John O'Brien

Those monsters that kept you up at night as a child, the ones that made you pull the covers up to your chin while you stared into the dark corners and saw shadows move. Or pulled the blankets over your head and imagined creatures inching across your bedroom. Well, they're real.The Organization, as it's called, is tasked with keeping the nightmares of myth and legend from invading the public eye. The group must be kept a secret along with the fact that the creatures exist. As civilization expands its boundaries, that undertaking becomes more difficult. A very few are selected to stand on the lines between humankind and the horrors lurking in the dark recesses of the world.Follow Jack Walker and Red Team as they're pulled into the shadows to combat creatures that once kept them awake at night.

Stories of restlessness, disruption, conflagrations, faraday tents, myth-makers, bubble-worlds, local nomads, transformation, resilience and the power of the exponential.The VISIONS 2100 Project was launched at the COP21 conference in Paris in 2015. In the first instalment, Stories from your Future, the 80 contributors told of their hopes and fears for the long term. This took away the practicalities of today and considered what they really wanted. The stories were challenging, amazing and sometimes heart-warming. But 'vision without action is merely a dream' so the hard work of action must accelerate. The 82 contributors to Stories from 2030 work on identifying risks, harnessing finance, developing or deploying solutions and driving government action. They are the people that are driving the critical actions of this decade. In their stories, they address climate justice, collaboration across countries, companies and communities, adaptation of cities and economies, of ecosystems and biodiversity, of health and wellbeing. They tell what you can do to help.Contributors are from business, innovation, finance, journalism, politics, storytelling and the environment. Many are unsung heroes delivering immeasurable progress for world. Some have a bigger stage, such as Connie Hedegaard, Tony Juniper, Sir David King FRS, David Lammy MP, Katharine Hayhoe, Hunter Lovins, Jules Kortenhorst, Achim Steiner, Sharan Burrow and Bill McKibben. Read their stories as they report back from 2030 and decide on the part you will play this decade. It is time to stir . . . . . . . . . . . . Praise for Visions 2100: Stories from Your Future"Good leaders know that you can load the dice by actively rallying people around a vision...there are not enough compelling visions of the happy, sustainable society to which we should be moving." - Financial Times, UK "..powerful stuff, written in a way that is both conversational and jaw-droppingly well-informed. The research effort involved in the book is obvious, and altogether dazzling." - The Fifth Estate, Australia

True tales of horror and holinessFrench priests enter a war zone where captured Westerners are paraded before their captors, tortured, and then beheaded. Their desecrated bodies get dumped by the roadside.Iraq in 2007? The Gaza Strip? Western Afghanistan?No. A place more dangerous: Canada in the 1600s. On rivers and in forests, Iroquois slaughter Huron and Europeans kill for land and power. It's a landscape of blood and horror whose viciousness eclipses the terrorism that shocks us today. Into this iniquitous land go dozens of stouthearted Jesuits, the purest examples of Roman Catholic virtue our Western continent has ever seen.Their purpose? To baptize souls and preach the gospel to savages whose degraded, vicious lives cry out for the light of Christ.Many of these Jesuits were murdered, and today eight of them are saints. Six were priests: Isaac Jogues, Jean de Br beuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Antoine Daniel, Charles Garnier, and No l Chabanel; two were lay assistants: Ren Goupil and Jean Lalande.They are the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, and this is their story.From letters these brave men wrote to their superiors by the light of Indian campfires or while skimming lovely waters in swift canoes, John A. O'Brien has crafted the terrifying, inspiring, and true tale of the dangerous struggle they engaged in for enormous stakes: the salvation of countless souls mired in darkness.O'Brien shows that in the best of times, these good men were surrounded by lasciviousness, pandemonium and demonic rituals. Bad times brought bloody war, upraised tomahawks, the shrieks of victims, and knowledge that their superstitious hosts might turn against them without warning, and bury a tomahawk in their skull.Patient, charitable, and heedless of their own lives, these eight Jesuits spoke constantly of Jesus, baptized thousands, and - even in the shadow of death - brought them the consoling graces of the Sacraments. Between times they cared for souls dying of smallpox, cleaned festering wounds, and - day in and day out - returned love for hatred, blessings for curses, and prayers for abuse.Ultimately, all were murdered. Some died from a sudden blow; the rest were mutilated and tortured until, with forgiveness in their hearts and Jesus' name on their lips, they died in flames their persecutors had set around them.Saints of the American Wilderness tells of these good men who sought nothing less than the conversion of a continent. Their zeal won for them the imperishable crown of martyrdom and sanctified with their holy blood the soil of North America.Truly, they are models for those who would be saints in bloody times like ours.

