New Releases by Peter Watts

Fantascienza - racconto (18 pagine) - Piomba giù dal cielo come un angelo della morte portando distruzione. È un malak, un drone da guerra intelligente. Forse troppo Azrael è un malak, un drone da guerra. È intelligente, ma non è autocosciente. Osserva il mondo sotto di lui e lo divide in tre colori: verde, amici. Blu, neutrali. Rosso, nemici. Il rosso va distrutto. In casi dubbi si affida ai calcoli: se le perdite di Blu sono troppo elevate rispetto al valore dell''obiettivo, può decidere di annullare la missione. Azrael è intelligente. Acquisisce dati. Stabilisce correlazioni. Comincia a notare la frequenza dei suoi emessi dagli esseri umani, che per lui sono obiettivi biometrici. Nota come cambiando di frequenza e di complessità dopo un attacco. Nota come cambiano quando i biometrici sono di piccole dimensioni. E allora nuove variabili entrano nei calcoli, i calcoli diventano più complessi, e i risultati possono aprire scenari del tutto nuovi. Canadese, classe 1958, Peter Watts ha vinto il premio Hugo nel 2010 col racconto L’isola, ma c''era già arrivato vicino nel 2006 col romanzo Blindsight. Biologo specializzato nei mammiferi marini, Watts ha sfruttato le sue conoscenze scientifiche nel romanzo con cui ha esordito, Starfish, al quale ha dato finora tre seguiti.

Fantascienza - racconto lungo (25 pagine) - L''altra faccia della Cosa: la vicenda del grande classico rivisitata dal punto di vista dell''Alieno. Premio Shirley Jackson, finalista premio Hugo, Locus e Sturgeon Nel grande classico di John Wood Campbell jr La cosa, dal quale sono stati tratti ben tre film, abbiamo seguito la storia degli uomini della base nell''antartico che scoprono nei ghiacci una creatura aliena, un mostro, una cosa terrificante. Ma la storia può essere vista anche da un altro punto di vista. Quello di un viaggiatore dello spazio che dopo un incidente si risveglia circondato da esseri alieni che gli danno la caccia. Esseri che a loro volta, dal suo punto di vista, sono mostri, sono cose altrettanto terrificanti. Finalista a tutti i maggiori premi del settore e vincitore del premio Shirley Jackson per il suspense psicologico, un piccolo classico che non vi farà più vedere i mostri nello stesso modo. Canadese, classe 1958, Peter Watts ha vinto il premio Hugo nel 2010 col racconto L’isola, ma c''era già arrivato vicino nel 2006 col romanzo Blindsight. Biologo specializzato nei mammiferi marini, Watts ha sfruttato le sue conoscenze scientifiche nel romanzo con cui ha esordito, Starfish, al quale ha dato finora tre seguiti.

Better . . . Stronger . . . Faster . . . The doctors rebuilt Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke and made him a cyborg. Now he has assembled this anthology of twenty-six original cyborg stories by Greg Egan, Madeline Ashby, Elizabeth Bear, Peter Watts, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, Yoon Ha Lee, and more!

Cinq ans après les événements de Rifteurs, le monde s''écroule. Lenie a rapporté du fond des abysses le terrible virus Béhémoth, qui détruit la biosphère terrestre et tue des millions de gens. Tout autour du globe règne le chaos. La plupart des gouvernements sont tombés ; partout, des guerres éclatent, des sectes suicidaires fleurissent et l''ancien réseau Internet est aux mains de monstres artificiels révérant Lenie comme la Madone du désastre. Dans une station au fond de l''océan, quelques privilégiés attendent un miracle. Mais Lenie est à leurs trousses...

Skillfully combining complex science with finely executed prose, these edgy, award-winning tales explore the always-shifting border between the known and the alien. The beauty and peril of technology and the passion and penalties of conviction merge in stories that are by turns dark, satiric, bold, and introspective. A seemingly humanized monster from John Carpenter’s The Thing reveals the true villains in an Antarctic showdown. An artificial intelligence shields a biologically-enhanced prodigy from her overwhelmed parents. A deep-sea diver discovers that her true nature lies not within the confines of her mission but in the depths of her psyche. A court psychologist analyzes a psychotic graduate student who has learned to reprogram reality itself. A father tries to hold his broken family together in the wake of an ongoing assault by sentient rainstorms. Gorgeously saturnine and exceptionally powerful, these collected fictions are both intensely thought-provoking and impossible to forget.

