Verticality, architectural and social, is the lofty idea at the heart of Colson Whitehead's first novel that takes place in an unnamed high-rise city that combines 21st-century engineering feats with 19th-century pork-barrel politics. Elevators are the technological expression of the vertical ideal, and Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female elevator inspector, is its embattled token of upward mobility.
When Number Eleven of the newly completed Fanny Briggs Memorial Building goes into deadly free-fall just hours after Lila Mae has signed off on it, using the controversial "Intuitionist" method of ascertaining elevator safety, both Intuitionists and Empiricists recognize the set-up, but may be willing to let Lila Mae take the fall in an election year.
As Lila Mae strives to exonerate herself in this urgent adventure full of government spies, underworld hit men, and seductive double agents, behind the action, always, is the Idea. Lila Mae's quest is mysteriously entwined with existence of heretofore lost writings by James Fulton, father of Intuitionism, a giant of vertical thought. If she is able to find and reveal his plan for the perfect, next-generation elevator, the city as it now exists may instantly become obsolescent.--Joyce Thompson Views: 417
Realm of the Elderlings: Homecoming / Robin Hobb
A Song of Ice and Fire: The Sworn Sword / George R.R. Martin
The Tales of Alvin Maker: The Yazoo Queen / Orson Scott Card
Outlander: Lord John and the Succubus / Diana Gabaldon
Majipoor: The Book of Changes / Robert Silverberg
Otherland: The Happiest Dead Boy in the World / Tad Williams
Pern: Beyond Between / Anne McCaffrey
The Riftwar: The Messenger / Raymond E. Feist
The Symphony of Ages: Threshold / Elizabeth Haydon
American gods: The Monarch of the Glen / Neil Gaiman
Shannara: Indomitable / Terry Brooks
1 ROBIN HOBB returns to the Realm of the Elderlings with “Homecoming,” a powerful tale in which exiles sent to colonize the Cursed Shores find themselves sinking into an intoxicating but deadly dream . . . or is it a memory?
2 GEORGE R. R. MARTIN continues with Dunk, a young hedge knight, and his unusual squire, Egg, in “The Sworn Sword,”.
3 ORSON SCOTT CARD puts Alvin Maker on the mighty Mississippi with ne’er-do-wells Jim Bowie and Abe Lincoln, in “The Yazoo Queen.”
4 DIANE GABALDON puts Outlander misfit in “Lord John and the Succubus,” a supernatural thriller set in the early days of the Seven Years War.
5 ROBERT SILVERBERG has a dilettantish poet in “The Book of Changes.”
6 TAD WILLIAMS explores the strange afterlife of Orlando Gardiner from Otherland in “The Happiest Dead Boy in the World.”
7 ANNE McCAFFREY shines a light into Pern in “Beyond Between.”
8 RAYMOND E. FEIST sends one soldier on the ride of his life, an ordinary time for “The Messenger.”
9 ELIZABETH HAYDON relates the destruction of Serendair and the fate of its last defenders in “Threshold,”
10 NEIL GAIMAN tells of the man Shadow, after American Gods in “The Monarch of the Glen.”
11 TERRY BROOKS adds an exciting epilogue to The Wishsong of Shannara in “Indomitable,” how Jair Ohmsford’ destroys the evil Ildatch, armed only with illusion. Views: 416
Clive Cussler is an extraordinary author whose life parallels that of his fictional hero, Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for famous shipwrecks or cruising in classic cars from his private collection, Cussler’s spirit feeds the soul of Dirk Pitt—a hero whose adventures race along at supersonic speed. Now with this truly unique insider’s guide, you can dive in and explore the worlds of both Clive Cussler, the grand master of adventure, and Dirk Pitt, the world’s greatest action adventure hero.
Inside Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt® Revealed you’ll find:
The prologue to Clive Cussler’s next exciting Dirk Pitt novel! An exclusive interview with Clive Cussler—including the evolution of the Dirk Pitt novels and the close ties between Cussler and his hero “The Reunion”—an original short story in which Cussler crashes NUMA’s twenty-year reunion and reminisces with Dirk Pitt and all his favorite characters A brief synopsis of every Dirk Pitt novel, including why Pacific Vortex!—not The Mediterranean Caper—should be considered the first Pitt novel A concordance for the Dirk Pitt novels—complete with A-Z listings of every major character, car, ship, aircraft, weapon, locale, and more.
