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The outsourcing revolution is underway as increasing numbers of major corporations transfer their information systems (IS) assets, leases & staff to third-party vendors. In-depth interviews with individuals from 13 different companies who have gone through formal IS outsourcing reveal insights about the intentions, motivations & consequences of this rapidly growing area. Includes step-by-step instructions to negotiate a successful vendor contract.

In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE. Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...

There’s a werewolf at large on the streets of the city – a new, rare female one. So new that in her human form Annie doesn’t even realize that at the last full moon she turned into a predatory wolf, and made her first kill – a man. But she’s been left with strange and deliriously compelling sensations of the night she can’t remember. Whatever she did, she’d like to do it again. Police suspect a mad dog, but when the news reaches Dr. Marco Potenza, he realizes the killer was no dog, but a werewolf. He ought to know, he runs a clinic where, for a fee, werewolves, or as they prefer to be called, “people living with LMD” (Lycanthropic Metamorphic Disorder), can be sedated and confined during their monthly transformation. If he can find her, Potenza is sure that he, and he alone, can save the new werewolf from her predatory side. But Potenza is not the only man anxious to find the new member of the city pack. Jim, Potenza’s former right-hand man/wolf and now a fugitive from the clinic, is also determined to reach Annie first and keep her from Potenza’s clutches. A manic and side-splittingly funny chase for the lupine hunter is on. Peopled with unforgettable characters, brimming with tart and funny observations on big-city and corporate life, and with a corkscrew plot that keeps the pages flying, this hilarious novel speeds along faster than a werewolf after a bad guy. From the Hardcover edition.

Oaths sworn . . . Loyalties tested . . . Forces collide. Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives after the colossal battle against the Empire's warriors on the Burning Plains. Now Eragon finds himself bound by promises he may not be able to keep. He must help rescue his cousin Roran's beloved from King Galbatorix's clutches. But he also owes his loyalty to the Varden, the elves and the dwarves, who are in desperate need of his talents and strength. Eragon in the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?