It's the ultimate adult playground. Cyber World will use the latest technology in computer produced virtual reality to provide thrills and chills beyond any ever experienced at a theme park. Here children of all ages will live out their wildest fantasies: fly jet fighters in combat, take part in a gunfight in the OK Corral, play in the World Series, or take a walk on the moon or a trip inside the human body.From the Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyMayhem is afoot at Cyber World, the futuristic setting of this ambitious but not entirely satisfying thriller by SF stalwart Bova ( Voyagers ). While computer programmers Damon Santorini and Jason Lowrey are in Florida creating a virtual reality (VR) park that will simulate a walk on the moon, combat in a jet fighter and other exotic adventures, users of a VR flight simulator they developed for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are suffering inexplicable strokes. Santorini agrees to investigate, tugging the story line into several curious twists--and nearly as many false starts and blind alleys. Bova concocts a complicated melange of high government and Air Force officials, old love affairs and possible identity changes, but he fails to deal fully with several plot fragments. Although each major adult character here is sexually dysfunctional, their peccadilloes--one of which leads to a significant subplot--are rendered in the same subdued voice as the rest of the novel. Also, descriptions of the VR programs in strictly workmanlike prose prove disappointing--as does the book's incredible denouement. Though Bova's attempt to combine SF and high-tech thrills occasionally engrosses, it ultimately fails to slip into high gear. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalYA?This novel of "technology gone too far" could easily take place today. At Para-Reality, a company that hopes to get a leg up on Disney in the entertainment industry, Dan Santorini has been hired to develop the ultimate virtual-reality simulation game. He moves to Florida only to find that something is very wrong. First his daughter has some disturbing encounters in the games that the company provides for her school, and then a colleague is killed while practicing one of his VR programs. As Dan races against time to find the answers and to save his family, he is hampered at every turn by greedy investors, a desperate boss, and government investigators. A well-researched and timely book that will appeal to YAs interested in cyberspace as well as those who love a good story.?Susan McFaden, Fairfax County Public Library, VACopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 46
In this rollicking Regency romance, a naked earl flees from a woman bent on trapping him into marriage and winds up in the bed of an alluringly beautiful lady. Original. Views: 46
Erotica. 101324 words long. Views: 46
Was Santa a suspect?
Christmas was Shannon O'Shaugnessy's absolute favorite holiday! The
toy-department manager especially enjoyed the festivities this
year--until the eight-year-old heir to Lyon's Department Store was
abducted for a most peculiar ransom ....
Shannon trusted no one. Especially not the new store Santa. Despite his
snowy false beard, padded costume and his willingness to help her find
the missing child, Rick Hastings radiated raw sensuality. But his
evasive actions hinted he had something to hide ....
Was it more than the gorgeous face and body beneath his Santa suit? Views: 46
Andrew Whitton, Earl of Hardwick chose his fortune over the woman he loved and his betrayal has left him miserable. Charlotte Milne trusted in love until Drew broke her heart. Ruined, Charlotte strives to forget Drew. But a summons home sets them on a path of collision. Now, before she marries another Drew must convince Charlotte that even the most selfish of rakes can be redeemed by love. Views: 46
Stories, both comic and tragic, of the extremes to which men will go to get what they want At the height of World War II, a Spaniard fighting for Britain shoots a sergeant dead and resolves to face execution like a good soldier. On his first visit to Israel since 1919, a veteran of World War I remembers a long-ago encounter with Jewish refugees. When a gang of revolutionaries press a pistol to a general's neck, he dies in a fit of laughter. Working in the jungles of Argentina, a mechanic is surprised to discover himself falling in love. These are the tales that Geoffrey Household likes to tell. Some are funny; some are sad. Together, they span the oceans of the world. Including the novellas "The Salvation of Pisco Gabar" and "The Case of Valentin Lecormier," this remarkable collection of short fiction shows that whether writing about war or love, Geoffrey Household understood what it meant to be human. Views: 46
If the Marines are the few, the proud," Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick's career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon— two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he'll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and military practice, which can mock those ideals.In this deeply thoughtful account of what it's like to fight on today's front lines, Fick reveals the crushing pressure on young leaders in combat. Split-second decisions might have national consequences or horrible... Views: 46
The Goodnight Lady knows everybody's secrets...
In the sixties, Briony Cavanagh ran a string of the most notorious brothels in London.
Only Briony knew what went on behind those doors, and she never opened
her mouth - unless she stood to benefit. Only Briony knew the painful
road she'd travelled to get there. From an impoverished childhood that
ended with shocking betrayal, she was determined to be mistress of her
own fate. But along with success came risk and danger. And the Goodnight
Lady had her own secret place that was always shadowed by loss. Views: 46
Powerful, disturbing, stirring, Jamaica Kincaid's novel is the deeply charged story of a woman's life on the island of Dominica. Xuela Claudette Richardson, daughter of a Carib mother and a half-Scottish, half-African father, loses her mother to death the moment she is born and must find her way on her own. Kincaid takes us from Xuela's childhood in a home where she could hear the song of the sea to the tin-roofed room where she lives as a schoolgirl in the house of Jack Labatte, who becomes her first lover. Xuela develops a passion for the stevedore Roland, who steals bolts of Irish linen for her from the ships he unloads, but she eventually marries an English doctor, Philip Bailey. Xuela's is an intensely physical world, redolent of overripe fruit, gentian violet, sulfur, and rain on the road, and it seethes with her sorrow, her deep sympathy for those who share her history, her fear of her father, her desperate loneliness. But underlying all is "the black room of the... Views: 46
A cowboy meets a muse... history has never been so sexy. Views: 46
