SIGMUND "ZIGGY" BLISSMAN isn't the best-looking, sanest boy in the world. Far, far from it. But this misfit child of a failed husband-and-wife vaudeville team has one (and only one) thing going for him: He can crack people up merely by batting his eyelashes.And Vittorio "Vic" Fontana, the son of a fisherman, is a fraud. Barely able to carry a tune or even stay awake while attempting to, the indolent baritone (if that's what he is) has one thing going for him: Women love to look at him.On their own, they're failures. But on one summer night in the Catskills, they step onstage and together become the funniest men -- and the hottest act -- in America.Funnymen is the wildly inventive story of Fountain and Bliss, the comedy duo that delighted America in the 1940s and '50s. Conceived as a fictional oral biography and filled with more than seventy memorable characters, Funnymen details the extraordinary careers of two men whose professional success is never matche... Views: 19
From Publishers Weekly In Campbell Award nominee Harlan's third, grittily realistic installation of the Oath of Empire series (Shadow of Ararat and The Gate of Fire), imperial Rome under Emperor Galen is simultaneously in the midst of war with Persia and fighting a new and God-aided battle against the forces of Mohammed the prophet, while the magical protective "Oath" is in danger of shattering. Prince Maxian has, until now, been trying to break the oath laid on Rome in the hope of helping the Western Empire. To his dismay, he learns that he has been deceived by powerful magic and is actually bringing about the empire's defeat. In an abrupt about-face, he recants the path of evil to find a way to strengthen the oath. In the meantime, the two men Prince Maxian raised from the dead, Gaius Julius Caesar and Alexandros of Macedonia (Alexander the Great), are using their skills to Rome's advantage. Alexander starts to build an army to aid the west, while Gaius Julius schemes his way into the inner circles of Roman power. This is an epic novel, with lots of power-mongering, glorious battles and the fate of the Roman Empire squarely at the center. Some series books can be picked up easily this is not one of them. Regardless of the introduction, the plot is so diverse and the characters so numerous that reading the two earlier books is a must. Harlan portrays the ancient Roman world in exquisite detail; the battle scenes in particular are so vivid you can almost taste the blood and dust. Views: 19
Ophelia thought she would have to stay in feline form forever, or at least until Mrs. Johnson died. Thanks to Thelma, Ophelia and Thelma are able to find their way back to Enchanted after a lot of fun twists and turns and rides in a suitcase. Read how the family is reunited and just how Luna got that bubble butt. Views: 19
On a tour of Western Africa, the U.S. Vice President is taken hostage by a group of freedom fighters. The SEALs must perform a daring rescue without losing sight of the bigger picture — that this time, the bad guys are actually good… Views: 19
In his time Herne had killed a whole lot of me; he'd killed them in war and in what the frontier called peace. There'd been times when he'd worn a badge but mostly he hadn't. He'd killed for causes and he killed for money. Sometimes he even killed for love - like he killed those men who had savagely attacked his pretty wife, Louise ...Now Herne found himself lending his deadly skills to help young Tom Lenegan with the girl he loved. But Katie's family were willing to murder to keep the lovers apart ... but Herne had other ideas ... Views: 19
Amazon.com ReviewFamily business can be deadly, as Peter Decker discovers in Kellerman's latest thriller starring the L.A. police lieutenant and his wife, Rina Lazarus. Decker's half-brother Jonathan, a New York rabbi, asks for help when his wife's brother Ephraim Leiber is slain execution-style in a seedy New York hotel room, and the victim's teenage niece Shayndie, who may have witnessed her uncle's murder, disappears. But it soon becomes apparent that not everyone is as eager for Decker's assistance as Jonathan--not the New York City cops, not the missing girl's parents, and not the police chief in the upstate town of Quinton, where the Liebers live in a tightly knit Orthodox Jewish enclave. Despite these roadblocks, the ever resourceful Decker manages to locate Shayndie in the last place one might expect to find a devout, gently raised 15-year old girl--the heavily guarded Manhattan apartment of Chris Donatti, a Mob-connected criminal with whom Peter has a complicated history. But when Shayndie runs away from Donatti's loft and turns up dead a few days later, Decker's search for her killer uncovers a deadly family secret that puts his life--and Rina's--in jeopardy. As usual in this outstanding series, Kellerman's pacing is flawless, her plotting ingenious, and her deep understanding of human nature reconfirmed. --Jane AdamsFrom Publishers WeeklyRaw. Brutal. Ugly. And, of course, riveting. L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker, an orthodox Jew, answers a call for help from his half-brother, Jonathan, in this 14th tale (after 2001's The Forgotten) from bestseller Kellerman. Ephraim Lieber, Jonathan's brother-in-law, has been found murdered in a seedy Manhattan hotel. Ephraim's 15-year-old niece, Shaynda, who was supposed to be with him, is missing. Reluctantly, Peter agrees to fly to New York to assess the situation, advise the family and perhaps consult with the police investigating the crime. Wife Rina and daughter Hannah accompany him to make the trip something of a vacation as well. The