From School Library JournalGr 6-8-This adventure story traces the early life of master vampire Larten Crepsley. Sent to work in a Dickensian factory, young Larten kills the abusive foreman and flees. He takes shelter in a cemetery crypt where he meets the 500-year-old vampire General Seba Nile, who explains to the terrified youngster that vampires aren't evil. Although they drink human blood, just as the legends say, they do not harm those on whom they feed. When he invites Larten to travel with him as his assistant, the boy agrees. As the first entry in a projected series, this story includes quite a bit of exposition. The plot action covers more than 20 years, taking Larten through his first "blooding" and into full vampire status, and features his first meetings with mysterious Cirque owner Hibernius Tall; Seba's vampire ally Paris Skyle; and the vampaneze Murlough. At times, the pacing feels rather rushed with the effort to introduce many important characters, settings, and themes from Shan's "Cirque du Freak" saga (Little, Brown). Transitions are often abrupt, jumping several years between chapters. A cliff-hanger ending promises further revelations. "Cirque du Freak" aficionados will be intrigued by this glimpse into Crepsley's formative years, but the uninitiated will want to read the original books first.-Elaine E. Knight, Lincoln Elementary Schools, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Product Description_The highly anticipated prequel to the New York Times bestselling Cirque Du Freak series!_ Before Cirque Du Freak... Before the war with the vampaneze... Before he was a vampire. Larten Crepsley was a boy. As a child laborer many centuries ago, Larten Crepsley did his job well and without complaint, until the day the foreman killed his brother as an example to the other children. In that moment, young Larten flies into a rage that the foreman wouldn't survive. Forced on the run, he sleeps in crypts and eats cobwebs to get by. And when a vampire named Seba offers him protection and training as a vampire's assistant, Larten takes it. This is his story.
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This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains fifty science fiction short stories by more than forty authors. Many of the stories in this collection were published during the heyday of popular science fiction magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s. Included within this work are stories by Poul Anderson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Phillip K. Dick, Randall Garrett, Paul Ernst, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Williamson, Phillip Jose Farmer, Lester Del Rey, Leigh Brackett, Fredric Brown, Murray Leinster, Ben Bova, and many others. This collection is DRM free and includes an active table of contents for easy navigation. Contents: A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder (James De Mille) A World by the Tale (Randall Garrett) A World is Born (Leigh Brackett) Accidental Death (Peter Baily) Arena (Fredric Brown) Atom Boy (Ray Cummings) Beyond Lies the Wub (Phillip K. Dick) Blind Spot (Bascom Jones) Cully (Jack Egan) Dead Giveaway (Randall Garrett) Dead Ringer (Lester Del Rey) Dead World (Jack Douglas) Divinity (Joseph Samachson) Four Miles Within (Anthony Gilmore) Heist Job on Thizar (Randall Garrett) Hex (Laurence Janifer) In the Year 2889 (Jules Verne) Indulgence of Negu Mah (Robert Arthur) Lease to Doomsday (Lee Archer) Lost in Translation (Laurence Janifer) McIlvane’s Star (August Derleth) Missing Link (Frank Herbert) Next Logical Step (Ben Bova) Pandemic (J.F. Bone) Remember the Alamo (T.R. Fehrenbach) Salvage in Space (Jack Williamson) Security (Poul Anderson) Subspace Survivors (E.E. “Doc” Smith) The Aliens (Murray Leinster) The Big Trip Up Yonder (Kurt Vonnegut) The Chronic Argonauts (H.G. Wells) The Cosmic Express (Jack Williamson) The Day Time Stopped Moving (Bradner Buckner) The Eternal Wall (Raymond Z. Gallun) The Gifts of Asti (Andre Norton) The Hated (Frederick Pohl) The Last Evolution (John W. Campbell) The Man Who Saw the Future (Edmond Hamilton) The Memory of Mars (Raymond F. Jones) The Moon is Green (Fritz Leiber) The Nothing Equation (Tom Godwin) The Power and the Glory (Charles W. Diffin) The Radiant Shell (Paul Ernst) The Stoker and the Stars (Algis Budrys) The Street That Wasn’t There (Carl Jacobi and Clifford D. Simak) The World Behind the Moon (Paul Ernst) There is a Reaper (Charles De Vet) They Twinkled Like Jewels (Phillip José Farmer) Waste Not, Want (Dave Dryfoos) Year of the Big Thaw (Marion Zimmer Bradley) Views: 57
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Things were going so well for P.I. John Taylor, that it was only a matter of time before everything hit the fan. Walker, the powerful, ever-present, neverto-be-trusted agent who runs the Nightside on behalf of The Authorities, is dying. And he wants John to be his successor-a job that comes with more baggage, and more enemies, than anyone can possibly imagine. Views: 57
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In an attempt to secure the pardon promised to them by the new president, the women of the Sisterhood make plans to evade the Secret Service and infiltrate the White House. Views: 57
The indomitable duo of Arthur Bryant and John May, along with the rest of their quirky team, return to solve a confounding case with dark ties to the British theater and a killer who may mean curtains for all involved. For the crew of the New Strand Theatre, the play The Two Murderers seems less performance than prophecy when a cast party ends in the shocking death of the theater owner’s son. The crime scene is most unusual, even for Bryant and May. In a locked bedroom without any trace of fingerprints or blood, the only sign of disturbance is a gruesome life-size puppet of Mr. Punch laying on the floor. Everyone at the party is a suspect, including the corrupt producer, the rakish male lead, the dour set designer, and the assistant stage manager, who is the wild daughter of a prominent government official.It’s this last fact that threatens the Peculiar Crimes Unit’s investigation, as the government’s Home Office, wary of the team’s eccentric methods, seeks to throw them off the case. But the nimble minds of Bryant and May are not so easily deterred. Delving into the history of the London theater and the disturbing origins of Punch and Judy, the detectives race to find the maniacal killer before he reaches his even deadlier final act.Whip-smart and endlessly entertaining, The Memory of Blood is an ingeniously intricate mystery from the deliciously inventive Christopher Fowler. Views: 57
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After a member of the Jehovah’s Witness Church is abducted in conjunction with a ritualistic triple homicide in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, the church engages cult specialist Stephan Raszer to track her perilous trail. Based on evidence that the girl may have been trafficked into a sex and terrorism underworld, Raszer soon unveils an inside-out reality that begins online and ends in a fabled fortress on the borderlands of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, where a powerful figure known as Old Man is in control.With the dubious aid of the abductee’s sister, along with a renegade CIA agent and a fraternity of gamesters, Raszer journeys far from the rational world and deep into a dangerous and erotically charged netherland. Raszer learns of a criminal conspiracy linking an ancient Persian sect to an Internet role-playing game used to recruit its foot soldiers. To find the girl, Raszer must play the game, holding on to his soul and sanity in a world turned on its head. Views: 57
More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA Views: 57
Science Fiction. 69762 words long. Views: 57
