An unforgettable voyage of the imagination from the bestselling author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’ – one of his most acclaimed novels. In parched Port-la-Nouvelle in central Africa, Dr Mallory watches his clinic fail and dreams of discovering a third Nile to make the Sahara bloom. During his search for water, an ancient tree stump is uprooted by a bulldozer and water wells up, spreading until it becomes an enormous river. With the once arid land now abounding in birds and beasts, the obsessed Mallory forges up-river in an old car ferry, clashing with hostile factions as he tries to find the source of his own creation.

When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’, reissued here with a new introduction from Martin Amis. Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, either in the name of science or profit. While the submerged streets of London are drained in search of treasure, Dr Robert Kerans – part of a group of intrepid scientists – comes to accept this submarine city and finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it. First published in 1962, Ballard’s mesmerising and ferociously imaginative novel gained him widespread critical acclaim and established his reputation as one of Britain’s finest writers of science fiction. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Robert Macfarlane, Martin Amis, James Lever and Ali Smith) and brand-new cover designs.

A remarkable collection of short stories set in Wyoming from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’. ‘Bad Dirt’ is filled with the vivid and willful characters for which Proulx has become known. Each story occupies a community or landscape described in rich and robust language, with an eye for detail unparalleled in American fiction. In ‘The Contest’, the men of Elk Tooth, Wyoming, vow to put aside their razors for two seasons and wait to see who has the longest beard come the 4th of July. Deb Sipple, the moving protagonist of ‘That Trickle Down Effect’, finds that his opportunism – and his smoking habit – lead to a massive destruction. And ‘What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?’ is the story of Gilbert Wolfscale, whose rabid devotion to his ranch drives off his wife and sons. Proulx displays her wit in every story of this stunning collection, as well as her knowledge of the West, of history, of ranching and of farming. Her profound sympathy for characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in tough territory makes this collection extraordinarily compelling.

The penultimate volume of the mighty Riftwar Cycle War rages in Midkemia but behind the chaos there is disquieting evidence of dark forces at work. Jim Dasher’s usually infallible intelligence network has been cleverly dismantled; nowhere is safe. He feels that the world is coming apart at the seams and is helpless to protect his nation. Quiet palace coups are underway in Roldem and Rillanon; and King Gregory of the Isles has yet to produce an heir. In each kingdom a single petty noble has risen from obscurity to threaten the throne. Lord Hal of Crydee and his great friend Ty Hawkins, champion swordsman of the Masters’ Court, are entrusted with the task of smuggling Princess Stephané and her lady-in-waiting, the lovely but mysterious Lady Gabriella, out of Roldem to a place of greater safety. But is there any safe haven to be found? Meanwhile, Hal’s younger brothers Martin and Brendan are attempting to hold the strategic city of Ylith against an onslaught of Keshian Dog Soldiers, and a mysterious force from beneath the sea. The Kingdom might lose Crydee and recover; but if Ylith falls, all is lost. An unknown player appears to orchestrating these conflicts. Can Pug and the Conclave of Shadows track down this source before Midkemia is destroyed?

Discover the fate of the original black Magician, Pug, as prophecy becomes truth in the last book of the Riftwar Cycle. THE FINAL VOLUME IN THE EPIC RIFTWAR CYCLE. The dragons are calling… Civil war is tearing apart the Kingdom of the Isles, for the throne lies empty and rivals are converging. Having spirited his beloved Princess Stephané safely out of Roldem, Hal – now Duke of Crydee – must turn his attention to the defence of the ancient realm so that a king can be anointed by the Congress of Lords, rather than by right of might. But the greatest threat may well lie out of the hands of men. Somewhere in the Grey Towers Mountains something not of this world is emerging. It will require that alliances be made between mortal enemies if disaster is to be averted. Elves and men must stand together, ancient heroes must rise again, dragons must fly and Pug, Magnus and the other magic-users of Midkemia must be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice if the whole world is to be saved.

