Phantoms of Chittagong

Phantoms of Chittagong PDF Author: Sujan Singh Uban
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
"BEST OF 2011. Innovative ... intensely memorable ... drama and intelligence ... fascinating ... a gripping read." - Perry Crowe, Kirkus Reviews "I'm fascinated by the world building in Clark Carlton's Prophets of the Ghost Ants." - Annalee Newitz, i09.com "One of the most engrossing, original and powerful novels I have read in years. A monumental cross-genre book, an allegory like Animal Farm as well as a thrilling adventure into a whole new world. Exciting, visionary, a tour de force." - Lawrence Bender, Oscar winning producer of Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, An Inconvenient Truth "An engaging piece of fiction built upon an imaginative idea. Even though everything takes place on a very small scale, the scope of the conflict remains epic and the nature of the conflict remains quintessentially human. The book has so much packed into it - from an exploration of class divisions, to the religious hypocrisy of the ruling and priestly classes, to the causes of religiously driven wars, to a coming-of-age story for Anand - that any reader will almost certainly find multiple levels of material in it to interest them." - Aaron Pounds, Dreaming of Other Worlds "An incredibly compelling novel ... highly original ... I am eager to see where the author goes with this series, a rewarding novel that is as remarkable for it's intensity as it's easy grace." - Antony Jones, SF Book Review Prophets of the Ghost Ants is in development as a film trilogy with Lawrence Bender Productions. The setting is Earth of the far-flung future, when all traces of our civilization have long vanished. The catastrophes of distant ages -- natural and man-made -- have passed into legend and mysticism. And yet ... the world is no utopia. Technology is unknown. The animal kingdom as we know it is extinct. Birds, reptiles, mammals -- all lost to endless, unforgiving cycles of planetary death and rebirth. Humankind has clung stubbornly to existence -- thanks to a perverse turn of Evolution. For as the weary planet became inexorably depleted, our species adapted by growing smaller with every passing eon, until at last we stood in parity with the only other "higher" species to survive -- insects. And just as our current society has domesticated animals to sustain ourselves, the human societies of this future have yoked insects to their service. Food, weapons, clothing, art -- even the most sacred religious beliefs -- are derived from Humankind's profound intertwining with the once-lowly insect world. In this savage landscape, men cannot hope to dominate. Ceaselessly and viciously, humans are stalked by Night Wasps, Lair Spiders, and Grass Roaches. And men are still men. Corrupt elites ruthlessly enforce a rigid caste system over a debased and ignorant populace. Duplicitous clergymen and power-mongering Royalty wage pointless wars for their own glory. Fantasies of a better life, a better world, serve only to torment those who dare to dream. One so cursed is a half-breed slave named Anand, a dung-collector of the midden caste who, against all possibility, rises above hopelessness to lead his people against a genocidal army of men who fight atop fearsome, translucent Ghost Ants. And to his horror, Anand finds that this merciless enemy is led by someone from his own family ... a religious zealot bent on the conversion of all non-believers ... or their extermination. For more info and concept art visit our web site: http://www.prophetsoftheghostants.com

Phantoms of Chittagong

Phantoms of Chittagong PDF Author: Sujan Singh Uban
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book

