Mark Meadows

We, Robot does for robotics what Michio Kaku's bestselling Physics of the Impossible has done for physics. How close to becoming reality are our favorite science fiction robots? And what might be the real-life consequences of their existence? Robotics and artificial intelligence expert (and science fiction fan) Mark Stephen Meadows answers that question with an irresistible blend of hard science, futurist imagination, solid statistics, pop culture,...

Interactive narrative is the cornerstone for many forms of digital media: web sites, interface design, gaming environments, and even artificial intelligence. In Pause & Effect, Mark Stephen Meadows examines the intersection of storytelling, visual art, and interactivity. He takes the key principles from these areas and applies them to the design, architecture, and development of successful interactive narrative. This provocative book will appeal to...

"Tom Hazard ... may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries ... Now, he just wants an ordinary life. So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher ... Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful...

Utopia (1516) is a work of political satire by Thomas More. Published in Latin while More was serving as Privy Counsellor under King Henry VIII, the text is stylized as a true account of a new civilization discovered in the New World by traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus. While there have been varying interpretations of Utopia over the centuries, it is most consistently regarded as a work of political philosophy in the tradition of Plato's Republic that...

A shocking double-murder scene greets Detective Inspector Philip Brennan when he is called to a flat in Colchester. Two women are viciously cut open and laying spreadeagled, one tied to the bed, one on the floor. The woman on the bed has had her stomach cut into and her unborn child is missing. But this is the third time Phil and his team have seen such an atrocity. Two other pregnant women have been killed in this way and their babies taken from...

"The Hollow Needle: Further Adventures of Arsène Lupin" sees Lupin cross paths with the famous Holmlock in a wonderful story of disguises, love, and of course treasure. This early work by Maurice Leblanc was originally published in 1909 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was born on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and writer of short stories, known...

"Fitness trainer Erik Lingoss is found dead in his west London flat, his head smashed by one of his own dumbbells. His heartlessly-dumped girlfriend, blood on her clothes and hands, is the prime suspect. She had means, opportunity, and motive. But is the case as clear-cut as it seems? Handsome Erik Lingoss had clients in high places; and he seemed to engender powerful emotions. If it was a crime of passion, there was plenty of that to go round: love...

"Brain meets Beauty in this sparkling, fresh take on the classic Bringing Up Baby - if Jane Austen had written it! A romantic comedy with a dash of chaos featuring the most ill-behaved poodle in Regency London, by New York Times bestseller Suzanne Enoch. Michael Bromley, Duke of Woriton, has a passion, but it's not for chasing ladies or gambling till dawn. No, his is the far more dangerous pursuit of the science of chemistry. He may be a tad eccentric,...

A serial killer stalks the streets of Rome... A gripping debut crime novel and the first in a groundbreaking series, from a new star in British crime fiction. Perfect for fans of Ian Rankin. A city on lockdown. In the depths of a freakish winter, Rome is being torn apart by a serial killer dubbed The Carpenter intent on spreading fear and violence. Soon another woman is murdered - hammered to death and left with a cryptic message nailed to her chest....

When a murder is staged at magnificent Knebworth House, Victorian writer-sleuths, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins investigate. August, 1856. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens are spending the summer at Knebworth House, the magnificent Hertfordshire home of fellow writer Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, where they are putting on a charity performance of one of Lord Edward's most successful plays, The Lady of Lyon. But the dress rehearsal is disrupted...