Walmart's OneOps is an open source DevOps platform that is used for cloud and application lifecycle management. It can manage critical and complex application workload on any multi cloud-based infrastructure and revolutionizes the way administrators, developers, and engineers develop and launch new products. This practical book focuses on real-life cases and hands-on scenarios to develop, launch, and test your applications faster, so you can implement the DevOps process using OneOps. You will be exposed to the fundamental aspects of OneOps starting with installing, deploying, and configuring OneOps in a test environment, which will also come in handy later for development and debugging. You will also learn about design and architecture, and work through steps to perform enterprise level deployment. You will understand the initial setup of OneOps such as creating organization, teams, and access management. Finally, you will be taught how to configure, repair, scale, and extend applications across various cloud platforms. What you will learn ?See how to install OneOps ?Configure OneOps including creating and configuring organization and teams ?Work through practical deployment scenarios ?Maintain OneOps environments including backups and logs ?Build custom components for OneOps ?Extend OneOps by calling the REST API

C++ has come a long way and is now adopted in several contexts. Its key strengths are its software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, including desktop applications, servers, and performance-critical applications, not to forget its importance in game programming. Despite its strengths in these areas, beginners usually tend to shy away from learning the language because of its steep learning curve. The main mission of this book is to make you familiar and comfortable with C++. You will finish the book not only being able to write your own code, but more importantly, you will be able to read other projects. It is only by being able to read others' code that you will progress from a beginner to an advanced programmer. This book is the first step in that progression. The first task is to familiarize you with the structure of C++ projects so you will know how to start reading a project. Next, you will be able to identify the main structures in the language, functions, and classes, and feel confident being able to identify the execution flow through the code. You will then become aware of the facilities of the standard library and be able to determine whether you need to write a routine yourself, or use an existing routine in the standard library. Throughout the book, there is a big emphasis on memory and pointers. You will understand memory usage, allocation, and

C# has recently been open-sourced and C# 7 comes with a host of new features for building powerful, cross-platform applications. This book will be your solution to some common programming problems that you come across with C# and will also help you get started with .NET Core 1.1. Through a recipe-based approach, this book will help you overcome common programming challenges and get your applications ready to face the modern world. We start by running you through new features in C# 7, such as tuples, pattern matching, and so on, giving you hands-on experience with them. Moving forward, you will work with generics and the OOP features in C#. You will then move on to more advanced topics, such as reactive extensions, Regex, code analyzers, and asynchronous programming. This book will also cover new, cross-platform .NET Core 1.1 features and teach you how to utilize .NET Core on macOS. Then, we will explore microservices as well as serverless computing and how these benefit modern developers. Finally, you will learn what you can do with Visual Studio 2017 to put mobile application development across multiple platforms within the reach of any developer. What you will learn ?Writing better and less code to achieve the same result as in previous versions of C# ?Working with analyzers in Visual Studio ?Working with files, streams, and serialization ?Writing high-performant code

This book gets you started with essential software development easily and quickly, guiding you through Java's different facets. By adopting this approach, you can bridge the gap between learning and doing immediately. You will learn the new features of Java 9 quickly and experience a simple and powerful approach to software development. You will be able to use the Java runtime tools, understand the Java environment, and create Java programs. We then cover more simple examples to build your foundation before diving to some complex data structure problems that will solidify your Java 9 skills. With a special focus on modularity and HTTP 2.0, this book will guide you to get employed as a top notch Java developer. By the end of the book, you will have a firm foundation to continue your journey towards becoming a professional Java developer. What you will learn ?Compile, package and run a trivial program using a build management tool ?Get to know the principles of test-driven development and dependency management ?Separate the wiring of multiple modules from the application logic into an application using dependency injection ?Benchmark Java execution using Java 9 microbenchmarking ?See the workings of the Spring framework

Cisco Unified Computer System (UCS) is a powerful solution for modern data centers and is responsible for increasing efficiency and reducing costs. This hands-on guide will take you through deployment in Cisco UCS. Using real-world examples of configuring and deploying Cisco UCS components, we'll prepare you for the practical deployments of Cisco UCS data center solutions. If you want to develop and enhance your hands-on skills with Cisco UCS solutions, this book is certainly for you. We start by showing you the Cisco UCS equipment options, then introduce Cisco UCS Emulator so you can learn and practice deploying Cisco UCS components. We'll also introduce you to all the areas of UCS solutions through practical configuration examples. Moving on, you'll explore the Cisco UCS Manager, which is the centralized management interface for Cisco UCS. Once you get to know UCS Manager, you'll dive deeper into configuring LAN, SAN, identity pools, resource pools, and service profiles for the servers. You'll also get hands-on with administration topics including backup, restore, user's roles, and high availability cluster configuration. Finally, you will learn about virtualized networking, third-party integration tools, and testing failure scenarios. By the end of this book, you'll know everything you need to know to rapidly grow Cisco UCS deployments in the real world. What you will learn ?Set up your Lab using Cisco UCS Emulator ?Configure Cisco UCS, LAN, and SAN connectivity ?Create and manage Service profiles ?Perform various tasks using UCS ?Back up and restore Cisco UCS configuration ?Test various Cisco UCS scenarios

