Best Selling Books by Christopher Bennett

In this thrilling narrative, we follow an unnamed Maritime Security Officer-referred to as Lieutenant Rivers-on board the USNS SBX-1, a high-tech vessel deployed for missile defense in the Arctic. The story begins with Rivers'' arduous journey to the SBX-1, where he grapples with the weight of his mission: to protect the ship from external threats and uncover the mysteries lurking beneath the ice. As tensions rise, Rivers and his crew thwart an attack from a shadowy group known as Project Aether, which seeks to harness the SBX-1''s capabilities for their own nefarious purposes. During intense skirmishes, they uncover plans related to the "Custodians," a secretive faction with ambitions tied to the ice wall, which they believe holds the key to otherworldly phenomena. The narrative delves into conspiracy theories, exploring the flat Earth theory and alien lore as Rivers experiences strange occurrences that bolster these claims. As the crew investigates, they find themselves in increasingly dangerous situations, facing adversaries who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. The climax unfolds during a fierce confrontation with the Custodians, who launch an incursion to breach the ice wall. Rivers leads his team in a desperate battle to protect their mission and uncover the truth. Their victory is bittersweet, as they realize that the Custodians are not defeated but merely regrouping for a more significant threat. In the epilogue, Rivers reflects on their harrowing experiences and the implications of their findings. The SBX-1 remains vigilant, symbolizing humanity''s defense against the unknown. As the crew prepares for future challenges, Rivers understands that their fight has only just begun, and the secrets of the ice wall may hold consequences far beyond their comprehension. The story encapsulates themes of bravery, the search for truth, and the enduring struggle against unseen forces, blending elements of science fiction and conspiracy theory while keeping readers on the edge of their seats.

The Path of War continues onward! Inside the pages of this tome, your options for martial characters more than double! Within Path of War Expanded you will find more maneuvers, stances, and feats for your existing martial disciples as well as a host of new options! There are new classes, archetypes, martial traditions, and even the new class template that provides a way to use a single archetype for different character classes. Path of War Expandedcontains: Three new base classes, from the ill-omened harbinger, to the psychic zealot, and finally the arcane mystic who all mix supernatural elements into their martial combat styles. Nine new martial disciplines like Cursed Razor, Eternal Guardian, and Sleeping Goddess A host of archetypes for the three original classes from Path of War and the three new classes from Path of War Expanded Martial archetypes for core and psionic classes, including options for the Aegis, Dread, and Marksman classes from Ultimate Psionics Class templates, which provides archetypes that work across multiple classes Martial style feats for all the different disciplines, including those originally found in Path of War like Iron Tortouise and Solar Wind More than a dozen new martial traditions And new and optional rules and clarifications to martial combat that will take your martial characters to a whole new level! Come and enjoy the spoils of battle with Path of War Expanded! This version of Path of War Expanded has black & white interior.

The Red Arrows are the RAF''s premier aerobatics team and the most famous in the world today. Formed in 1965, the Reds have attracted a worldwide following as ambassadors for Great Britain on their overseas display tours to some 50 countries. Aerobatics has a long and distinguished history in the RAF, forming an essential part of training and developing expertise and teamwork skills. The classic Diamond Nine formation is recognized internationally as the team''s trademark. Following a brief history of the Red Arrows, the author surveys a day in the life of a Red Arrows pilot. Pilots stay with the team for three seasons, ensuring that maximum expertise remains with the team from year to year. Flying display planning - up to 100 displays are flown yearly - and the vital roles of the ground and support crews are examined. Illustrated with full-colour photography and endorsed by the Red Arrows, this is a tribute to the world''s best-known aerobatics team.

Roy Boy is the compelling story of Christopher Bennett who was born and raised in the working-class suburb of Fitzroy in the 1950s and 1960s. In those days it was considered a slum area and the close-knit community had more than its fair share of ratbags, drunks and crooks. A cheeky and boisterous kid of migrant parents, Chris roamed the streets and nearby haunts for fun and adventure and found much more than he bargained for - including trouble with authorities and exile from his home and family.

