EDITORIAL REVIEW: Ready to follow Nick Hornsby and Helen Fielding as the next big thing from Cool Britannia to hit America is Ben Elton. Already known to a wide public television audience as the funnyman behind *Blackadder, The Young Ones,* and *The Thin Blue Line,* Elton, author of *Popcorn*, lights up the literary sky with **Blast from the Past**.Part noir thriller, part hilarious send-up of the politics of extremism, **Blast from the Past** is the new novel from English comedy phenomenon (stand-up, playwright, television writer, and author) Ben Elton--a name soon to be known in all circles once Joel Schumacher's film of his book **Popcorn** reaches the silver screen.In the early 80s, when Polly was a seventeen-year-old ideological peace protestor and Jack was a U.S. Army captain stationed at England's Greenham Common, the two had a secret and very unlikely affair. No two people could have had more to argue about, save that they couldn't live without each other, yet one day Jack came to the conclusion that he loved soldiering more than Polly and sacrificed their love to be a career army man.Now, sixteen years later, Polly is a lonely thirty-something social services employee and Jack is a four-star general who has returned to Britain to find her, his only true love. With only one night to resolve their differences, and a knife-wielding stalker lurking in the shadows, for everyone concerned this will be a night like no other.*From the Hardcover edition.* Views: 9
This breakout.thriller by the master of horror was previously released only as an oversized Subterranean Press hardcover edition. Sex and Violence in Hollywood will take its place on the shelf next to other Garton classics like Live Girls and The New Neighbor.This blockbuster is a chilling combination of thrills, terror, and black humor, plot reversals and a climax so shocking that it will leave you shaken.Adam Julian, son of a Hollywood screenwriter, has a life many would kill for... and some would kill to keep. He's tangled in a web of forced sex, coerced into robbery, and it's only a short step to killing as a choice. At the center of the book is a sensational murder trial which oddly resembles the O.J. Simpson case. The cast features an abrasive, star-struck female judge, blundering prosecuting attorneys, a nerdy defendant who reserves his right to silence, and Rona Horowitz, a pint-sized, ball-of-fire of a defense lawyer. The defendant may be... Views: 9
Three short novels by Donald Kingsbury, Mark O. Martin, and Gregory Benford chronicle the continuing battle for supremacy between the humans of Earth and the lethal felines of Kzin. Original. Views: 9
BLOODY VENGEANCE IN CAIRO'S.UNDERWORLD.
In a small, stinking African jail Nick Carter successfully carried out the first part of the assignment — the murder of a Russian agent. Now a second AXE man could accomplish Phase II — get the microfilm, the secret plans for Novigrom, Russia's fastest fighter plane, into the free world.
But AXE's man was butchered in Cairo, brutally and apparently inexplicably. Now Nick has to complete the assignment-recover the microfilm and find the sadistic killer.
To help him, AXE assigned Fayeh, a golden-skinned Egyptian Interpol agent… to feed Nick information, they sent Thinman, a depraved addict who walked the narrow line between the law and the underworld for his daily fix… to test Nick, they pitted him against the New Brotherhood, the Arab version of the Mafia.
The New Brotherhood was the most lethal syndicate Nick had ever encountered. He only hoped he would live to tell about it… Views: 9
"Kate was what you wanted, somehow, in this infinitely ironic age. She was the kind of girl about whom other girls used to say, 'All right, so she's thin but,' trying vainly to suss out the appeal. And even now, when her name comes up, and with it the sulky protest it invariably evokes--'She's not that great'--I do not feel compelled to argue in her defense."Some fiction debuts have remarkably strong stories, some have refreshing new voices, some have perfect cultural timing. The Fundamentals of Play is that literary rarity which has all three.George Lenhart is, chronically, in love with Kate Goodenow. So is Nick Beale, the working-class son of a Maine lobsterman from the town where Kate spent her childhood summers. So is Chat Wethers, an old-money friend of George's from Dartmouth. And so is Harry Lombardi, a brilliant, startlingly successful, but socially awkward Dartmouth upstart who has been trying to enter this circle for years.It is George who tells the interwoven stories of these five young people, some of whom, in their lineage or finances, represent the last gasp of the old Northeastern Upper Class. Starting with the year after college, when they all land in Manhattan, George describes the good times and disappointments, ambition and manners, sexual secrets and money-cursed friendships, that have tied these people to one another for a lifetime. He tells of Nick's charismatic past and drug-ridden present, and he shows the snobbery and avarice that lurk in Kate's background--in stark contrast to her ineffable allure. And as George tells these stories (and observes Harry's spectacular rise in the new, as-yet-unnamed phenomenon of the Internet), he implicitly chronicles the end of an era and the emergence of a new definition of class--just as The Fundamentals of Play represents the emergence of a distinctive new talent in American fiction. Views: 9
Winner of the Whitbread Novel AwardIn the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realises that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.Designated the King's 'Angel' because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King's adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realise his hopes and save his soul?Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books (The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.** Views: 9
Foreshadowing an impending war of independence with England, two young men from either ends of the political and financial spectrum are abducted by a pressgang and forced into service of King George's Royal Navy. Fate deals them another blow when a pirate ship captures and destroys the British vessel. The captain offers them a choice choose to be a pirate or die. They choose to live. Views: 9
