Amazon.com ReviewWitness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced. Casting aside his love of elaborate character and town histories and penchant for delayed gratification, King yanks readers off their feet within the first few pages; dragging them into the fray and offering no chance catch their breath until the very last page. In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution. Fans that have followed King from the beginning will recognize and appreciate Cell as a departure--King's writing has not been so pure of heart and free of hang-ups in years (wrapping up his phenomenal Dark Tower series and receiving a medal from the National Book Foundation doesn't hurt either). "Retirement" clearly suits King, and lucky for us, having nothing left to prove frees him up to write frenzied, juiced-up horror-thrillers like Cell. --Daphne DurhamFrom Publishers WeeklyWhat if a pulse sent out through cell phones turned every person using one of them into a zombie-like killing machine? That's what happens on page six of King's latest, a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization—or at what may turn into a new, extreme, telepathically enforced fascism. Those who are not on a call at the time of the pulse (and who don't reach for their phones to find out what is going on) remain "normies." One such is Clayton Riddell, an illustrator from Kent Pond, Maine, who has just sold some work in Boston when the pulse hits. Clay's single-minded attempt to get back to Maine, where his estranged wife, Sharon, and young son, Johnny-Gee, may or may not have been turned into "phoners" (as those who have had their brains wiped by the pulse come to be called) comprises the rest of the plot. King's imagining of what is more or less post-Armageddon Boston is rich, and the sociological asides made by his characters along the way—Clay travels at first with two other refugees—are jaunty and witty. The novel's three long set pieces are all pretty gory, but not gratuitously so, and the book holds together in signature King style. Fans will be satisfied and will look forward to the next King release, Lisey's Story, slated for October. (Jan. 24) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Views: 46
Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he’s recovering from: Maas-Neotek’s chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he’s perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties — some of whom aren’t remotely human. Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he’s only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer .
Niminated for Locus and BSFA Awards in 1986. Nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards in 1987. Views: 46
Sara Grant chose the wrong time to lieInsisting that she knew all about horses and hiking, she badgered Cody Wolf into taking her on his search for the downed Cessna and Sara's missing nephew. Unfortunately, she then had to prove she could be just as tough as her sure-footed half-Indian companion.The days were endless, the frigid Rocky Mountain nights defied sleep, but Sara couldn't abandon the search. Cody's mysterious dreams spurred her on; she could only hope her nephew was still alive. Yet Sara had only begun to learn what Mother Nature could do to a man and a woman alone in the wilderness. Views: 45
Publisher's WeeklyDevotees of the late Rex Stout's bestsellers will be pleasantly surprised by Goldsborough's first story about Nero Wolfe. Related by the elephantine genius's faithful assistant Archie Goodwin, this mystery starts when Maria Radovich asks him to intercede for her with Wolfe. She's worried over threats against her great-uncle Milan Stevens, controversial new director of the New York Symphony. Since Stevens, ne Mikos Stefanovic, had saved the detective's life years earlier in Montenegro, Wolfe agrees to take the case. Before he can act, however, someone stabs the musician fatally in his apartment. The police arrest Jerry Milner, a violinist with the orchestra and Maria's fiance, but Wolfe demolishes the evidence against him. While his boss remains sedentary, Archie obeys orders to go looking for information about other suspects: the victims's sponsor who regrets his choice of director; musicians whom the maestro had publicly insulted; the glamorous society woman who had been his frequent companion. As always, Wolfe solves the puzzle without moving from the famous brownstone on 37th St. Views: 44
Book DescriptionThey're freelance pilots and full-time troubleshooters for democracy. They're men like Steven Cowan, Mike Thorne, and Turk Madden who face danger every day of their lives and fight like tigers for what they believe in. With the world on the brink of war, they're on the front lines, wherever there's action. From the dangerous South Seas islands, to steaming South American jungles, to the other islands of Japan, you'll find these man ready to fight the enemies of freedom—in a battle to the death. Views: 44
A warm evening in Oxrun Station - a lovely time for a picnic. If only they hadn't chosen to visit the orchard... It was the last lovely time. The first death seems to be an accident. But there's no doubt about the suicide, or the mutilation murder, or the horror that seizes the movie theater, or the terror that inhabits the hospital... All are the fruits of that night in the orchard. Views: 44
A classic memoir by the author of the New York Times bestseller Somewhere Towards the End.When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi's quirks, which at first appeared so charming and sweet, soon revealed a darker side—he was a gambler, a drinker, and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. After a Funeral explores the years of their friendship; a period that culminated in Didi's suicide (in Athill's apartment). This bravura work "gives a new dimension to honesty, a new comprehension to love" (Vogue). Views: 44
A genetic experiment gone wrong produces a tiny pink "worm" that matures into a beautiful woman whose superhuman powers propel her toward a unique destiny Views: 43
From Publishers WeeklyMoore, praised for her short story collection Self-Help, makes her debut as a novelist with this story about what may be the disintegration of the thoroughly modern protagonist's personality. PW called Anagrams "original and highly inventive." Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalWho exactly is Benna, the 33-year-old poetry teacher (or singer? or aerobics instructor?) we meet in this inventive novel? It is hard to say. She hidesfrom us, from herselfbehind imaginary identities, relationships, and scenarios in which elements of character and action are transposed like the letters of those anagrams she scribbles on napkins. Her fantasies are offered as straight narrative along with a stream of wisecracks ("All the world's a stage we're going through"). For deep down, Benna is terrified of the contingencies of reality ("One gust of wind and Santa became Satan"), longs for the very continuity she mocks. This won't be everyone's cup of tea. Still, the virtuosity of Moore's widely praised Self-Help ( LJ 3/15/85) is once again evident, and when she fleetingly reveals the vulnerability beneath the sleight of hand, it is very affecting. Elise Chase, Forbes Lib., Northampton, Mass.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 43
