EVERYTHING'S FOR HIRE. EVEN MAGIC. If you need something done, Cloke’s one of the best; a mercenary with some unusual talents and an attitude to match. But when she’s hired by a virtual construct to destroy the other copies of himself, and the down payment is a new magical skill, she knows this job is going to be a league harder than anything she’s ever done. “A full-throttle magical cyberpunk superhero thriller” - Peter McLean

“The end of the world started quietly enough for Tane Williams and Rebecca Richards. . . .” Tane and Rebecca aren’t sure what to make of it—a sequence of 1s and 0s, the message looks like nothing more than a random collection of alternating digits. Working to decode it, however, they discover that the message contains lottery numbers . . . lottery numbers that win the next random draw! More messages follow, and slowly it becomes clear—the messages are being sent from Tane and Rebecca’s future. Something there has gone horribly wrong, and it’s up to them to prevent it from happening. The very survival of the human race may be at stake! “[A] terrifying SF page-turner!”—Booklist “A tautly constructed plot. Fast-paced and all-too-realistic. This technothriller offers gearhead ecowarriors everything, including a hugely satisfying ending.”—Kirkus Reviews A Top 10 Kid’s Indie Next Winter Pick A Junior Library Guild Selection

From Scotland to Sandbanks and Santorini Jake Dillon is lured into another thrilling assignment opposing an inimitable yet unseen adversary – the ultimate destructive technology – The Chimera Code!Escaping death and cheating Assassins Dillon seeks out those that demand the destruction of 'Scorpion' – the British Government's secret organisation that exists to fight a covert war against fanatics of every faith and political persuasion.Dillon's extraordinary skills wreak havoc amongst his adversaries, traitors and terrorists alike, against all the odds in a bid to stop the unleashing of the ultimate viral weapon, and the global institutional and personal meltdown that will surely follow…This, some would say, is the closest we have come to the 'real' Jake Dillon. This journey sees him chasing an invisible enemy and along the way Jake reveals some of the inner demons that make him the urban warrior that he is. Accompanied by Vince Sharpe, and some familiar accomplices from his past, Jake leaves the sanctuary of his Scottish home to halt the power of a double turncoat ex-KGB spy and an international terrorist of middle-eastern origin. This toxic team has developed the inimitable Chimera Code under the guise of a British Government initiative!The Chimera Code is incredibly powerful – it is a programme that is able to gain access and interact with any computer programme or database - encrypted or not - in the blink of an eye. It can isolate any computer by accessing every available on-line resource. It then up-loads a tiny piece of mal-ware that eventually destroys the hard drive. But not before taking control of the system and downloading every single piece of data on it – it also is self-perpetuating and can morph and develop itself so that there is no anti virus software in the land that can combat its power or 'virtual intellect'.With a deadly army of Assassins behind the complex international threat Jake finds himself, and those close to him, in mortal danger. His cunning and experience is pushed beyond limits that previously didn't exist in this action-packed novel that fights its battles on the waves, in the air and on terra firma across the globe! Rules were made to be broken in this Dillon thriller!

This is the first book devoted to chimera states - peculiar partial synchronization patterns in networks. Providing an overview of the state of the art in research on this topic, it explores how these hybrid states, which are composed of spatially separated domains of synchronized and desynchronized behavior, arise surprisingly in networks of identical units and symmetric coupling topologies. The book not only describes various types of chimeras, but also discusses the role of time delay, stochasticity, and network topology for these synchronization-desynchronization patterns. Moreover, it addresses the question of robustness and control of chimera states, which have various applications in physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering. This book is intended for researchers with a background in physics, applied mathematics, or engineering. Of great interest to specialists working on related problems, it is also a valuable resource for newcomers to the field and other scientists working on the control of spatio-temporal patterns.