Can interspecies diplomacy begin in the womb? After seventy years on Tofarn, the human colonists still know almost nothing about the native Tofa. Misunderstandings breed conflict, and the conflicts are escalating. Scientist Mara Cadell’s radical proposal: that host mothers carry fraternal twins, one human and one Tofa, who might understand each other better. (The sequel, REACH, now available!)Humans have lived on Tofarn, planet of creeks and rivers, for seventy years, but they still don't understand the Tofa. The Tofa are an enigma, from their featureless faces to the four arms that sometimes seem to be five. They take arbitrary umbrage at the simplest human activities, while annoying their human neighbors in seemingly pointless ways. The next infuriating, inexplicable incident may explode into war.Scientist Mara Cadell's radical proposal: that host mothers carry fraternal twins, human and Tofa, in the hope that the bond between twins can bridge the gap between species. Mara knows about the bond between twins: her own twin, Levi, died in utero, but she has secretly kept him alive in her mind as companion and collaborator.Mara succeeds in obtaining governmental backing for her project – but both the human and Tofa establishments have their own agendas. Mara must shepherd the Twin-Bred through dangers she anticipated and others that even the canny Levi could not foresee. Will the Twin-Bred bring peace, war, or something else entirely?... This revised edition removes some unnecessary minor character names, relocates a few scenes into more logical places, and divides chapters that lacked focus as originally organized.*Now available -- Reach: a Twin-Bred novel (the sequel)!* Views: 833
The mutant white rat had grown and mated, creating offspring in its own image. They dominated the others, the dark-furred ones, who foraged for food and brought it back to the lair. Now the dark rats were restless, and the white slug-like thing that ruled them remembered the taste of human flesh. Views: 832
When Felix is deposed as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival by his devious assistant and longtime enemy, his production of The Tempest is canceled and he is heartbroken. Reduced to a life of exile in rural southern Ontario—accompanied only by his fantasy daughter, Miranda, who died twelve years ago—Felix devises a plan for retribution.
Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution, and is making a modest success of it when an auspicious star places his enemies within his reach. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. Not surprisingly, they view Caliban as the character with whom they have the most in common. However, Felix has another twist in mind, and his enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. But how will Felix deal with his invisible Miranda’s decision to take a part in the play? Views: 832
Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friend Professor Magnus Lane. During his stay he agrees to serve as a guinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in his scientific research.
When Dick samples Magnus's potion, he finds himself doing the impossible: traveling through time while staying in place, thrown all the way back into Medieval Cornwall. The concoction wear off after several hours, but its effects are intoxicating and Dick cannot resist his newfound powers. As his journeys increase, Dick begins to resent the days he must spend in the modern world, longing ever more fervently to get back into his world of centuries before, and the home of the beautiful Lady Isolda... Views: 832
In the arid canyonlands of Mexico the race is on for the ultimate end-of-the-world codex—the final 1000-year-old prophesy of the god-king, Quetzalcoatl, who ruled Mexico 1000 years ago. Rita Critchlow and Cooper Jones hunt for that sacred codex in those scorching desert canyons, while 500 years ago, Pacal, a young slave-scholar, sets out on the same deadly quest. He too must find those apocalyptic writings, knowing that his era—the Age of the Aztecs—may well come to an end if he does not find them.
For Pacal, the End-Time is at hand. Montezuma has built a vast empire based in what will one day be Mexico City. Now however he faces war, disastrous drought, death-cult priests, who rip the hearts out of thousands of people atop their pyramids . . . and the arrival of red-bearded horse-borne conquistador, bearing preternaturally powerful weapons and catastrophic plagues, sowing pandemic death wherever he goes.
America’s leaders are also staring into an apocalyptic abyss. Their own time mirrors that of Quetzacoatl’s and the Aztec’s in shocking detail. Convinced that Quetzalcoatl’s codex holds the key to humanity’s survival—that he is warning them of a global, planet-killing threat—the two women battle broiling desert canyons and drug-cartel warlords to track it down and decipher it.
Moreover, earlier glimpses of his prophesy foreshadow uncanny similarities to those of John’s Book of Revelation. Are Quetzalcoatl’s and Revelation’s prophesies one and the same? Can they crack the 2012 code and save their world from their deadly fate? The countdown is on. Views: 832
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? Views: 832
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Terry Brooks's The Measure of the Magic.
Since the death of Allanon, life in the Four Lands has drastially changed. Yet Par Ohmsford still has some power of the Wishsong. And when a message from the ancient Druid, Allanon, reaches them, Par is ordered to recover the long-lost Sword of Shinnara, and the glory that once was the Four Lands.... Views: 832
Praised for her “haunting” (Booklist) and “tremendously touching” (Kirkus Reviews) novels, Elizabeth Flock reveals the inner workings of a modern marriage with unflinching honesty in Sleepwalking in Daylight, delivering a provocative story that Publishers Weekly calls “redemptive…familiar and melancholy. ” Once defined by her career and independence, stay-at-home mom Samantha Friedman realizes her life has become a routine of errands, car pools and suburban gossip. She deals with a husband who shows up for dinner but is too preoccupied for conversation, an increasingly moody daughter who won’t talk at all, and wonders, Is this it? Since finding out she was adopted, seventeen-year-old Cammy Friedman has felt like an outsider. Unwilling to reach out to the parents she once adored, she shields herself behind black clothing and begins to drift into dangerous territory with questionable friends and risky behavior. Mother and daughter indulge in their own respective escapism— for Sam, clandestine coffee dates with a handsome stranger, fueled by the desire to feel something; for Cammy, a furtive search for her birth mother punctuated by sex, pills and the need to feel absolutely nothing—until a pivotal moment in an otherwise average day alters their relationships forever. “Heartfelt and poignant, unique and memorable… The story is rich and resonates long after the last page has been turned. ” —John Shors, bestselling author of Beneath a Marble Sky Views: 832
A story of love and memory.
