Best Selling Books by Pat Murphy

A chilling postapocalyptic novel of hope, despair, art, and war from the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Falling Woman. A plague wiped out most of the population, but some have been spared. In San Francisco, those who were left—painters, writers, dreamers—began rebuilding the city in their image: a society based on art, community, and peace. But not everyone has the same pacifist ideals. When a mysterious young woman, Jax, appears in San Francisco, she brings disturbing news. There’s a power-hungry man, a general, moving across California, annexing cities and rebuilding his own version of America, willing to destroy anyone who stands in his way. His sights are set on the Golden Gate Bridge, and his army will soon descend, bringing guns, determination, and violence. If Jax and her allies are to survive, they’ll have to defend themselves with nothing more than their creativity—and the soul of a city that refuses to be dominated. Drawing comparisons to the mind-bending work of Gabriel García Márquez, this lush and thought-provoking dystopian novel is an examination of human spirit, for better or worse, and a magical journey into what it means to survive.

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award: Nineteen stories of power and humanity from a science fiction master with otherworldly talent In a small house in the desert, a chimp named Rachel watches Tarzan on TV. Although her body is an ape’s, her mind is something different—a hybrid between those of a chimpanzee and a young girl. When his wife and child died, the doctor who created Rachel implanted his daughter’s brain into that of the chimp. Rachel remembers the jungle; she remembers high school. And when her father passes away, she will embark on the adventure of a lifetime. The Nebula Award–winning novella “Rachel in Love” anchors this haunting collection of stories, along with nominees “Bones” and “Dead Men on TV.” Pat Murphy, whose electric imagination is a testament to how wonderful science fiction can be, writes characters who struggle with alien lovers, vegetative wives, and the burden of seeing into the future. And always, like Rachel, they search for something more: not just what it means to be human, but what it is to be alive.

"Susan Galina and her friend Pat have escaped their normal lives into the elegant, isolated world of the Odyssey, a luxury cruise ship heading from New York to Europe via Bermuda. Pat is working on he rdoctoral thesis in quantum physics, and Susan is recovering from a recent and unhappy divorce."--Jacket.

It?s 1972. Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to be miserable when her family moves. Then she meets a most unusual girl. Sarah prefers to be called ?Fox,? and lives with her author dad in a rundown house in the middle of the woods. The two girls start writing their own stories together, and when one wins first place in a student contest, they find themselves recruited for a summer writing class taught by the equally unusual Verla Volante. The Wild Girls brilliantly explores friendship, the power of story, and how coming of age means finding your own answers.

Winner of the 1987 Nebula Award! Rachel has the mind of a teenage girl, but the body and the innocent heart of a young chimp. Sometimes when she looks at her gnarled brown fingers, they seem alien, wrong, out of place. She remembers having small, pale, delicate hands with painted fingernails. Memories lie upon memories, layers upon layers, like the sedimentary rocks of the desert buttes. Aaron Jacobs, the man Rachel calls father, was a neurologist who discovered how to capture the electrical pattern of a living brain’s thoughts and memories. When his daughter died unexpectedly, the grieving father imposed the electrical pattern of the girl’s brain on a young chimp, creating Rachel, a chimp he recognizes as his daughter. Rachel knows that she is a real girl – but when Aaron Jacobs dies, she must make her way in a world that treats her as nothing but an animal.

Mel relishes running the “Enchanted Jungle,” a roadside attraction in the Everglades filled with live parrots, concrete dinosaurs, and other unexpected wonders. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Two novels of adventure: One set in the hills of the Old West, the other across the Bermuda Triangle In Wild Angel, Sarah sits by the river with her mother, watching her father pan for gold. The calm of the California hills is broken by a rifle shot, the start of an ambush that leaves Sarah''s parents murdered and scalped and forces the three-year-old to flee into the woods. Hungry, cold, and terribly lost, she is rescued by a she-wolf named Wauna, who feeds Sarah as if she were one of her own pups. As Sarah grows up among the wolves, she will tame the wilderness, and her adventures—chronicled by a writer named Max Merriwell—will make her a legend of the frontier. Unlike the hero of Wild Angel, the women of Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell do not expect danger when they set off on their journey. But when Pat and Susan''s cruise ship sails into the Bermuda Triangle, reality begins to twist. As supernatural creatures menace the ship, these two would-be vacationers will have no choice but to hang on for the ride.

