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Head on / by Scalzi, John,1969-author.;
Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps," robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth--and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
Subjects: Science fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Virus diseases; Epidemics; Virtual reality; Beheading; Competition (Psychology);
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Suns will rise / by Brody, Jessica.; Rendell, Joanne.;
Three months after the Patriarche was beheaded, Laterre seems to be flourishing under General Bonnefaçon, but as dangerous rifts threaten the peace, Alouette, Marcellus, and Chatine reunite.Ages 12 up.LSC
Subjects: Science fiction.; Space colonies; Soldiers; Revolutions; Cyborgs;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Act of Oblivion / by Harris, Robert,1957-author.;
Includes bibliographical references.Follows General Edward Whalley's and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe's flight to America in 1660 after their involvement in the beheading of King Charles I.
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649; Goffe, William, 1605?-1679?; Whalley, Edward, -1675?; Fugitives from justice; Regicide; Treason;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The fourth horseman / by Hagberg, David,author.;
"Pakistan is torn apart by riots in the streets. The CIA sends Pakistan expert David Haaris to meet with leaders of the military intelligence apparatus which all but controls the country, to try to head off what appears to be the disintegration of the government. But Haaris has other ideas. After disguising himself, he beheads the president in front of a mob of ten thousand people and declares himself the new Messiah. He says he will bring peace and stability to the country by allying with the Taliban. At that moment, miles to the south on the border with Afghanistan, one of four stolen nuclear weapons is detonated. Pakistan has become the most dangerous nation in the world. Legendary former director of the CIA Kirk McGarvey is given a mission--assassinate the Messiah, code name: The Fourth Horseman"--
Subjects: Spy stories.; Suspense fiction.; Assassins; Intelligence officers; McGarvey, Kirk (Fictitious character); Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The king's pleasure : a novel of Henry VIII / by Weir, Alison,1951-author.;
"Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his kingship, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others. He died a suspicious, obese, disease-riddled tyrant, old before his time. His reign is remembered as one of dangerous intrigue and bloodshed--and yet the truth is far more complex. The King's Pleasure brings to life the idealistic monarch who expanded Parliament, founded the Royal Navy, modernized medical training, composed music and poetry, and patronized the arts. A passionate man in search of true love, he was stymied by the imperative to produce a male heir, as much a victim of circumstance as his unhappy wives. Had fate been kinder to him, the history of England would have been very different. Here is the story of the private man. To his contemporaries, he was a great king, a legend in his own lifetime. And he left an extraordinary legacy--a modern Britain"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Life undercover : coming of age in the CIA / by Fox, Amaryllis,author.;
Amaryllis Fox was in her last year as an undergraduate at Oxford studying theology and international law when her writing mentor Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded. Galvanized by this brutality, Fox applied to a master's program in conflict and terrorism at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where she created an algorithm that predicted, with uncanny certainty, the likelihood of a terrorist cell arising in any village around the world. At twenty-one, she was recruited by the CIA. Her first assignment was reading and analyzing hundreds of classified cables a day from foreign governments and synthesizing them into daily briefs for the president. Her next assignment was at the Iraq desk in the Counterterrorism center. At twenty-two, she was fast-tracked into advanced operations training, sent from Langley to "the Farm," where she lived for six months in a simulated world learning how to use a Glock, how to get out of flexicuffs while locked in the trunk of a car, how to withstand torture, and the best ways to commit suicide in case of captivity. At the end of this training she was deployed as a spy under non-official cover-- the most difficult and coveted job in the field as an art dealer specializing in tribal and indigenous art and sent to infiltrate terrorist networks in remote areas of the Middle East and Asia.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Fox, Amaryllis.; United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Intelligence officers; Terrorism; Women intelligence officers;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Young Elizabeth : Elizabeth I and her perilous path to the crown / by Tallis, Nicola,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Queen Elizabeth I is renowned for her hugely successful reign that makes her, perhaps, the most celebrated monarch in English history. But what of the trials she faced in her challenging early life? Her status as a princess didn't last long-when she was less than three years old, her mother-the infamous Anne Boleyn-was brutally beheaded and Elizabeth was relegated to the title of bastard. After losing several stepmothers, she then faced predatory attentions and illicit flirtations from her stepfather, Thomas Seymour, which ultimately forced Elizabeth to leave her home. But these were only the beginning of Elizabeth's problems. Later, she became