Since 2006, Clarkesworld Magazine has been entertaining science fiction and fantasy fans with their brand of unique science fiction and fantasy stories. Collected here are all of the stories this Hugo Award-winning magazine published during their fourth year. Included in this volume are twenty-four stories by visionary writers of short fiction, including Jay Lake, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Peter Watts and more CONTENTS Introduction by Neil Clarke Between Two Dragons by Yoon Ha Lee The Cull by Robert Reed The Mermaids Singing Each to Each by Cat Rambo Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar Night, in Dark Perfection by Richard Parks The Grandmother-Granddaughter Conspiracy by Marissa Lingen Brief Candle by Jason K. Chapman All the King''s Monsters by Megan Arkenberg Torquing Vacuum by Jay Lake The Language of the Whirlwind by Lavie Tidhar A Sweet Calling by Tony Pi Alone with Gandhari by Gord Sellar The History Within Us by Matthew Kressel January by Becca De La Rosa Messenger by J.M. Sidorova A Jar of Goodwill by Tobias S. Buckell Futures in the Memories Market by Nina Kiriki Hoffman My Father''s Singularity by Brenda Cooper Beach Blanket Spaceship by Sandra McDonald The Association of the Dead by Rahul Kanakia Spar by Kij Johnson Paper Cradle by Stephen Gaskell Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time by Catherynne M. Valente The Things by Peter Watts Clarkesworld Citizens - Official Census About Clarkesworld

An unabridged collection of the “best-of-the-best” science fiction stories published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of the genre. In “Under the Moons of Venus,” by Damien Broderick, a man, who has returned to a mostly deserted Earth from a terraformed Venus with Luna and Ganymede as moons, longs to go back to Venus. In “The Shipmaker,” the 2011 story winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award, by Aliette de Bodard, a maker of living spaceships has her career threatened by the birth of a sentient Mind that will come before the ship that will house it will be ready. In “Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain” by Yoon Ha Lee, a construct meets with an assassin that is the keeper of a gun that erases a victim’s entire lineage to secure the destruction of another gun made by the same gunsmith. In “Re-Crossing the Styx,” by Ian R. MacLeod, an entertainer aboard a cruise ship falls in love with a zombie husband’s Minder and schemes to free her from her marriage. In the steampunk story “Eight Miles,” by Sean McMullen, an English lord hires a balloonist to take him and a nonhuman female to a great height in order to learn the secrets of another world. In “Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi, the gods use a real human to retrieve something important from a city that has become sentient and surrounded by a firewall that protects against gods. In “Alone” by Robert Reed, set in the author’s Marrowuniverse, a traveler aboard the Great Ship has eschewed contact and remained alone for far longer than seems possible. In the winner of the 2010 Asimov’s Readers’ Award for best novelette “The Emperor of Mars,” by Allen M. Steele, a contract worker on Mars becomes enamored with the science fiction retrieved from NASA’s Phoenix lander that arrived on the red planet back in 2008. In “A Letter from the Emperor,” by Steve Rasnic Tem, an imperial envoy visits an outlying colony where a retiring colonel, whose memory is suspect for security reasons, claims to have fought alongside the emperor. Finally, the 2010 Shirley Jackson Award winner for best short story, “The Things,” by Peter Watts, is a retelling of John Carpenter’s classic movie, The Thing, from the perspective of the shape-shifting alien confronting a group of scientists in Antarctica.

NYC 2023. Terrifying alien invaders stalk the streets and a nightmare plague strikes down the city''s myriad inhabitants with brutal epidemic speed. The city''s systems are in chaos, its streets and skyline are smashed and in flaming ruin. The battle is on against the lethal, armoured, bipedal war machines that stalk ravaged New York. The novel ties in directly to Crysis 2 and is penned by critically-acclaimed and Hugo Award-nominated author Peter Watts.

