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McAuley Paul J
Ancients of Days: The Second Book of Confluence (Confluence Trilogy)
 List Price: Price: $6.89 You Save: $0.10 (1%) DescriptionOn an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long-vanished Preservers, young Yama's ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires. In the dust of many crumbling bureaucracies, Yama searches for an identity and a history-awed and fearful of his ever-growing capacity to awaken the terrible machines of destruction that his world's absent gods left slumbering. To the common folk-the unshaped and aboriginal-he is the fulfillment of age-old prophecies. To the functionaries of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, he is a weapon to be molded and used in the bloody civil war raging at the planet's midpoint-a seemingly endless battle that pits those who revere the Preservers' laws against the dangerous Heretics who would obliterate all antiquated values and codes of conduct. But there are still others who have taken notice of Yama as he pursues the hidden secrets of his past. Intelligent powers older than the Builders-as old, perhaps, as the Preservers themselves -are pursuing Yama in turn. And they will stop at nothing to control his present-and, as a result, the future of everything that lives-in anticipation of the ultimate triumph of the Ancients of Days. Paul J. McAuley's Confluence trilogy, with its far-future bioengineered setting, lush prose, and messianic themes, adds up to brilliant, literary storytelling. Ancients of Days is the second book in the trilogy--the first was Child of the River, in which young Yamamanama (referred to as Yama, thankfully) began to search for the secrets of his bloodline. His world, Confluence, is an artifact of a civilization long gone, a vast, keeled structure that rocks back and forth on its long axis as it travels around its sun. Confluence is populated by nanoengineered peoples tracing their origins from thousands of animal species. The entire galaxy, including the locations of stars, has been artificially manipulated in this unimaginably distant future, presumably by ancient humans--known as the Preservers--as they extended their reach beyond earth. In Ancients of Days, Yama continues his quest, learning that he may be one of the Builders, the first bloodline created by the Preservers. He can control the many machines that roam Confluence, and people of other bloodlines obey him. But Confluence is a world in conflict, and the evil Prefect Corin continues his hunt for Yama, in order to use the young man's powers to control weapons of war. Yama's friends help him as best they can, but as his power grows, they must decide whether to trust him or fear him. Is Yama one of the Ancients of Days, a messiah come to raise up the bloodlines from their base existences? Or is he a hapless tool of the malevolent feral machines that hover in orbits just off the horizon of Confluence? Don't miss this amazing series, destined to be one of the most memorable in science fiction. --Therese Littleton
The Quiet War
 List Price: $11.99 DescriptionTwenty-third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre-industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth's repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self-sufficient cities and settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition. The fragile detente between the Outer cities and the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers, who want to break free of their cosy, inward-looking pocket paradises, colonise the rest of the Solar System, and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre-emptive action against the Outers before it's too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards.Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war . ..Twenty-third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre-industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth's repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self-sufficient cities and settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition. The fragile detente between the Outer cities and the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers, who want to break free of their cosy, inward-looking pocket paradises, colonise the rest of the Solar System, and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre-emptive action against the Outers before it's too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards.Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war . ..
The Invisible Country
 List Price: Price: $6.70 You Save: $6.80 (50%) DescriptionIn these nine exraordinary tales, acclaimed author PAUL J. MCAULEY--winner of the Philip K. Dick, British Fantasy Society, John W. Campbell Memorial, and Aruthur C. Clarke Awards--explores the wonders and dangers of biotechnology and its creations in stories whose settings careen from a distant alternate past to a breathtaking far-flung future. In a sixteenth-century Venice, transformed by a premature Industrial Revolution, a physian mourning his daughter's passing meets a mountebank with the power to raise the dead. In a tomorrow of raw and terrible beauty, revolutionaries struggle to free genetically engineered creatrues fated to die in combat games and violent sexual encounters. And ten million years in the future, on an artificial world orbiting an immense black hole, a civilization of awesome strangeness and complexity created--and abandoned--by the Godlike Preservers is about to meet the human ancestors of its makers.Former biologist Paul J. McAuley, multi-award winning author of Fairyland and the Confluence trilogy (beginning with Child of the River), here presents nine of his short works, mostly set in future societies rendered bizarre by rampant biotechnology. McAuley is a brilliant storyteller, and several standout pieces in this collection are astonishingly wonderful. In the short, powerful "Gene Wars," young Evan gets a kit called Splicing Your Own Semisentients, which sets him off on a life of genetic engineering, corporate piracy, and third-world exploitation, ending in the unimaginably distant future. The title story, "The Invisible Country," is an SF-noir tale that embodies the essence of cyberpunk without resorting to dark, dangerous cliché--in his afterword, McAuley explains that he wrote it for a collection in which the central conflict is resolved without violence. Several stories contain shared themes of alienation and subjugation, examined through the plight of the victims of biotech--genetically engineered slaves--and one takes place in McAuley's Confluence universe, a far future in which the stars themselves have been altered. Fans of mature, thoughtful hard SF with a quirky, cinematic edge should delve into McAuley's work. The Invisible Country is a fine place to start. --Therese Littleton
White Devils
 List Price: Price: $8.69 You Save: $17.26 (67%) DescriptionNicholas Hyde, a volunteer working with a humanitarian charity in Africa, is part of a team investigating an apparent wartime atrocity. The team is ambushed, and small, ape-like creatures - pale, fierce, and preternaturally strong - slaughter most of the group in a matter of minutes. 'Diable blanc', the team's government observer calls them - 'white devils' - but after the rescue he falls in with the official story and claims instead that he saw only rebel troops in body paint. The cover-up seems to originate from Obligate, the company that effectively owns the Congo. Shell-shocked and angry, Nicholas refuses to cooperate. He knows what he saw, and he will tell the world the truth. And that's when people around him start to die. Only by discovering the secret behind the white devils can Nick protect himself from the forces arrayed against him. Together with Teddy Yssel, a bush pilot who survived an earlier attack, and Elspeth Faber, seeking justice after the murder of her scientist father, Nick journeys into the heart of darkness of 21st century Africa: the Dead Zone. But also heading for the Dead Zone is the American mercenary, Cody Corbin. Evangelist, eco-warrior, terrorist: sent to cleanse the abominations from God's good Earth, and anyone who gets in his way is going straight to Hell...
Four Hundred Billion Stars a
 Price: $113.04 DescriptionThe possibility of life on other planets is the theme of this science fiction thriller which depicts through the experiences of a young telepath, the ingenious and sometimes terrifying means by which this "life" survives in hostile environments.McAuley Paul J News
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Laois NationalistGAA: End of the road for Laois minorsBrendan Hickey (St Joseph's), James Finn (Ballyfin .-.), Barry O'Kelly (O'Dempsey's .-., .f); Dale Byrne (Graiguecullen), Rory O'Connor (Timahoe .-., .f), Shane McAuley (Portarlington). Subs: Damien O'Connor (Timahoe) for Byrne (..mins), Cathal Whelan