The galaxy is mired in a cold war between two superpowers, the Illyrican Empire and the Commonwealth. Thrust between this struggle are Simon Kovalic, the Commonwealth’s preeminent spy, and Kyle Rankin, a lowly soldier happily scrubbing toilets on Sabea, a remote and isolated planet. However, nothing is as it seems. Kyle Rankin is a lie. His real name is Eli Brody, and he fled his home world of Caledonia years ago. Simon Kovalic knows Caledonia is a lit fuse hurtling towards detonation. The past Brody so desperately tried to abandon can grant him access to people and places that are off limits even to a professional spy like Kovalic. Kovalic needs Eli Brody to come home and face his past. With Brody suddenly cast in a play he never auditioned for, he and Kovalic will quickly realize it’s everything they don’t know that will tip the scales of galactic peace. Sounds like a desperate plan, sure, but what gambit isn’t? The Caledonian Gambit is a throwback to the classic sci-fi adventures of spies and off-world politics, but filled to the brim with modern sensibilities.

An exploration of the history of the sixty-mile, Scottish Highland canal and its significance to the region’s transportation and tourism. Thomas Telford’s plan, to connect Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy with each other and the sea, was a huge undertaking that brought civil engineering to the Highlands on a heroic scale. Deep in the Highlands, far from the canal network of England, engineers forged their way through the Great Glen to construct the biggest canal of its day: twenty-two miles of artificial cutting and no fewer than twenty-eight locks. A.D. (Sandy) Cameron’s book has long been recognized as the authoritative work on the canal as well as a reliable and useful guide to the surrounding area. There are intriguing old plans, not discovered until 1992, and a survey of the dramatic rise in pleasure-craft traffic during the last two decades. But the highlight of the recent past was undoubtedly the Tall Ships passing through the canal in stately procession in 1991. Impossible, then, not to feel the fascination of this beautiful waterway: a working piece of industrial history and a remarkable engineering achievement. This book is a fitting celebration of this remarkable feat of engineering.