bare questions of the case are difficult and delicate enough (had Ephraim, a recovering drug addict, backslid? was his relationship with Shaynda abusive? what part did other family relationships play?). Peter is quickly caught up in a desperate attempt to find and save the girl while battling an intransigent family, unfamiliar territory and reckless killers. Worse, his best ally in this impossible situation is Chris Donatti, first encountered in Justice (1995), a psychotic, mob-connected killer and maker of pornographic films. Whether Kellerman is depicting the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community or a pornographer's studio, she is utterly convincing. Amid the wreckage of lives taken or thrown away, Kellerman's heroes find glimmers of hope and enough moral ambiguity to make even her most evil villain look less than totally black. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 19
The holiday season is here, and Amy, the irrepressible town bad girl, is here to help you have the hottest holiday possible with this collection of her wild and sexy holiday adventures. Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, Amy will use her awesome sexuality to settle all her old scores. Views: 19
Re-read this classic romance by New York Times bestselling author Carole Mortimer Historian Leonie has no idea why she'd be asked to write the biography of a renowned actress. And her doubts about the job deepen when the actress's son, Luke, seems determined to relentlessly intimidate her! Even though Luke's attitude towards her is hostile, Leonie is intensely aware of his piercing green eyes and stunned by the tempestuous passion between them. But Luke has secrets—what will happen when the heat between them threatens to expose everything? Originally published in 2002 Views: 19
Author Michael Crichton created a blockbuster franchise with Jurassic Park, and these original digest novels continue the adventures for its millions of young fans! In this third book, Americans are stunned when a trio of Pteranodons escapes Jurassic Park and tears across the United States. No one wants to see these awesome creatures destroyed, yet their presence is terrorizing the country--especially after they nest in one of the world's biggest tourist attractions! Can Jurassic Park survivors Dr. Alan Grant and 13-year-old Eric Kirby find a way to lead these winged creatures home?From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 19
Science Fiction. 71811 words long. Views: 19
The rebels from the Revolutionary Indian Party plan on capturing the small midwestern town of Wounded Elk, intent on a final showdown against the white man. But only CURE knows that just outside the city limits is the Cassandra - the United States' most secret nuclear installation, an atomic doomsday machine big enough to blow up the world. Remo and Chiun are needed - to divert the Indian attack on the monument where the Cassandra is hidden. And to stop a ruthless KGB agent from finding the deadly weapon. Views: 19
Fans of The Wedding Caper and its plucky heroine, Gwen—the entire series is now available in one special bundle, including a never-before released holiday novella! This set includes: The Wedding Caper, The Holiday Bride, The Bride Has Two Faces, and the exclusive bonus story A Christmas Caper. Four feel good wedding romance reads in one set! Views: 19
Amazon.com ReviewAlastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defenses: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare.Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendas--Khouri the reluctant contract assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanity--and there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal, and ingenious lies.The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defenses to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons.At the heart of this artifact, the final revelations detonate--most satisfyingly. Dense with information and incident, this longish novel has no surplus fat and seems almost too short. A sparkling SF debut. --David Langford, Amazon.co.ukFrom Publishers WeeklyThis distant-past/far-future, hard sci-fi tour de force probes a galaxy-wide enigma: why does spacefaring humanity encounter so few remnants of intelligent life? Excavating the 900,000-year-old Amarantin civilization on its home world, Resurgam, archaeologist Dan Sylveste discovers evidence of a splinter cult that abandoned Resurgam for the stars but returned, only to be swallowed up by a mysterious cataclysm that destroyed all the Amarantins. Aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, a vast light-hugger ship in interstellar space, the ominous Triumvirate of cyborg starfarers seeks Sylveste to heal its captain, afflicted by the deadly Melding Plague, which turns once-humans into their own semisentient spaceships. In Chasm City on the slum-ridden world of Yellowstone, assassin Ana Khouri joins the Nostalgia's crew intent on killing Sylveste. Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive tale of intrigue. Hard SF addicts will applaud the author's talent for creating convincing alien beings and the often uneasy merging of human and machine intelligence, depicted here as nearly too frighteningly real for comfort. Others, however, may find these human-cybernetic hybrid characters chilling, dispassionate (except for their built-in drives toward revenge and murder) and foreboding. Reynolds's vision of a future dominated by artificial intelligence trembles with the ultimate cold of the dark between the stars. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 19
