Seven groups of people across America are thrown into a dangerous new world together when people around them begin killing and eating others. Some search for safety, some search for loved ones, and some search for answers about the dangerous, evolving creatures around them, and what they have to do with a man in a prison cell in California. Views: 29
Ghost month means that the good brothers are out and ghosts can pop up anywhere. At least that's what the superstitious people of Taiwan think, and Hank is sure that they are full of hot air. Who believes in ghosts anyways? This is the first story in the Zodiac Schmodiac story cycle, an insight into the Chinese mind and a funny, Chinesey story that will scare and thrill you. Views: 29
Ash's new life in the game like world of might and magic has changed him. He is no longer the loner that always pulled back from others. He has found that to survive in this new world he had to make friends but at the same time he has made enemies as well. Ash fights to strengthen himself so that he can protect those that he now calls his family. Views: 29
Falling in love creates an enchanted time, and when it's on the magical Sunshine Coast of British Columbia during WWII, it is never to be forgotten. The increased emotions of a country at war are always present, as well as the heartache as the young men who joined up to serve their country return wounded—or not at all. For Meg, who is seventeen and beginning to go to dances and to meet interesting young men, the time appears filled with possibilities. She longs to enter the world of adults but with an education that will allow her a fulfilling life. At the same time, her mother and others tell her there is no need for girls to be educated. What she needs is a "safe" man. As Meg ventures further into the adult world of love and marriage she sees that it is filled with dark shadows. Can she take a chance on love while still pursuing her dreams? Views: 29
The Lincolnshire Wolds, 1812. When housemaid Bessie Bell is thrown out into a cold October night, her prospects could scarcely seem worse. With nowhere to go and no one to help her, how will she survive? But on the road she meets a mysterious gentleman, and her fortunes take an immediate turn for the... strange. For the nightmare horse Tatterfoal stalks the fog-drenched Wolds, and Mr. Green is determined to catch him. But why?Caught up in a dark adventure, Bessie is swept far beyond the shores of England and into Faerie Aylfenhame. Dangers untold await the unwary in the Goblinlands, though the greatest dangers of all may lie behind her. For Tatterfoal answers only to his master, the Goblin King... Views: 29
Amazon.com ReviewBy the standards of the street, Henry Tyler is a good man, kind to hookers and the homeless, skilled at avoiding fights. He'd be the first to admit that his job as a private investigator is unsavory, and he turns away many prospective clients by suggesting that they may not want to hate their spouses any more than they already do. The love of his life, to his regret, is his brother's sweet, conventional wife, Irene. Henry's brother John, in almost black-and-white contrast, is cold and professional, all his yearnings focused on becoming full partner in his law firm. He manages to distance himself emotionally from everything but his mother and the hand-painted Italian silk ties that signify success to him. Although not overly fond of his wife, he resents Henry's longing for her, which seems to typify everything sloppy and extravagant in his brother's nature, everything that marks him as a loser.On this classic framework William Vollmann has hung a gargantuan novel, by turns satiric, philosophical, lyrical, and baroque. It is a song of San Francisco. Rarely has a city been explored so tenderly and ruthlessly, from the mansions of Pacific Heights to the flophouses of the Tenderloin. In one of his many loving set pieces, Vollmann sends Henry Tyler through the streets surrounding Union Square, where a Peruvian quartet is playing to some weary tourist ladies. Their lives were passing, vacations trickling through the hourglass; moment by moment this warmish blue San Francisco day was being wasted. They sat beneath lush palm-trees, and distantly a trolley-car sounded its bell as he heard the ladies talking about grilled-cheese sandwiches; then he was past them and could not hear anymore. Tyler spots a gray-haired man digging in a garbage can. Near him, "reflected palm-tendrils swerved and curved in the windows of Macy's, and skyscrapers' terraces swelled and bowed there as if in the throes of an immense explosion. The Peruvians' music, gentle and strangely liquid, seemed the appropriate solvent for this image of dissolution." When Irene--pregnant and neglected--kills herself, John disappears into his work while Henry, in a quest that parallels the course of his grief, devotes himself to the Queen of the Whores, a dark saint who protects the lowest of the low. It makes all the difference that our Virgil for this journey to the underworld is this good-natured and observant man, whose physical appetites never overwhelm his sympathy for