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Our Next Reality

Alvin W. Graylin, Louis Rosenberg

“Our Next Reality does a fantastic job of giving a balanced and insightful analysis to some of the most pressing questions our society will face in the near future. The material is data driven, digestible, and very actionable.” RAY KURZWEIL, Author/Entrepreneur/Futurist

“A wide-reaching exploration of the intersections between AI, VR and AR: it’s a mind-opener, and a source of reflection on how transformative and still unknown the future of communication, personal technology and even personal privacy might become.” SCOTT STEIN, Editor at Large, CNET

Over the last 100 years, technology has changed our world. Over the next decade it will transform our reality.

We are entering a new technological age in which artificial intelligence and immersive media will transform society at all levels, mediating our lives by altering what we see, hear, and experience. Powered by immersive eyewear and driven by interactive AI agents, this new age of computing has the potential to make our world a magical place where the boundaries between the real and the virtual, the human and the artificial, rapidly fade away. If managed well, this could unleash a new age of abundance. If managed poorly, this technological revolution could easily go astray, deeply compromising our privacy, autonomy, agency, and even our humanity.

In Our Next Reality, two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we’re creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and give guidance on how to aim for the best future we can. With a Foreword by renowned author Neal Stephenson and section contributions from industry thought-leaders such as Peter H. Diamandis, Tom Furness, Phillip Rosedale, Tony Parisi, Avi Bar Zeev and Walter Parkes, this book answers over a dozen of the most pressing questions we face as artificial intelligence and spatial computing accelerates the digitization of our world. Find out why our actions in the next decade could determine the trajectory of our species for countless millennia.

“For anyone who wants to use AI and XR to help build the future, read this book to help you skillfully navigate a future of unprecedented danger and promise.” JASON HINER, Editor in Chief, ZDNet

“Our Next Reality really is a must-read for anyone who wants to prepare for the massive AI and XR driven disruption coming our way.” CHARLIE FINK, Author | Adjunct | Forbes Tech Columnist

Palace Rogue

William Coles

Kim is not your average member of Her Majesty’s palace staff – but then he shouldn’t be on the staff at all. He’s in fact a Sun staff reporter who’s wormed his way into Buckingham Palace to pick up every bit of dirt and gossip that he can lay his hands on.

Along the way, Kim is faced with many surprising aspects of Palace life that even he didn’t see coming.

Based on the true story of the tabloid hack who became a Queen’s footman, Palace Rogue is a charming, uplifting and utterly outrageous story of love and secrets – all of it set in the heart of one of the world’s most famous houses. 

​'A plump and cheerful romp through royal corridors and bedrooms' Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal

Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

Olga Wojtas

Never underestimate a librarian.

Intelligent cosy crime series with razor-sharp wit and an unlikely hero, for fans of P.G. Wodehouse and Muriel Spark

"The crème de la crème of crime debuts.” Al Guthrie

"Delightful." Guardian

Fifty-something Shona McMonagle is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.

Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is thrilled when selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a one-week mission in 19th-century Russia: to pair up the beautiful, shy, orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna with Sasha, a handsome young man of unexplained origins — and all in a gorgeously Tolstoyan setting.

But, despite all her accomplishments and good intentions, Shona might well have got the wrong end of the stick about her mission. As the body count rises, will she discover in time just who the real villain is?

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace

Olga Wojtas

Never underestimate a librarian.

"Audacious, witty and fun." Herald

Intelligent cosy crime series with razor-sharp wit and an unlikely hero, for fans of P.G. Wodehouse and Muriel Spark

Intrepid, fifty-something librarian Shona McMonagle, erstwhile Marcia Blaine Academy prefect, finds herself in an isolated French mountain village, where she must solve a mystery involving the mayor, the cheesemonger, the soprano Mary Garden, and even Count Dracula himself.

Shona has been personally selected by school founder Marcia Blaine to travel back in time for this important mission in fin-de-siècle France – a curiously Gothic setting. But she finds it all very confusing. Why, for example, have so many people been torn to death by wild animals, what are Maman and the mayor up to, and is the reclusive aristocrat really suffering from toothache?

It’s a race against time to solve the mystery. It is also a very tall order – but as Shona is wont to remind herself: Never underestimate a librarian!

Revelation

K.J. Gillenwater

* The explosive conclusion in The Genesis Machine saga. *

The last piece of the puzzle is about to fall into place – and the truth is more terrifying than anyone imagined.

Time is running out for Charlie and the NCIS. After another pod survivor lands in the desert outside Las Vegas, a surprise encounter drives a wedge through the tight-knit group and sends the team spiralling into chaos.

When Special Agent Demarco goes rogue on a revenge-fueled vendetta, Charlie and the remains of her team are catapulted on a collision course with a final explosive confrontation. Struggling to assemble the last pieces of the puzzle, she discovers an alarming secret partnership... along with a malevolent plan that must be stopped at all costs.

And after she unearths a secret lab with a discovery that threatens the entire human race, Charlie realizes that the truth behind the pods is far more horrifying than she ever could have guessed... and that not everyone is getting out of this alive.

Decryption

K.J. Gillenwater

The pods are opening – and their new visitors are all-too-human...

