The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother. Views: 455
August Derleth created in Solar Pons a detective whose genius cannot be matched, perhaps not even by Sherlock Holmes himself! Now the pen has passed into the hand of the noted British author Basil Copper. Here are six superbly crafted tales of suspense in the best tradition of Solar Pons. Come to Number 7B Praed Street, where the master awaits.Contents "The Adventure of the Perplexed Photographer" "The Adventure of the Sealed Spire" "The Adventure of the Six Gold Doubloons" "The Adventure of the Ipi Idol" "The Adventure of Buffington Old Grange" "The Adventure of the Hammer of Hate" Views: 447
Five inter-connected stories set in a mythical past focus on the experiences of the slave Gorgik and deal with aspects of the beginning of civilization.
Contents:
"The Tale of Gorgik"
"The Tale of Old Venn"
"The Tale of Small Sarg"
"The Tale of Potters and Dragons"
"The Tale of Dragons and Dreamers." Views: 438
In rural Illinois, two tenant farmers share much, finally too much, until jealously leads to murder and suicide. A tenuous friendship between lonely teenagers - the narrator, whose mother has died young, and Cletus Smith, the troubled witness to his parent’s misery - is shattered. After the murder and upheavals that follow, the boys never speak again. Fifty years on, the narrator attempts a reconstruction of those devastating events and the atonement of a lifetime’s regret.
This Orange Inheritance Edition of So Long, See You Tomorrow is published in association with the Orange Prize for Fiction. Books shape our lives and transform the way we see ourselves and each other. The best books are timeless and continue to be relevant generation after generation. Vintage Classics asked the winners of the Orange Prize for Fiction which books they would pass onto the next generation and why. Ann Patchett chose So Long, See You Tomorrow.
"The novel comes from a place so deep inside the human soul that I cannot imagine a time its wisdom would not feel fresh and applicable."--Ann Patchett Views: 433
Ordered by King Trent to determine the source of Xanth's magic, Bink and his companions were harried by an unseen enemy determined to thwart them. When even their protector turned against them, Bink still managed to reach his goal and carry out the King's orders...but the king did not expect Bink's next act--to destroy utterly the magic of Xanth! Views: 424
Since 1978, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has produced about two dozen novels and numerous short stories detailing the life of a character first introduced to the reading world as Le Comte de Saint‑Germain. We first meet him in Paris during the reign of Louis XV when he is, apparently, a wealthy, worldly, charismatic aristocrat, envied and desired by many but fully known to none. In fact, he is a vampire, born in the Carpathian Mountains in 2119 BCE, turned in his late thirties in 2080 BCE, and destined to roam the world forever, watching and participating in history and, through the author, giving us an amazing perspective on the time tapestry of human civilization. In Blood Games, beginning during the reign of Nero, Saint‑Germain finds his way through the political turmoil of the time and becomes the lover of the incomparable Atta Olivia Clemens.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Views: 393
The first volume in Hunter S. Thompson’s bestselling Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in his signature style.
Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers” is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.
Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed “gonzo”—“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful ‘60s and ‘70s. Views: 388
Deep within Russia, would-renowned scientist Pyotor Shapirov lies in a coma. Locked within his brain rests the key to the greatest scientific advance in the world's history. Only one scientist can hope to locate this secret—Dr. Albert Jonas Morrison, an American. Morrison's mission: to be miniaturized to molecular size along with a team of four Soviet scientists, travel in a specially designed submarine to the dying Shapirov's brain, and tap the secrets held there. Morrison and his companions have only twelve hours to accomplish their task—in the face of unexpected terrors and with their own lives hanging precariously in the balance. With his phenomenal two-million-copy bestseller Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov took the world on its first amazing journey into the human body. Now, twenty year later, after deeper exploration into one of the most fascinating areas of science, Dr. Asimov delivers an all-new thriller that transports you to the far reaches of inner space. Electrifying, astonishing, and remarkably realistic, this new novel is certain to become a science fiction classic. Views: 383
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration—"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next.
The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches—stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition—with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space." Views: 382
The Game's Afoot . . .Whatever your fancy in the polished old world of deductive, detective cunning—a corpse/figure dragging itself from the edge of a misty marsh, burning and writhing with bluish fire; a bizarre murder staged on a play's opening night; a mysterious scoundrel's attempt to steal a set of rare idols; or a horrified heiress and her terrifying legacy of death—Solar Pons will quickly capture your curiosity and leave you hungering for more.Soon you will find yourself a regular visitor at No. 7B Praed Street, eagerly peering into the mind of the contemplative Pons. And as you faithfully follow the master about charming, chilling fin-de-siècle London, discreetly clutching and un-clutching your hands between counterplots and climaxes, you will know that you have found a lifelong companion—the inquisitive and incomparable Solar Pons, heir to the genius that was once uniquely Sherlock Holmes'.Contents"The Adventure of the Crawling Horror""The Adventure of the Anguished Actor""The Adventure of the Ignored Idols""The Adventure of the Horrified Heiress" Views: 380
Bruce Gold, a middle-aged, Jewish professor of English literature, finds himself on the brink of a golden career in politics -- and not a moment too soon, as Gold yearns for an opportunity to transform a less-than-picture-perfect life: His children think little of him, his intimidating father endlessly bullies him, and his wife is so oblivious that she doesn't even notice he's left her. As funny as it is sad, Good as Gold is a story of children grown up, parents grown old, and friends and lovers grown apart -- a story that is inimitably Heller. Views: 376
When Mike Gabrieli's neer'do'well brother Tom disappears shortly after discovering a fabulously valuable Aztec relic, Mike rightly suspects that this time the family's black sheep has got himself into the kind of trouble from which even Mike won't be able to extricate him. But still, Tom is-or was-his brother, and Mike must do what he can. For Mike this is the beginning of an adventure beyond imagining, an adventure that will put him in constant peril of his life as he shuttles. between past, present and future of an alternate reality, fighting beside the descendants of the Incas as they battle to erase Pizarro's bloody footprints from the New World, and secure the reality of their own existence. But is the "alternate reality" really an alternate, or is Mike actually struggling to erase the very future that gave him birth? The answer lies in the source of all his troubles and his only hope of survival. Views: 358
The discovery of another habitable world might spell salvation to the three (Food Bloc, Fuel Bloc & People Bloc) bitterly competing power blocs of the war torn & resource-starved 21st century. But when their representatives arrive on Jem, with its three intelligent species, they discover instead the perfect situation into which to export their rivalries. Subtitled, with savage irony, 'The Making of a Utopia', Jem is one of Frederik Pohl's most powerful novels. Views: 353
From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the first instalment in the visionary novel cycle ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’.
The story of the final days of our planet is told through the reports of Johor, an emissary sent from Canopus. Earth, now named Shikasta (the Stricken) by the kindly, paternalistic Canopeans who colonised it many centuries ago, is under the influence of the evil empire of Puttiora. War, famine, disease and environmental disasters ravage the planet. To Johor, mankind is a ‘totally crazed species’, racing towards annihilation: his orders to save humanity set him what seems to be an impossible task.
Blending myth, fable and allegory, Doris Lessing’s astonishing visionary creation both reflects and redefines the history of our own world from its earliest beginnings to an inevitable, tragic self-destruction. Views: 347
