Nabokov’s third novel, The Luzhin Defense, is a chilling story of obsession and madness. As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen — an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster — but at a cost: in Luzhin’s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants reality. His own world falls apart during a crucial championship match, when the intricate defense he has devised withers under his opponent’s unexpected and unpredictable lines of assault. One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940, he moved to the United States and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961, he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. “[Nabokov is] the supreme master.” — The New York Times Book Review
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The Cohen Cruise Line and Caliendo resort are merging. Emma Caliendo and her sister, Izzy, set sail on the maiden voyage to be two of the faces of this new resort venture. Izzy is up for fun in the sun, but Emma wants to steer clear of the Cohen men, who are nothing but a bunch of womanizers. She’s especially keen on avoiding Grayson Cohen.Grayson, a childhood acquaintance, is now an arrogant, self-centered ladies’ man whose face is plastered all over the cruise’s advertising campaign. Emma can’t seem to turn a corner without seeing his stupid, conceited face.Nevertheless, when Grayson starts seeking her out, platonic badgering becomes sexual teasing and Emma discovers she’s not as repelled by Grayson as she thought. In fact, she can’t help but notice the real man beneath the haughty exterior.Suddenly, a three-week cruise fling with a Cohen man is exactly what she desires, but will walking away from him when it’s all... Views: 524
Eighteenth-century Venice is the setting for The Bravo, a sprawling sea novel that is equal parts travelogue, cultural analysis, political treatise, and adventure tale. While packed with plenty of the gripping action Cooper's novels are known for, The Bravo also offers readers an insightful glimpse into the social class differences and tensions that served to corrupt European leaders in the era. Views: 524
15 dark short stories by Nicolas Wilson in a variety of genres.Selected Short Stories Featuring Analog Memory collects fifteen of Nicolas Wilson's earlier short stories. These stories are dark, brooding, and entirely too intimate.Analog Memory contains:Uncanny Valley: A man forced to be a luddite in a robotic world, by medical necessity, ponders whether his new fling is human.Censlus: A census worker is murdered while doing his job.Seed: An old woman meets a familiar face in an unfamiliar setting.Faith Emmanuel: After a carjacking, a student finds himself financially at the mercy of a corrupt medical system.Family Business: A marital fight ensues after a husband involves his kids in a life of crime.Brickmouth: A buried vampire awakens.Laborious Love: A robotic engineer builds the perfect girlfriend, and the perfect relationship.Jesus Loves Me (Just Not That Way): A man wrestles with his sexuality.Unlucky At Math: An intellectual ruminates on his relationship.Fighting Mad: A soldier considers the toll that the military takes on Muslim soldiers.Cowgirl Up: A memorial for a stubborn woman's fight with cancer, and love of smoking.The Courage of Our Convictions: An old soldier examines the leavings of genocide.Medicine: A friend falls back into addiction.The Cost of Being Me: Some ruminations on the possibility of heaven, while dying.Randomly Accessed Memory: A head injury causes a man to lose his memory, throwing his life into chaos as he regresses to his last known lifestyles.Analog Memory: A former CIA operative has his memory reset in an unorthodox way, and deals with the glitches of the new technology. Views: 524
JeShaun lost her mom at an early age. Caring for her younger sister by being the best big sister in the world left little time for normal preteen things. As time winds down on her high school days, she must confront the things she ignored. Like boys and taking control of how to wear her hair. Views: 524
If you love quirky and dark short stories but have become discouraged over the lack of originality these days then "Weirder Than Weird" will renew your faith! "Weirder Than Weird" is chock full of dark and creepy tales that will leave you wanting more and also wondering about the authors sanity."Weirder Than Weird" is chock full of the most unusual tales that you will ever read. Imagine if you will... a woman who holds the deepest and darkest of secrets. She seeks relief from her ignominious shame but her psychologist knows her secret all too well and she ends up paying for her indiscretions with her very soul. Or consider Keith Tuttle, a young man who unwittingly becomes entrenched in a horrifying tale that leads him into bondage but in the end someone close to him unexpectedly benefits from his damnation. Another story called "Arrival Time" will allow you to peer into the life of a solitary man traveling through space and what he has come to rely upon in order to keep his sanity. Will he lose it? Stand by....These are just a few of the weird tales that await you. Can you hear the whistle blowing? The train is about to leave the station. Next stop: Scares-ville, Terror-town and Humor-heights. The only question now is...will you be on board? Views: 524
The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack collects 15 great science fiction, fantasy, and mystery tales -- including two complete novels!
Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
THE HAUNTING OF H.M.S. “DRYAD”
FEGHOOT SHIPWRECKED (Feghoot 37)
THE GHOST (Feghoot 19)
CIVIL RIGHTS (Feghoot 36)
GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT
LITTLE ANTON
THE LADIES OF BEETLEGOOSE NINE
COUNT VON SCHIMMELHORN AND THE TIME-PONY
PAPA SCHIMMELHORN’S YANG
PAPA SCHIMMELHORN AND THE S.O.D.O.M. SERUM
SCHIMMELHORN’S GOLD [Part 1]
SCHIMMELHORN’S GOLD [Part 2]
T.V. (Feghoot 48)
A KILLING IN SWORDS [Part 1]
A KILLING IN SWORDS [Part 2]
IN A PICKLE (Feghoot 33)
THE GNU MUTATION (Feghoot 38)
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Fiendishly devious and addictively readable, Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake is a moral labyrinth constructed around the uneasy relationship between literature and lying. In steamy, fetid Kuala Lumpur in 1972, Sarah Wode-Douglass, the editor of a London poetry journal, meets a mysterious Australian named Christopher Chubb. Chubb is a despised literary hoaxer, carting around a manuscript likely filled with deceit. But in this dubious manuscript Sarah recognizes a work of real genius. But whose genius? As Sarah tries to secure the manuscript, Chubb draws her into a fantastic story of imposture, murder, kidnapping, and exile–a story that couldn’t be true unless its teller were mad. My Life as a Fake is Carey at his most audacious and entertaining.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 524
The California sunshine's not quite so bright for three sisterswho get dumped in the same week...Finola, a popular LA morning show host, is famously upbeat until she's blindsided on live TV by news that her husband is sleeping with a young pop sensation who has set their affair to music. While avoiding the tabloids and pretending she's just fine, she's crumbling inside, desperate for him to come to his senses and for life to go back to normal.Zennie's breakup is no big loss. Although the world insists she pair up, she'd rather be surfing. So agreeing to be the surrogate for her best friend is a no-brainer—after all, she has an available womb and no other attachments to worry about. Except...when everyone else, including her big sister, thinks she's making a huge mistake, being pregnant is a lot lonelier—and more complicated—than she imagined.Never the tallest, thinnest or prettiest sister, Ali is used to being overlooked, but when... Views: 524
Bayside Romance: Bayside Summers Views: 523
Nate Thrower is in Mexico, barely finished with one job when another one literally shows up at his doorstep. He's hired by Manuel Ortiz, a wealthy CEO who's been receiving threats. The threats soon escalate into violence, with everyone in Ortiz' family now directly in danger. People are getting hurt. With things spiraling out of control, Thrower makes a call to an old friend to help him out of the jam. Together, they'll Silence their opponents and eliminate the threat. Views: 523
My desires...I'm afraid. I want things – to escape, to run, to be caught, held down and...I've come here to find the thing to quench my most sensual fantasies.When I see him - I know. He's brutal and made of stone. An artist with his hands who keeps everyone at arm's length. He's the one I want – I need.May be my downfall.I'm not a man you play with. I gave up on finding a partner years ago.But now I see her. Innocent. Beautiful. Temptation. I want to possess her as much as I want to protect her from myself. I am the king here, but once she's gone? I'll be a man alone once again.Now that I have her. I have to find a way to keep her – forever.Kink Camp is a world apart, a place where pain is pleasure, hate can be love, and we are all our own true selves. Every act is consensual, every person respected—unless that's not what they want. This book plunges you into... Views: 523
Abel Orion has spent his entire life defining the difference between madness and genius, the fine line between inspiration and hallucination. In spite of his shortcomings, Abel leads his small family through the silent expanse of space to their last shred of hope, a place from ancient times, a place shrouded in painful memory...a place called Earth.abel orion has spent his entire life defining the difference between madness and genius, the fine line between inspiration and hallucination.from an early age he showed an unparalleled aptitude for mechanical engineering, computer sciences and other trades. he learned by doing, spending his childhood in junkyards, pulling things apart and putting them back together. he learned their functions as he went, familiarized himself with several languages by reading labels and searching through abandoned computer data. he overcame hunger, thirst, and the harsh environments of his home using only his intelligence, and the teamwork offered him by his family. under his leadership, the orions accomplished extraordinary feats, but abel wasn't without his shortcomings.he would wake up in the dead of night screaming, driven to terror by some vivid dream. as the years passed, the nightmares began spilling into abel's waking world. emotions, thoughts and memories sometimes overcame him, so much so they would manifest themselves into powerful hallucinations. sometimes abel saw objects or figures he knew didn't exist. sometimes he saw monsters, and sometimes he saw people he use to know.abel's condition helps and hinders him as he struggles to overcome unimaginable odds, to save his family, himself, and reach a promised land so far beyond his grasp. through his many trials, abel is confronted by inexplicable things, and for the first time in his life, he's forced to take his hallucinations seriously. some of them, he realized, could be his only hope.abel is a story about a young man struggling with his own playful mind, as well as the impossible situations he finds himself in. it's a story about confronting the past, and facing one's demons as if they were standing fully formed in front of you. it's also about the triumph of family, and embracing the extraordinary. it's a mystery novel with environmental themes and science fiction undertones. Views: 523