MANHATTAN IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. THEY’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE. Welcome to the Big Apple, son. Welcome to the city that never sleeps: invaded by monstrous fusions of meat and machinery, defended by a private army that makes Blackwater look like the Red Cross, ravaged by a disfiguring plague that gifts its victims with religious rapture while it eats them alive. You’ve been thrown into this meat grinder without warning, without preparation, without a clue. Your whole squad was mowed down the moment they stepped onto the battlefield. And the chorus of voices whispering in your head keeps saying that all of this is on you: that you and you alone might be able to turn the whole thing around if you only knew what the hell was going on. You’d like to help. Really you would. But it’s not just the aliens that are gunning for you. Your own kind hunts you as a traitor, and your job might be a bit easier if you didn’t have the sneaking suspicion they could be right. . . .

Lenie Clarke a survécu à l''explosion nucléaire qui a détruit la station des abysses dans laquelle elle travaillait. De retour sur la côte américaine, elle découvre les ravages du tsunami qui a laissé sans domicile des millions de gens. Parqués derrière un immense mur par les autorités militaires, ils sont maintenus sous contrôle grâce à des tranquillisants administrés à leur insu. Dans le chaos ambiant, personne ne remarque Lenie, personne ne sait quel danger elle représente : porteuse de la bactérie Behemoth, elle est susceptible d''anéantir la vie sur terre. Mais bientôt, la jeune femme est repérée par Maelström, cette entité pensante et indépendante qu''on appelait autrefois Internet...

"IPCS, International Programme on Chemical Safety"--Cover.

A powerful, dark cyberpunk SF novel from the author of the Hugo Award finalist, Blindsight

La Terre a été prise " en photo " depuis l''espace. Les mystérieux visiteurs sont-ils sur cet artefact découvert dans notre système solaire ? Le vaisseau Thésée part en mission. A son bord, cinq membres d''équipage recrutés avec soin : une linguiste aux personnalités multiples, un biologiste qui s''interface aux machines, une militaire pacifiste et un observateur, Siri Keeton, capable de déchiffrer à la perfection le langage corporel de ses interlocuteurs. Leur commandant est lui aussi bien étrange : c''est un homo vampiris, autrement dit, un vampire aux facultés intellectuelles remarquables. Pourtant, malgré leurs aptitudes exceptionnelles, rien ne peut les préparer à ce qu''ils vont découvrir lors de ce voyage terrifiant...

N.B. This is a supplement to the 2001 edition. It has been previously incorrectly been advertized as the 18th or 19th edition.

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune''s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever''s out there isn''t talking to us. It''s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn''t wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won''t be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they''ve been sent to find. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Tetrachloroethene is used mainly in the dry cleaning of textiles, as a chemical intermediate and in metal degreasing. This report evaluates the available scientific literature on the health and environmental effects of tetrachloroethene based on selected national and regional evaluations. Of key interest is the relevance of several types of tumours included by tetrachloroethene in rats and mice. The report goes on to establish the criteria for setting tolerable intakes and concentrations taking into consideration the potential carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, kidney, liver, and reproductive/developmental toxicity and cancer. Environmental effects are assessed for terrestrial and aquatic organisms sediment-dwelling organisms and microorganisms in sewerage treatment processes. In addition, the risks of harm to plants from air emissions of tetrachloroethene are discussed. Uncertainties in the risk assessment are set out for both human health and the environment.

Published under the joint sponsorship of the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization, and produced within the framework of the Inter-organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC). On cover: IPCS International Programme on Chemical Safety

Hiding out with her fellow cyborgs and their surviving creators for five years, Lenie Clarke is horrified when they are discovered by the doomsday microbe Behemoth, a situation that forces Lenie to take responsibility for her role in billions of deaths.

Chloroform is a clear, colourless, volatile liquid which is used in the production of refrigerants and as a fluoropolymer feedstock. It may be released into the environment from chlorodifluoromethane plants and from pulp and paper mills using chlorine-based chemicals for bleaching and disinfection purposes. Chloroform is also the principal by-product of water disinfectant processes. It is estimated that the vast majority of chloroform emissions into the environment are natural in origin. This publication, part of a series from the International Programme on Chemical Safety, evaluates the risk to human health and the environment posed by exposures to chloroform.

This tourist guide for wheelchair users and the less able covers Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset in the UK.. CONTENTS: Covers Cornwall, Devon, Dorset & Somerset Towns are listed within each county and assessed in terms of accessibility for - attractions - shopping facilities - places to stay & eat - car parking - toilets - From the Quomps in Christchurch in Dorset, to the Eden Project in Cornwall, from lodges to 5 star opulence, from fleapits to 3D multiplexes - if it''s accessible, it''s in!