The Great Explosion

The Great Explosion PDF Author: Eric Frank Russell
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786258994
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
MISSION OF EMPIRE Earthmen had colonized hundreds of planets in the four centuries of deep space exploration—independent new civilizations founded by the discontented and adventurous of Terra. Trouble was, they were too independent—and the Terran government had ambitions for a space empire. A giant battle cruiser went out into the starlanes, with instructions to persuade the colonial planets to join the Empire—and with a couple of thousand troops to back up the persuasion ! It looked like an interesting, if easy, mission—after all, what kind of opposition could a bunch of backwoods planets offer to the most advanced military power in the Galaxy? Quite a lot, as it turned out ... and all of it wildly unexpected! One of the "old pros" of science-fiction, Eric Frank Russell has, in THE GREAT EXPLOSION, written a fast-paced and compelling adventure—a fascinating look at a possible tomorrow. A satirical Classic.

The Great Explosion

The Great Explosion PDF Author: Eric Frank Russell
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786258994
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book

Book Description
MISSION OF EMPIRE Earthmen had colonized hundreds of planets in the four centuries of deep space exploration—independent new civilizations founded by the discontented and adventurous of Terra. Trouble was, they were too independent—and the Terran government had ambitions for a space empire. A giant battle cruiser went out into the starlanes, with instructions to persuade the colonial planets to join the Empire—and with a couple of thousand troops to back up the persuasion ! It looked like an interesting, if easy, mission—after all, what kind of opposition could a bunch of backwoods planets offer to the most advanced military power in the Galaxy? Quite a lot, as it turned out ... and all of it wildly unexpected! One of the "old pros" of science-fiction, Eric Frank Russell has, in THE GREAT EXPLOSION, written a fast-paced and compelling adventure—a fascinating look at a possible tomorrow. A satirical Classic.

The Great Explosion

The Great Explosion PDF Author: Brian Dillon
Publisher: Penguin Ireland
ISBN: 9780241956762
Category : Explosions
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"In April 1916, shortly before the commencement of the Battle of the Somme, a fire started in a vast munitions works located in the Kent marshes. The resulting series of explosions killed 108 people and injured many more. In a remarkable piece of storytelling, Brian Dillon recreates the events of that terrible day - and, in so doing, sheds a fresh and unexpected light on the British home front in the Great War. He offers a chilling natural history of explosives and their effects on the earth, on buildings, and on human and animal bodies. And he evokes with vivid clarity the interaction of human imperatives and the natural world in one of Britain's strangest and most distinctive landscapes - where he has been a habitual explorer for many years. The Great Explosion is a profound work of narrative, exploration and inquiry form one of our most brilliant writers." --Jacket flap.

The Great Halifax Explosion

The Great Halifax Explosion PDF Author: John U. Bacon
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006266655X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER The "riveting" (National Post) tick-tock account of the largest manmade explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb, and the equally astonishing tales of survival and heroism that emerged from the ashes “Enthralling. ... Gripping. ... A captivating and emotionally investing journey.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette After steaming out of New York City on December 1, 1917, laden with a staggering three thousand tons of TNT and other explosives, the munitions ship Mont-Blanc fought its way up the Atlantic coast, through waters prowled by enemy U-boats. As it approached the lively port city of Halifax, Mont-Blanc's deadly cargo erupted with the force of 2.9 kilotons of TNT—the most powerful explosion ever visited on a human population, save for HIroshima and Nagasaki. Mont-Blanc was vaporized in one fifteenth of a second; a shockwave leveled the surrounding city. Next came a thirty-five-foot tsunami. Most astounding of all, however, were the incredible tales of survival and heroism that soon emerged from the rubble. This is the unforgettable story told in John U. Bacon's The Great Halifax Explosion: a ticktock account of fateful decisions that led to doom, the human faces of the blast's 11,000 casualties, and the equally moving individual stories of those who lived and selflessly threw themselves into urgent rescue work that saved thousands. The shocking scale of the disaster stunned the world, dominating global headlines even amid the calamity of the First World War. Hours after the blast, Boston sent trains and ships filled with doctors, medicine, and money. The explosion would revolutionize pediatric medicine; transform U.S.-Canadian relations; and provide physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who studied the Halifax explosion closely when developing the atomic bomb, with history's only real-world case study demonstrating the lethal power of a weapon of mass destruction. Mesmerizing and inspiring, Bacon's deeply-researched narrative brings to life the tragedy, bravery, and surprising afterlife of one of the most dramatic events of modern times.

The Great Explosion A Powder Mill Chronicle

The Great Explosion A Powder Mill Chronicle PDF Author: Ilona E Holland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578766577
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Fire, explosions, and flying debris test the courage of the du Pont children as they race from their home to escape an explosion of their family's powder mill and make their way to safety. Based on true events, this book combines fact with fiction to provide an exciting glimpse into life at Eleutherian Mills in 1818.

Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass PDF Author: Sally M. Walker
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
ISBN: 1466805102
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One ship was loaded top to bottom with munitions and one held relief supplies, both intended for wartorn Europe. The resulting blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn't devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and paralyzing much-needed relief efforts. Fascinating, edge-of-your-seat storytelling based on original source material conveys this harrowing account of tragedy and recovery. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.