Book Description
"BEST OF 2011. Innovative ... intensely memorable ... drama and intelligence ... fascinating ... a gripping read." - Perry Crowe, Kirkus Reviews "I'm fascinated by the world building in Clark Carlton's Prophets of the Ghost Ants." - Annalee Newitz, i09.com "One of the most engrossing, original and powerful novels I have read in years. A monumental cross-genre book, an allegory like Animal Farm as well as a thrilling adventure into a whole new world. Exciting, visionary, a tour de force." - Lawrence Bender, Oscar winning producer of Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, An Inconvenient Truth "An engaging piece of fiction built upon an imaginative idea. Even though everything takes place on a very small scale, the scope of the conflict remains epic and the nature of the conflict remains quintessentially human. The book has so much packed into it - from an exploration of class divisions, to the religious hypocrisy of the ruling and priestly classes, to the causes of religiously driven wars, to a coming-of-age story for Anand - that any reader will almost certainly find multiple levels of material in it to interest them." - Aaron Pounds, Dreaming of Other Worlds "An incredibly compelling novel ... highly original ... I am eager to see where the author goes with this series, a rewarding novel that is as remarkable for it's intensity as it's easy grace." - Antony Jones, SF Book Review Prophets of the Ghost Ants is in development as a film trilogy with Lawrence Bender Productions. The setting is Earth of the far-flung future, when all traces of our civilization have long vanished. The catastrophes of distant ages -- natural and man-made -- have passed into legend and mysticism. And yet ... the world is no utopia. Technology is unknown. The animal kingdom as we know it is extinct. Birds, reptiles, mammals -- all lost to endless, unforgiving cycles of planetary death and rebirth. Humankind has clung stubbornly to existence -- thanks to a perverse turn of Evolution. For as the weary planet became inexorably depleted, our species adapted by growing smaller with every passing eon, until at last we stood in parity with the only other "higher" species to survive -- insects. And just as our current society has domesticated animals to sustain ourselves, the human societies of this future have yoked insects to their service. Food, weapons, clothing, art -- even the most sacred religious beliefs -- are derived from Humankind's profound intertwining with the once-lowly insect world. In this savage landscape, men cannot hope to dominate. Ceaselessly and viciously, humans are stalked by Night Wasps, Lair Spiders, and Grass Roaches. And men are still men. Corrupt elites ruthlessly enforce a rigid caste system over a debased and ignorant populace. Duplicitous clergymen and power-mongering Royalty wage pointless wars for their own glory. Fantasies of a better life, a better world, serve only to torment those who dare to dream. One so cursed is a half-breed slave named Anand, a dung-collector of the midden caste who, against all possibility, rises above hopelessness to lead his people against a genocidal army of men who fight atop fearsome, translucent Ghost Ants. And to his horror, Anand finds that this merciless enemy is led by someone from his own family ... a religious zealot bent on the conversion of all non-believers ... or their extermination. For more info and concept art visit our web site: http://www.prophetsoftheghostants.com

India and Her Neighbourhood

India and Her Neighbourhood PDF Author: Claude Arpi
Publisher: Har-Anand Publications
ISBN: 9788124110973
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Articles predominantly on political conditions of Tibet, China and Sino-Indian relations.

Phantoms in the Brain

Phantoms in the Brain PDF Author: V. S. Ramachandran
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0688172172
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments -- using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we're so clever at philosophy, music and art. Some of his most notable cases: A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud's theory of denial. A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be "wired" for religious experience? A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time. Dr. Ramachandran's inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine's last great frontier -- the human mind -- yielding new and provocative insights into the "big questions" about consciousness and the self.

Tibet With My Eyes Closed

Tibet With My Eyes Closed PDF Author: Madhu Gurung
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789388326322
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A collection of vivid and deeply emotional stories... [that] deals with issues of identity and belonging, allowing one to experience the hope, pain, and remarkable perseverance of a people and region that are at risk of being forgotten. --Shashi Tharoor In this collection of short stories, heart-breaking and heart-warming in equal measure, the lives of displaced Tibetans building new homes in India are chronicled with rare nuance. The eleven stories are divided into the five colours of the Tibetan prayer flag: in Blue (Sky), 'Zinda' is the name of the Tibetan village which a child has to escape after Chinese occupation, returning only as a young man to this unfamiliar motherland after a bittersweet surprise. Mariko, the former monk protagonist in White (Air), shatters expectations by becoming a beauty icon and dancer. 'In the Footsteps of Buddha's Warriors' from Red (Fire) tells the story of the Chushi Gangdruk, the forgotten Tibetan guerrilla group which fought bravely from Nepal for an independence which never arrived. Madhu Gurung writes evocatively and with deep empathy about the Tibetan community's struggles and success, despair and hope, and the fabric of family and identity that stretches and dissolves and knits itself back in new configurations.

India's Ad Hoc Arsenal

India's Ad Hoc Arsenal PDF Author: Chris Smith
Publisher: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
ISBN: 9780198291688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Chris Smith explores the evolution of Indian defence policy since 1947. He looks carefully at the domestic dynamics of Indian defence policy. This includes an in-depth analysis of the period 1947-62, which is often ignored by Indian defence analysts, and the performance of the defence industrial base. He concludes that India's defence policy is designed more as one aspect of the quest for great power status than as an attempt to aquire security at an affordable price.