This thesis will explore how the logos concept that greatly influenced J.R.R. Tolkien''s mythology interplays with the concept of tao in the Chinese translations of The Lord of the Rings. The method employed will be an analysis of the "One Ring" poem found at the beginning of the book. The analysis will be line-by-line, with a primarily lexical focus, and will compare the original English and the three published Chinese translations. The rationale for choosing this as the text for analysis is that a concise format it contains the thematic material about which the narrative revolves. It involves the two races of people of Middle-earth through which Tolkien explored his central theme of death and immortality: Elves and Men. It also places each race in relation to contexts that shape its self-consciousness. Elves are placed in their context of linguistic, spiritual, and cosmological self-perception in relation to light, as they are pictured as "under the sky." Men are placed in their context of spiritual struggle with mortality, as they are described as "doomed to die." The poem also contains a central conflict of The Lord of the Rings: Sauron''s plot to bind all the free peoples of Middle-earth in Darkness and enslave them under his total domination through the power of the One Ring. This theme of light against shadow is also a central theme throughout Tolkien''s mythology. The thesis is composed of eight chapters. Chapter One introduces the language-making and mythmaking of Professor Tolkien, his own views on the translation of his works, and previous analysis of The Lord of the Rings in Chinese translation. It also presents the research questions to be answered in this thesis, the methodology for answering them, and the rationale behind these methods. Chapter Two reviews and employs some critique and expansion of previous study on the influence of the logos concept on Tolkien''s views of language, creation, and sub-creation. Chapter Three reviews studies of key concepts in traditional Chinese thought, especially in cosmogony and cosmology, and centers on the concept of tao. It also reviews previous study that compares and contrasts logos and tao and that summarizes their relationships to thought and language. It then shows how similarities in Eastern and Western thought shown in this work are illustrated in Tolkien''s mythology. Chapters [sic.] Four analyzes the first line of the "One Ring Poem." The second line, as it is not germane to the focus of this thesis is omitted. Chapter Five analyzes line three; Chapter Six analyzes lines four and five; and Chapter Seven analyses lines six through eight. Chapter Eight summarizes four main ways in which logos and tao interplay in the three Chinese translations, and concludes with how these findings may contribute to Chinese and Western comparative language and culture and help the Chinese-speaking world better appreciate Tolkien''s works and their wisdom.

This is a birthday present for my fiance. She is the love of my life and my best friend. I love her with all my heart.

The Park Grass Experiment (PGE) was started in 1856 as an investigation into the impact of organic and inorganic fertilisers on hay yields and is now the world''s longest running ecological experiment. Functional ecology involves describing plant communities by traits, which give an indication of how the community responds under different stresses and the effect on the rest of the ecosystem. Describing communities by traits removes some of the complexities associated with a taxonomic approach. A comprehensive long term dataset was re-analysed in relation to functional traits (CSR (competitiors, stress tolerators and ruderals) and functional diversity indices) and how they correlate with nutrient treatment and productivity and their power to explain variance in predicting community stability. The most abundant species on the PGE were sampled to investigate the effect of different fertilisers on leaf traits and the link between leaf traits and productivity. The leaf traits were also used to investigate the palatability of the species and communities on the PGE. Biomass samples were taken from the PGE and separated into species. Leaves were also taken from the most abundant species for analysis of specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), leaf nitrogen content (LNC) and leaf tensile strength. The palatability experiment was conducted as a preference experiment of leaf discs of the different species to snails and locusts. The community CSR signature varied across the treatments; community C increased and community S decreased with nutrient input. The response of the communities to drought was best described by functional diversity. Species found on the plots that had greater productivity have higher SLA and LNC than those from plots with lower productivity. Intra-specific differences in SLA and LDMC were observed and mirrored the inter-specific response to productivity. Community-weighted palatability decreased with fertilisation; this was due to the changes from dicots to monocots. Dicots were generally more palatable and more abundant in low fertility plots but monocots did show a positive correlation between palatability and fertility. Different traits correlated significantly with either productivity (SLA) or palatability (tensile strength), suggesting that a suite of traits is required when making inferences about ecosystem function.