On a train journey from Paris to Madrid a young opera singer becomes fascinated by those in his compartment: a middle-aged businessman, his alluring wife and their male traveling companion. Soon his life of constant travel, luxury hotels, rehearsal and performance will become entangled with these three people, and the singer will find himself fatefully consumed by Natalia's beauty. The Man of Feeling is the haunting story of the birth and death of a passion, told in retrospect. Intricately interweaving desire and memory, it explores the nature of love, and asks whether we can ever truly recall something that no longer exists. Views: 832
The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly will blush.
Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond.
Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity.
Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It’s wild, it’s wicked, it’s bold-faced—it’s vintage Chuck. Views: 831
This book is a remarkable tale of pulse-pounding excitement with a uniquely sympathetic, fascinating portrait of the werewolf as noble warrior-and conflicted being. Complex, compelling and utterly real. First published in 1989, The Wolf's Hour remains one of Robert McCammon's most indelible creations. Ranging freely and with great authority through realms of history, folklore, and myth, it combines two seemingly disparate genres the World War II action thriller and the paranormal romance into a seamless, irresistible whole.McCammon's hero is Michael Gallatin, embattled inhabitant of two different worlds. Born into the Russian aristocracy, but 'changed' and raised by a pack of werewolves, Michael's journey takes him from the wild regions of his native Russia to the battle-scarred landscapes of a world at war. Offering his unique talents to the Allied cause, Michael becomes a sort of secret weapon aimed at the destruction of Hitler and his 'Thousand Year Reich.' His adventures take him from the deserts of North Africa to the German-occupied countries of Western Europe. There, with the aid of a vivid assortment of friends, comrades, and lovers, he uncovers a horrific conspiracy known as 'Iron Fist,' which threatens to disrupt the Allies' long-planned invasion of Europe and to alter the very outcome of the war.Both a scrupulously researched historical thriller and a brilliant re-imagining of the traditional werewolf tale, The Wolf's Hour offers pleasure, excitement, and illumination on virtually every page. Exotic, enthralling, and endlessly inventive, it is the work of a master storyteller in full command of his matchless narrative gifts.The Subterranean Press edition of The Wolf's Hour will feature an original introduction by Robert McCammon, as well as a full-color dust jacket and a number of color plates by Vincent Chong, including a gatefold illustration depicting the novel's famous 'death train' scene.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Views: 831
The adventure continues with acclaimed fantasy author Isobelle Carmody's The Rebellion, an omnibus edition of books three and four in the dystopian fantasy the Obernewtyn Chronicles—Ashling and The Keeping Place!
Elspeth must turn her attention to the erupting bloodshed of the rebellion and lead her friends through the Battlegames—a series of deadly contests that run between dawn and dusk on a single day. When Rushton, the Master of Obernewtyn and Elspeth's love, is kidnapped, will she be willing to pay the price for his life?
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 831
It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence.
Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism.
But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol’s housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. Soon his plans for a magnificent terrace built above the two-hundred-foot drop of the Gorge come under threat.
Diner believes that Lizzie’s independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants.
In a tense drama of public and private violence, resistance and terror, Diner’s passion for Lizzie darkens until she finds herself dangerously alone. Views: 831
Eking out an existence as a scavenger in post-apocalyptic Russia, Ryska never thought she would be more than a blind, discarded military experiment. Then she ends up in the middle of a kidnapping gone wrong and must use her all her skills to save herself, and the young boy who brings back painful memories of her past.This is a science fiction short story.Eking out an existence as a scavenger in post-apocalyptic Russia, Ryska never thought she would be more than a blind, discarded military experiment. Then she ends up in the middle of a kidnapping gone wrong and must use her all her skills to save herself, and the young boy who brings back painful memories of her past.This is a science fiction short story that originally appeared in the anthology Mirror Shards: Volume One. Views: 831
“The Wedding of Zein” unfolds in the same village on the upper Nile where Tayeb Salih’s tragic masterpiece Season of Migration to the North is set. Here, however, the story that emerges through the overlapping, sometimes contradictory voices of the villagers is comic. Zein is the village idiot, and everyone in the village is dumbfounded when the news goes around that he will be getting married—Zein the freak, Zein who burst into laughter the moment he was born and has kept women and children laughing ever since, Zein who lost all his teeth at six and whose face is completely hairless, Zein married at last? Zein’s particular role in the life of the village has been the peculiar one of falling in love again and again with girls who promptly marry another man. It would be unheard of for him to get married himself.
In Tayeb Salih’s wonderfully agile telling, the story of how this miracle came to be is one that engages the tensions that exist in the village, or indeed in any community: tensions between the devout and the profane, the poor and the propertied, the modern and the traditional. In the end, however, Zein’s ridiculous good luck augurs an ultimate reconciliation, opening a prospect of a world made whole.
Salih’s classic novella appears here with two of his finest short stories, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid” and “A Handful of Dates.” Views: 831
