In the electrifying tradition of Dean Koontz and Gillian Flynn comes the first riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author!It’s high summer in the Mojave Desert, and Kristine Rush and her fiancé, Daniel, are en route from Las Vegas to Lake Arrowhead, California, for the July Fourth holiday weekend. But when Daniel is abducted from a desolate rest stop, Kristine is forced to choose: return home unharmed, but never to see her fiancé again, or plunge forward into the searing desert to find him…where a killer lies in wait.One road. One woman. One killer.Sprinting against the clock, and uncertain if danger lies ahead or behind, Kristine must blaze an epic path through the gaudy flash of roadside casinos, abandoned highway stops, and a landscape rife with horrors never before imagined. Desperate to save her doomed husband-to-be, Kristine must summon long forgotten resources if she’s... Views: 70
Our neighboring planets may have the answer to this question. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appear to be enormous oceans underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago.An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery.But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Ben Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities, showing the emotions, the controversy, and the egos involved in arguably the most important scientific pursuit ever begun. Views: 70
New York City is a ruin, swarming with the Infected, with clouds of giant parasitic wasps, with the rampaging beasts of the Archaeobiome. Betrayed by Harris, trapped outside the Astoria Compound with dwindling supplies, Alex Miller and Cobalt are seemingly lost. But they have one thing: Harris's warhead.OPERATION ATLAS LION: a Hail Mary pass, a plan of last resort. Draw the hordes of the Infected together and immolate them in nuclear fire. It was an insane plan, but—with some adjustment, and with Samantha's help—it may be the only chance for the last survivors of New York City.Extinction Biome is a new military-SF series about a world overrun by an ancient ecology, awakened from a millennia-long dormancy to destroy the human race; and about the decisions we must make to try and survive. Views: 70
An exciting new era of Star Wars history is about to begin--as fantasy and science fiction's most acclaimed authors propel the legendary epic into the next millennium, introducing us to a rich cast of characters that features old favorites--Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa Solo--along with the next generation of Jedi and never-before seen creatures, droids, and deadly agents of darkness. In Vector Prime, the launch novel for this thrilling new saga, New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore takes the Star Wars universe to previously unscaled heights of action and imagination, expanding the beloved story of a galaxy far, far away . . . Twenty-one years have passed since the heroes of the Rebel Alliance destroyed the Death Star, breaking the power of the Emperor. Since then, the New Republic has valiantly struggled to maintain peace and prosperity among the peoples of the galaxy. But unrest has begun to spread; tensions erupt in outbreaks of rebellion that, if unchecked, threaten to destroy the Republic's tenuous reign. Into this volatile atmosphere comes Nom Anor, a charismatic firebrand who heats passions to the boiling point, sowing seeds of dissent for his own dark motives. In an effort to avert a catastrophic civil war, Leia travels with her daughter Jaina, her sister-in-law Mara Jade, and the loyal protocol droid C-3PO, to conduct face-to-face diplomatic negotiations with Nom Anor. But he proves resistant to Leia's entreaties--and, far more inexplicably, within the Force, where a being should be, was . . . blank space. Meanwhile, Luke is plagued by reports of rogue Jedi Knights who are taking the law into their own hands. And so he wrestles with a dilemma: Should he attempt, in this climate of mistrust, to reestablish the legendary Jedi Council? As the Jedi and the Republic focus on internal struggles, a new threat surfaces, unnoticed, beyond the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim. An enemy appears from outside known space, bearing weapons and technology unlike anything New Republic scientists have ever seen. Suddenly Luke, Mara, Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca--along with the Solo children--are thrust again into battle, to defend the freedom so many have fought and died for. But this time, all their courage, sacrifice, and even the power of the Force itself may not be enough. . . . Views: 70
Few authors have achieved such renown as World Fantasy Life Achievement honoree and by the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Andre Norton. With the love of readers and the praise of critics, Norton's books have sold millions of copies worldwide.V-E Day and V-J Day are in the past, but the war is not over. Not for Lorens van Norreys, the new master of the House of Norreys, not as long as Nazi criminals are still at large. And not for Lawrence Kane and Sam Marusaki, two former OSS men, not as long as there are Americans still missing in action. The three of them quickly become entangled in a mystery—Norreys as he searches for a lost treasure, and Lawrence and Marusaki as they search for a lost American flyer. Together they face cutthroat pirates in the thousand islands of Indonesia, then they battle an unknown foe on an island known as the Forbidden Place, an uncharted landfill mentioned only in legends and from which, it's said, not one has ever returned alive. Views: 70
Australian artist Melanie Jamieson feels her life is on a one-way trip to nowhere. Since the unexpected breakup of her six-year relationship with the author of the children's books she illustrates, Melanie has been unable to drag herself out of an ever-deepening depression. To make matters worse, Melanie is constantly running into Terry and her new girlfriend.
Wavering between anger and despair, Melanie decides to leave Melbourne and visit her family in Queensland. Once there, she discovers that her parents are going out of town. In an effort to keep Melanie's mind off her problems, her mother convinces her to stay with their former neighbor, Crys Hewitt, who needs help to make ends meet on her farm.
