On a muggy night in the summer of 1930, Deputy Sam Garrett reports for duty to find his mentor and boss, Sheriff I.D. Atkins, shot and left for dead behind the Bell County, Kentucky, courthouse. Unnerved and out of his depth as a greenhorn lawman, Sam is determined to step into the sheriff's shoes but soon finds himself mired in a swamp of deceit.FIREDAMP (200 pp) is a fast-moving, first-person tale of a young deputy's struggle with ruthless bootleggers and crime bosses. Adding to ...

Much philosophical work on pop culture apologises for its use; using popular culture is a necessary evil, something merely useful for reaching the masses with important philosophical arguments. But works of pop culture are important in their own right--they shape worldviews, inspire ideas, change minds. We wouldn't baulk at a book dedicated to examining the philosophy of The Great Gatsby or 1984--why aren't Star Trek and Superman fair game as well? After...

This is the first book to take a deep dive into the philosophical, social, moral, political, and religious issues tackled by Seth MacFarlane's marvelous space adventure, The Orville.These new essays explore what The Orville has to say on everything from climate change, artificial intelligence, and sexual assault, to gender, feminism, love, and care. Divided into six "acts" (just like every episode ofThe Orville), with the show as its backdrop, the book as...

Quaint, humorous tales meant for grandparents and grandchildren alike . . .The "Little Suzi" stories are recollections of actual events in the life of a young, inquisitive girl growing up "long, long ago" (in the 1960's) in Knoxville, Tennessee. They share one child's experiences in a small world that includes a mischievous imaginary friend Albert, a favorite playmate Denny, and the caring and kind-hearted grownups who influence her life and learning.

Hunter's Moon follows Sam Garrett's debut in Firedamp as a young deputy sheriff taking over for his mentor and boss, Sheriff I.D. Atkins, who has been sidelined by a bootlegger's bullet in Bell County, Kentucky. In this sequel, Sam returns to Pineville after doing battle with gangsters in Cincinnati and Newport, Kentucky—the original "Sin City" of its time—only to become entangled with a local moonshiner out for revenge after the deputy removes the man's abused children f...

Murder Creek, the third and final book of the Firedamp series finds Deputy Sheriff Sam Garrett once again in search of his prodigal brother "Tick" (Billy Wade) while at the same time wrestling with his conscience over allowing Jack Grimes (Hunter's Moon) to escape responsibility for the shooting death of his own father, the outlaw moonshiner Dewey Grimes. Sam revisits his cousin me-Curt, who advises him to drop the case against Jack, and re-crosses the swinging bridge to S...

The Singularity—the merger of man and machine into a greater whole—is finally within humanity's grasp. When programmer Jeff Lawing gets the opportunity to join Singularity Online, the world's first realistic VRMMO and the testing ground that will lead to the Singularity, he leaps to accept.Singularity is much more realistic and darker than Jeff had imagined, though. As a Sorcerer, his arcane magic is limited only by his imagination, allowing him to craft powerful spells forged from...

PHASE SHIFT INCOMING!Your local sector has been selected to undergo a Quantum Phase Shift in order to increase its habitability. Any humans who survive this process will receive more information on these changes.Expected Survival Rate: 1–5%Phase Shift begins in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Commence Phase Shift.Troias Drakos awakens to find that the world he knew is gone, and a new reality has risen to take its place. Most of Earth's life was kill...

War has come to the Lands of Light, and the defenders of the Light look to Aranos to fight it. An army of urukkai marches on Eredain, the spider-people move against the dwarven Skollhelds, and a horde of Shadowborn descend on the Human Kingdoms. The elven capital of Cyva Alari has fallen, and the fiendish bodakkai rage freely in the forests under the thrall of the twisted, insane Traveler Lily.The Lightborn are outnumbered and unprepared for war, their armies scattered, and their l...

War rages in the lands of Light, and the Darkness seems to be winning. Cities fall as the mad player Lily leads her armies against them, and hordes of Shadowborn descend on the Lightborn, seeking their destruction and enslavement. The Dark Pantheon itself has taken up arms against Aranos and his party, and he has only days to finish Redeeming the Arcane Doors before his Quest fails—which means the end of Geltheriel and the defeat of the Light.To overcome the Darkness, Aranos must d...

Black Mirror—the Emmy-winning Netflix series that holds up a dark, digital mirror of speculative technologies to modern society—shows us a high-tech world where it is all too easy to fall victim to ever-evolving forms of social control. In Black Mirror and Philosophy, original essays written by a diverse group of scholars invite you to peer into the void and explore the philosophical, ethical, and existential dimensions of Charlie Brooker's sinister stories. The collectio...

Aranos has done the impossible: he's freed the first Fallen Realm in mortal reckoning and returned victorious. He and his follower Geltheriel should be hailed as heroes and celebrated throughout the Stronghold of Eredain.Instead, Aranos finds himself surrounded by elves that are both secretly and openly hostile. He and his new party descend nightly into the corrupted Blightlands to battle the Darkness and to try and reclaim more lands for the Light, but each day the elves place mor...