Fifteen-year-old Jason Hewes is a fairly ordinary kid, with fairly ordinary problems. He’s more interested in dinosaurs and fantasy role-playing games than sports, making him a target for local bullies, and his dating successes are best described as sporadic. He’s just another kid struggling to get through life in a small rural town in Montana. Nothing exciting or exceptional ever happens to him. The impact of something heavy crashing into the ground of the Hewes’ family farmhouse shakes the house and Jason’s life. Whatever hits the ground scurries into the barn, followed by a frightened but curious Jason. Jason has just discovered a creature out of legend; a beast which all logic tells him should not—could not—exist. Some kids might run. Others might scream or faint. Instead, Jason befriends the ancient creature, and in doing so learns an entire mythic species is emerging from a centuries-long slumber. Jason isn’t the only one to notice large, leathery-winged beasts taking to the skies of modern Montana. A powerful and long-forgotten evil is watching his newly-revived enemies closely. He’ll do anything to destroy his bitter foes and their new-found allies—allies that now include Jason Hewes. Paul Smith’s debut novel, Jason and the Draconauts is a witty, funny adventure story where an ordinary teen finds himself in an extraordinary situation, and in doing so, finds himself capable of performing the impossible.

The fifth Conference on Ultra-Wideband Short-Pulse Electromagnetics was held in Scotland from 30 May to 2 June 2000 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. It formed part of the EUROEM 2000 International Conference under the chairmanship of David Parkes (DERA, Malvern) and Paul Smith (University of Dundee). It continued the series of international conferences that were held first at the Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York in 1992 and 1994, then in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1996 (as part of AMEREM ’96) and more recently in Tel-Aviv, Israel in 1998 (as part of EUROEM ’98). The purpose of these meetings is to focus on advanced technologies for the generation, radiation and detection of ultra-wideband short pulse signals, taking into account their propagation, scattering from and coupling to targets of interest; to report on developments in supporting mathematical and numerical methods; and to describe current and potential future applications of the technology.

Is anything more terrifying than a dragon? Bat-winged nightmares swooping down from the sky to breathe fire and ice on the wretched humans below; kidnapping princesses, hoarding treasure, swallowing cows. Or not. In Dragonesque , the latest fantastic anthology from Zombies Need Brains, you finally get to experience all that awfulness from the dragon's point of view. And what if it isn't necessarily that awful? What if the princess wants to be kidnapped, or the dragon is tired of being made fun of week after week at the Renaissance Faire? Or maybe a dragonet just really, really wants to be a unicorn? Perhaps they're happiest collecting art, or enjoy being tattooed? Or maybe some dragons like putting out fires more than starting them...unless they absolutely have to? Dragonesque features sixteen original stories from such fiery authors as Esther M. Friesner, Madeline Dau, Niall Spain, Russell Hugh McConnell, Grace Eliza, Mike Jack Stoumbos, Paul D. Smith, Jean Marie Ward, Gerald Brandt, Gini Koch & Bebe Bayliss, Larry Ivkovich, Barbara Campbell, Journey Sloane, Em McDermott, Auston Habershaw, and David B. Coe. See the world as the dragons see it, from the delightfully delicious to the tastefully transactional. Welcome to Dragonesque .