implicated in a plot to overthrow her half-sister, Mary, and faced interrogation and imprisonment in the very tower in which her mother died. Adamantly protesting her innocence, Elizabeth endured the interrogation and was eventually released. Her popularity as a royal increased from that point on, and she finally became queen at the age of twenty-five. Expert historian Nicola Tallis draws on a variety of primary sources-from the queen herself as well as those closest to her-to provide an extensive and thorough study of the Virgin Queen's perilous journey to the crown. Looking at Elizabeth as a human being rather than a political chess piece, her narrative explores the dangers and tragedies that plagued Elizabeth's early life, revealing the queen to be a young women who drew strength from her various plights as she navigated one of the most thrilling paths to the throne in the history of the monarchy.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603.; Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603; Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533-1603; Queens;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Black flags : the rise of ISIS / by Warrick, Joby.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When he succeeded his father in 1999, King Abdullah of Jordan released a batch of political prisoners in the hopes of smoothing his transition to power. Little did he know that among those released was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man who would go on to become a terrorist mastermind too dangerous even for al-Qaeda and give rise to an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. Zarqawi began by directing hotel bombings and assassinations in Jordan from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion of that country in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, the CIA inadvertently created a monster. Like-minded radicals saw him as a hero resisting the infidel occupiers and rallied to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings continued for years until Jordanian intelligence provided the Americans with the crucial intelligence needed to eliminate Zarqawi in a 2006 airstrike. But his movement endured, first called al-Qaeda in Iraq, then renamed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seeking refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. And as the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of a sweeping, ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate. Drawing on unique access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Joby Warrick weaves together heart-pounding, moment-by-moment operational details with overarching historical perspectives to reveal the long trajectory of today's most dangerous Islamic extremist threat"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: IS (Organization); Islamic fundamentalism.; Terrorism; Terrorism; Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Vietnam : an epic tragedy, 1945-75 / by Hastings, Max,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and much less familiar battles such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price in privation and oppression for the Northerners' victory. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bar girls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Huey pilots from North Carolina, Marines from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings' readers know so well. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record."--Jacket flap.
Subjects: Vietnam War, 1961-1975.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Every rising sun : a novel / by Ahmed, Jamila,author.;
"In twelfth century, Persia, clever and dreamy Shaherazade stumbles on the Malik's beloved wife entwined with a lover in a sun-dappled courtyard. When Shaherazade recounts her first tale, the story of this infidelity, to the Malik, she sets the Seljuk Empire on fire. Enraged at his wife's betrayal, the once-gentle Malik beheads her. But when that killing does not quench his anger, the Malik begins to marry and behead a new bride each night. Furious at the murders, his province seethes on rebellion's edge. To suppress her guilt, quell threats of a revolt, and perhaps marry the man she has loved since childhood, Shaherazade persuades her beloved father, the Malik's vizier, to offer her as the next wife. On their wedding night, Shaherazade begins a yarn, but as the sun ascends she cuts the story short, ensuring that she will live to tell another tale, a practice she repeats night after night. But the Malik's rage runs too deep for Shaherazade to exorcise alone. And so she and her father persuade the Malik to leave Persia to join Saladin's fight against the Crusaders in Palestine. With plots spun against the Seljuks from all corners, Shaherazade must maneuver through intrigue in the age's greatest courts to safeguard her people. All the while, she must keep the Malik enticed with her otherworldly tales-because the slightest misstep could cost Shaherazade her head. This suspenseful first-person retelling is vividly rendered through the voice of a fully imagined Shaherazade, a book lover whose late mother bestowed the gift of story that becomes her power. Created over fourteen years of writing and research, Jamila Ahmed's gorgeously written debut is a celebration of storytelling and a love letter to the medieval Islamic world that brings to life one of the most enduring and intriguing woman characters of all time"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Malik-Shāh, Sultan of the Seljuks, 1055-1092; Scheherazade, Queen, consort of Shahryar, King of Persia (Legendary character); Crusades; Seljuks; Storytelling; Women storytellers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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