The monumental battles of World War II's Eastern Front--Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk--are etched into the historical record. But there is another, hidden history of that war that has too often been ignored in official accounts. Boris Gorbachevsky was a junior officer in the 31st Army who first saw front-line duty as a rifleman in the 30th Army. Through the Maelstrom recounts his three harrowing years on some of the war's grimmest but forgotten battlefields: the campaign for Rzhev, the bloody struggle to retake Belorussia, and the bitter final fighting in East Prussia. As he traces his experiences from his initial training, through the maelstrom, to final victory, he provides one of the richest and most detailed memoirs of life and warfare on the Eastern Front. Gorbachevsky's panoramic account takes us from infantry specialist school to the front lines to rear services areas and his whirlwind romances in wartime Moscow. He recalls the shriek of Katiusha rockets flying overhead toward the enemy and the unforgettable howl of Stukas divebombing Soviet tanks. And he conveys horrors of brutal fighting not recorded previously in English, including his own participation in a human wave assault that decimated his regiment at Rzhev, with piles of corpses growing the closer they got to the German trenches. Gorbachevsky also records the sufferings of the starving citizens of Leningrad, the savage execution of a Russian scout who turned in false information, the killing of an innocent German trying to welcome the Soviet troops, and a chilling campfire discussion by four Russian soldiers as they compared notes about the women they'd raped. His memoir brims with rich descriptions of daily army life, the challenges of maintaining morale, and relationships between soldiers. It also includes candid exposs of the many problems the Red Army faced: the influence of political officers, the stubbornness of senior commanders, the attrition through desertions, and the initial months of occupation in postwar Germany. Through the Maelstrom features the swiftly moving narrative and rich dialogue associated with the grand style of great Russian literature. Ultimately, it provides a fitting and final testament to soldiers who fought and died in anonymity.

Set in the future of Warhammer 40,000, this collection features dark tales of war and adventure in a world where mankind teeters on the brink of extinction.

When a dangerous driving charge gets me put in a fancy rehab for rich kids and socialites, I intended to do my time and then leave. I was going to leave behind the sports star who was addicted to uppers, the coke-head lawyers, and the space cadets. I was going to leave behind him. Hendrick Kenley. Bored, listless, and filthy dirty rich. If there was a waste of oxygen, it was him. My only goal was to avoid him and his beautifully cruel smirk until my time at the Wellness Center was over. I'd get lost in books and the view of the ocean, and then I'd go back to my life. But Fate, that glorious bitch, had other plans. Days before my release, I pick up a book. Jules Verne's Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In the margins of that tatty paperback was my future, words in smeared ink that spoke to my soul, and I had to find their author. He'd left me clues, and I was going to track him down. Problem was, unlike the rest of the people in the Center, I was poor. My parents had taken out a second mortgage so I could spend my ninety days here, instead of in juvie. I had to make a deal with the Devil, and by the Devil I mean Hendrick Kenley and his cohort of disenchanted fools. The Devil offered me a deal I couldn't refuse; he'd pay for everything on the trip, travelling on a private planes and staying in fancy hotels, but I had to let him and his friends tag along. There was a reason for the adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I'd learn the truth of that the hard way.

Second in the Rifters Trilogy, Hugo Award-winning author Peter Watts' Maelstrom is a terrifying explosion of cyberpunk noir. This is the way the world ends: A nuclear strike on a deep sea vent. The target was an ancient microbe—voracious enough to drive the whole biosphere to extinction—and a handful of amphibious humans called rifters who'd inadvertently released it from three billion years of solitary confinement. The resulting tsunami killed millions. It's not as through there was a choice: saving the world excuses almost any degree of collateral damage. Unless, of course, you miss the target. Now North America's west coast lies in ruins. Millions of refugees rally around a mythical figure mysteriously risen from the deep sea. A world already wobbling towards collapse barely notices the spread of one more blight along its shores. And buried in the seething fast-forward jungle that use to be called Internet, something vast and inhuman reaches out to a woman with empty white eyes and machinery in her chest. A woman driven by rage, and incubating Armageddon. Her name is Lenie Clarke. She's a rifter. She's not nearly as dead as everyone thinks. And the whole damn world is collateral damage as far as she's concerned. . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The world is at the brink of ruin . . . or is it salvation? Astaroth has been weakened, and the demon Prusias is taking full advantage of the situation to create an empire of his own. His formidable armies are on the move, and Rowan is in their sights. Rowan must rely on Max McDaniels and David Menlo and hope that their combined powers can stop Prusias's war machine before it's too late. But even as perils loom, danger stalks their every move. Someone has marked Max for death and no one is above suspicion. Should the assassins succeed, Rowan's fate may depend on little Mina whose abilities are prodigious but largely untested. And where is Astaroth? Has he fled this world or is he biding his time, awaiting his next opportunity? In the Tapestry's fourth book, author-illustrator Henry H. Neff boldly raises the stakes in an epic tale of mankind's struggle to survive in a world now populated by demons and demigods and everything in between!

IN THE TRADITION OF THE BATTLETECH SERIES, ASPECT PRESENTS AN ACTION-PACKED ADVENTURE BASED ON THE UNIVERSE OF VOR, THE THRILLING NEW MINIATURE-BASED GAME. NO EXIT The world's two superpowers are at war -- when suddenly even nuclear annihilation becomes unimportant. For, without warning, the Earth is ripped from orbit, torn from the entire universe, by an insatiable, planet-destroying cosmic vortex. Now both sides -- along with everyone else on the globe -- are trapped in the grotesque parody of reality called the Maelstrom. Exploring the concepts and expanding the background of this incredible adventure, this novel takes readers and gamers to the beginning: when armies of the near future face the horrors of the battlefield and gut-wrenching alien terrors they cannot escape as they are drawn...

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Descent into the Maelström" is a tale that explores themes of survival and cunning in the face of imposing natural forces. Narrated by a man facing a colossal whirlpool, the story distils the tension between fear and reason, highlighting the human capacity to use intelligence to face seemingly insurmountable challenges.