On Majipoor — an immense world teeming with alien races and fantastic magical machinery, a certain Valentine wakes up one morning with only a vague and troubled idea of who he is. His dreams suggest he is the ruler of Majipoor — but no one believes him… so far. Views: 45
From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the second instalment in the visionary novel cycle 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'. This is the story of the kindly Queen of Zone Three, who rules a land free of all harshness, and her forced marriage with the soldier-king of Zone Four, which is hierarchic, disciplined, inflexible, dutiful. This apparently difficult marriage, unwanted by both, requires a compromise between impulse and reason, between instinct and logic. Ben Ata learns to accept and then to love the ruler of Zone Three and her alien ways; and she learns to love and to need him. But when the Queen is commanded by the Providers to return to her own realm, she must obey, shattering though it is to leave her husband and child. Ben Ata, in turn, is ordered to marry the savage beauty who rules Zone Five, a land that both unites and reverses the other two Zones. In 'The Marriages …' Doris Lessing uses science-fiction brilliantly to investigate the conflict... Views: 45
"I am Miss Lamberton. Miss Constance Lamberton. I hoped that you would employ me as your companion." So it was that quiet, reserved Constance came to the household of the haughty but beautiful Lady Amelia. She would serve as the lady's chaperone throughout the Season's many festivities, finding herself an unwitting accomplice in Lady Amelia's scheme to trap the very eligible Lord Philip into marriage.But it was not Lady Amelia who won Lord Philip's heart. It was the pale, golden-eyed Constance herself. And very soon, Constance became Lady Philip Cautry. It was not a marriage made in heaven, but surely in time.And then Constance disappeared. Lord Philip didn't know how or why. Nor did he care. All that mattered to him was the safe return of his beloved Constance. Views: 45
Someone wants revenge, and the target is the President's plane. When the mission looks impossible, the world calls upon UNACO.The world's most ingenious international criminal is bent on revenge... Two men with the same name and the same face And six of the most important men in the world aboard the President's plane...Who pushed the button that destroyed Air Force One?Why must everyone be killed?Are they really dead?In this game of deception only UNACO and its daring team can be trusted to join the gamble - but can they win? Views: 45
The sequel to “Ringworld”. Louis Wu, Speaker-to-Animals, and the Hindmost return to Ringworld. Their aim is to prevent cataclysm. In the process, they find themselves learning Ringworld’s incredible secrets. Views: 44
I suppose it’s fair to say that I’m most often identified as the creator of series characters. My two active series, concerning a bookselling burglar named Rhodenbarr and a sober drunk named Scudder, are the ones people are most likely to know about. Readers with a wider range may be familiar as well with a series of seven novels about an insomniac named Tanner. And there have been four novels each about a horny kid named Harrison and an introspective killer named Keller. Hardly anybody, asked to name all of my series, would come up with The Specialists. A fat lot they know. As far as I’m concerned, The Specialists is unequivocally a series novel. As it happens, the series is only one book long. But I figure it’s a series just the same. In the spring of 1966 I moved into a big old house on a small old lot smack in the middle of New Brunswick, New Jersey. I set up an office for myself on the third floor. I had a massive old desk, and the movers couldn’t get the thing up the last flight of stairs. It wouldn’t fit. Most desks of that vintage disassemble, but not this sucker. They had to cut the hind legs off it. I propped up the back of the desk with two short stacks of paperback novels, plopped a typewriter on the top of it, and went to work.Three and a half years later, when we moved to a place in the country, I left the desk right there, and I left the books to keep it from tilting. By that time the desk didn’t owe me a dime, because I’d sat at it and written a whole slew of books. I’d already written the first Tanner book in Racine, Wisconsin, but I wrote the other six in New Brunswick, along with After the First Death and Such Men Are Dangerous and more pseudonymous work than I’ll admit to at the moment. I also wrote The Specialists at that desk. My then agent (and still friend) Henry Morrison suggested I might try to come up with a series, and he liked the idea of a troupe of guys working together, in the tried-and-true manner of A League of Gentlemen. I hadn’t read the book in question, but I got the idea. And I wrote a couple of chapters and an outline and pitched the idea as a series to an editor at (I think) Dell. Whoever she was, and wherever she was, she thought it sounded good, and I went home to my desk to finish the first book. I finished the book without a problem, and Henry liked it, and he sent it over to Dell. While I’d been breezing along on the book, the editor who’d liked the idea had gone somewhere else, and her replacement didn’t like the idea, or the book, either. Henry took it back and sent it to Knox Burger at Gold Medal, who liked it just fine. I signed a contract, and then I got a call from Henry. “Knox was wondering,” he said, “if The Specialists is the first volume of a series. Shall I tell him yes, and that you’re already hard at work on the next installment?” “God, no,” I said. “Huh?” “Tell him it’s complete in and of itself,” I said. “But I thought—” “So did I,” I said, “and it turns out we were both wrong. Because I like the book, and I sort of enjoyed writing it, but when I finished it I realized something. I don’t want to write about those guys again, ever. I liked them as characters, and it’s the kind of book I like to read, but it turns out it’s not the kind of book I like to write.” There was a pause. Then Henry said, “That’s really strange.” “I know it is.” “I was sure it was going to turn out to be a series.” “So was I, and we were right. It’s a series. But it’s a very short series.” “Just one book long.” “Just one book long,” I agreed. “But a series nonetheless.” And that’s what it is. I hope you enjoy it. And who knows? Maybe someday I will want to write about these guys again. . . Views: 44
