Irina Kusak’s recently divorced husband, Jiri Hrádek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the west, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hrádek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father, a world-famous author living in secrecy in the west, but when she refuses to lead Hrádek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target.As Hrádek closes in and Irina’s life hangs in the balance, David Mennery is drawn into a desperate fight to protect her and finds himself once more falling deeply in love…About the AuthorHelen MacInnes (1907-1985) was the Scottish-born American author of 21 spy novels. Dubbed "the queen of spy writers", her books have sold more than 25 million copies in the United States alone and have been translated into over 22 languages. Several of her books have been adapted into films, such as Above Suspicion (1943), with Joan Crawford, and The Salzburg Connection (1972). Views: 35
Over Prairie Trails recalls Grove’s solitary and often perilous journeys by horse and wagon over 30-odd miles of Manitoba countryside that separated him and his wife during a year of hardship. Grove brings before the reader’s eye a landscape by turns magical and menacing, whose ever-changing moods demand of the traveller the utmost courage, resourcefulness, and endurance. Published in 1922, this memoir assured Frederick Philip Grove a place among the pioneers of Canadian realism. From the Paperback edition. Views: 35
Robbed of lands and heritage by the rapacious Vulkings, young Airar Alvarson had only his limited gift for sorcery to aid him against a world of savage intrigues. Then he met a mysterious sorcerer and was given a strange iron ring -- a ring that led him into a futile conspiracy and soon had him fleeing for his life.Driven by enchantments and destiny, he found himself leading a band of warriors against the mighty empire of the Vulkings. With him was a warrior maid who mocked him while she sought to serve by fair means or foul. Then he met the Imperial Princess who preached the peace of the Well but it soon became apparent she would bring him only turmoil and strife!Review"The Well Of The Unicorn is one of the finest novels in the field of heroic fantasy."-- L. Sprague de Camp From the Inside FlapRobbed of lands and heritage by the rapacious Vulkings, young Airar Alvarson had only his limited gift for sorcery to aid him against a world of savage intrigues. Then he met a mysterious sorcerer and was given a strange iron ring -- a ring that led him into a futile conspiracy and soon had him fleeing for his life.Driven by enchantments and destiny, he found himself leading a band of warriors against the mighty empire of the Vulkings. With him was a warrior maid who mocked him while she sought to serve by fair means or foul. Then he met the Imperial Princess who preached the peace of the Well but it soon became apparent she would bring him only turmoil and strife! Views: 35
Betsy and the Great World: Betsy Ray is twenty-one and on the adventure of a lifetime: a solo tour of Europe! There's even a handsome Italian, Marco, who's going overboard for her—if only she could stop thinking about her ex-sweetheart Joe Willard.Betsy's Wedding: When Betsy's boat docks in New York, Joe is waiting there . . . with a ring! But she's going to learn that marriage isn't all candlelight, roses, and kisses. There's also cooking, ironing, cleaning, and budgeting— and will she be able to find time to forge a writing career? Views: 35
Something Short and Sweet, H. E. Bates's sixth collection first published in 1937, demonstrates his mastery of character and form. Richard Church, writing in John O'London's Weekly, stated that this collection confirmed his belief that Bates "is an immortal...Here is a creative artist whose technique in the art of the short story is comparable with that of the great masters in this form." The title story explores the intricacies of the relationship between a forty-year-old evangelist and his twenty-year-old assistant. 'Cloudburst' and 'Spring Snow' are vignettes of human struggle in a rural context, similar to much of Bates's earlier work. 'Finger Wet, Finger Dry' and 'The Sow and Silas' continue Bates's success with the antics of Uncle Silas. The Morning Post commented that "each story stands out individual and distinct...In each the theme has been worked over, walked round, sifted, considered, a stance as viewpoint selected, the ultimate... Views: 35
The CLUSTER series of SF adventures is set in a future focused on colonization of distant planets. Sphere Sol is about 100 light years in diameter, centered on the Earth’s sun. Surrounding this sphere are other, similar spheres each centered on another star such as Polaris or Canopus. Colonization is accomplished by: instantaneous teleportation, called matter transmission or mattermission (very expensive); “freezer” ships in which colonists are sent in cryonic preservation at very high speeds (much decay and average 50% loss of colonists occurs during the voyages) and lifeships, slower, safer multigenerational vessels with voyages that run to centuries (during which the travelers regress in technical sophistication.) Because of the difficulty of colonization and the smaller population bases, all spheres suffer spherical regression — the greater the distance from source star to colony, the lower the level of technology that survives. Social organizations regress backward to historical periods of the home planet’s past. Outworld, Sphere Sol’s farthest colony, is populated by paleolithic tribes who hunt with flint spears and make fire. Colonists know about the interstellar empire and the home worlds mattermit government and security personnel to all colony worlds. Every living thing has a Kirlian aura that can be measured. Through transfer, a refinement of mattermission technology, the mind and personality of individuals with high aura can be sent to animate a body physically distant but a hosted aura fades at the rate of about 1 unit per Earth day and higher-Kirlian individuals last longer and thus have more freedom of movement.
