An adrenaline-fueled travel memoir of life in the wild among the planet's most ferocious and fascinating predatorsOver the last forty years, bestselling science-fiction writer Alan Dean Foster has journeyed around the globe to encounter nature's most fearsome creatures. His travels have taken him into the heart of the Amazon rain forest on the trail of deadly tangarana ants, on an elephant ride across the sweeping green plains of central India in search of the elusive Bengal tiger, and into the waters of the Australian coast to come face-to-face with great white sharks.Packed with pulse-pounding adventure and spiked with rapier wit, Predators I Have Known is a thrilling look at life and death in the wild.The New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred books, Alan Dean Foster is one of the most prominent writers of modern science fiction. Born in New York City in 1946, he studied filmmaking at UCLA, but first found success in 1968 when a horror magazine published one of his short stories. In 1972 he wrote his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first in his Pip and Flinx series featuring the Humanx Commonwealth, a universe he has explored in more than twenty-five books. He also created the Spellsinger series, numerous film novelizations, and the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An avid world traveler, he lives with his family in Prescott, Arizona. Views: 55
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Readers will be pleased to discover that the
star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern
switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new
school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel. We begin in
contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising
music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the
glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha,
to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like
Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of
society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the
future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how
rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and
lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, How
did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about?
Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this
powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays
the same. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics loved Egan's newest novel, describing it as "audacious" and "extraordinary" (Philadelphia Inquirer).
In the hands of a less-gifted writer, Egans's time-hopping narrative,
unorthodox format, and motley cast of characters might have failed
spectacularly. But it works here, primarily because each person shines
within his or her individual chapter that offers a distinct voice and a
fascinating backstory. A few reviewers mentioned the uneven nature of
the chapters and the different stylistic experiments within them. Yet,
hailed as "a frequently dazzling piece of layer-cake metafiction" (Entertainment Weekly), A Visit from the Goon Squad is a gutsy novel that succeeds on all levels.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition. Views: 55
Written with the raw honesty and poignant insight that were the hallmarks of her acclaimed bestseller A Widow's Story, an affecting and observant memoir of growing up from one of our finest and most beloved literary masters.The Lost Landscape is Joyce Carol Oates' vivid chronicle of her hardscrabble childhood in rural western New York State. From memories of her relatives, to those of a charming bond with a special red hen on her family farm; from her first friendships to her earliest experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is a powerful evocation of the romance of childhood, and its indelible influence on the woman and the writer she would become.In this exceptionally candid, moving, and richly reflective account, Oates explores the world through the eyes of her younger self, an imaginative girl eager to tell stories about the world and the people she meets. While reading Alice in Wonderland changed a young Joyce forever and inspired her to view life as a... Views: 55
For the newbies, kickboxing is a combination of martial arts Views: 55
There is a middle world between life and death, and Tess must navigate it to save her brother in this heart-wrenching story infused with the fractured and fantastical realms of Finnish mysticism.Axel and Tess are bewildered when a stranger shows up in their backyard accompanied by a giant brown bear, but before they can investigate the bizarre encounter, something more harrowing happens: their father is killed in a freak car accident. Now orphaned, Tess and Axel are shipped off to Finland to live with grandparents who they’ve never met, and are stunned to discover that the mysterious stranger with the bear has found them again. More stunning—they come to understand that this man isn’t really a man…he’s a keeper of souls. And the bear isn’t really a bear…it’s a ghost. Their mother’s ghost. Wandering, endlessly, searching for their father. Then the Keeper invites Axel, who is fighting his symptoms of muscular... Views: 55
Award-winning erotica and romance writer Radclyffe explores the outer reaches of desire and the shifting gender terrain beyond butch-femme: an initiate tests her limits in a men's leather bar, a construction worker gets a special treat during her noon break, a porn star tells...and shows...all, a femme instructs her straight girlfriends in the fine art of fellatio, and twenty more radically erotic encounters. Views: 55
In a meaty tribute to mystery sub-genres, Straub ( Ghost Story ) serves up a coming-of-age tale, a country-manor murder mystery and a twisted knot of governmental corruption and cover-up. Ten-year-old Tom Pasmore, a rich resident of the Caribbean island of Mill Walk, is hit by a car and, in a near-death experience, sees visions of himself in the future. During his long recuperation, Tom reads mystery stories brought to him by Lamont von Heilitz, an eccentric neighbor, once a famous detective. Action resumes when Tom, now aged 17 and possessed of sharpened deductive skills, gives the police an anonymous tip to help them solve the murder of a government official's sister. Tom's tip backfires, motivating him to join Lamont in trying to solve a murder that took place 20 years earlier in the Wisconsin resort town where Mill Walk's privileged citizens spend their summers. That layered, complex case reveals a long history of corruption, leads to more murders, to realization of the meaning of Tom's early visions and his discovery of his true identity. While evocative of place and time (the early '60s) and peopled with memorable characters, the story tries to fit into too many subgenres to succeed completely at any one. $200,000 ad/promo. Views: 55
A story of love and terrorism.Kathryn, an American woman, and Rashid, a Pakistani-born Muslim man, seem to have bridged the divide between Western and Islamic world views with their marriage and two American-born children. But everything changes when Rashid's father is suddenly killed by a US drone attack near the Afghan border, and their cross-cultural family descends into conflicting ideas of loyalty, justice, identity, revenge, and terrorism."A thought-provoking love story. This novel masterfully blends the dangers of geopolitics superimposed on romantic and unconditional familial love... Ruff bravely circumnavigates the violence at the heart of the story to lay bare the intricate drama of before and after. Revenge versus justice. Clanship versus kinship. Passionate love versus filial obligation. All are explored with intimate humanity in this compelling, tender, and timely novel."—Kim Fay, author of The Map of Lost Memories, Edgar Award Finalist for Best... Views: 55