A social satire dissecting morally bankrupt London society just after World War I, from the author of Brave New World.Like Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay, portrays a world of lost souls madly pursuing both pleasure and meaning. Fake artists, third-rate poets, pompous critics, pseudo-scientists, con-men, bewildered romantics, and cock-eyed futurists all inhabit this world spinning out of control, as wildly comic as it is disturbingly accurate. In a style that ranges from the lyrical to the absurd, and with characters whose identities shift and change as often as their names and appearances, Huxley has here invented a novel that bristles with life and energy, in what TheNew York Times called "a delirium of sense enjoyment "

Hate and division have become a more prevalent part of our society. People can easily identify how violent or aggressive behavior has a negative impact on those involved and even those who witness it. But what about the more subtle but nonetheless negative behaviors of rudeness and incivility? This book is about getting you to think about the less obvious ways that we treat each other poorly and the negative impacts that these behaviors can have on the physical and emotional health of ourselves and our loved ones. Through a mental-health-based approach to awareness using tools like breathing, active listening, and compassion, you'll learn how to better handle any rude situation.

Having recovered from the expedition into Lycan territory, an old foe is again making their appearance. The cartel has raised the stakes, drawing Red Team to the south. Hunting silently in dark alleys and jungle depths, they search for two DEA hostages.While endeavoring to dismantle an empire, they encounter something way over their head. Trapped and fighting for their very lives against something out of this world, they must try to hang on. Rescue is on its way, but will they be able to withstand the savage onslaught in time?

The rescue of hostages stirred up a hornet's nest. Not one to take a defeat, the cartel plans for retaliation. News of an impending attack drifts through the intelligence channels and Red Team is called on to respond.On the other side of the world, the mysterious group taking out special operations teams strikes again. The symbols carved into foreheads they leave behind the only clue of their existence. Deep in the forests, hunters of a different nature prowl the nights. Under the light of the full moon, they run silently through the woods, the blur of ghostly gray shapes but a whisper in the gloom. Death comes calling with the first glimpse of golden eyes and low growls.

Following their emergence into a foreign and hostile land, survivors strive to cross the barren country, many intercepted by the darkness which has thundered out of the gates. Those who make it arrive either at the budding city striving to erect their once great nation or to the protected lands in the north.Those in the valley are struck by the demonic riders which now roam the land. Will they survive this assault into their lands? Will they be able to halt the deadly invasions?Those captured are taken to the gates of hell which have opened up, there to fuel the fires. Lucifer plans on opening the final gate, giving him the power to break through heaven's gate. Alone on Earth while his brothers and sisters fight at their very gates, can Michael do anything to alter the outcome? And, what is it that Elohim has planned?

Humanity is plunging down a slippery slope of morality. Righteous attitudes abound with malice, hatred, and discontent prevailing in the currents riding through humankind. In the spiritual planes, battles between the light and darkness are being fought over souls and for their very existence.Assailed on all sides, heaven is left with no choice but to open the seven seals. The horsemen are summoned and ride forth. Conquest, the drums of war, hunger, and death are felt by all. Humanity is left standing on the brink where the slightest tremor will send it plunging into the abyss.Will humankind survive the tribulation placed upon them? Or will they vanish into oblivion?

Having survived Atlantis, the town of Indian Hill beckons. As Mike and Trip make their way toward Indian Hill and are in search of some much needed answers, Jack is fast on their heels. It is a dangerous journey fraught with all manner of creatures. Zombies, Night Runners and the Alien Whistlers do their best to prevent the trio from ever going home again. The Whistlers are constantly roaming the wilds in search of food, the zombies gathered in large groups, and the night runners own the night. Will they survive the nightmarish beasts only to be shredded by time itself? Trip may have some knowledge that could help but extracting it from him is proving exceedingly difficult. Mike's memories are being tattered and Jack's soul is tortured as he makes one final desperate bid to get back to his family. Time is truly running out, will the group manage to get back to their original worlds before this one folds into nothingness?

