The United States is fraught with turmoil and unrest unlike anything it has ever experienced before. Across the land true loyalists and patriots strive to find the solution to the ills that plague America. Finally, one lone individual, born into a family that has dedicated itself to serving at the highest level possible for any American, discovers the one solution he knows will be the answer.The United States is fraught with turmoil and unrest unlike anything it has ever experienced before. Political lines have been drawn on various levels and it seems as though soon a new war will be fought within the boundaries of these United States, but will it be more like the Civil War or the Revolutionary War? No one is completely certain. Across the land true loyalists and patriots strive to find the solution to the ills that plague America while the nation's top politicians seem hell-bent on enslaving the citizens they took an oath to protect. Finally, one lone individual, born into a family that has dedicated itself to serving at the highest level possible for any American, discovers the one solution he knows of a certainty will be the solution. Views: 784
Greg is searching for the perfect woman. Beautiful. Smart. And vulnerable.Greg is searching for his perfect woman. Beautiful. Smart. And vulnerable.But will he find he's bitten off more than he can chew? Views: 784
When dance academy student Emilee must spend the night on a haunted stage as a part of a hazing ritual, she is terrified but doesn't expect anything to happen...She's wrong.When dance academy student Emilee must spend the night on a haunted stage as a part of a hazing ritual, she is terrified. For as long as she could remember, she has heard stories about the dancing mannequin with a silver, rust covered mask that prompts young ballerinas to dance in the middle of the night. When they want to stop, he snaps their bones, starting at their ankles and moving on to their necks. Still, Emilee is a logical person. She knows that there is no such thing as ghosts. After a man dressed in black wearing a silver mask comes on stage, she thinks that it is just enhanced hazing meant to frighten her. She is determined not to be humiliated and begins to dance with him. Only too soon she realizes her masked partner was not a part of the school hazing ritual. She has two choices, dance all night and suffer or let him snap her joints, one by one. Views: 784
Stephen King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling achievement.
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet*—*Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.
In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a “skin-man” preying upon the population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by reciting a story from the *Magic Tales of the Eld *that his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s never too old for stories,” Roland says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.” And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for all ages, a story that lives for us.
King began the Dark Tower series in 1974; it gained momentum in the 1980s; and he brought it to a thrilling conclusion when the last three novels were published in 2003 and 2004. *The Wind Through the Keyhole *is sure to fascinate avid fans of the Dark Tower epic. But this novel also stands on its own for all readers, an enchanting and haunting journey to Roland’s world and testimony to the power of Stephen King’s storytelling magic.
~from first edition jacket Views: 784
Everyone has a guardian angel: an angel who regularly offers you sound advice, and soothes you when you’re angry. Chrissy’s angel Jial, however, is more like a little sister to her.She’s lots of fun to have hanging around, to watch movies with: but she’s also way too lenient.Chrissy loves her. And when the angels start inexplicably disappearing, it’s Chrissy’s turn to guard her angel.The islands of Caldera are a shining jewel in a rather bleak world. A terrible calamity in the past had blanketed much of the world with a toxic "fug." Those who survived were forced to take to the mountains and the skies in wondrous airships. Life has since been a struggle, with only the most ruthless and crafty able to survive. To spare themselves the same fate, the Calderans erected a battery of guns to fend off the airships of the mainland. They isolated themselves from the madness of the world, choosing instead to focus on the pursuits of art and creativity. Few believe the technologically advanced but socially barbarous outsiders have anything to offer. Amanita Graus, though, is hoping that they do.Nita's mother has lost her livelihood and perhaps soon her life to a terrible disease. Already the black sheep of the family for embracing engineering rather than art, Nita resolves to leave the safety of her home and do whatever it takes to find a cure. For a price, the bizarre crew of an airship called The Wind Breaker are willing to grant her a meeting with their mysterious benefactors, and thus a chance to procure the one thing with a chance to save her mother.Free-Wrench follows Nita’s adventures in a steampunk world of airships and lunatics. Helping her in her journey are an eccentric crew of smugglers; the gruff Cap’n Mack, the simple but enthusiastic Lil and Coop, the arrogant marksman Gunner, the surly surgeon Butch, and the irritable mascot Wink. To survive and find what she seeks she’ll need to earn their trust, follow their rules, and meet face to face with the people who pull the strings of their society. Views: 783
From the author of the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles comes a huge, hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult through four centuries.
Demonstrating, once again, her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches--a family given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being.
On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking . . . and **The Witching Hour** begins.
It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery--aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches--finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.
As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and--in passionate alliance--set out to solve the mystery of *her* past and *his* unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds--an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher . . . a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.
From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien--the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers--provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing. And always--through peril and escape, tension and release--there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.