From Dangerous Passion in Private Chambers to the Pageantry of the Royal Court, They Cherished a Forbidden LoveThe flaxen-haired Chandra watched with love as de Corbney grew to manhood, his hair as black as deep night, his fierce blue eyes shining with the victories of the jousting fields that won him the name heralded throughout England: the Blue Falcon.He is a knight of the King now, his prowess with sword and lance a legend in the fields of war. And in the bold, sweet gaze of the beautiful Lady Chandra, the Falcon meets his equal in will and destiny, and discovers-at last and too late--the simple and fatal truth of love.For around them, a fine and deadly web of cunning, greed and cold deceit is tightening....And between them lies the secret power of their promise ... and the trials they must endure to claim their triumphant and timeless love. Views: 43
"Meet Benny Cooperman, a Jewish private eye from--of all places--Grantham, Ontario,a small, rather dilapidated industrial town not far from Niagara Falls. Business hasn't been too good lately, but it begins to puck up when the attractive wife of a local real estate operator, Chester Yates, hires him to run a check on her husband. Benny quickly closes the case when he discovers the seemingly innocent cause of Mrs. Yates' worries; closes it, that is, until later that evening when he is stunned to hear that Chester Yates has committed suicide. Or is it suicide? Why would a man buy a bicycle two hours before shooting himself in the head? Benny starts to investigate and finds himself unraveling a complex web involving a mysterious psychiatrist, shady eminent citizens, and soon a few more suicides--or murders..........................." Views: 43
Longarm and the Bandit Queen, by Evans, Tabor. 4 1/4 x 7. 1st ptg. Views: 41
January 1 1916: Europe is bleeding to death as the corpses rot from Poland to Gallipoli in the cruel grip of the Great War...Heart of War follows the fate and fortunes of the Rowland family and those people bound up in their lives: the Cate squirearchy, the Strattons who manage the Rowland owned factory, and the humble, multi-talented Gorse family. In this all-consuming conflict, not a single family will remain untouched. With Quentin and Boy Rowland fighting in the trenches and Guy flying the skies above, it would be a miracle for the whole family to come home untouched...During the years 1916 and 1917, the appalling slaughter of the Somme and Passchendaele cuts deep into the hearts of British people as military conscription looms over Britain for the first time in a thousand years. As babies are born, fathers, sons and brothers killed, and women strike out in the work-place, Britain looks to never be the same again. Views: 41
The novel forms part of Pournelle’s Future History known as the CoDominium series. Chronologically, it is second to last in the series, contemporaneous with events in The Mote in God’s Eye . In content it resembles Pournelle’s military fiction series Falkenberg’s Legion, also from the CoDominium series, in that it is the story of a capable military leader undertaking a campaign on a backward planet. In this case the leader is from a planet that has recovered technologically to the steam, steel and coal stage, who visits a planet of city states surrounded by barbarians, fighting with medieval weapons. The story is notable for showing the conflicting motives of the different factions without demonizing any of them, save possibly the merchants’ faction whose motives are to use the forces of the Imperial Space Navy to enhance their own profits. Views: 41
It's the summer term at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches and disaster-prone Mildred Hubble is in deep trouble yet again – and all because of the new girl, Enid Nightshade, who isn't nearly as angelic as she looks. Views: 40
Louisa Penhope’s father had lost considerably at the gaming tables before his death, but his resourceful daughter has found a way to support her family. Even the London gossips can’t discover who the mysterious authoress, Lady Incognita, might be. And Louisa intends to keep it that way—especially when Philip, Viscount Atherton, appears, as romantic as any of her heroes. Regency Romance by Nina Coombs Pykare; originally published by Curley Large Print Views: 40
FALLING IN LOVE WASN'T IN THE JOB DESCRIPTIONLittle Paul van Eysink was a very special case to nurse Hannah Lang, and she had become very fond of his young parents, Corinna and Paul. When they invited her to go back with them to Holland until the baby was completely recovered, Hannah was only too happy to oblige. The problem was Corinna's stubborn uncle, Dr. Valentijn van Bertes. He could find no fault with Hannah's nursing skills, but she was too well aware that she meant little to him as a person. Why should she? After all, he had a very lovely fiancée in Nerissa. Views: 40