A sustainability expert goes beyond renewables, calling on us to combat the climate crisis with a new, low-energy way of life. Concerns over climate change and energy depletion are increasing exponentially. Mainstream solutions still assume that some miracle will cure our climate ills without requiring us to change our energy-intensive lifestyle. But switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources isn''t enough. We need a Plan C. In response to the converging crises of Peak Oil, climate change, and increasing inequity, sustainability expert Pat Murphy offers an inspiring vision of community and curtailment. Where cooperation replaces competition, we can deliberately reduce consumption of consumer goods. Plan C shows how each person''s individual choices can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions, offering specific strategies in the areas of food, transportation, and housing.

An inspired collaboration between an award-winning photographer and The Exploratorium, San Francisco''s renowned, hands-on museum, this book reveals--in stunning color photos of patterns in nature, and fascinating, always accessible scientific observations and explanations--the incredible beauty, symmetry, and diversity of nature''s designs.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023 - SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR Sports Report is as much a 75-year history of sport as a BBC radio institution and Pat Murphy pays handsome tribute to a programme that is still followed affectionately by millions. For nearly 75 years, one BBC programme has been a constant factor in chronicling the way sport is covered, in all its many facets. It has been a window on the sporting world all over the globe – packed tightly into every Saturday evening for the bulk of the year. First broadcast in 1948, Sports Report is the longest-running radio sporting programme in the world and one of the BBC''s hardy perennials. Pat Murphy has been a reporter on the programme since 1981 and here he sifts comprehensively through the experiences of his contemporaries and those who made their mark on Sports Report in earlier decades. He hears from commentators, reporters, producers, presenters and the production teams who regularly achieved the broadcasting miracle of getting a live programme on air, without a script, adapting as the hour of news, reaction and comment unfolded. Drawing on unique access from the BBC Archives Unit, he highlights memorable moments from Sports Report, details the challenges faced in getting live interviews on air from draughty, noisy dressing-room areas and celebrates the feat of just a small production team in the studio who, somehow, get the show up and running every Saturday, with the clock ticking implacably on.

Bailey was heading home in his steam-powered rocket when he found a message pod. It was only by luck that he spotted it, disabled and drifting in an eccentric orbit around a large M-type asteroid. Strange to find a message pod so far from interstellar trade routes, drifting through the Asteroid Belt around Old Sol. Bailey picked up the message pod, and notified its owners that he had it. And that was the beginning of the adventure. The next thing he knew, the legendary Gitana, adventurer extraordinaire, was arriving at Bailey''s asteroid home, and then he was on a starship, heading for the center of the galaxy!

Some things happen whether or not you clap your hands. Enjoy this original short story by author Pat Murphy. In "About Fairies," Jennifer and her co-workers create fairy lands for a toy company, all the while cultivating their own personal fairy worlds... A Tor.Com original. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A collection of some of the best original short fiction published on Tor.com in 2012. Includes stories by Elizabeth Bear, Adam Troy Castro, Paul Cornell, Kathryn Cramer, Brit Mandelo, Pat Murphy, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Rachel Swirsky, and Gene Wolfe. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Embrace of the Rose is the story of a family growing up in rural Ireland following the seismic events of the Great War and the 1916 Dublin uprising. When hostilities ceased victors and the vanquished signed a treaty. The Treaty of Versailles was meant to usher in peace and reconciliation but instead sowed the seeds of its successor, World War II. When Germany invaded Poland the nations of the world returned to the battlefield. Living as part of a remote farming community the Megan family worked their land and had little time left to concern themselves with events occurring far beyond their horizon. As they laboured in their fields the world dragged its way from crisis to chaos without mention or reference to them. Their story is a tale of romance, action and intrigue that begins when a stranger knocks on the door of their family cottage. From then on life as they knew it changed forever. Pitched into a conflict without choice or consent they live through their ordeal and emerged with the scars of encounter and a desire to see justice done.

Examines symmetry and patterns in nature, and theorizes, mathematically and geometrically, about each design pictured