Bøger af Matt Stephens

Extensive consultation with an authenticity advocate, with whom we were connected by Inclusive Minds - the key organisation that introduces book creators to advocates with similar life experiences to those in the story. Key themes of disability, bullying, friendship and being true to yourself. Billy has cerebral palsy and he's had enough of his classmates treating him differently. But then Mia arrives and announces a school visit from her uncle: a famous footballer. Maybe being a star footballer in front of his classmates will help Billy prove that he can be just like them. But when even his hero turns out to be just as bad as the school bullies, Billy realises that perhaps he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone but himself.

"Dear Chloe, My Supplies Are Gone! The water, the matches, dry clothes... The Food! It's all gone! I figure it's three hundred miles from the last place someone saw me or my car enough to identify me... And it's a good bet nobody even knows I'm in danger.Oh god, Chloe; I'm going to die up here." *** No tools. No food. No help. Sam was on his way Far North to spend the winter with a loved one; but disaster on his trip leaves him miles from civilization. Forced to fend for himself in the deep wilderness, his only way out is to complete the journey he started.He has nothing but the clothes on his back. With miles of rugged terrain ahead, lethal cold, and a hostile predator stalking his every step, Sam will be tested in ways he's never had to face before.His only companion on this long journey is his journal, in which he keeps the record of his ordeal, and pours his heart out to the woman he loves; and must find his way to, if he is to have any hope of survival. From the Author of 'The Lostkind' and 'The Ark-Hive', "Dear Chloe," is an exciting story of survival and adventure.

Four Short Stories of the Speculative and Wild... Mister Fix-It: The Trial of the Century begins without anyone knowing it, as a man is accused of stealing and dealing 'expert skills', like they were any other Drug. Nobody believes it;s possible... at first. The Welcome Back Diner: For his entire life, Tobias has had a favorite Diner. But it only appears when he needs it. With and impossible cast of characters and food that can change lives; it's good to know there's one place where he'll always be Welcome Back. Lighthouse: In a world where ships sail the sky instead of the ocean, it is the Sacred Duty of the Lighthouse Keepers to keep them all in the air as they chart their course across the treacherous mountains. But that doesn't mean there's no room for adventure, or a little business on the side... Read To Me: A young boy who cannot read, and a young girl who cannot understand fingerpaints. but together, connected by something they don't understand, they show each other a wonderful, creative world. But when tragedy strikes, this lifelong partnership is put to the ultimate test... What The Readers Are Saying: "Such an imaginative tale." "Skillfully written" "I love this author."

Dear Sir, In response to your subpoena, I have (reluctantly) provided my personal journal. I never expected or wanted to see it again anyway, so you may keep it as evidence for as long as you wish. You will, no doubt, find some sections unbelievable. Waking nightmares, abductions, missing time, strange lights in the sky... These things appear in plenty of stories like mine. I never believed those stories either, until it happened to me. My notes and annotations are included. If you need more; I will come to testify in person; but this should be sufficient to tell my part in the story. What's left of my family need me here. The story I have written in these pages is true. The account will detail the extent of my involvement, the moment that my friends and I decided to investigate the earliest stages of the attack, the results of our investigations; and the disaster that followed, as well as details on how the last of us survived. In the small town of Curtis Creek, everyone knows each other. They also know which topics are safe, and which things never to speak about. One night, and with almost no warning, mysterious things start happening, easy to ignore or explain away, until it becomes too late... By Day One, the bizarre was happening. By Day Nine, there was no escape. By Day Twelve, there was no going back. In the tradition of X-Files and Dark Skies, comes a spooky new sci-fi thriller, by Matt Stephens; author of The Lostkind and the Echelon Series.

