Most Popular Books by Pat Murphy

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.

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!

Winner of the Nebula Award: “A lovely and literate exploration of the dark moment where myth and science meet” (Samuel R. Delany). When night falls over the Yucatan, the archaeologists lay down their tools. But while her colleagues relax, Elizabeth Butler searches for shadows. A famous scientist with a reputation for eccentricity, she carries a strange secret. Where others see nothing but dirt and bones and fragments of pottery, Elizabeth sees shades of the men and women who walked this ground thousands of years before. She can speak to the past—and the past is beginning to speak back. As Elizabeth communes with ghosts, the daughter she abandoned flies to Mexico hoping for a reunion. She finds a mother embroiled in the supernatural, on a quest for the true reason for the Mayans’ disappearance. To dig up the truth, the archaeologist who talks to the dead must learn a far more difficult skill: speaking to her daughter.

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.

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.

From the fertile Swan Valley to the breathtaking open expanses east of Glacier National Park, this guide to northwestern Montana's Glacier Country is designed to help you find what you're looking for and to introduce you to things you might never have imagined exist in this spectacular, out-of-the-way place. A perfect companion to Falcon Publishing's extensive list of Glacier recreation guides, the Insiders' Guide to Glacier holds Insiders' information on the arts and annual events in the area, as well as where to stay, dine, shop, and take the kids.

A time-travel adventure from the Nebula Award–winning author: “Murphy’s [blend] of fantasy and reality honorably recalls the novels of Margaret Atwood” (Publishers Weekly). For generations, the people of the valley have hunted the bear, killing it to draw on its mystical power. On his first hunt, a young member of the tribe pursues the bear through the wilderness. Moments before their battle begins, the boy plunges into darkness—and awakes in a world beyond his wildest imagination, where nature is corrupted and the boundaries of time mean nothing at all. The researchers who brought him into the future call the Neanderthal boy “Sam.” The portal he fell through is the plaything of a billionaire intent on repopulating the world of its many extinct animals: birds, wolves, and bears. Sam was brought along by accident, but he will find a purpose in these alien surroundings. Guided by one woman who can see the past and another who can look into the future, the boy who hunted the bear will unlock the mysteries of time itself.

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.

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.

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.

This book reflects the personal prejudices I have developed in twenty years of reading the scientific literature. I like monographs; good ones assemble a great deal of information in a logical sequence and in enough detail to enable one to see why current beliefs are held. For this purpose, it is entirely useless to write "as Smith has shown21 ,81,117 •••• " That only means that one must go to the library and turn up Smith's original papers, and one's object in reading a monograph is precisely to avoid that neces sity. One needs to know what Smith did and why he thought his observa tions proved whatever he claimed. Because life is short, it is impossible to deal with several thousand papers in this way, and the author must there fore select a relatively few papers that he regards as crucial. Often, several papers of equal merit might be quoted, and the selection is then arbitrary. I therefore apologize to authorities who do not find their work discussed. Omission does not mean that I thought their work was not valuable; it means only that I preferred to quote twenty references that people might read rather than two thousand that assuredly no one would read. Another strong prejUdice is that the full understanding of present knowledge requires one to know how present views have developed.

The first book dedicated to Japanese Noritake ceramics exported to Europe from 1891 to 1939. Over 580 color photos display these porcelains, from tablewares to vases. Decorative motifs range from Arts & Crafts to Art Deco. The text includes a complete guide to collecting. Values are included in the captions.

LEGO Chain Reactions is packed full of ideas, instructions, and inspiration for 10 LEGO machines that spin, swing, pivot, roll, lift, and drop. Each machine alone is awesome, but put them together and you get incredible chain reactions. Then, combine the machines in any order you like to create your own chain reactions. A team of experts worked with educators and 11-year-olds to invent the machines, then wrote a book that teaches the skills (and some of the physics behind the fun) kids need to create their own amazing chain reaction machines.

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