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The ninth metal / by Percy, Benjamin,author.;
It began with a comet. At first, people gazed in wonder at the radiant tear in the sky. A year later, the celestial marvel became a planetary crisis when Earth spun through the comet's debris field and the sky rained fire. The town of Northfall, Minnesota will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This "omnimetal" has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source ... and a weapon. John Frontier--the troubled scion of an iron-ore dynasty in Northfall--returns for his sister's wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government. Physicist Victoria Lennon was recruited by the Department of Defense to research omnimetal, but she finds herself trapped in a laboratory of nightmares. And across town, a rookie cop is investigating a murder that puts her own life in the crosshairs. She will have to compromise her moral code to bring justice to this now lawless community. In this gut-punch of a novel, the first in his Comet Cycle, Ben Percy lays bare how a modern-day goldrush has turned the middle of nowhere into the center of everything, and how one family--the Frontiers--hopes to control it all.
Subjects: Science fiction.; Metals; Comets; Mineral rights; Murder; City and town life;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Ring of fire : high-stakes mining in a lowlands wilderness / by Heffernan, Virginia,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A valuable discovery under the world's second-largest temperate wetland and in the traditional lands of the Cree and Ojibway casts light on the growing conflict among resource development, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights. When prospectors discovered a gigantic crescent of metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of northern Canada in 2007, the find touched off a mining rush, lured a major American company to spend fortunes in the remote swamp, and forced politicians to confront their legal duty to consult Indigenous Peoples about development on their traditional territories. But the multibillion dollar Ring of Fire was all but abandoned when stakeholders failed to reach consensus on how to develop the cache despite years of negotiations and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Now plans for an all-weather road to connect the region to the highway network are reigniting the fireworks. In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally. Ultimately, Heffernan strikes a hopeful note: the Ring of Fire presents an opportunity for Canada to leave behind centuries of plunder and set the global standard for responsible development of minerals critical to the green energy revolution"--
Subjects: Indigenous peoples; Mineral industries; Mineral industries; Mineral industries;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cobalt red : how the blood of the Congo powers our lives / by Kara, Siddharth,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo's cobalt mining operation-and the moral implications that affect us all. Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt. Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. More than 70 percent of the world's supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo-because we are all implicated"--
Subjects: Cobalt industry; Cobalt mines and mining; Human rights; Miners;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Like every form of love : a memoir of friendship and true crime / by Viswanathan, Padma,1968-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Padma Viswanathan was staying on a houseboat on Vancouver Island when she struck up a friendship with a warm-hearted, working-class queer man named Phillip. Their lives were so different it seemed unlikely to Padma that their relationship would last after she returned to her usual life. But, that week, Phillip told her a story from his childhood that kept them connected for more than twenty years. Phillip was the son of a severe, abusive man named Harvey, a miner, farmer and communist. After Phillip's mother left the family, Harvey advertised for a housekeeper-with-benefits. And so Del, the most glamorous and loving of stepmothers, stepped into Phillip's life. Del had hung out with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Mexico City before the Cuban revolution; she was also a convicted bank robber who had violated her parole and was suspected in her ex-husband's murder. Phillip had long since lost track of Del, but when Padma said she'd like to write about her and about his own young life, he eagerly agreed. Quickly, though, Padma's research uncovered hidden truths about these larger-than-real-life characters. Watching the effects on Phillip as these secrets, evasions and traumas came to light, she increasingly feared that when it came to the book or the friendship, only one of them would get out of this process alive. In this unforgettable memoir, Padma reflects on the joys and frictions of this strange journey with grace, humour and poetry, including original readings of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales and other stories that beautifully echo her characters' adventures and her own. Like Every Form of Love is that rare thing: an irresistible literary page-turner that twists and turns, delivering powerful revelations, right to the very end."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Viswanathan, Padma, 1968-; Family secrets.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Marry me by sundown / by Lindsey, Johanna,author.;
"Summoned back to Philadelphia from the social whirl in London, Violet Mitchell never expected to find her brothers living on the edge of financial ruin while their father seeks new wealth in Montana's gold fields ... Morgan Callahan rode away from his family's cattle ranch to make his own fortune. Now as he finishes exploiting a mother lode of silver, a young woman claiming to be his late partner's daughter turns up wanting to be taken to her father's mine. Suspecting that the pretty schemer works for the mining outfit that is trying to steal his land, he has no qualms about snatching her and holding her at his camp where she can do no harm ... Determined to claim what rightfully belongs to her family, Violet summons up the courage, grit, and spunk to cope with the hazards and discomforts of an untamed land and the disturbingly masculine stranger who holds her fate in his hands. But an error of judgment brings down a hailstorm of calamity and danger that upends her plans and deepens her bond to a man who is not the brilliant match a lady wishes to make but could be all that a strong, passionate woman desires"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Historical fiction.; Heiresses; Inheritance and succession; Man-woman relationships; Silver miners; Silver mines and mining;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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