A seemingly chance meeting with a beautiful urban ninja named Yasi sends Vincent McCall down the rabbit hole and into a world he could never dream existed. Far underground, beneath New York, exists a Secret City. It is a place of wonder, beauty and danger. No-one who enters uninvited leaves alive. And Vincent has found himself drawn unwittingly into this place of wonder. It is an invisible community where all those that the world had cast off, ignored or forgotten can thrive and become something far grander. They are the Lostkind. And they need Vincent McCall's help. Vincent finds himself torn between two worlds, in love with both, but no longer really part of either. Very quickly, Vincent unwittingly becomes the central figure in a desperate, unnoticed battle. He finds himself racing to win a war against a powerful and implacable foe. Failure will have devastating consequences for the people and cities he loves... The Lostkind is an adventure by Matt Stephens, that will change your view of the world around you; and leave you to wonder what else might be happening that you simply don't notice... Because every city has Lostkind.

Rigor Without the Mortis Many people (especially agilists) associate a high-ceremony software development process with a dead project (i.e., rigor mortis), and this association is not entirely incorrect. Our approach aims to put back the rigor while le- ing out the mortis-that is, we can do rigorous analysis and design without killing the project with an excessively high-ceremony approach. The goal of this book is to describe that process in full detail. Agility in theory is about moving ahead at speed, making lots of tiny course corrections as you go. The theory (and it's a good one) is that if you spend months or years producing dry specifications at the start of the project and then "e;set them in concrete,"e; this doesn't necessarily (and in practice, doesn't) lead to a product that meets the c- tomer's requirements, delivered on time and with an acceptably low defect count. It's likely that the requirements will change over time, so we need to be prepared for that, and it's likely that a lot of the original requirements will turn out to be wrong or new requirements will be discovered after the requi- ments "e;concrete"e; has set. Agile methods answer this problem in a number of different ways, but the overriding principle is to break things down into smaller chunks and not to go setting anything in concrete (least of all your requirements specs).

How to really engage your employees and improve performance.

Matt's Preface This book illustrates how to get from use cases to working, maintainable source code in as few steps as possible . . . but without cutting the essential corners. It's also about how to minimize the amount of rework you need to do once you've gotten to source code. Learning by Doing In this book we've tried to capture the essential qualities of Doug's ICONIX training courses- that is, the "e;magic qualities"e; of learning by doing. The ICONIX Jumpstart courses are very practical and hands-on; they draw students in by encouraging them to learn new skills by practicing, often on the real projects that they'll be returning to once the course is finished. This idea of learning by doing has long been recognized as an optimal form of education. Even at the start of the twentieth century, John Dewey, an American psychologist and edu- tional reformer, recognized that learning from experience gives rise to increasing productivity. The key is to engage the brain with practical tasks rather than to fall into the all-too-familiar "e;study trap"e; of rote learning. Memorizing long lists of names or API functions might help someone score highly on a test, but it isn't the same as understanding a subject in depth. For one thing, people tend not to retain information for very long if they've simply memorized it.

The groundbreaking book Design Driven Testing brings sanity back to the software development process by flipping around the concept of Test Driven Development (TDD)-restoring the concept of using testing to verify a design instead of pretending that unit tests are a replacement for design.

"e;Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP"e; is meant to provide an independent look at Extreme Programming. It is meant to cut through the marketing hype of Extreme Programming and expose a number of weaknesses with this approach to software development. It tries to draw a distinction between true "e;agility"e; in a software process and "e;fragility"e; inherent in techniques such as oral documentation. Extreme Programming (XP) is a consummate mix of good goals, some good advice, and lots of bad advice. The goals and the good advice draw people in; the bad advice can potentially cause projects to fail. The XPers' theory is that when applied together, this mixture of rules will somehow magically be safe. XP therefore represents a high-risk process, wrapped in a "e;feel-good"e; methodology. The marketing, hype, and earnest self-assurance of its authors will convince many project leaders to try out XP on their next project. In "e;Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP"e; into a more viable process, Rosenberg and Stephens are not attempting to define a new methodology, as there are plenty of those in the World already. Instead, they will be examining XP in the context of existing methodologies and processes such as RUP, ICONIX, Spiral, RAD, DSDM, etc - and showing how XP goals can be achieved using these existing processes (with a slight emphasis on RUP and ICONIX), using software wisdom that has been tried and proven to work again and again.