Over 150 recipes to help you administer your PostgreSQL database more efficiently About This Book ?Get to grips with the capabilities of PostgreSQL 9.6 to administer your database more efficiently ?Monitor, tune, secure and protect your database ?A step-by-step, recipe-based guide to help you tackle any problem in PostgreSQL administration with ease Who This Book Is For This book is for system administrators, database administrators, data architects, developers, and anyone with an interest in planning for, or running, live production databases. This book is most suited to those who have some technical experience. What You Will Learn ?Implement PostgreSQL features for performance and reliability ?Harness the power of the latest PostgreSQL 9.6 features ?Manage open source PostgreSQL versions 9.5 and 9.6 on various platforms ?Discover advanced technical tips for experienced users ?Explore best practices for planning and designing live databases ?Select and implement robust backup and recovery techniques ?Explore concise and clear guidance on replication and high availability ?See the latest details on Logical Replication and Bi-Directional Replication In Detail PostgreSQL is a powerful opensource database management system; now recognized as the expert's choice for a wide range of applications, it has an enviable reputation for performance and stability. PostgreSQL provides an integrated feature set comprising relational database features, object-relational, text search, Geographical Info Systems, analytical tools for big data and

Gain a deep understanding of the complexity of data structures and algorithms and discover the right way to write more efficient code About This Book ?This book provides complete coverage of reactive and functional data structures ?Based on the latest version of Java 9, this book illustrates the impact of new features on data structures ?Gain exposure to important concepts such as Big-O Notation and Dynamic Programming Who This Book Is For This book is for Java developers who want to learn about data structures and algorithms. Basic knowledge of Java is assumed. What You Will Learn ?Understand the fundamentals of algorithms, data structures, and measurement of complexity ?Find out what general purpose data structures are, including arrays, linked lists, double ended linked lists, and circular lists ?Get a grasp on the basics of abstract data types―stack, queue, and double ended queue ?See how to use recursive functions and immutability while understanding and in terms of recursion ?Handle reactive programming and its related data structures ?Use binary search, sorting, and efficient sorting―quicksort and merge sort ?Work with the important concept of trees and list all nodes of the tree, traversal of tree, search trees, and balanced search trees ?Apply advanced general purpose data structures, priority queue-based sorting, and random access immutable linked lists ?Gain a better understanding of the concept of graphs, directed and undirected graphs, undirected trees, and much more In Detail Java

Practical Computer Vision Projects About This Book ?Updated for OpenCV 3, this book covers new features that will help you unlock the full potential of OpenCV 3 ?Written by a team of 7 experts, each chapter explores a new aspect of OpenCV to help you make amazing computer-vision aware applications ?Project-based approach with each chapter being a complete tutorial, showing you how to apply OpenCV to solve complete problems Who This Book Is For This book is for those who have a basic knowledge of OpenCV and are competent C++ programmers. You need to have an understanding of some of the more theoretical/mathematical concepts, as we move quite quickly throughout the book. What You Will Learn ?Execute basic image processing operations and cartoonify an image ?Build an OpenCV project natively with Raspberry Pi and cross-compile it for Raspberry Pi.text ?Extend the natural feature tracking algorithm to support the tracking of multiple image targets on a video ?Use OpenCV 3's new 3D visualization framework to illustrate the 3D scene geometry ?Create an application for Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) using a support vector machine and Artificial Neural Networks ?Train and predict pattern-recognition algorithms to decide whether an image is a number plate ?Use POSIT for the six degrees of freedom head pose ?Train a face recognition database using deep learning and recognize faces from that database In Detail As we become more capable of handling data in every kind, we are becoming more reliant on visual input and what

"Key Features?Start developing immersive and interactive apps for Microsoft HoloLens ?Explore the Windows Universal Development platform for HoloLens development ?Leverage the full set of HoloLens sensors to create mesmerizing apps"

