Scott Hale

College students, and merely acquaintances, Peter and Mary had nothing in common with one another. Until two unrelated killers came for them. A beast-like man. And a man-like beast. On the same night. At the same time. In the same place. Bound by their trauma and their will to live at any cost, Peter and Mary have until the next full moon to uncover the identities of their would-be killers. But to do that, they will have to dismantle every lie they told and believed about themselves to save themselves from their far more dangerous and disintegrating pasts.

We are the gods we worship. DEICIDESThe final book in The Bones of the Earth series, which inclues The Bones of the Earth, The Three Heretics, The Blood of Before, The Cults of the Worm, and the Agony of After.

Separated by distance and ideology, Aeson and R'lyeh still share one common goal: to save Vrana from the Void. But the world has changed. King Edgar's new religion, the Disciples of the Deep, has spread throughout the continent, converting people into the living embodiments of its twisted beliefs. While the Holy Order of Penance has forsaken its self-induced isolation, and with an army of thousands, moves to reclaim their flock and make permanent their presence on the mainland. But with every conflict, there are more terrible things hidden within the carnage. The rumblings beneath the Ossuary's sands. The monstrous multitudes pouring out of the Nameless Forest. The vermillion veins lifting out of the land, as if by some unseen puppeteer's hand. Corrupted and Night Terrors who bleed blue light from their eyes while working collectively towards an unknown goal. Even worse are the secret songs rising up out of the Earth's bloodied bowers, from the growing Choir and its two cruel conductors. To rescue Vrana, Aeson and R'lyeh will have to sacrifice everything they were and intended to become. They will have to flay themselves time and time again on the terrors between them, until nothing remains, because in the end: "Flesh... makes fiends of us all."

As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations--even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age--not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.

As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations--even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age--not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.