Expert linguist Charlie and her team of NCIS agents are hot on the trail of the mysterious alien pods. But after a new arrival opens to reveal a young child, her investigation is thrown into chaos. Faced with terrifying questions about the true origins of their seemingly extra-terrestrial visitors, Charlie is plunged into a race against time to unscramble a mysterious text before more pods arrive.

But when a budding relationship with her teammate Special Agent Demarco brings shocking new secrets to light, Charlie finds herself torn between her loyalty to her country and her newfound feelings for the handsome yet distant agent.

With a dangerous saboteur lurking behind the scenes, Charlie’s struggle to decipher the pods puts her in the cross-hairs of an unknown enemy. And after a code-red emergency thrusts the team’s true loyalties into the light, Charlie must risk everything to identify the truth and protect humanity...

Inception

K.J. Gillenwater

Aliens have arrived... and this isn’t the first time.

When expert Navy linguist and cryptographer Charlie Cutter is recruited into a shadowy wing of the NCIS, she’s tasked with unravelling a mysterious ancient text that has puzzled researchers for centuries. Charlie isn’t eager to revisit her previous failures... but when she discovers the same strange language in top-secret photographs, she finds herself roped into a job that could make or break her young career.

After a strange pod crashes to earth during a violent storm, Charlie and her small team uncover an incredible truth: aliens have landed on earth – and not for the first time. Catapulted into a thrilling mystery that will carry them from the political swamps of D.C. to the scorching Las Vegas desert, Charlie must race against time to crack the code and save humanity from a possible alien invasion.

Surrounded by a web of secrets and lies, Charlie struggles to track down the origin of the pods – and unmask the hidden motives of their extra-terrestrial visitors. The mystery stretches back centuries... and it leads Charlie to a shocking revelation that will change everything.

When We Were Alive

C.J. Fisher

Shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award

'The wartime mood evokes shades of Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay... A complex, well-crafted and absorbing debut that points to a promising future.' --Big Issue

When we first meet Bobby, he is a shy, 12-year-old magician who falls in love with his best friend.

William is consumed with self-hate and drinks to escape the memories of his father's sadness and his mother's death.

Myles is writing letters to a mother he has never met.

Three different people from three different times each explore the dark side of relationships, search for beauty in sadness and try to bear the burden of guilt from living in a world we are powerless to fix.

Wildest of All

P.K. Lynch

'Wildest of All is a sex-and-death struggle spanning generations, portraying three women in search of an authentic life. It's a sharp and compelling tale that doesn't flinch from the big questions.' Thomas Legendre

The Donnelly family are a tight-knit bunch, but when one of their own dies suddenly, the mother, the daughter-in-law, and the daughter, despite being united in grief, are each sent hurtling in wildly different directions.

From the churches of Glasgow to the nightclubs of London, can they find their way back to each other before it's too late? And in the wake of a parent’s death, who exactly is responsible for looking after whom?

Lynch brings us an emotive journey, following Sissy, Anne and Jude as they navigate the roles of motherhood and family in the wake of the loss of a husband, father and son.

The Seaweed Revolution

Vincent Doumeizel

As featured on BBC News and TIME
'The potential of seaweed, or marine algae, to transform our world is huge… excellent book' New Scientist
The seaweed revolution is a fresh hope for tomorrow.

Seaweed develops in water everywhere, from the eternal glaciers to lagoons heated by the sun, from seas saturated with salt to the fresh water of our rivers. Yet we only know how to cultivate a few dozen varieties, at most. Incredibly diverse, seaweed could help to bring back balance in our ecosystems through a wide range of applications. It could allow us to better feed human beings and animals, replace plastic and fertilizers, boost medical innovations, mitigate global warming, repair biodiversity and support economies in coastal communities where fish stocks are declining.

Although seaweed has supported our development for millions of years, we have lost our connection with it and focused our efforts purely on land cultivation. Today a fast-growing global population, combined with climate, social and environmental crises, gives us compelling reasons to reconsider this forgotten treasure.

Pieces of Me

Natalie Hart

Emma did not go to war looking for love, but Adam is unlike any other.

Under the secret shadow of trauma, Emma decides to leave Iraq and joins Adam to settle in Colorado. But isolation and fear find her, once again, when Adam is re-deployed.

Torn between a deep fear for Adam’s safety and a desire to be back there herself, Emma copes by throwing herself into a new role mentoring an Iraqi refugee family. But when Adam comes home, he brings the conflict back with him.

Emma had considered the possibility that her husband might not come home from war. She had not considered that he might return a stranger.

Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award

​Prima Magazine Best Books of the Year

The Reading Agency Top Debuts of 2018

'An astounding debut' Nina Pottell, Prima Magazine

The Blackbird Singularity

Matt Wilven

Shortlisted for an Amazon Rising Star Award

Longlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize 2016

Selected for WHSmith Fresh Talent 2017

Wilven does a masterful job of keeping his readers as off-balance as his protagonist... an intense and satisfyingly off-beat examination of a man lost in a landscape of unresolved grief and his heroic fight to find his way back home.' -- Melissa DeCarlo, author of The Art of Crash Landing

Vince stops taking his lithium when he finds out about his partner's pregnancy. As withdrawal kicks in, he can barely hold his life together.

Somewhere between making friends with a blackbird in the back garden and hearing his dead son's footsteps in the attic, he finds himself lost and alone, journeying through a world of chaos and darkness, completely unaware of the miracle that lies ahead.