Three Moments of an Explosion

Three Moments of an Explosion PDF Author: China Miéville
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1101884738
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Kirkus Reviews • The fiction of multiple award–winning author China Miéville is powered by intelligence and imagination. Like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and David Mitchell, he pulls from a variety of genres with equal facility, employing the fantastic not to escape from reality but instead to interrogate it in provocative, unexpected ways. London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse’s bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what? Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of literature’s most original voices. Praise for Three Moments of an Explosion “China Miéville is dazzling. His latest collection of short stories, Three Moments of an Explosion, crowds virtuosity into every sentence.”—The New York Times “You can’t talk about [China] Miéville without using the word ‘brilliant.’ . . . His wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian “[A] gripping collection . . . Miéville expertly mixes science fiction, fantasy and surrealism. . . . Amid the longer stories are more cerebral, poetic flash pieces that will haunt the reader beyond the pages of this exceptional book.”—The Washington Post “The stories shine . . . with a winking brilliance.”—The Seattle Times “Mind-bending excursions into the fantastic.”—NPR “Bradbury meets Borges, with Lovecraft gibbering tumultuously just out of hearing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Three Moments of an Explosion is a book filled with fabulous oddities.”—Entertainment Weekly “Miéville moves effortlessly among realism, fantasy, and surrealism. . . . His characters, whether ordinary witnesses to extraordinary events or lunatics operating out of inexplicable compulsions, are invariably well drawn and compelling.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Explosion Chronicles

The Explosion Chronicles PDF Author: Yan Lianke
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190014
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
“A rip-roaring Swiftian satire from a contemporary Chinese master” follows a rural community’s transformation from small village to megalopolis (The Economist). With the Yi River on one side and the Balou Mountains on the other, the village of Explosion was founded more than a millennium ago by refugees fleeing a seismic volcanic eruption. But in the post-Mao era the name takes on a new significance as the community grows explosively from a small village to a vast metropolis. Behind this rapid expansion are members of the community’s three major families, including the four Kong brothers; Zhu Ying, the daughter of the former village chief; and Cheng Qing, who starts out as a secretary and goes on to become a powerful political and business figure. Linked together by a complex web of loyalty, betrayal, desire, and ambition, these figures are the driving force behind their hometown’s transformation into an urban superpower. Brimming with absurdity, intelligence, and wit, The Explosion Chronicles considers the high stakes of passion and power, the consequences of corruption and greed, the polarizing dynamics of love and hate between families, as well as humankind’s resourcefulness through the vicissitudes of life. “Yan’s burlesque of a nation driven insane by money is equally a satire of some of the excesses of the Chinese Revolution.” —The Wall Street Journal

The Fire Came by

The Fire Came by PDF Author: John Baxter
Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
ISBN: 9780446893961
Category : Nuclear explosions
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description


The Populist Explosion

The Populist Explosion PDF Author: John B. Judis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997126440
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
""Far and away the most incisive examination of the central development in contemporary politics: the rise of populism on both the right and the left. Superb.""--Thomas Edsall, New York Times columnistWhat's happening in global politics? As if overnight, many Democrats revolted and passionately backed a socialist named Bernie Sanders; the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union ; the vituperative billionaire Donald Trump became the presidential nominee of the Republican party; and a slew of rebellious parties continued to win elections in Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Austria, and Gre.

My Boys and Girls Are in There

My Boys and Girls Are in There PDF Author: Ron Rozelle
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603447806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
On March 18, 1937, a spark ignited a vast pool of natural gas that had collected beneath the school building in New London, a tiny community in East Texas. The resulting explosion leveled the four-year-old structure and resulted in a death toll of more than three hundred—most of them children. To this day, it is the worst school disaster in the history of the United States. The tragedy and its aftermath were the first big stories covered by Walter Cronkite, then a young wire service reporter stationed in Dallas. He would later say that no war story he ever covered—during World War II or Vietnam—was as heart-wrenching. In the weeks following the tragedy, a fact-finding committee sought to determine who was to blame. It soon became apparent that the New London school district had, along with almost all local businesses and residents, tapped into pipelines carrying unrefined gas from the plentiful oil fields of the area. It was technically illegal, but natural gas was in abundance in the “Oil Patch.” The jerry-rigged conduits leaked the odorless “green” gas that would destroy the school. A long-term effect of the disaster was the shared guilt experienced—for the rest of their lives—by most of the survivors. There is, perhaps, no better example than Bill Thompson, who was in his fifth grade English class and “in the mood to flirt” with Billie Sue Hall, who was sitting two seats away. Thompson asked another girl to trade seats with him. She agreed—and was killed in the explosion, while Thompson and Hall both survived and lived long lives, never quite coming to terms with their good fortune. My Boys and Girls Are in There: The 1937 New London School Explosion is a meticulous, candid account by veteran educator and experienced author Ron Rozelle. Unfolding with the narrative pace of a novel, the story woven by Rozelle—beginning with the title—combines the anguished words of eyewitnesses with telling details from the historical and legal record. Released to coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New London School disaster, My Boys and Girls Are in There paints an intensely human portrait of this horrific event.