Complete with rare photos, dedications, the Clive Cussler car collection, and advanced Dirk Pitt trivia, Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed contains a mother lode of information every fan will treasure. Views: 416
Twilight Watch (sometimes translated Dusk Watch) (Russian: Sumerechniy Dozor, ?????????? ?????) is a fantasy novel by Russian writer Sergey Lukyanenko. It is the sequel to The Night Watch and Day Watch and the third part of tetralogy that concludes with Final Watch. Lukyanenko returns to a structure closer to that he used in the Night Watch novel than the Day Watch novel. Twilight Watch is divided into three stories- Nobody's Time, Nobody's Space, and Nobody's Power. Each story begins with a prologue followed by seven numbered chapters and concluding with an Epilogue. Except for the prologues, the events of each story are written in a first person narrative using the voice of the Light Magician character Anton Gorodetsky, a member of Night Watch. Events in each of the prologues are written in a third person narrative and take place entirely outside of Gordetsky's presence. The entire novel is written in the past tense. Views: 412
Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means. Views: 411
The Sinaloa Story tells of DelRay Mudo and Ava Varazo, two down-and-outs looking for a reasonable life and maybe even a little redemption in a corrupt and violent world. Ava is a Mexican prostitute, beautiful and no victim of circumstance. When DelRay falls in love with her at the drive-in whorehouse where she is the prize, she seizes the chance to break free. They take off for Sinaloa,Texas, the lone-dog state where "nothin’ good ever happens." The far-out border flunkies they meet — Thankful Priest, the one-eyed former football player; Indio Desacato, Ava’s pimp and a small-town racketeer; Arkadelphia Quantrill Smith, an octogenarian whose father marched with Shelby in the Iron Brigade; and many others — fill out the sinister and electrifying ride.Amazon.com ReviewEmploying a strange and bountiful cast of characters, The Sinaloa Story bobs and weaves as if challenging the reader to follow a spectacular, if often incoherent, narrative. This is no small task, considering the action rolls at a page-turning clip and reads like a noir film treatment in which characters are ushered in and out of the plot with the speed and finality of a high-caliber slug. The story line, such as it is, revolves around DelRay Mudo, a dim-witted mechanic who falls hard for Ava Varazo, a stunning and scheming prostitute who easily beguiles him into helping her rob her pimp of $500,000, part of which belongs to Mr. Nice, a notorious mob boss. When Ava quickly dumps DelRay (and locks him in the trunk of his car) then splits with the cash, this development comes as no surprise. When she heads to Mexico to join a guerilla band known as the Countless Raindrops, however, an unforeseen and intriguing twist begins. This twist abruptly unravels into a bizarre tangle of events which are connected to previous episodes by only the thinnest of threads. The result is a darkly exhilarating and scattershot ride in which kidnapping, murder, amnesia, and prophetic dreams abound, as do colorful personalities with memorable names such as Cobra Box, Ruby Ponds Cure, Thankful Priest, and Cairo Fly.To say the book is nonlinear is putting it mildly; the only thing some of these vignettes have in common is that they happen to be contained within the same book. But Gifford has a knack for creating electrifying, grainy snapshots of subterranean life, pulling defining moments into vivid focus while leaving the background mired in shadow and mystery. The characters are not deep, but they are rich, and even those who appear for only a paragraph or two are memorable, adding much to the setting, if not the plot.As might be expected of one who has written screenplays for (Wild at Heart) and with (Lost Highway) David Lynch, Barry Gifford paints hypnotic dreamscapes in which the atmosphere is the driving force behind the narrative. Those searching for a seamless, let alone believable, story will be left shaking their heads, but those willing to suspend reality and embrace even the most outlandish coincidences and tattered loose ends will enjoy the staccato dialogue, gritty detail, and oddly appealing cast in this eerie joy ride along the dark fringes of America. --Shawn CarkonenFrom Publishers WeeklyOnce again, Gifford (Baby Cat-Face, 1995, etc.) depicts protagonists trying to make a brighter life for themselves while betraying lovers and staying one step ahead of homicidal maniacs. When former motorcycle mechanic DelRay Mudo joins up with Ava Varazo, a beautiful but dangerous prostitute, she convinces him to "do something meaningful with his life." In this case, something meaningful involves stealing half a million dollars from Indio Desacato, owner of a thriving bordello in the Texas border town of Sinaloa. Standing in their way is Indio's 380-pound bodyguard, Thankful Priest, a former football player who once gouged out his own eyeball while high on various narcotics. What Ava really wants is to return to her Mexican home of La Villania ("the despicable act") and fund a peasant's revolution, a plan that doesn't necessarily include DelRay. After the showdown at Indio's, the narrative switches to Leander Rhodes, an ex-Marine, and his young wife, Cobra Box, who travel to La Villania to join the revolution. Also in the mix are a white supremacist, a boarding school-educated Italian hooker and a cross-dressing 14-year-old piano player. Like Sailor and Lula of Gifford's previous novels (including Wild at Heart), Delray and Ava can't avoid the violence that surrounds them (nor do they always want to), but, in Gifford's hands, their troubles are elevated to a gritty, visceral poetry of the marginalized. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 408
Day Watch (Russian: Dnevnoi Dozor, ??????? ?????) is a fantasy novel by Russian authors Sergey Lukyanenko and Vladimir Vasilyev. The second book in the tetralogy of Watches, it is preceded by Night Watch and followed by Twilight Watch and Last Watch. Day Watch also stands out of the tetralogy as it is the only novel in the series not told from Anton Gorodetsky's point of view. While the 2006 film Day Watch bears the same name as this book, it is actually a loose adaptation of the latter parts of the first book, Night Watch, and not an adaptation of this novel. The English translation by Andrew Bromfield was released in January 2007 both in the US and UK. Views: 404
This text discusses 20 mysteries which challenge our accepted view of history. Topics covered include: were there ancient contacts between Europe and America?; could Atlantis have existed?; the true age of the great pyramid; was there a worldwide catastrophe around 10,000 BC? Views: 404
A Place in the Country is W. G. Sebald’s meditation on the six artists and writers who shaped his creative mind—and the last of this great writer’s major works to be translated into English.