the addicted and exploited. Henry remains firmly on the side of good, even when the boundaries blur before his eyes. At times, the author invites identification with his big-hearted hero, as when he veers into an agitated, first-person essay on the judicial evil of bail. Beat-flavored, with touches of Rabelais, Céline, and, oddly, T.S. Eliot, The Royal Family is Vollmann's most ambitious work to date, and a noisy, compelling world in itself. --Regina MarlerFrom Publishers WeeklyAmbitious in style, in range, and in sheer volume, Vollmann's massive new novel continues the controversial projects of Whores for Gloria and Butterfly Stories, in which the prolific author aims to create a detailed fictional map of a modern-day red-light district and of the people who try to live there. John Tyler is a successful San Francisco lawyer; his brother, Henry, is a dodgy private eye in love with John's Korean wife, Irene. When Irene commits suicide, the siblings' bitterness becomes apparent. A grieving Henry frequents the prostitutes of SF's notorious Tenderloin district; John edges towards marrying his mistress, Celia. A brutal businessman named Brady has hired Henry to track down the "Queen of Whores." Pedophile and police informant Dan Smooth finally leads Henry to the Queen, an African-American woman of indeterminate age and immense psychological insight. Rather than turn her over to Brady, Henry warns her about him. Gradually the Queen helps Henry shed his grief for Irene by leading him down the dark, dank staircase of sexual and social degradation. He learns about masochism, golden showers and other unusual practicesDand about love. But the Queen's command of her realm is imperiled: Brady wants to import her Tenderloin prostitutes for his Las Vegas sex emporium. Vollmann is after large-scale social chronicle; he includes characters from nearly every walk of life, and trains his attentions on processes not often seen by the faint of heart: cash flow, blood flow, phone sex, Biblical apocrypha (the Book of Nirgal) and the body odor of crackheads. But this hypperrealistic novelist also aims to present a metaphysics: the two brothers stand for two kinds of human being, the chosen and the outcast. As in all Vollmann's novels, the author's encylopedic ambition sometimes overwhelms the human scale; some supporting characters, though, do stay vivid. Vollmann avoids simply glamorizing the outcasts but remains, deep down, a Blakean romantic: prostitution is for him not only the universal indictment of the human race but also, paradoxically, the only paradise we can actually visit. 5-city author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 29
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Jerimon is about to serve Dace to the Targon syndicate. On ice.It doesn't matter that he's doing it on Lowell's orders. Targon wants Dace's blood. They won't stop until their revenge is complete and her life is in ruins. And they won't wait for the Patrol's trap to snap shut first.Book 5 of the Fall of the Altairan Empire, a exciting science fiction adventure series. Views: 29
A sailor learns many unforeseen things on the last voyage of an old and glorious ship. Views: 29
"A true page turner...I found the plot fascinating, and de Hahn builds the tension and suspense perfectly to a satisfying conclusion. I was left wanting to read more about Agnes, and I am looking forward to her next adventure!"—Charles Todd on Swiss VendettaSwiss-American police officer Agnes Lüthi is on leave in Lausanne, Switzerland, recovering from injuries she sustained in her last case, when an old colleague invites her to the world's premier watch and jewelry trade show at the grand Messe Basel Exhibition Hall. Little does Agnes know, another friend of hers, Julien Vallatton, is at the same trade show—and he's looking for Agnes. Julien Vallatton was friends with Guy Chavanon, a master of one of Switzerland's oldest arts: watchmaking. Chavanon died a week ago, and his daughter doesn't believe his death was accidental. Shortly before he died, Chavanon boasted that he'd discovered a new technique that would revolutionize the watchmaking industry,... Views: 29
Prose; fiction, Masculine Views: 29
This book offers a balanced, poignant, and often moving portrait of America's immigrants over more than a century. The author has organized the book by decades so that readers can easily find the time period most relevant to their experience or that of family members. The first part covers the Ellis Island era, the second part America's new immigrants--from the closing of Ellis Island in 1955 to the present. Also included is a comprehensive appendix of statistics showing immigration by country and decade from 1890 to the present, a complete list of famous immigrants, and much more. This rewarding, engrossing volume documents the diverse mosaic of America in the words of the people from many lands, who for more than a century have made our country what it is today. It distills the larger, hot-topic issue of national immigration down to the personal level of the lives of those who actually lived it.From the Hardcover edition. Views: 29