"About This Book ?Discover the secret to building highly portable apps that run on any machine with Windows Server 2016 anywhere, from laptops, desktop servers, and public or private clouds, without any changes to the code ?Build your company cost-effective, container-based apps that support large-scale, virtual cloud environments ?The most up-to-date help on the market, offering developers expert guidance in building and shipping high-quality apps, and also helping admins create infrastructure that's simple to maintain Who This Book Is For This book is for application developers with a basic programming knowledge of C#, ASP.NET, and PowerShell. IT Administrators or DevOps engineers with basic PowerShell experience can benefit by extending their learning to use PowerShell to manage containers on Windows environments and use additional management tools. What You Will Learn ?Build and deploy ASP.NET web applications as Windows Containers on Windows 10 (Desktop) and Azure using Visual Studio 2015, Docker, and PowerShell ?Build and manage custom images using Windows Server Core base OS image and Docker CLI, publish images to Docker, tag images, author Docker files, and so on ?Create enterprise-scale, production-grade container environments using Redis Cache containers and SQL Server containers with storage volumes, set up custom container networks, continuous integration, and deployment pipelines using VSTS, Azure, and Git ?Deploy a composite container environment using Docker Compose on Windows ?Learn to build applications using Microsoft's thinnest server platform - Nano Servers. Build custom Nano Server images and Nano Containers using Windows PowerShell and "

"Create real-time hybrid applications with the leader of HTML5 frameworks: Ionic Framework About This Book ?Step into the world of amazingly interactive and real-time app development using Ionic 2 ?Leverage the powerful Angular 2 along with Ionic to develop cutting edge apps ?Detailed code examples and explanations will help you get up and running with Ionic quickly and easily Who This Book Is For This book is for JavaScript developers with basic skills. No previous knowledge of Ionic is required for this book. What You Will Learn ?Understanding the world of the mobile hybrid architecture ?Scaffolding and working with Ionic templates ?Transforming a single page app to a multi-page app using Navigation Controller ?Integrating Ionic components, decorators, and services and rapidly developing complex applications ?Theming Ionic apps as well as customizing components using SCSS ?Working with Ionic Native to interface with device features, such as camera, notifications, and battery ?Building a production grade app using Ionic and Uber API to let users book a ride ?Migrating an Ionic 1 app to Ionic 2 or Ionic 3 ?Performing unit testing, end-to-end testing, and device testing on your apps ?Deploying Ionic apps to store and manage their subsequent releases In Detail Ionic makes it incredibly easy to build beautiful and interactive mobile apps using HTML5, SCSS, and Angular. Ionic also makes app development easier, faster, and more fun. This hands-on guide will help you understand the Ionic framework and how you can leverage it to create amazing real-time applications. We begin by covering the essential features of Angular 2, and then dive straight into how Ionic fits in today's world of hybrid app development and give you a better understanding of the mobile hybrid architecture along the way. Further on, you will learn how to work with Ionic decorators, services, and components, which will allow you to build complex apps using the Ionic framework. We will take a look at theming Ionic apps using the built-in SCSS setup. After that, we will explore Ionic Native, and you will learn how to integrate device-specific features, such as notifications, with the Ionic app. To complete our learning, we will be building a Rider app, using Ionic and Uber API, to book a ride. Next, you will learn how to unit test, end-to-end test, monkey test, and execute device testing on AWS Device farm. Then, we will take a look at migrating the existing Ionic 1 apps to Ionic 2 and deploy them to the App Store. The final chapter on Ionic 3 wraps up this book by explaining the new features of Ionic 3 at the time of writing this book. By the end of this book, you will be able to develop, deploy, and manage hybrid mobile applications built with Cordova, Ionic, and Angular. All the examples in this book are valid for both Ionic 2 and Ionic 3. Style and approach A step-by-step, practical approach to learning Ionic using the example of designing an online course app. Each topic is explained sequentially in the process of creating a course. This includes explanations of both basic and advanced features of Ionic. "

"Key Features ?Understand and use Vue's reactivity system, data binding, and computed properties ?Create fluid transitions in your application with Vue's built-in transition system ?Use Vuex and Webpack to build medium-to-large scale SPAs and enhance your development workflow Book De*ion Vue.js is an open source JavaScript library for building modern, interactive web applications. With a rapidly growing community and a strong ecosystem, Vue.js makes developing complex single page applications a breeze. Its component-based approach, intuitive API, blazing fast core, and compact size make Vue.js a great solution to craft your next front-end application. From basic to advanced recipes, this book arms you with practical solutions to common tasks when building an application using Vue. We start off by exploring the fundamentals of Vue.js: its reactivity system, data-binding syntax, and component-based architecture through practical examples. After that, we delve into integrating Webpack and Babel to enhance your development workflow using single file components. Finally, we take an in-depth look at Vuex for state management and Vue Router to route in your single page applications, and integrate a variety of technologies ranging from Node.js to Electron, and Socket.io to Firebase and HorizonDB. This book will provide you with the best practices as determined by the Vue.js community. What you will learn ?Understand the fundamentals of Vue.js through numerous practical examples ?Piece together complex web interfaces using theVue.js component system ?Use Webpack and Babel to enhance your development workflow ?Manage your "