Unknown to Melanie's mother, when Melanie was a shy, confused teenager, she had an incredible crush on Crys, and now feels she made a complete fool of herself trying to win the woman's attention. Despite her initial reluctance, Melanie finds herself back on the farm — and back in the life of the attractive and sensuous older woman. Views: 70
From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage.Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn't. As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Unimpeachably researched, enviably written, and charmed with anecdotes from Seneca to Samuel Pepys to a nineteenth-century bibliophile who had to climb over his books to get into bed, The Book on the Bookshelf is indispensable for anyone who loves books.From the Trade Paperback edition.Amazon.com ReviewConsider the book. Though Goodnight Moon and Finnegans Wake differ considerably in content and intended audience, they do share some basic characteristics. They have pages, they're roughly the same shape, and whether in a bookstore, library, or private home, they are generally stored vertically on shelves. Indeed, this is so much the norm that in these days of high-tech printing presses and chain bookstores, it's easy to believe that the book, like the cockroach, remains much the same as it ever was. But as Henry Petroski makes abundantly clear in Book on the Bookshelf, books as we know them have had a long and complex evolution. Indeed, he takes us from the scroll to the codex to the hand-lettered illuminated texts that were so rare and valuable they were chained to lecterns to prevent theft. Along the way he provides plenty of amusing anecdotes about libraries (according to one possibly apocryphal account, the library at Alexandria borrowed the works of the great Greek authors from Athens, had them copied, and then sent the copies back, keeping the originals), book collectors, and the care of books. Book-lover though he may be, however, Henry Petroski is, first and foremost, an engineer and so, in the end, it is the evolution of bookshelves even more than of books that fascinates him. Pigeonholes for scrolls, book presses containing thousands of chained volumes, rotating lecterns that allowed scholars to peruse more than one book at a time--these are just a few of the ingenious methods readers have devised over the centuries for storing their books: "in cabinets beneath the desks, on shelves in front of them, in triangular attic-like spaces formed under the back-to-back sloped surfaces of desktops or small tabletop lecterns that rested upon a horizontal surface." Placing books vertically on shelves, spines facing outward, is a fairly recent invention, it would seem. Well written as it is, if Book on the Bookshelf were only about books-as-furniture, it would have little appeal to the general reader. Petroski, however, uses this treatise on design to examine the very human motivations that lie behind it. From the example of Samuel Pepys, who refused to have more titles than his library could hold (about 3,000), to an appendix detailing all the ways people organize their collections (by sentimental value, by size, by color, and by price, to name a few of the more unconventional methods), Petroski peppers his account with enough human interest to keep his audience reading from cover to cover. --Alix WilberFrom Publishers WeeklyThat bookshelves might harbor secret and enchanting lives is a thrilling prospect for any serious reader. What laws of human nature govern our sturdy cases of books? What damning quirks of character glare from a few casually stowed volumes? In this disappointing study, however, Petroski's effort to reveal the "evolution of the bookshelf as we know it" yields few rewards. Pondering the physics of the bookend and the genealogy of the library carrel, this Duke University scholar observes the bookshelf as a piece of the infrastructure undergirding our civilization. We learn that medieval books were chained to their shelves to prevent theft, and that beverage stains have plagued bibliophiles almost since the dawn of the printed word. Admirers of Petroski's earlier works (The Evolution of Useful Things, Remaking the World, etc.) will not be surprised by his exquisite research, or by the gusto with which he plunges into the dustiest of library bins. But the bookshelf proves a more oblique topic than bridges or even pencils, two of Petroski's other interests. The practical construction principles of bookshelves make for rather dull reading, and conjecture about lectern usage in the Middle Ages wears thin. This book is most successful when delving into the gritty aspects of engineering, whether it be the cantilevered forces of library book stacks or the architecture of the British Museum Reading Room. After lingering among such fusty stacks, readers will welcome the whimsical appendix, which proposes arranging one's books alphabetically by the author's first name, or even by the first word of the antepenultimate sentence. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 70
For twenty years, Father Ewan McEwan, a Roman Catholic priest, has enjoyed a passionate long-term relationship with Lady Marina Proudfoot, an older woman of great beauty and refinement, whose two-year-old daughter and husband were tragically drowned in a boating accident. But when Marina unexpectedly dies, the emotional fallout affects not just Ewan, but Marina's son, Timothy, his lover, Roger, and Roger's wife, Sally. Now Ewan must survive not only his profound grief but also the secret revelations she leaves behind. Views: 70
Detective brothers Frank and Joe try to figure out who's spoiling the fun on a class trip in the third book in an all-new, interactive Hardy Boys chapter book mystery series.Frank and Joe Hardy are super-psyched for their school trip to Lake Poketoe. Along with their friends, they can't wait to go tubing, make s'mores, and take nature walks. And Joe is particularly excited to try out his brand-new water skis during the trip! But when the group tries to head out for their first day of boating, Joe discovers his skis are missing! Who could have taken them? And how could they have disappeared without anyone noticing? With time running out on their trip, can Frank and Joe figure out who the sneaky ski thief could be? Views: 70