*From the Hardcover edition.* Views: 783
No more hiding.Jey and Elle have joined forces with the tattered remains of the Tessilari. Jey finds herself feeling impatient. She was made for fighting, not talking. As events begin to unfold around her, she’ll have to decide which is more important – her newfound loyalty to the Tessilari, or her thirst for revenge.No more hiding.Jey and Elle have joined forces with the tattered remains of the Tessilari. Vastly outnumbered, unequipped, and bearing the scars of decades of strife, the small group is determined to see justice delivered. They head for Deramor with a plan to seize control of the academy and see those in charge held responsible for their crimes.The Tessilari hope to accomplish their goals through diplomacy. As Elle infiltrates the court, Jey finds herself feeling impatient. She was made for fighting, not talking. As events begin to unfold around her, she’ll have to decide which is more important – her newfound loyalty to the Tessilari, or her thirst for revenge. Views: 782
When are you too old to believe in monsters?An unedifying episode from the unorthodox life of Captain Hesperus, star trader. Money is tight, the engines are failing, and there's soup on the ceiling ... still, there's nothing that can't be fixed with one sweet deal. A cargo of machinery destined for a low-tech Anarchy system: what could possibly go wrong?A novella set in the universe of the classic computer game "Elite", and its fan-made remake "Oolite". Views: 781
The unsolved murder of a respected doctor has sent ripples of fear throughout a city teeming with life and noise and commerce. Who snuffed out the good man's life with the slash of a blade on a midnight streeti The local printmaster has labeled the fiend "the Masker," adding fuel to a volatile mystery. . . and when the Masker claims a new victim, hardworking young law clerk Matthew Corbett is lured into a maze of forensic clues and heart-pounding investigation that will both test his natural penchant for detection and inflame his hunger for justice. Views: 781
Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver must face their family’s troubled past in this gripping mystery from #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris.Taking a break from looking for the dead, Harper and Tolliver decide to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But as they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface... To make matters worse, Tolliver learns his father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants no part of the man—but he may not have a choice in the matter. Soon, family secrets ensnare them both, as Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister, Cameron, so many years before. And what she finds out will change her world forever. Views: 781
It's clear on Monday, it's sunny on Tuesday, it's bright and cheerful every day of the week... except Adoption Day. Five orphans huddled under London Bridge, careful to stay dry while waiting for their mysterious benefactor. Why wouldn't it stop raining for poor old Mr. Foxworth? What did God have against him?It's clear on Monday, it's sunny on Tuesday, it's bright and cheerful every day of the week... except Adoption Day. Five orphans huddled under London Bridge, careful to stay dry while waiting for their mysterious benefactor. Why wouldn't it stop raining for poor old Mr. Foxworth? What did God have against him? A short story on murder, pudding, and Victorian England Views: 781
Following a nuclear holocaust, Nathan Taylor and his family face grim choices in order to stay alive. Fleeing deadly radiation, plague and desperate men, Nathan, an army officer, leads his wife and their two teenage sons away from chaos and madness toward his ancestral home in Kentucky.Following a nuclear holocaust, Nathan Taylor and his family face grim choices in order to stay alive. Fleeing deadly radiation, plague and desperate men, Nathan, an army officer, leads his wife and their two teenage sons away from chaos and madness toward his ancestral home in Kentucky. Horrors lie in their path. From the prison struggling to maintain control of its inmates, to the desperadoes who enslave anyone who comes their way, even survival may cost Nathan his humanity...or that of his sons, Joshua and David. Nathan struggles to keep his family intact, but it requires making brutal choices. He wants to protect his sons, but knows they now must be deadly and cold at times.Nathan's home has been spared from the worst of the destruction, but a larger conflict over scarce resources erupts. For the survivors to have any chance they will have to fight and the desperate journey has transformed young Joshua and David into men called upon to lead and sacrifice. Torn between harsh realities, and wanting to hold onto fleeting childhoods, they are often conflicted and angry about the roles thrust upon them. Much will depend on how Nathan and his sons respond to a madman and his military regime seeking to conquer the fledgling community they are helping to build.GLIMMER OF HOPE is an epic tale of one family's endurance and triumph after tomorrow's apocalypse. Views: 781
Contents:
xi · Robert Bloch: The Man Who Wrote Psycho · Lester del Rey · in
1 · Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper · ss Weird Tales Jul ’43
21 · Enoch · ss Weird Tales Sep ’46
39 · Catnip · ss Weird Tales Mar ’48
55 · The Hungry House · ss Imagination Apr ’51
79 · The Man Who Collected Poe · ss Famous Fantastic Mysteries Oct ’51
97 · Mr. Steinway · ss Fantastic Apr ’54
113 · The Past Master · nv Bluebook Jan ’55
141 · I Like Blondes · ss Playboy Jan ’56
153 · All on a Golden Afternoon · nv F&SF Jun ’56
185 · Broomstick Ride · ss Super Science Fiction Dec ’57
197 · Daybroke · ss Star Science Fiction Magazine Jan ’58
209 · Sleeping Beauty [“The Sleeping Redheads”] · ss Swank Mar ’58
225 · Word of Honor · ss Playboy Aug ’58
237 · The World-Timer · nv Fantastic Aug ’60
271 · That Hell-Bound Train · ss F&SF Sep ’58
289 · The Funnel of God · nv Fantastic Jan ’60
319 · Beelzebub · ss Playboy Dec ’63
329 · The Plot Is the Thing · ss F&SF Jul ’66
337 · How Like a God · ss Galaxy Apr ’69
355 · The Movie People · ss F&SF Oct ’69
269 · The Oracle · ss Penthouse May ’71
377 · The Learning Maze · ss The Learning Maze, ed. Roger Elwood, Messner, 1974
393 · Author’s Afterword: “Will the Real Robert Bloch Please Stand Up?” · aw Views: 780
Strange sounds emanating from the swamp startled Jack during the night. Alone in the house, he wondered what was outside. Would he determine what was tormenting him before it was too late?Strange sounds emanating from the swamp startled Jack during the night. Alone in the house, he wondered what was outside. Would he determine what was tormenting him before it was too late?A short story with about 2300 words. Views: 780