My name is Dieter Resnick. I was planning to turn eighteen in May, but I don't think I'm gonna make it. I've just been drafted into a war. And this war isn't usual. It's kinda sorta fought with spells.

Six months ago today, I was my high school's valedictorian. Now I'm Elliot College's newest combat-certified mage, and one of the few to survive a Talmax raid. I've got a weft-partner named Rei Acerba, whose hobbies include flaying the skin off her foes and perusing the sunscreen aisle. I've got a tutor named Jules Nelson, who spends her evenings talking to trees. And I've got a friend named Jay Dante, who tends to vanish when I need him most.

We're all part of a team called Lambda, and we've been ordered into the middle of a battle between North America's magical factions. The warriors of Talmax are surging up from the South. The Department of Mana Affair's once omnipotent DEA agents have been left cowering behind their wards. Our job is to reveal the enemy's secret weapon--before they take ownership of the entire West Coast.

Zero Sum is the exciting sequel to Zero Sight, the Top 5 Rated Kindle Contemporary Fantasy novel, featuring everyone's favorite disheveled coffee-fiend, Dieter Resnick, and the rest of the Lambda crew. Zero Sum is a full-length young adult fantasy novel, weighing in at 137,000 words or about 450 pages. The entire novel is provided DRM-free based on reader requests. Because of graphic situations and foul-tongued heroes, Zero Sum is only recommended for readers 16 years and older.

My name is Dieter Resnick. I was planning to turn eighteen in May, but I don't think I'm gonna make it. I've just been drafted into a war. And this war isn't usual. It's kinda sorta fought with spells.

Six months ago today, I was my high school's valedictorian. Now I'm Elliot College's newest combat-certified mage, and one of the few to survive a Talmax raid. I've got a weft-partner named Rei Acerba, whose hobbies include flaying the skin off her foes and perusing the sunscreen aisle. I've got a tutor named Jules Nelson, who spends her evenings talking to trees. And I've got a friend named Jay Dante, who tends to vanish when I need him most.

We're all part of a team called Lambda, and we've been ordered into the middle of a battle between North America's magical factions. The warriors of Talmax are surging up from the South. The Department of Mana Affair's once omnipotent DEA agents have been left cowering behind their wards. Our job is to reveal the enemy's secret weapon--before they take ownership of the entire West Coast.

Zero Sum is the exciting sequel to Zero Sight, the Top 5 Rated Kindle Contemporary Fantasy novel, featuring everyone's favorite disheveled coffee-fiend, Dieter Resnick, and the rest of the Lambda crew. Zero Sum is a full-length young adult fantasy novel, weighing in at 137,000 words or about 450 pages. The entire novel is provided DRM-free based on reader requests. Because of graphic situations and foul-tongued heroes, Zero Sum is only recommended for readers 16 years and older.

Once again, Tom Clancy manages to add new twists to the alternate U.S. history he initiated in The Hunt for Red October. In The Sum of All Fears, the center of conflict is the perpetual hot spot the Mideast, where a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of terrorists just as peace seems possible. Clancy realistically paints an almost unthinkable scenario--the bomb is planted on American soil in the midst of an escalation in tension with the Soviet Union; the terrorists hope to rekindle cold war animosity and prevent reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

Despite such a dramatic story line, Clancy doesn't neglect the individuals who drive his tale. Jack Ryan's problems are as much domestic as they are part of the international crisis that is the ostensible narrative: National Security Director Elizabeth Elliot has the president's ear, and she has convinced him that Ryan's ethics are questionable. She hints at marital infidelity and an insider-trading scandal. Of course, both accusations are false, but her arguments have enough evidence behind them (e.g. some photographs of an innocent embrace with a friend) to cause a strain in the Ryans' marriage and a flurry of media attention. While "Mr. Clark" tracks the terrorists, he also provides some needed intelligence to heal the Ryan family.

The Sum of All Fears is the stuff of nightmares but contains enough verisimilitude to terrify sober minds. Ryan has matured into a complex protagonist as Clancy's writing, too, has matured. Ryan is plagued by stress and self-doubts that test even his dauntless moral compass and make him a more interesting subject for readers' attention. Those fascinated by military hardware, from nuclear submarines to atomic weapons, will find almost enough here to start their own army. And Clancy's understanding of international politics seems chillingly correct. --Patrick O'Kelley

SUM shows us forty wonderfully imagined possibilities of life beyond death.
In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that the afterlife contains only people whom you remember, or that the hereafter includes the thousands of previous gods who no longer attract followers. In some afterlives you are split into your different ages; in some you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been; in others you are re-created from your credit card records and Internet history. Many versions of our purpose here are proposed; we are mobile robots for cosmic mapmakers, we are reunions for a scattered confederacy of atoms, we are experimental subjects for gods trying to understand what makes couples stick together.