The three-dimensional microstructure and macrostructure of various PAN-based carbon fibres has been characterized by bright- and dark-field transmission electron microscopy, and quantitative electron-diffraction analysis. A skin-core heterogeneity was observed for all fibres heat treated to 2500?C, irrespective of type and time of stabilization cycle, the skin being variable in longitudinal extent and width, but typically, 0.1 vm in thickness - much smaller than the sheath zone attributable to oxidation, which has been observed in optical microscopy. At 1000?C and 1500?C, only a few layer planes at the fibre surface can be considered as forming a skin structure, and it is proposed that progressive growth inwards of a well-oriented skin structure occurs at heat-treatment temperatures in excess of 1800?C. The nature of the fibre surface so formed would suggest that the number of edge sites suited to bonding with a resin matrix in untreated fibre is''inversely related to heat-treatment temperature. Examination of ''first-cut'' sections suggests that the surfaces of the fibres are rippled, with, at 2500?C, the c-axes of skin crystallites being predominantly normal to the fibre surface; this is confirmed by scanning electron microscopy and examination of transverse sections. In cross section, the sheath and core zones, first observed in optical microscopy, have been shown to possess no preferred transverse c-axis orientation, it being proposed that structural differences between the zones lie in a crosslinking mechanism during oxidative stabilization. The origin of the intrinsic oriented structure of PAN-based carbon fibres has been traced, by quantitative electron-diffraction analysis, through heat treatment at 2500?C, 1500?C and 1000?C to the important pyrolysis range 400 - 600?C. At this temperature it is proposed that a uniform angular spread of stacking size exists within the azimuthal spread of the (0O &) reflection. Heat treatment, particularly at 2500?C, causes the preferential growth of those crystallites aligned closest to the fibre axis, while the r?le of smaller crystallites oriented at high angles to the fibre axis is thought to be one of interlinking. Surface and internal flaws, involving large crystallite misorientations, have been observed in type I fibres, and using the Reynolds - Sharp theory for fibre failure, estimates of mechanical properties for such fibres have been made which are encouragingly close to the observed values. In the absence of internal voids and the surface skin characteristic of these fibres, an intrinsic strength of 7 GNm-2 and strain-to-failure of 2% is predicted. Enhanced crystallization effects have not been observed in fibres heat treated to 1000?C or 1500?C, and the fracture of these fibres at strains below 2% is thought to be due to the presence of gross internal and surface voids, flaws and irregularities.

Manuscript journal (188 p.) of the voyage of the ship "Walter Hood" from Sydney to London between 19 April and 15 July 1859. Bennett narrates the events of his 87 day voyage for the benefit of his sister, Mrs Annette Lightfoot. He describes life on board the ship with anecdotes about his fellow passengers and occassional reminiscences about his experiences on the Australian gold fields.

Hyper-Raman spectroscopy is a nonlinear optical probe which can be used to explore the multi-photon properties of molecules. Three studies are presented in this dissertation. The first study is a combined experimental investigation of the surfaceenhanced hyper-Raman scattering with a theoretical study of the electronic states of the Rhodamine 6G molecule. This study demonstrates that hyper-Raman spectroscopy can be used to probe electronic states which are one-photon inaccessible. The second study involves a comparison of experimentally measured resonance hyper-Raman spectra to first-principles calculations of the resonance hyper-Raman scattering. This study shows the utility of coupling hyper-Raman spectroscopy and hyper-Raman calculations to define the multi-photon properties of the molecule. The final study compares the experimentally collected surface-enhanced hyper-Raman spectra of Rhodamine 6G to the theoretical simulations of the resonance hyper-Raman for identical excitation energies. In this study, the mechanism of vibronic coupling in the hyper-Raman effect is fully explained, demonstrating the capability of hyper-Raman spectroscopy predicting the two-photon absorption mechanism.