A compelling portrait of a group of boys as they navigate the complexities of being both American teenagers and good Muslims This book provides a uniquely personal look at the social worlds of a group of young male friends as they navigate the complexities of growing up Muslim in America. Drawing on three and a half years of intensive fieldwork in and around a large urban mosque, John O'Brien offers a compelling portrait of typical Muslim American teenage boys concerned with typical teenage issues--girlfriends, school, parents, being cool--yet who are also expected to be good, practicing Muslims who don't date before marriage, who avoid vulgar popular culture, and who never miss their prayers. Many Americans unfamiliar with Islam or Muslims see young men like these as potential ISIS recruits. But neither militant Islamism nor Islamophobia is the main concern of these boys, who are focused instead on juggling the competing cultural demands that frame their everyday lives. O'Brien illuminates how they work together to manage their "culturally contested lives" through subtle and innovative strategies--such as listening to profane hip-hop music in acceptably "Islamic" ways, professing individualism to cast their participation in communal religious obligations as more acceptably American, dating young Muslim women in ambiguous ways that intentionally complicate adjudications of Islamic permissibility, and presenting a "low-key Islam" in public in order to project a Muslim identity without drawing unwanted attention. Closely following these boys as they move through their teen years together, Keeping It Halal sheds light on their strategic efforts to manage their day-to-day cultural dilemmas as they devise novel and dynamic modes of Muslim American identity in a new and changing America.

In 2003, the largest recorded solar flare collided with Earth. The sensors measuring the solar storm were destroyed at an X28 rating, but it was determined later to be an X45 class flare. A satellite monitoring solar activity picks up something far surpassing that classification and on a collision course.A solar storm, so strong that X classifications no longer apply, hits the CERN large hadron collider at the moment of particle collision, sending a quantum wave around the world. Souls are ripped from the over 7 billion people that are in its path, many immediately succumbing. Those remaining either feel nothing or are tormented by endless agony. Only a few escape its path.Sam and his teenage daughter Erin return to the surface to find a very different world from the one they left. Stranded, they must adapt quickly or become one of the creatures that now roam the earth.In the Middle East, a small team of soldiers may be the only ones left in a harsh environment overrun by creatures. With very few options and far from any refuge, they set out on a quest for help. Will the reapers hunt them down before they make it to the coast?Commander Lawrence resurfaces after a successful deep dive test of the Navy's new toy, only to find a transformed world. The floating derelicts of his escort vessels don't begin to show the horrors of what he'll find ashore.

This comprehensive and informative text has been restructured and brought fully up to date in order to explain international law as it stands at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The ARES Virus ran rampant throughout the world, leaving very few remaining. There are no sanctuaries in the midst of the infected, where the very air is contaminated. For the few surviving, the slightest misstep can introduce the viral agent into their midst, bringing an end to the last vestige of humankind. However, there's too much at stake to merely hover in the shadows.Remnants of the navy survive the catastrophe, but humankind has never been able to live for long periods upon the world's oceans. Even in current times, with advances in medicine and technology, this still holds true. The survivors must find a secure location, but first they must make safe the constructions of the past. Not only do they have the agent to contend with, but there exists a ticking time bomb. Without power, the cooling ponds of the nuclear plants will fail, breathing a cloud of poison across the skies.Emily finds herself surrounded and alone again. There were people who came to help the first time. Now she has to free herself from the city.Sergeant Brown faces yet another predicament. Does he have the energy to escape again? Will his luck finally run out?

Long before Citizens United and modern debates over corporations as people, such organizations already stood between the public and private as both vehicles for commerce and imaginative constructs based on groups of individuals. In this book, John O'Brien explores how this relationship played out in economics and literature, two fields that gained prominence in the same era. Examining British and American essays, poems, novels, and stories from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, O'Brien pursues the idea of incorporation as a trope discernible in a wide range of texts. Key authors include John Locke, Eliza Haywood, Harriet Martineau, and Edgar Allan Poe, and each chapter is oriented around a type of corporation reflected in their works, such as insurance companies or banks. In exploring issues such as whether sentimental interest is the same as economic interest, these works bear witness to capitalism's effect on history and human labor, desire, and memory. This period's imaginative writing, O'Brien argues, is where the unconscious of that process left its mark. By revealing the intricate ties between literary models and economic concepts, Literature Incorporated shows us how the business corporation has shaped our understanding of our social world and ourselves.