High-Tech Trash

High-Tech Trash PDF Author: Carolyn L. Kane
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520974492
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
A free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. High-Tech Trash analyzes creative strategies in glitch, noise, and error to chart the development of an aesthetic paradigm rooted in failure. Carolyn L. Kane explores how technologically influenced creative practices, primarily from the second half of the twentieth and first quarter of the twenty-first centuries, critically offset a broader culture of pervasive risk and discontent. In so doing, she questions how we continue onward, striving to do better and acquire more, despite inevitable disappointment. High-Tech Trash speaks to a paradox in contemporary society in which failure is disavowed yet necessary for technological innovation.

Spies and Commandos

Spies and Commandos PDF Author: Kenneth Conboy
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700611479
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
During the Vietnam war, the United States sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. A secret to most Americans, this covert operation was far from secret in Hanoi: all of the commandos were killed or captured, and many were turned by the Communists to report false information. Spies and Commandos traces the rise and demise of this secret operation-started by the CIA in 1960 and expanded by the Pentagon beginning in1964-in the first book to examine the program from both sides of the war. Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade interviewed CIA and military personnel and traveled in Vietnam to locate former commandos who had been captured by Hanoi, enabling them to tell the complete story of these covert activities from high-level decision making to the actual experiences of the agents. The book vividly describes scores of dangerous missions-including raids against North Vietnamese coastal installations and the air-dropping of dozens of agents into enemy territory-as well as psychological warfare designed to make Hanoi believe the "resistance movement" was larger than it actually was. It offers a more complete operational account of the program than has ever been made available-particularly its early years-and ties known events in the war to covert operations, such as details of the "34-A Operations" that led to the Tonkin Gulf incidents in 1964. It also explains in no uncertain terms why the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start. One of the remarkable features of the operation, claim the authors, is that its failures were so glaring. They argue that the CIA, and later the Pentagon, was unaware for years that Hanoi had compromised the commandos, even though some agents missed radio deadlines or filed suspicious reports. Operational errors were not attributable to conspiracy or counterintelligence, they contend, but simply to poor planning and lack of imagination. Although it flourished for ten years under cover of the wider war, covert activity in Vietnam is now recognized as a disaster. Conboy and Andrade's account of that episode is a sobering tale that lends a new perspective on the war as it reclaims the lost lives of these unsung spies and commandos.

The Natural Genesis (Two Volumes in One)

The Natural Genesis (Two Volumes in One) PDF Author: Gerald Massey
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1616405570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1108

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Book Description
Egyptologist Gerald Massey challenged readers in A Book of the Beginnings to consider the argument that Egypt was the birthplace of civilization and that the widespread monotheistic vision of man and the metaphysical was, in fact, based on ancient Egyptian mythos. In The Natural Genesis, presented here in an omnibus edition, Massey delivers a sequel, delving deeper into his compelling polemic. In Volume I, he offers a more intellectual, fine-tuned analysis of the development of society out of Egypt. From the simplest signs (numbers, the cross) to the grandest archetypes (darkness, the mother figure), Massey carefully and confidently lays the cultural and psychosocial bricks of evolutionism. Volume II provides detailed discourse on the Egyptian origin of the delicate components of the monotheistic creed. With his agile prose, Massey leads an adventurous examination of the epistemology of astronomy, time, and Christology-and what it all means for human culture. British author GERALD MASSEY (1828-1907) published works of poetry, spiritualism, Shakespearean criticism, and theology, but his best known works are in the realm of Egyptology, including The Book of the Beginnings, The Natural Genesis, and Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World.

Tristes Tropiques

Tristes Tropiques PDF Author: Claude Levi-Strauss
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101575603
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
"A magical masterpiece."—Robert Ardrey. A chronicle of the author's search for a civilization "reduced to its most basic expression."

Their Language of Love

Their Language of Love PDF Author: Bapsi Sidhwa
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184759274
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In this brand-new collection of stories, Bapsi Sidhwa returns to chronicling the lives and loves of those on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. A wife worries for her family’s survival during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. A mother is horrified when she learns that her daughter wants to marry her American boyfriend. An American housewife living in Lahore has a tempestuous affair with a Pakistani minister. An aged matriarch travels to the USA to discover she must confront a traumatic memory from her past. Finely nuanced, and laced with Sidhwa’s sharply comic observations, this is a stellar collection of tales from one of the subcontinent’s most important and beloved writers.