These tales—at once witty, wistful and unsettling—are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence while asking the key questions about death, hope, technology, immortality, love, biology and desire that expose radiant new facets of our humanity.

All three books in the Zero Sum trilogy of serial Wall Street thrillers grouped into a single volume.

-----

Present Day Wall Street. Where intelligence agencies and the financial industry are strange bedfellows, and the two worlds are often intertwined in disturbing ways.

In this chillingly plausible scenario of a military/industrial/financial complex run amok, Zero Sum pits Dr. Steven Archer against powerful financier Nicholas Griffen in a conflict that raises troubling questions about our markets and our government.

Racing against the clock in a chase that spans continents, one man's battle to expose the Machiavellian machinations of a ruthless Wall Street marauder forces him into a financial jungle populated by every variety of unscrupulous sociopath - rogue intelligence agencies, Russian mafia oligarchs, drug cartels, and terrorist networks.

As a white-collar game of chess transitions into a lethal real world cage-fight, Steven finds himself in a deadly showdown, where hunters can quickly become the hunted, and blood is the ultimate currency.

+ + +

Amazon Bestseller!

+ + +

Q & A for Zero Sum with author Russell Blake

Question: Where did the idea for Zero Sum come from?

RB: I thought the inside scoop of how a Wall Street pump and dump works would be a great framework for a thriller. The innate conspiracy begs to be told, and I also wanted to give some background on how the whole market system actually functions

Q: Zero Sum offers readers a look behind the curtain on Wall Street's dark side. Do you think there's much of an audience for that?

RB: With the current financial crisis, & the emerging awareness that things are badly broken in the regulatory & law enforcement scheme, I think the novel's timely. Its depiction of Wall Street predators w/ their pet politicians, regulators & media cronies is spot on. I've found readers are fascinated once they understand it all.

Q: Zero Sum paints a picture of Wall Street that's at odds with the sanitized image in the media. Have you gotten any push back because of it?

RB: There's definitely a segment of the financial industry that would prefer nobody reads the book. The parasites that run these schemes are alive & well & doing it every day, relying on the public's ignorance to prey on them. I think you have some annoyed players who want this read about as much as they want a 60 Minutes crew at their office. It's a controversial story,
& I'm not making any friends telling it.

Q: Your characters seem real, especially the Wall Street villain, intelligence operatives
& mob goons. Are these based in fact?

RB: A good fiction author blends truth & fiction to the point where you aren't sure where the story starts & the facts leave off. Let's just say that the characters & scenarios that seem real, are likely that vivid and believable for a reason.

Q: What authors do you read, & which have most influenced you?

RB: I grew up on Ludlum. Forsyth. Harris, Grisham. Baldacci. Fans of those authors will find my writing's very similar - Bourne, Day of the Jackal, The Firm.

All three books in the Zero Sum trilogy of serial Wall Street thrillers grouped into a single volume.

-----

Present Day Wall Street. Where intelligence agencies and the financial industry are strange bedfellows, and the two worlds are often intertwined in disturbing ways.

In this chillingly plausible scenario of a military/industrial/financial complex run amok, Zero Sum pits Dr. Steven Archer against powerful financier Nicholas Griffen in a conflict that raises troubling questions about our markets and our government.

Racing against the clock in a chase that spans continents, one man's battle to expose the Machiavellian machinations of a ruthless Wall Street marauder forces him into a financial jungle populated by every variety of unscrupulous sociopath - rogue intelligence agencies, Russian mafia oligarchs, drug cartels, and terrorist networks.

As a white-collar game of chess transitions into a lethal real world cage-fight, Steven finds himself in a deadly showdown, where hunters can quickly become the hunted, and blood is the ultimate currency.

+ + +

Amazon Bestseller!

+ + +

Q & A for Zero Sum with author Russell Blake

Question: Where did the idea for Zero Sum come from?

RB: I thought the inside scoop of how a Wall Street pump and dump works would be a great framework for a thriller. The innate conspiracy begs to be told, and I also wanted to give some background on how the whole market system actually functions

Q: Zero Sum offers readers a look behind the curtain on Wall Street's dark side. Do you think there's much of an audience for that?

RB: With the current financial crisis, & the emerging awareness that things are badly broken in the regulatory & law enforcement scheme, I think the novel's timely. Its depiction of Wall Street predators w/ their pet politicians, regulators & media cronies is spot on. I've found readers are fascinated once they understand it all.

Q: Zero Sum paints a picture of Wall Street that's at odds with the sanitized image in the media. Have you gotten any push back because of it?

