In this satirical take on the dangers of believing your own fictions, a corporate climber named Bob is just about to pull off the sweetest deal of his corrupt career when it's snatched from his grasp. In his anger, Bob suffers a fatal heart attack that sends him plummeting into the pit of Hell. He's greeted by a flea-bitten Cerberus, a snot-nosed demon gives him a book of impossibly complex rules to follow and he's sentenced to an eternity in the pit of boiling...well, his punishment isn't pleasant. But eternity is a long time for someone as ambitious as Bob. Besides, he has a secret weapon: a beautiful but insistently tedious young woman who has attached herself to the Devil like a white shadow. Will the Devil manage to repower the faltering volcano that's the physical symbol of his potency? Will Bob wrest Hell from him and turn it into an amusement park? Will the Devil's white shadow redecorate everything in sight? Whatever happens, you can be sure that all hell is gonna break loose

Teetering on the edge of the gutter, ex-cop Clay Guthrie is offered a way out of his bitter isolation. All he has to do is locate a stolen sculpture. The task seems simple enough until he finds himself enmeshed in a series of surreal events that push him to the breaking point. His disturbingly dangerous employers threaten him with pain and death if he fails, and the mysterious old man who is their antagonist forces Guthrie to act on his behalf, warning that worse horrors will greet his success. The only way Guthrie can survive is to find the sculpture and help the old man destroy the terrible power that lives within it. But first, he must endure a series of trials that test his endurance and drive him into the core of his own corruption.

Since prehistoric times, peoples the world over have believed in a creative force that inspires life. Throughout history it has been known by many names: mana, prana, ka, and chi, to name only a few. Much has been written about this energy and the ways in which it can be strengthened to enhance life and well-being as well as provide the basis for many of the Eastern martial arts, particularly tai chi chuan. But if chi is real, why is there so little scientific evidence for its existence or for the physiological structures that generate and channel it throughout the body? Moreover, what is the exact nature of chi, and how can it interact with physical reality in the sometimes esoteric ways that are reported? The Wellspring draws together, for the first time, two significant but disparate lines of scientific research that not only identify the physiological structures that produce and channel chi but that point to the true nature of this mysterious power.

This book concentrates on the five biggest recessions in the twentieth century. It focuses on the UK, but makes numerous comparisons to recessions in other countries. Two major recessions are identified in the interwar period; three more in the years 1973-1995. The main conclusion reached is that major recessions reflect abrupt fallings off in demand not supply, and can be explained by identifiable demand shocks. The concluding chapter offers advice on how to avoid future severe recessions: a combination of prudent policy-making beforehand and special measures in the downturn and recovery.

Poetry from the author of The Trip Out and Texas White Line Fever

Poetry from the editor of "Phosphene" and "Dialog" magazines.

Five years after taking part in a disastrous raid to rescue a cruise liner from modern-day pirates, Alex Brant has begun to discover peace for himself driving an eighteen-wheeler across the American Southwest. He even finds time to protect a mysterious desert rat and the mute kid who travels with him. But he can't defend himself against a vicious band of road pirates and their brutal leader, T-Bone, who shoot him and leave him for dead at a roadside rest stop. T-Bone needs Alex's truckload of electronics to realize his mad scheme of revenge against the Las Vegas hoods who killed his wife and son. Only one thing stands between him and the incendiary hell he plans, and that's Alex, who discovers that T-Bone's gang has left him with more than one score to settle.