This edition includes more than 40 pieces of art, all originally selected by W. G. Sebald.
This extraordinary collection of interlinked essays about place, memory, and creativity captures the inner worlds of five authors and one painter. In his masterly and mysterious style—part critical essay, part memoir—Sebald weaves their lives and art with his own migrations and rise in the literary world.
Here are people gifted with talent and courage yet in some cases cursed by fragile and unstable natures, working in countries inhospitable or even hostile to them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is conjured on the verge of physical and mental exhaustion, hiding from his detractors on the island of St. Pierre, where two centuries later Sebald took rooms adjacent to his. Eighteenth-century author Johann Peter Hebel is remembered for his exquisite and delicate nature writing, expressing the eternal balance of both the outside world and human emotions. Writer Gottfried Keller, best known for his 1850 novel Green Henry, is praised for his prescient insights into a Germany where “the gap between self-interest and the common good was growing ever wider.”
Sebald compassionately re-creates the ordeals of Eduard Mörike, the nineteenth-century German poet beset by mood swings, depression, and fainting spells in an increasingly shallow society, and Robert Walser, the institutionalized author whose nearly indecipherable scrawls seemed an attempt to “duck down below the level of language and obliterate himself” (and whose physical appearance and year of death mirrored those of Sebald’s grandfather). Finally, Sebald spies a cognizance of death’s inevitability in painter Jan Peter Tripp’s lovingly exact reproductions of life.
Featuring the same kinds of suggestive and unexplained illustrations that appear in his masterworks Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, and translated by Sebald’s colleague Jo Catling, A Place in the Country is Sebald’s unforgettable self-portrait as seen through the experiences of others, a glimpse of his own ghosts alongside those of the men who influenced him. It is an essential addition to his stunning body of work.
Praise for A Place in the Country
*
“Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald’s] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now.”—Joshua Cohen, The New York Times Book Review***
“In Sebald’s writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny—an art that was, in the end, Sebald’s strange and inscrutable gift.”—Slate
“Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility.”—New York Daily News
“Sebald’s most tender and jovial book.” —The Nation **
“Reading [A Place in the Country is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars.”—*New York*
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 404
Kernels of Truth....When Eugenia Potter stumbles upon some ancient pottery shards on her ranch, she feels a profound connection with the past. And a deep desire to learn more about the relics. Now, she's heeding the call of her soul--by visiting an archaeological camp amid the magnificent cliff dwellings of Colorado's Mesa Verde.But strange things are happening at Mesa Verde, from the director's increasing mental confusion to a visitor's grisly death. Even a Talking Circle--a traditional ritual facilitated by the passing around of an ear of blue corn--doesn't reveal the source of the trouble. And when a busload of teenagers on a hiking trip disappears without a trace, Mrs. Potter begins some digging... to unearth a cruel scheme, a long-buried secret, and the deadly fruits of a killer's dark hungers.From the Paperback edition. Views: 404
FIRE & ICE - Originally published in a stand alone ebook in
1998. Currently available in the OUT OF THIS WORLD anthology that features all the short stories Sherri wrote for Penguin.
Livia is a Vistan princess who is to be married to an ambassador from a neighboring galaxy--a brutal man, many years her senior. She knows that the one thing he values in her is her virginity, and in a last-ditch effort to escape the fate her father has decreed for her, she sets out to seduce the first man she can find. Adron Quiakides was once a fierce League assassin. Now he lives in constant pain from wounds suffered years earlier at the hands of a madman. When Livia approaches him in a darkened bar, he willingly falls for her seduction. But when he feels the warmth of her healing touch he knows that he can't let her go. With her in his arms, he is free of pain, both body and soul. Views: 403
The White Little Bird, a funny, witty, full of imagination and supremely whimsical, but an undercurrent of loneliness and sadness runs through it, giving it depth. This book from 1902 introduces the first appearance of Peter Pan who is to be found wandering London\'s Kensington Gardens at night. However, this only takes up a very few chapters in the book. The rest being the story told by a man about his relationship with a little boy David and his mother. Views: 402
Lisette Beaucaire was angry when her parents sent her away from Paris that September day in 1940. And although she knew that with the Nazis occupying the city she'd be safer at her Aunt Josephine's farm in the Dordogne valley, Lisette resented her "exile." She'd miss her friends and the excitement of being thirteen and starting a new school. Instead she'd have nothing to do but amuse her little cousin Cecile. That's what Lisette thought, but she soon found out that she wasn't the only visitor at the farmhouse. And then she encountered Gerard, a visitor from a long time ago, who proved to be a valiant ally at a crucial moment for the people who lived in the farmhouse. Views: 401