As CLUSTER opens, the alien envoy Pnotl of Sphere Knyfh seeks help from Sphere Sol in a shared galactic-level crisis: Galaxy Andromeda has discovered the secret of energy transfer and intends to use it to steal the basic energy of the Milky Way Galaxy. Knyfh offers the secret of aura transfer on the understanding that Sphere Sol will spread the technology to help create a galactic coalition to find and defeat agents of Andromeda. Sol’s highest-Kirlian individual is Flint, a green-skinned native of Outworld, who has a Kirlian aura of 200, an eidetic memory (useful for memorizing the complex equations of Kirlian transfer that he will need to communicate to other spheres). He has extraordinary intelligence, and is highly adaptable. His mission is complicated, however, by the fact that he is pursued everywhere by a very high Kirlian female Andromedan agent and, somehow, the Andromedans are able to detect and trace Kirlian transfers. Views: 35
Christmas time in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there’s murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected – and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn returns unexpectedly from a trip to Australia, it is to find his beloved wife in the thick of an intriguing mystery… Views: 35
The novel centers on a ten-year interstellar voyage aboard the spaceship Leonora Christine, and it opens with members of the crew preparing for their departure from earth. It is an especially moving departure because they know that while they are aboard the ship and traveling close to the speed of light, time will be passing much more quickly back home. As a result, by the time they return everyone they know will have long since died. From practically the very first page, therefore, Tau Zero sets the scientific realities of space travel in dramatic tension with the no-less-real emotional and psychological states of the travelers. This is a dynamic Anderson explores with great success over the course of the novel as fifty crewmembers settle in for the long journey together. They are a highly-trained team of scientists and researchers, but they are also a community of individuals, each trying to make a life for him or herself in space.
Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1971. Views: 35
When Linda boarded the train that would take her to London and freedom, she was penniless and alone. A polite offer of help from the stranger in the seat opposite was the last thing she expected.Life with Rowley Frobisher was everything she had ever dreamed of: fast, sophisticated—and expensive. In a few months the rough country girl had changed beyond recognition.But then Rowley has a fatal heart attack—and once again Linda must take desperate action to survive. Views: 35
Tarl Cabot is the intrepid tarnsman of the planet Gor, a harsh society with a rigid caste system that enacts the most brutal form of Social Darwinism. In this volume, Tarl must search for the truth behind the disappearance of his beautiful wife, Talena. Have the ruthless Priest-Kings destroyed her? Tarl vows to find the answer for himself, journeying to the mountain stronghold of the kings, knowing full well that no one who has dared approach the Priest-Kings has ever returned alive . . . Read the entire saga of this brilliantly imagined world where men are masters and women live to serve their every desire. Views: 35
Sep 1809 - 1 Jan 1813In 1809 Roger Brook went to Lisbon and became involved in the Peninsular War. While there he first met Lady Mary Ware, with unexpected results for both of them.Later, events carried him to Copenhagen, St. Petersburg and Moscow, which had just been occupied by Napoleon. In Russia he again met Lady Mary and disguised her as his soldier servant. The description of their participation in Napoleon's terrible Retreat from Moscow in 1812 has rarely, if ever, been equalled. Views: 35
In this second part of John Galworthy's trilogy of love, power, money and family feuding, a new generation has arrived to divide the Forsyte clan with society scandals and conflicting passions Views: 35