"Accelerate and Automate Build, Deploy, and Management of applications to achieve High Availability. About This Book ?This guide highlights tools that offer development and deployment environments for application services ?Secure and continuously monitor your web application in order to make it highly available ?Use Visual Studio Team Services for Continuous Integration and Continuous Development to expedite your application life cycle management process ?Use Microsoft Azure App Services (Azure Web Apps / Azure Websites), PaaS offering from Microsoft to deploy web application Who This Book Is For This book is for DevOps engineers, system administrators, and developers (.net) who want to implement DevOps for their organization. You do not need to have any knowledge of VSTS or Azure App Services (Azure Web Apps / Azure Websites). What You Will Learn ?Explore the features of PaaS and aPaaS in DevOps ?Use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) to manage versions of code and integrating VSTS with Eclipse IDE ?Understand and configure Continuous Integration in VSTS ?Review Unit Test Execution for Automated Testing ?Create different environments that can be used to continuous deploy a web application ?Configure Roll-based Access to enable secure access for Azure Web Apps ?Create and configure the App Service Environment to enhance security ?Understand the execution of the end-to-end automation process ?Conduct Performance Testing using JMeter ?Discover the different monitoring options available in Microsoft Azure Portal In Detail This book will teach you all about the Visual Studio Team Services and Microsoft Azure PaaS offerings that support Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Continuous Deployment, and execution in the cloud with high availability, disaster recovery, and security. You will first be given a tour of all the concepts and tools that Microsoft Azure has to offer and how these can be used in situations to cultivate the DevOps culture. You'll be taught how to use and manage Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and about the structure of the sample application used throughout the book. You will become familiar with the nitty gritty of Continuous Integration and Continuous Development with VSTS and Microsoft Azure Apps. You will not only learn how to create App service environments, but also how to compare Azure Web Apps and App Service Environments to deploy web applications in a more secure environment. Once you have completed Continuous Integration and created the Platform for application deployment, you will learn more about the final stepping stone in achieving end-to-end automation using approval-based Continuous Delivery and Deployment. You will then learn about Continuous Monitoring, using the monitoring and notification options provided by Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio Team Services. Style and Approach This book is an easy-to-follow guide filled with examples and real-world applications for gaining an in-depth understanding of Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio. This book will help you leverage Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio using real-world examples. "

Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manu*s and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, this illustrated paperback of the epic tale of The Children of Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves, dragons, Dwarves and Orcs, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien. It is a legendary time long before The Lord of the Rings, and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwells in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and within the shadow of the fear of Angband, and the war waged by Morgoth against the Elves, the fates of Túrin and his sister Ni?nor will be tragically entwined. Their brief and passionate lives are dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bears them as the children of Húrin, the man who dared to defy him to his face. Against them Morgoth sends his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire, in an attempt to fulfil the curse of Morgoth, and destroy the children of Húrin. Begun by J.R.R. Tolkien at the end of the First World War, The Children of Húrin became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manu*s, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.

The master of the game is back, with another pulse-pounding adventure featuring the unstoppable Sean Dillon Whilst checking up on the volatile situation in Kosovo the US President's right-hand man Blake Johnson meets Major Harry Miller, a member of the British Cabinet. Miller is there doing his own checks for the British Prime Minister. When both men get involved with a group of Russian soldiers about to commit an atrocity, Miller puts and end to the scuffle with a bullet in the forehead of the ring-leader. But this action has dire consequences not only for Miller and Johnson but their associates too, including Britain's Sean Dillon, and all the way to the top of the British, Russian and United States governments. Death begets death, and revenge leads only to revenge, and before the chain reaction of events is over, many will be dead…

Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day’s work for Liberty Lane: the plucky heroine for fans of Georgette Heyer and Sarah Waters’s Victorian novels. London. Summer 1839. And the temperature is rising as Liberty Lane takes on her strangest case yet. Deranged aristocrat Lord Brinkburn is nearing death and his elder son, Stephen, is expecting to inherit the title. But Lady Brinkburn's sudden announcement that Stephen is illegitimate throws the family into turmoil. Tensions reach boiling point between the two brothers, one of whom stands to gain everything, and they come to blows in public - much to the amusement of London Society. Liberty is engaged privately to get to the truth of the matter, but a macabre murder raises the stakes considerably…added to which she finds her own judgement being undermined by the beguiling Lady Brinkburn. She is only too aware that time is running out - one of the brothers may be next, but which will it be…?