate has been increasingly acknowledged and taken up internationally, as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet much of this has focused on collecting children’s voices, rather than achieving change, and has met its limits. This book provides an analysis of children’s participation in formal, collective and action research processes in six different international settings. It offers a deeper understanding of what helps a...

"It's very straightforward," stated the culture-officer, with an edge of self-satisfaction. "If we can't survive long enough for the natives to reach the required level of civilisation naturally, why then we'll simply accelerate their development so they get there much sooner, when we are still alive and wholly capable!"When their ship crashes, the post-human crew of the Hermes launch a desperate bid to accelerate the technological development of the primitive natives, so that when...

A timeless species manipulates and controls the destiny of mankind.Unknown to most and shown only to a few, The Book not only holds the answer to the question of creation, but to the mystery of life itself.Beyond the previous three years of his troubled existence, James had only confusing memories and fragmented visions of a life unknown to him; will the activation of a technology older than time provide the answers that lie to the furthest borders of our solar system, or wi...

Follow the adventures of Aero, a young martial artist who is also a gifted blacksmith living with the power of an ancient warrior inside him, as he grows from a young boy to a fighter of god-like proportions. Uncover the secrets of Aero’s past and immerse yourself in a world with Halos (rings of energy that surround people and allow use of elemental magic techniques) as well as talking hammers and some characters that are as ancient as history itself.Driven by an imaginative world,...

At last; Undermeat, finished and complete -- Sweetly and the junkie are in love. There's another man in Sweetly's life, though, a man named Dylan Rose, Sweetly's boss and manager, her controller and pimp. He drove the junkie away once upon a time, breaking the junkie's hope like a spine, driving him into the Undermeat, the place where hope goes to die. That's how the junkie knows all too well the mistake that Sweetly's about to make in going to the Undermeat for help. Nightburners won't do...

You can take people off Earth, but can you take the Earth out of people? Humanity's first mission to Mars hits a nasty speed bump. Personality, passion and persuasion form a deadly triangle on the first Martian colony.This new novelette by science fiction author Frank Severino cynically explores notions of character, class, human expansion, legacies and what the future might regrettably consider inspirational or historically valuable.

In the Sunset Desert of Alpha Centauri A Four are three immense structures. For nearly thirty years, these massive mines have used United States of the Zodiac prisoners to dig uraninite out of the ground by hand. No-one escapes from Alpha Four. Once you are sent there, established wisdom considers you as good as dead.It's time for Ant and Cleo to prove established wisdom wrong...

While attempting to complete the work of a beloved colleague, Herbert George Li inadvertently transports a young college student through time, tearing multiple holes in the fabric of time and space. With the help of new and old friends, Herb and Alex must undo the mistakes of the past, repairing time before all of human history is erased.

Cleo is so glad not to be going to Germany. She hates sausages, and knows for a fact that every adult German is forced to wear Lederhosen from birth. But Commodore Drummond needs Ant and Cleo in Germany - there is a thing there, long forgotten, that could change the course of the war with Earth. Unfortunately, Larry's not far behind them - and this time, he's in wolf's clothing...