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Amid the suffocating fog of conformity that descended over America following 9/11, only one voice was able to reach the masses with honest commentary about the war on terror and the profound moral dilemmas involved in invasion, occupation, and resistance. This was the reborn TV science-fiction series, Battlestar Galactica.

Who counts as human? Is killing an intelligent non-human murder or garbage disposal? Can we really know who we are until we know what we are? Battlestar Galactica confronts the reality of the twenty-first-century world system, where any one of us may discover, at any moment, that we are not what we thought we were, that our identity has been fragmented, corrupted, lost, stolen, or deleted.

Battlestar Galactica has been hailed by Time magazine and other critics as the smartest and most thought-provoking show on television. As well as thoughtful analysis of every aspect of the saga, Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy provides abundant background information and looks at every report from the Battlestar Galactica universe: all three TV series, the movie Razor, webisodes, novels, comics, videogames, and fanfic.

What’s the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica. More than just an action-packed “space opera,” each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises.

This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won’t find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar’s scientific worldview superior to Six’s religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one’s losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a “flawed creation”? Should we share the Cylon goal of “transhumanism”? Is it really a big deal that Starbuck’s a woman?

Pushing through some mothballed fur coats in a wardrobe in a disused room of an old London house, Lucy and the other Pevensie children found themselves in a strange and wonderful country, populated by creatures unknown in our world. Philosophy, too, can take us into a magical new place with its own peculiar delights and dangers.

Here twenty-four philosophers and Narnia fans relate some of the things they have witnessed in the weird world of Narnia and the even weirder world of philosophy. Philosophy, it turns out, can be as addictive as the White Witch’s turkish delight, though hopefully not always so frustrating.

Under what conditions should we believe a story that runs counter to all our experience?  Does might make right or are there objective moral rules? Would Albert Einstein have made any sense of the claim that time can flow at different rates in different worlds? If a boy is turned into a dragon, is the dragon still the same person as the boy? Can salvation be found in many religions or only in one? Do animals—even the ones that don’t talk—have souls?

These puzzles and more are bravely attacked in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy.

Contributor Bio: Timothy Smith:
Smith is an award-winning Michigan community journalist and father of a micro-preemie daughter.

Contributor Bio: Barbara Hannah:
Arrived in Zurich at a time when Jung was just beginning his major life's work.

Publisher Marketing: As an age-old practice, meditation has many facets, many systems, and possibly as many distortions as the great religions. With such a wealth of literature on the subject glutting the market -- some of it contradictory -- a clear-cut summary is needed. Alder's book is that summary. The Fifth Dimension introduces meditation's many concepts, and takes the reader, step-by-step through the process, from learning concentration to creative meditation. A solid meditation guide!

Contributor Bio: Vera Stanley Alder:
Alder pursued a career as a successful portrait painter before her life was transformed, during WWII, by a series of extraordinary journeys on the etheric plane accompanied by her spirit guide and teacher, Raphael. Therafter, she devoted her life to writing, speaking, and teaching the visions of humanity's evolution, and the spiritual truths she learned during these journeys. She died in her sleep at age 84.

Book Annotation: In this new book, the third in the trilogy that began with The Magus of Strovolos and Homage to the Sun, Markides continues his fascinating pursuit of the mystical teachings of Daskalos and Kostas, two Greek Cypriot healers and masters of metaphysical knowledge.

Publisher Marketing: In the remarkable trilogy which begins wit The Magus of Strovolos, sociologist Kyriacos C. Markides explores the amazing world of a master healer and spiritual teacher on the Isle of Cyprus.

Contributor Bio: Kyriacos C Markides:
Markides is a professor of sociology at the University of Maine.