Two complete books for one price from six-time Hugo Award-winning author Ben Bova: Mercury and Prometheans Mercury The planet closest to our Sun is a barren, heat-scorched world. But there are those who hope to find wealth in its desolation. Saito Yamagata seeks to generate power to propel starships into deep space. Astrobiologist Victor Molina is searching for evidence of life. Bishop Elliot Danvers has been sent to keep close tabs on Molina. But all three of these men are blissfully unaware of their shared history, of their connection to the collapse of a geosynchronous space elevator a generation ago, and of the man who now seeks his revenge. Prometheans Discover the pioneers whose technologic genius fuels our dreams--and our future. The man who tamed hurricanes and the man whose vision of orbital immortality lost him all he loved on Earth. The day politics, media, and bioengineering met, and the day an assassin took aim on the stars.... Tomorrow belongs to Prometheans. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"Mercury -- The planet closest to our Sun is a barren, heat-scorch ed world. But there are those who hope to find wealth in its desolation. Saito Yamagata seeks to generate power to propel starships into deep space. Astrobiologist Victor Molina is searching for evidence of life. Bishop Elliot Danvers has been sent to keep close tabs on Molina. But all three of these men are blissfully unaware of their shared history, of their connection to the collapse of a geosynchronous space elevator a generation ago, and of the man who now seeks his revenge."--Provided by publisher. "Prometheans" includes short stories and essays about technological genius and how it affects the future.

In an age when the nature of reality is complicated daily by advances in bioengineering, cloning, and artificial intelligence, it is easy to forget that the ever-evolving boundary between nature and technology has long been a source of ethical and scientific concern: modern anxieties about the possibility of artificial life and the dangers of tinkering with nature more generally were shared by opponents of alchemy long before genetic science delivered us a cloned sheep named Dolly. In Promethean Ambitions, William R. Newman ambitiously uses alchemy to investigate the thinning boundary between the natural and the artificial. Focusing primarily on the period between 1200 and 1700, Newman examines the labors of pioneering alchemists and the impassioned—and often negative—responses to their efforts. By the thirteenth century, Newman argues, alchemy had become a benchmark for determining the abilities of both men and demons, representing the epitome of creative power in the natural world. Newman frames the art-nature debate by contrasting the supposed transmutational power of alchemy with the merely representational abilities of the pictorial and plastic arts—a dispute which found artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bernard Palissy attacking alchemy as an irreligious fraud. The later assertion by the Paracelsian school that one could make an artificial human being—the homunculus—led to further disparagement of alchemy, but as Newman shows, the immense power over nature promised by the field contributed directly to the technological apologetics of Francis Bacon and his followers. By the mid-seventeenth century, the famous "father of modern chemistry," Robert Boyle, was employing the arguments of medieval alchemists to support the identity of naturally occurring substances with those manufactured by "chymical" means. In using history to highlight the art-nature debate, Newman here shows that alchemy was not an unformed and capricious precursor to chemistry; it was an art founded on coherent philosophical and empirical principles, with vocal supporters and even louder critics, that attracted individuals of first-rate intellect. The historical relationship that Newman charts between human creation and nature has innumerable implications today, and he ably links contemporary issues to alchemical debates on the natural versus the artificial.

This book is devoted to the exploration of environmental Prometheanism, the belief that human beings can and should master nature and remake it for the better. Meyer considers, among others, the question of why Prometheanism today is usually found on the political right while environmentalism is on the left. Chapters examine the works of leading Promethean thinkers of nineteenth and early and mid-twentieth century Britain, France, America, and Russia and how they tied their beliefs about the earth to a progressive, left-wing politics. Meyer reconstructs the logic of this “progressive Prometheanism” and the reasons it has vanished from the intellectual scene today. The Progressive Environmental Prometheans broadens the reader’s understanding of the history of the ideas behind Prometheanism. This book appeals to anyone with an interest in environmental politics, environmental history, global history, geography and Anthropocene studies.

Three adventurers; a wealthy publisher, a soldier-of-fortune private eye, and an eccentric techie investigate the suspicious death of a friend. The case puts them on the trail of a strange serial killer who seems to have extraordinary powers. Their search leads to a secret society and astounding truths about mankind's past and future. As the human race rapidly approaches its technological singularity, these three comrades become enmeshed in the unfolding future of mankind. They are privileged to glimpse man's destiny on the other side of The Promethean Divide.

The author gives a full history of the origins of temperament in astrology, then shows clearly and succinctly how readers can work to assess temperaments themselves. Copious case histories support her technique.

While investigating the mysterious deaths of defense employees, Alex Scott seeks to unravel a bizarre military-industrial conspiracy before he becomes the victim of another strange death.