Science Fiction. 15156 words long. First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Oct/Nov 2000 Nebula Award Nominee Views: 51
Thea Osborne and her faithful spaniel, Hepzie, have taken on a house-sitting assignment in the charming Cotswold village of Temple Guiting. But as always, an idyllic village can harbour a disquieting number of secrets and when a skeleton is discovered at the roots of an old beech tree, Thea is grateful for the presence of her partner DS Phil Hollis. There is no concrete evidence as to who the bones belonged to although it isn't long before theories and rumours abound. Thea soon finds herself drawn into a murder investigation - perhaps the countryside isn't that quiet after all. Views: 51
Product DescriptionAn American half-dollar. A beaded crucifix. Tooth roots shaped like a tiny pair of pants. A padlock. Scads of peanut kernels and scores of safety pins. A metallic letter Z. A toy goat and tin steering wheel. A Perfect Attendance Pin. One of the most popular attractions in Philadelphia's world-famous Mütter Museum is the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection: a beguiling set of drawers filled with thousands of items that had been swallowed or inhaled, then extracted nonsurgically by a pioneering laryngologist using rigid instruments of his own design. How do people's mouths, lungs, and stomachs end up filled with inedible things, and what do they become once arranged in Jackson's aura-laden cabinet? What drove Dr. Chevalier Jackson's peculiar obsession not only with removing foreign bodies from people’s upper torsos but also with saving and cataloging the items that he retrieved?Animating the space between interest and terror, curiosity and dread, award-winning author Mary Cappello explores what seems beyond understanding: the physiology of the human swallow, and the poignant and baffling psychology that compels people to ingest non-nutritive things. On a quest to restore the narratives that haunt Jackson’s uncanny collection, she discovers that all things are secretly edible. Combining original research with a sympathetic and evocative sensibility, Cappello uncovers a history of racism and violence, of forced ingestion and "hysteria," of class and poverty that left children to bank their family’s last quarters in their mouths. Here, the seemingly disparate but equally marvelous worlds of the circus and the medical amphitheater meet in characters ranging from sword swallowers and women who lunched on hardware to the sensitive, bullied boy who grew up to be the father of endoscopy.Advance Praise" Swallow is a surprising and original work. It is biography on the slant, a meditation that transcends boundaries and genres, written with scholarship, humor, and panache. I urge you to take this journey." —Ricky Jay"I was astonished and delighted—grabbed by the throat, indeed—by this most remarkable book, which took me down a thousand little red lanes, and laid out in excruciating and fascinating detail all those myriad of items—corks to safety pins to draughts of lye and three-foot swords—that have managed to pass down there too. It is a wonderful and bizarre book: gorge yourself on it, and gulp.” —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean " Swallow is a wonderful, intriguing book, a fascinating glimpse into a true medical pioneer and a life's work. Mary Cappello delves into what it means to ingest things we weren’t meant to eat, and how the line between our bodies and foreign bodies can sometimes blur. Every object tells a story, and the stories here are marvelous." —Colin Dickey, author of Crankiolepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius About the AuthorMary Cappello's three previous books of literary nonfiction are Awkward, a Los Angeles Times bestseller; Called Back, a critical memoir on cancer that won a ForeWord Book of the Year Award and an Independent Publisher Book Award; and the memoir Night Bloom. A recipient of the Bechtel Prize for Educating the Imagination from Teachers and Writers Collaborative and the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, she is a former Fulbright lecturer at the Gorky Literary Institute (Moscow) and currently a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Rhode Island. She lives in Providence.From Publishers WeeklyThey are fodder for the giggles--and groans--in every ER: the alarming X-rays of coins, toys, buttons, safety pins, needles, and other nonedibles of both the benign and potentially fatal variety. Award-winning author Cappello (Called Back) brings a poet's sensibility and a journalist's fascination to the modern history of foreign body ingestion through the story of early–20th-century endoscopy pioneer Chevalier Jackson, who meticulously documented his extractions, which along with his tools are on display at Philadelphia's medical Mutter Museum. "We have entered... a form of literature and not of science, a philosophical treatise... for a theater of the absurd," marvels Cappello of the detritus Jackson retrieved from throats and stomachs. Hewing closely to Jackson, Cappello chronicles the odd cases and people--and in one case, an entire family--who built his practice and reputation. Their improbable accidents elicit gasps of astonishment; how did a baby swallow more than two dozen pins, needles, and cigarette butts? Cappello smartly focuses on Jackson's peculiar life, wondrous fine art, and diligent science, transforming an intriguing medical history into a lyrical biography. Medical practitioners and nonprofessionals will be equally fascinated. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. From BooklistAs topics of expository writing, objects that people accidentally inhale or swallow may seem like interesting, if somewhat unappetizing, attention-getters for, at most, an in-flight magazine article. Yet Cappello, an award-winning author of three previous works of literary nonfiction, successfully devotes an entire book to the subject by focusing largely on a fascinating, eccentric doctor who collected them. Born and raised in Pennsylvania and trained as a laryngologist in Philadelphia, the colorfully named Chevalier Jackson revolutionized his chosen field by developing safe methods of extracting objects lodged in airways and abdomens. But even more interesting, as Cappello sees it, was Jackson’s obsession with painstakingly cataloguing each object, from thumbtacks to watches to miniature opera glasses, and donating the lot to Philadelphia’s famous Mütter medical museum. As a sideshow to probing Jackson’s curious asceticism and fussy, prolific studies, Cappello spends ample time ruminating on the complex mechanics of, and psychology behind, swallowing, ingestion, and appetite. While Cappello’s endless digressions and hunger for detail won’t appeal to everyone’s tastes, her prodigious rhetorical gifts are undeniable. --Carl Hays Views: 51