RB: There's definitely a segment of the financial industry that would prefer nobody reads the book. The parasites that run these schemes are alive & well & doing it every day, relying on the public's ignorance to prey on them. I think you have some annoyed players who want this read about as much as they want a 60 Minutes crew at their office. It's a controversial story,
& I'm not making any friends telling it.

Q: Your characters seem real, especially the Wall Street villain, intelligence operatives
& mob goons. Are these based in fact?

RB: A good fiction author blends truth & fiction to the point where you aren't sure where the story starts & the facts leave off. Let's just say that the characters & scenarios that seem real, are likely that vivid and believable for a reason.

Q: What authors do you read, & which have most influenced you?

RB: I grew up on Ludlum. Forsyth. Harris, Grisham. Baldacci. Fans of those authors will find my writing's very similar - Bourne, Day of the Jackal, The Firm.

In 2002, at the age of 39, I was a successful journalist and critic when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, a disease that usually strikes men in their teens and 20s. At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.

What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

"I kept reminding myself that this did not happen to me because I ate the wrong foods, or didn't get enough vitamins, or had sex with the wrong people (and yes, there were people -- not necessarily friends -- who flat-out asked me if it was sexually transmitted). I did not have this tumor because I got too much sun, or didn't get enough exercise, or was careless about my personal hygiene. There was no explanation. It simply happened..."

Throughout the sometimes painful, often strange and occasionally bizarrely funny recovery period, I began to realize what had happened to me was not a tragedy but an opportunity to take a second look at where I was and where I wanted to be. Cancer, I learned, is not always a death sentence; in my case, it gave me the chance to live a better life.

In 2002, at the age of 39, I was a successful journalist and critic when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, a disease that usually strikes men in their teens and 20s. At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.

What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

"I kept reminding myself that this did not happen to me because I ate the wrong foods, or didn't get enough vitamins, or had sex with the wrong people (and yes, there were people -- not necessarily friends -- who flat-out asked me if it was sexually transmitted). I did not have this tumor because I got too much sun, or didn't get enough exercise, or was careless about my personal hygiene. There was no explanation. It simply happened..."

Throughout the sometimes painful, often strange and occasionally bizarrely funny recovery period, I began to realize what had happened to me was not a tragedy but an opportunity to take a second look at where I was and where I wanted to be. Cancer, I learned, is not always a death sentence; in my case, it gave me the chance to live a better life.

The Runelords is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting--and even some of the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak to even walk. A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.

Runelords excels because this novel idea is not mere window dressing--Farland uses it to explore fundamental questions of life and morality. The story's hero, the young Runelord Gaborn, struggles to define his role in this "shameful economy" while keeping his commitments to himself, to his people, to the woman he loves, and to the earth itself. We end up asking ourselves the same questions: Should you choose your friends based on insight or virtue? Is it better to be just or good? Competent fantasy lets you escape to adventure in faraway lands, but exceptional fantasy makes sure you have something to think about when you get back. Runelords accomplishes the latter. --Paul Hughes

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A group of teenagers is involved in a hit-and-run accident and is stalked by someone seeking revenge.

A spy for the Typhon Pact—a new political rival of the Federation—steals the plans for Starfleet’s newest technological advance: the slipstream drive. To stop the Typhon Pact from unlocking the drive’s secrets, Starfleet Intelligence recruits a pair of genetically enhanced agents: Dr. Julian Bashir, of station Deep Space 9, and Sarina Douglas, a woman whose talents Bashir helped bring to fruition, and whom Bashir thinks of as his long-lost true love.

Bashir and Douglas are sent to infiltrate the mysterious species known as the Breen, find the hidden slipstream project, and destroy it. Meanwhile, light-years away, Captain Ezri Dax and her crew on the U.S.S. Aventine play a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a Typhon Pact fleet that stands between them and the safe retrieval of Bashir and Douglas from hostile territory.

The Starship Rhea has discovered a cluster of carbon planets that seems to be the source of the quantum energies rippling through a section of space. A landing party finds unusual life-forms inhabiting one of the planets. One officer, Lieutenant T'Ryssa Chen -- a half-Vulcan -- makes a tenuous connection with them. But before any progress can be made, the Rhea comes under attack from the Einstein -- a Starfleet vessel now controlled by the Borg. The landing party can only listen in horror as their comrades are assimilated. The Borg descend to the planet, and just as Chen accepts that she will be assimilated, the lieutenant is whisked two thousand light-years away.

A quantum slipstream -- instantaneous transportation -- is controlled by these beings in the cluster, and in the heart of the cluster there is now a Borg ship. Cut off from the rest of the Borg collective, the Einstein cannot be allowed to rejoin it. For the sake of humanity, the Borg cannot gain access to quantum slipstream technology.

Starfleet Command gives Captain Picard carte blanche: do whatever he must to help the beings in the cluster, and stop the Einstein no matter the cost.