Liner Notes “They sailed out of Lisbon harbor with the flags snapping and the brass culverins gleaming under a high white sun, priests proclaiming in sonorous Latin the blessing of the Pope, soldiers in armor jammed on the castles fore and aft, and sailors spiderlike in the rigging, waving at the citizens of the town who had left their work to come out on the hills and watch the ships crowd out the sunbeaten roads, for this was the Armada, the Most Fortunate Invincible Armada, off to subjugate the heretic English to the will of God. There would never be another departure like it” And aboard one of the ships was Manuel Tetuan, a young Moroccan orphan shanghaied from a Franciscan monastery. “Black Air” is the multiple award nominated and World Fantasy Award-winning novelette of Manuel’s beatific innocence, of his compassion in me face of war, and of the miracles that enabled him to survive the tragedy of the doomed Armada. Since the unanimous critical acclaim that greeted his first novel, The Wild Shore, Kim Stanley Robinson has firmly established a reputation for gripping prose, compassionate human insight, and otherworldly visions imbued with a sharply focused sense of vivid, hard reality. Robinson’s extraordinary range of interests is demonstrated in haunting stories of: tourists tooling the beautiful, sunken ruins of Venice: an amoral future sleuth who, with her bumbling Watson, must find the forger of Monets on a planet of wealthy esthetes; three friends, one brain damaged, who confront eternity and subtle magic in the snowbound Sierras; a repertoire company of hypnotically trained, surgically altered actors, and an unknown psychopath whose murders mock the scripts of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; the historic effects of the Second World War’s last traitor, the pilot who deliberately fails to A-bomb Hiroshima; impoverished Uranian miners who seek fame in an interplanetary music competition by reviving an ancient, lost form—Dixieland Jazz; and a dilapidated Arizona grill-souvenir shop that becomes the focus of a drifter’s encounters with Time and destiny. The Planet on the Table, a rare collection filled with the deftness, honesty and warmth that have propelled Kim Stanley Robinson so quickly into the forefront of modern SF. Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of the Hugo and Nebula nominated novel, The Wild Shore, Icehenge; and the current Nebula nominee, The Memory of Whiteness. His short fiction has been frequently nominated for awards, and he is the winner of the World Fantasy Award for “BIack Air.” His doctoral thesis on Philip K. Dick was recently published by UMI Press. A native of Southern California, Robinson presently lives in Switzerland with his wife, Lisa, an environmental chemist. Contemporary Reviews %ldquo;A quietly haunting tale, ‘Black Air’ is only incidentally an alternate-world story of the Spanish Armada; its true subject is a young boy’s vision, awakened in impressionistic waves of language that verge on synesthesia,” — The Village Voice “Robinson has been known for several years as one of the finest short story writers around.” —Locus “[Robinson] has shown in his short fiction a genuine love for the word as artifact, for depth of characterization and for the potential of the science fiction genre as an art form.” — Fantasy Review “Robinson’s narrative technique is impressive and the richness of his concepts and language extraordinary.” — Booklist “If a better single-author short story collection comes out this year, its going to be one hell of a year.” — Locus From Publishers WeeklyIn the past two years Robinson has published three well-received novels. This, his first collection of shorter work, is comprised of eight stories, including a World Fantasy Award winner and several Hugo and Nebula nominees. Robinson's strengths are a clean, clear style and a depth of characterization unusual for science fiction. Among the stories are "The Lucky Strike," which tells about bombardier Frank January, who in an alternate World War II, refuses to drop the Hiroshima bomb, a gesture that lands him in front of a firing squad and eventually ignites a world-wide peace and disarmament movement. In the award-winning novelette, "Black Air," a boy pressed into service on La Lavia, a galleon in the Spanish Armada, witnesses death in many forms when the Armada is smashed and La Lavia helplessly sails ever northward. The other tales here are similarly strong and imaginative. Views: 42
Francis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, a master art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis’s life were not always what they seemed. In this wonderfully ingenious portrait of an art expert and collector of international renown, Robertson Davies has created a spell-binding tale of artistic triumph and heroic deceit. It is a tale told in stylish, elegant prose, endowed with lavish portions of Davies’s wit and wisdom. Views: 42
Seventeen-year-old Olivia hasn't seen her father since she was eight months old. But when he summons her out of the blue, Olivia travels cross country to New Hampshire to meet him. That summer, she learns to adapt to rural life and to try to understand her reclusive father. The next summer, following high school graduation, she returns to recreate her father's seventy-mile annual bike ride – reflecting on her own personal journey to understand the true meaning of love and kinship. Views: 42
From the 1991 Edgar Award-winning author of New Orleans Mourning comes a witty mystery featuring writer/sleuth Paul McDonald. When his burglar friend Booker "happens" on part of Mark Twain's original manuscript of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he wants Paul to help find its rightful owner. Views: 42
Read this classic romance by New York Times bestselling author Penny Jordan, now available for the first time in e-book! Previously published as Desire Never Changes in 1986. The tycoon's bride of convenience! Ever since their passionate encounter, Somer's dreams had been filled with the lean, tanned body of Chase Lorimer. She hadn't been able to look at another man—even though she'd thought she'd never see Chase again. Now, Chase is back, and this time he wants marriage—but on his terms. Somer has two choices: consent to be his convenient bride, or spend the rest of her life dreaming about him. Can she take a chance on the real thing...? Views: 42