SUMMARY:
TURN ON. TUNE IN. DROP DEAD.If you're just joining us, welcome to radio station WVMP, "The Lifeblood of Rock'n'Roll." Con-artist-turned-station-owner Ciara Griffin manages an on-air staff of off-the-wall DJs -- including her new boyfriend Shane McAllister -- who really sink their teeth into the music of their "Life Time" (the era in which they became vampires). It's Ciara's job to keep the undead rocking, the ratings rolling, and the fan base alive -- without missing a beat.For Halloween, WVMP is throwing a bash sure to raise the dead. They've got cool tunes, hot costumes, killer cocktails -- what could go wrong? Well, for starters, a religious firebrand ranting against the evils of the occult preempts the station's midnight broadcast. Then, when Ciara tracks down the illegal transmission, the broadcast tower is guarded by what appears to be...a canine vampire? And behind it all is a group of self-righteous radicals who think vampires suck (and are willing to stake their lives on it).Now Ciara must protect the station while struggling with her own murky relationship issues, her best friend's unlikely romance with a fledgling vampire, and the nature of her mysterious anti-holy powers. To make it to New Year's in one piece, she'll need to learn a few new tricks.... Views: 51
Novice Guardian Jake Hawkins has a power that could help Alice Grey out of her deal with a demon. But in helping her, he never expects to fall in love. Now fleeing for their lives, they're about to discover a secret that will change their universe forever. Views: 51
In the old world shadows of Providence, Rhode Island, Nina Grey finds herself the center of a war between Hell and Earth. Struggling with her father’s recent death, Nina meets Jared Ryel by chance…or so she believes. Although his stunning good looks and mysterious talents are a welcome distraction, it soon becomes clear that Jared knows more about Nina than even her friends at Brown University. When questions outnumber answers, Jared risks everything to keep the woman he was born to save — by sharing the secret he was sworn to protect. When her father’s former associates begin following her in the dark, Nina learns that her father is not the man she thought he was, but a thief who stole from demons. Searching for the truth behind her father’s death, Nina stumbles upon something she never expected — something Hell wants — and only she holds the key. Views: 51
Katja - 1Katja, like everyone else stuck on the work island they call home, wants toget to the mainland by any means necessary. Shooting her boyfriend and stealing a chemical vial is one way to ensure her safe passage the only problemis, she's not the only one who wants it, and the freedom it will bring: There's Nikolai the joystick junkie; Aleksakhina, Katja's parole officer; Vladimir Kohl, the small-time chemical dealer, and his boss Szerynski; the rival chemical lord Dracyev, and his lover, Ylena. And there's the Man in Red, ready and waiting forwhoever is (un)lucky enough to end up with the vial. Katja from the Punk Band is Jackie Brown meets the Sex Pistols a fast-paced industrial crime-thriller that weaves multiple storylines and timeframes, from the author of Pretty Little Things to Fill Up the Void, Nothing is Inflammable, and I-O.**From Publishers WeeklyThis grungy, industrial novel is set during a dark, rainy night on an island where out-of-control industry routinely chews people into pulp. Having stolen a vial that supposedly contains a potent new drug from her sometime boyfriend, Katja hopes to barter it for passage to the mainland. Her plans lead to tenuous alliances with several equally desperate island dwellers, including junkies, drug lords, and corrupt parole officers, who cling to the belief that something—video games, drugs, self-mutilation, love, or just getting off the island—will set them free. Logan (Pretty Little Things to Fill Up the Void) maneuvers a large cast through overlapping sections of the plot, setting up characters separately and then slamming them into violent confrontations. Readers who can tolerate the deliberately unpleasant action will appreciate the skill with which it's presented. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewLogan is a stylish transgressor for the next evolutionary moment. He reminds me of Harlan Ellison at his most daring and dangerous raw, fearless, unpredictable, disturbing, and much needed. --Jack O Connell, author of Word Made Flesh and The Resurrectionist Katja wants what everyone else on the island wants....to get to the mainland. The island is home to a captive workforce, controlled by chemical lords who keep the inhabitants hooked on their chemicals and arcade games. No one knows of anyone ever having escaped the island. Katja steals a vile of a supposed new chemical drug, but she s not the only one who wants it and the freedom from the island it promises to bring. Dracyev produced it; Szerynski, a rival chemical lord, wants it; Januscz, the mule, hopes it s his ticket to the mainland; and Anatoli, the parole officer, wants it to get himself and his lover Ylena off the island. Simon Logan writes an excellent and fast-paced industrial crime novel. He manages to tell the story using multiple character views of a single timeline, as well as weaving-in those characters stories from differing timelines without confusing the reader. I liked Anatoli s story the best: a man married to a chemical junkie/hypochondriac, but in love with another woman and wanting to start a new life on the mainland with his lover. Katja was hard and aggressive, but likeable how do you not like a chick in a punk band?; and Kohl, a chemical dealer and arcade manager, made me laugh with his germophobic tendencies. What I really enjoyed about KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND was that I didn t see the end coming . . . it wasn t predictable and I hate predictability. I say definitely give it a read. --Colleen Wanglund, The Horror Fiction Review Views: 51
They were the last of their kind--brothers born of the last dragon and doomed never to find mates of their own--not of their own kind, at any rate. Rating: Carnal/Erotica—graphic violence and sexual encounters, multiple sexual partners. Views: 51
