The memoir of Marina von Neumann Whitman

Welcome to the End of Empire. Set over two hundred years from now, in a world very much like Imperial Rome, this is the story of General Peter Black, the last decent man, as told through the eyes of his devoted (and illegitimate) daughter, Justa. Raised on battlefields, more comfortable in the company of hard men of war than with women or other children, Justa must keep the truth of her birth hidden. Her father regards her as an embarrassment, a reminder of his one and only indiscretion. Yet she is a remarkable woman, one whose keen mind wins her an education at the feet of Emperor Mathias the Glistening himself. All his life, General Black served the noble emperor, and, out of loyalty to the father, continues to serve his son after Mathias's death, even as the son's reign degenerates into an insane tyranny worthy of Nero or Caligula. As the rule of the empire passes from father to son with disastrous results, a strange metal plague begins slowly destroying the empire's technology, plunging the realm into chaos and the world into war. Amid the destruction and upheaval, General Black must decide whether to turn his back on the men and institutions who never loved him nearly as much as he did them, or whether to save his most trusted ally and adviser, his best friend and only real family. The Martian General's Daughter is a gripping tale of a world at war; of cunning strategies and vile politics; of bravery, foolishness, and excess. It is at once a stirring military adventure, a cautionary tale of repeating history, a cutting satire, and a heartbreaking examination of the joys and pain inherent in the love between a father and child. Judson's previous novel was selected in multiple best-of-the-year lists. With The Martian General's Daughter, he offers another must-read epic destined to take its place in the canon of science fiction, and sure to appeal to readers of everything from Orson Scott Card to Walter M. Miller, Jr.

If science has the equivalent of a Bloomsbury group, it is the five men born at the turn of the twentieth century in Budapest: Theodore von Kármán, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller. From Hungary to Germany to the United States, they remained friends and continued to work together and influence each other throughout their lives. As a result, their work was integral to some of the most important scientific and political developments of the twentieth century. István Hargittai tells the story of this remarkable group: Wigner won a Nobel Prize in theoretical physics; Szilard was the first to see that a chain reaction based on neutrons was possible, initiated the Manhattan Project, but left physics to try to restrict nuclear arms; von Neumann could solve difficult problems in his head and developed the modern computer for more complex problems; von Kármán became the first director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, providing the scientific basis for the U.S. Air Force; and Teller was the father of the hydrogen bomb, whose name is now synonymous with the controversial "Star Wars" initiative of the 1980s. Each was fiercely opinionated, politically active, and fought against all forms of totalitarianism. Hargittai, as a young Hungarian physical chemist, was able to get to know some of these great men in their later years, and the depth of information and human interest in The Martians of Science is the result of his personal relationships with the subjects, their families, and their contemporaries.

The tranquility of Mars is disrupted by humans who want to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.

Milo doesn't get it: What's the big deal about moms? They're just slave-driving broccoli bullies. Yet they are worshipped the world over! Perhaps even the galaxy over-because here come Martians and they're after one thing only: moms. Milo's mom in particular! That's quite a long way to come for a mom-could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?

Now in paperback--the extraordinary story of a woman's lifelong quest to "get to Mars"--and of the team behind the space robot that captured the world's imagination. 8-page photo insert.