Bøger af Douglas A. Van Belle

Venus has become a world of Zeppelin cities where merchants fly carbon-fiber airships. Whalers harpoon tin behemoths that rise from the murky depths. And the only woman who can save it all from ruin is being hunted by a man willing to do anything to seize her father's empire. Privilege is a double-edged sword. As a young noblewoman, Willamette Lolofi has an education and the freedom to indulge her curiosities. But the political marriage she faces won't let her stop the looming threat she has discovered. Countless cities, towns, and estates ride the winds of The Drift, a hospitable layer in the Venusian atmosphere, but they will eventually fall to ruin. As the tin behemoths that lift precious minerals from the depths grow scarce, conflicts drive the Commonwealth ever faster toward collapse. Willamette is determined to avoid that tragic fate. She manipulates her parents into arranging a marriage that just might let her take action ... but then a bloody coup by Colonel Kofi upends everything. In order to consolidate power, Kofi must eliminate the only person alive who can claim the right to rule the Commonwealth. If Willamette has any chance of saving millions of people in The Drift, she must rally a menagerie of misfits to accomplish the unthinkable.

In a far distant future, humans have become the rodents of the galaxy. Infesting the walls of nearly every ship that trades across the stars, thriving at the bottom of gravity wells that are too deep for the massive predatory species that rule the sky, they occupy a precarious niche as neither predator nor prey. But the place of humans in galactic civilization is the furthest thing from Constance's mind. Driven to the point of despair by a crusty old boss who is so infuriating he might very well be the embodiment of the universe's perfect jackass, she is overwhelmed by the demands of her engineering apprenticeship. She has no reason to think that the aliens on incoming ship want anything more than to barter some cheap machine parts from the vermin they derisively call barking squirrels. None of the big uglies would ever subject themselves to the discomfort of a full G. At least... they never had before. Barking Death Squirrels is a remarkable first novel from one of New Zealand's hottest SF writers, winner of Best New Talent in the 2007 Sir Julius Vogel Awards for his short stories and shortlisted for SJV Awards every year since. "...it is a pleasure to read a book that has been so deeply and intelligently thought through... Barking Death Squirrels is a complex, thoughtful novel which will leave the reader pondering our future." - Phillip Mann (Master of Paxwax, A Land Fit for Heroes) "At first glance, Barking Death Squirrels appears to be old-fashioned 'problem solving' science fiction. But Douglas Van Belle's attention to - and affection for - his characters transcends the familiar paradigm... The result is more engaging than most of its predecessors in the genre." - Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Gap series)

Van Belle provides the first systematic analysis of the effects that press freedom has on the conduct of international politics.

This is the first sustained comparative examination of the importance of media attention on the provision of economic assistance, suggesting that the news media is an important medium for policy makers to gauge potential domestic political pressures and thus the need to be responsive and even anticipatory in addressing problems real or perceived.