CATEGORY WINNER: Business Book Awards 2021 - HR & Management CategoryAn engaged and productive workforce is essential for organizational growth and business success.However, record levels of disengaged staff, a lack of motivation and employees feeling that they lack the necessary skills and support to excel at their jobs is putting this in jeopardy. HR practitioners are ideally placed to address these issues and boost productivity ...

Paradise LostIn the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. The world is a paradise—and then, in amoment, it ends. The council that controls the Net falls out and goes to war. Everywhere people who have neverknown a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive.But scattered across the face of the earth are communities which have returned to the natural life of soil andsmall farm. In the village of Raven’s Mill, Edmun...

Create an Organization That Runs on More than Intuition and GuessworkMost companies today have access to reams of data: marketing, supply chain, finance, as well as critical data about their workforce. Yet research shows that leaders at these companies lack the confidence to effectively integrate and use this data to compete more effectively in the marketplace. While executives know the results they need to achieve, they often fail to analyze the impact of...

The Battle Against Those Determined to Rule the World—or Destroy It—ContinuesIn the future the world was a paradise—and then, in a moment, it ended. The council that controlled theNet fell out and went to war, while people who had never known a moment of want or pain were left wondering howto survive.Duke Edmund Talbot has been assigned a simple mission: Go to the Southern Isles and make contact with thescattered mer-folk—those who, before the worldwide...

Problems, problems, problems …The world had been a paradise until the Fall, when the holders of the control codes for the world-spanning program called "Mother" fell out in civil war.The United Free States felt well defended behind its screen of elite Dragon carriers that held sway in the Atlantis Ocean. But when New Destiny proved to have dragon carriers of its own, and more of them, the linch-pin of the UFSdefense went out the window.Now, with the UFS' back...

Swords, Sex, and Rockets!Paradise falls. Humanity is thrown back to an age of steel and blood. Now the fuel that powers the "changed" world is up for grabs in an orbiting spacecraft. With only days to plan, rough and ready paladin Herzer Herrick must assemble ateam of expert warriors capable of both seat-of-the-pants engineering and handto-hand combat in space. In the meantime, Herzer must face his own demons as he waits for his emotionally-scarred fiancé to recover and fina...

TO THE STARS—WITH GUNS AND DUCT TAPELTC William Weaver, PhD. ("Call me Bill …") and SEAL Chief Miller, the heroes who saved Earth from alien menace in Into the Looking Glass, are back and this time Bill's got hisself a ship! The former SSBN Nebraska has been converted, using mostly shade-tree mechanics and baling wire, into a warp ship, NavalConstruction Contract 4144, ready to go where no Adar, SEAL or academic has gone before!Yay for the heroes! But who cares for ...

The Galaxy at Risk!Humans have come a long ways since the looking glass gates first appeared and an alien menace turned a motley crew of scientists, sailors and force recon Marines into battle-hardened space adventurers. Now with other species running scared, it’s up to humans to take the lead and mold a weapon capableof checking the Dreen—a galactic cancer that has so far proved unstoppable. Their arsenal is a hodge-podge of powerful technologies begged, borrowed and/or loo...

WORST TWO OUT OF THREEWhen a 60 kiloton nuclear explosion destroys the University of Central Florida, terrorism is the first suspect. But terrorists don't generally leave doorways to another world in their wake. Or, rather, a generator of doorways to multiple other worlds.With time of the essence, the Secretary of Defense scrounges up the nearest physicist with a high level security clearance. With doctorates in everything from nuclear physics to electrical engineering, Wil...

Unleash the Fury!Zhikotse. Shallingsport. Louvain. Sacred fields of battle on far-flung worlds where warriors of the Imperial Cadre spent blood and lives defending human civilization. Alicia DeVries was there; she led the charge. Her reward: Betrayal by adeceitful empire. Retirement to obscurity.Now Alicia is the only survivor of a brutal attack on her frontier-world family. Not since the mighty Achilles has the ancient spirit of the Fury Tisiphone taken up residence...

There he was in his sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic, all alone and loving it.Well, there was a US Navy carrier group on his southern horizon, but he was a Navy guy himself, so he didn't mind.Then came the UFOs, hurtling in from the Outer Black to overfly the carriers at Mach 17. Their impossible aerobatics were bad enough—but then they started shooting at each other, and at the Navy, with nukes. Little ones at first, but winding up with a 500 megaton...

Centurions were the guardians of Rome. At the height of the Roman Republic there were over five thousand qualified Roman Centurions in the Legions. To be a Centurion required that, in a mostly illiterate society, one be able to read and write clearly, to be able to convey and create orders, to be capable of not only performing every skill of a Roman soldier but teach every skill of a Roman soldier.Becoming a Centurion required intense physical ability, courage beyond the norm, year...