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a selection from CHAPTER ONE: On the ground, new blades of grass sprang up in chlorophyll coats. On the trees, tongues of green protruded from boughs and branches, wrapping them about - soon the place would look like an imbecile Earthchild's attempt to draw Christmas trees - as spring again set spur to the growing things in the southern hemisphere of Dapdrof. Not that nature was more amiable on Dapdrof than elsewhere. Even as she sent the warmer winds over the southern hemisphere, she was sousing most of the northern in an ice-bearing monsoon. Propped on G-crutches, old Aylmer Ainson stood at his door, scratching his scalp very leisurely and staring at the budding trees. Even the slenderest outmost twig shook very little, for all that a stiffish breeze blew. This leaden effect was caused by gravity; twigs, like everything else on Dapdrof. weighed three times as much as they did on Earth. Ainson was long accustomed to the phenomenon. His body had grown round-shouldered and hollow-chested accustoming him to it. His brain had grown a little round-shouldered in the process. Fortunately he was not afflicted with the craving to recapture the past that strikes down so many humans even before they reach middle age. The sight of infant green leaves woke in him only the vaguest nostalgia, roused in him only the faintest recollection that his childhood had been passed among foliage more responsive to April's zephyrs - zephyrs, moreover, a hundred light years away. He was free to stand in the doorway and enjoy man's richest luxury, a blank mind. Idly, he watched Quequo. the female utod, as she trod between her salad beds and under the ammp trees to launch her body into the bolstering mud. The ammp trees were evergreen, unlike the rest of the trees in Ainson's enclosure. Resting in the foliage on the crest of them were big four-winged white birds, which decided to take off as Ainson looked at them, fluttering up like immense butterflies and splashing their shadows across the house as they passed. But the house was already splashed with their shadows. Obeying the urge to create a work of art that visited them perhaps only once in a century, Ainson's friends had broken the white of his walls with a scatterbrained scattering of silhouetted wings and bodies, urging upwards. The lively movement of this pattern seemed to make the low-eaved house rise against gravity; but that was appearance only, for this spring found the neoplastic rooftree sagging and the supporting walls considerably buckled at the knees. This was the fortieth spring Ainson had seen flow across his patch of Dapdrof. Even the ripe stench from the mid-denstead now savoured only of home. As he breathed it in, his grorg or parasite-eater scratched his head for him; reaching up, Ainson returned the compliment and tickled the lizard-like creature's cranium. He guessed what the grorg really wanted, but at that hour, with only one of the suns up, it was too chilly to join Snok Snok Karn and Quequo Kifful with their grorgs for a wallow in the mire. "I'm cold standing out here. I am going inside to lie down," he called to Snok Snok in the utodian tongue. The young utod looked up and extended two of his limbs in a sign of understanding. That was gratifying. Even after forty years* study, Ainson found the utodian language full of conundrums. He had not been sure that he had not said. "The stream is cold and I am going inside to cook it." Catching the right whistling inflected scream was not easy: he had only one sound orifice to Snok Snok's eight. He swung his crutches and went in. "His speech is growing less distinct than it was," Quequo remarked. "We had difficulty enough teaching him to communicate. He is not an efficient mechanism, this manlegs. You may have noticed that he is moving more slowly than he did." Views: 147
Fifty-seven-year-old Takeshi has just been involved in a traffic accident. When he wakes up, he is in a strange bar, no longer crippled as he has been for most of his life, but able to walk without crutches in his everyday business suit. Looking around, he sees a number of familiar faces - Izumi, a colleague who had died in a plane crash five years before; his childhood friend Yuzo, who had become a yakuza and had been killed by a rival gang member; and Sasaki, who had frozen to death as a homeless vagrant. This is Hell - a place where three days last as long as ten years on earth, and people are able to see events in both the future and the past. Yuzo can now see the yakuza that killed him as he harasses a friend of his. The actress Mayumi and the writer Torigai are chased by the paparazzi into an elevator that drops to floor 666 beneath ground level. The vivid depiction of afterlife portrayed in "Hell" admits the traditional horrors, but subjects them to Tsutsui's unique... Views: 147
The final installment in Penguin Classics's landmark H. G. Wells seriesAlthough best known for his novels, it was in his early short fiction that H. G. Wells first explored the relationship between the fantastical and everyday. Here horror meets humor, man-eating squids invade the sleepy Devon coast, and strange kinks and portals in space and time lead to other worlds-a marvelous literary universe showcasing the author's fascination with the wonders and perils of scientific progress. Views: 147
On a fateful night five centuries ago, three mages made a desperate last stand, sacrificing everything to preserve the only hope of goodness in the beautiful, doomed land of Alasea. Now, on the anniversary of that ominous night, a girl-child ripens into the heritage of lost power. But before she can even comprehend her terrible new gift, the Dark Lord dispatches his winged monsters to capture her and bring him the embryonic magic she embodies. Fleeing the minions of darkness, Elena is swept toward certain doom--and into the company of unexpected allies. There she forms a band of the hunted and the cursed, the outcasts and the outlaws, to battle the unstoppable forces of evil and rescue a once-glorious empire . . . Views: 146
One man is mentally linked to an alien who is spearheading an invasion of Earth; a group of soldiers fight to win new space for Earth; and a small group of men fight against a machine that controls all life. Views: 146
In the third book of the Nina Tanleven Mysteries, Nina and her best friend explore a haunted mansion, where they must reunite the ghosts of a father and daughter before it's too late Nina and her best friend, Chris, haven't known each other long, but they've already shared enough ghostly adventures for a lifetime. Now working at an antique shop in town, Nina and Chris encounter their latest spooky predicament while inspecting some classic furniture located high in the tower of an old mansion. In a creepy bedroom sits a magnificent brass bed, and—to their surprise—the crying ghost of a little girl. When they stumble across a second spirit, who resembles the girl's father, Nina and Chris know one thing for sure: Something is amiss in the big house, and all the antiques in the world couldn't be more exciting than getting to the truth. The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed is the third book of the Nina Tanleven Mysteries,... Views: 146
"LADIES AND ZOMBIES, IN THE CENTER RING..."Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble and his ghost girlfriend are called to the Vampire Circus when a fortune teller's cards go missing. Not exactly the glamorous life, but the stakes escalate when a vampire trapeze act goes dead wrong, and Shamble discovers even more skeletons in the closet than the ones that live there. As he shuffles for clues through an unnatural cast of carnies, he faces a slate of suspects that could freak out even the most daring detective—a werewolf lion tamer, a fat lady with an enormous secret, an undead ringmaster...and what could be scarier than a circus clown? The only thing certain is that the show must go on—dead or alive. Praise for the Dan Shamble Novels"Darkly funny, wonderfully original."—Kelley Armstrong"Two decaying thumbs up!"—Jonathan Maberry"An unpredictable walk on the weird side. Prepare to be entertained."—Charlaine Harris"A funny,... Views: 146
Our oaths bind us together, the crow-woman had said. When an oath is broken there is a price. And it is always more than the oath breaker can pay.These words have haunted Fer, the Lady of the Summerlands, since she first heard them, but Fer knows that the oath she made to her kin is worth keeping, always. She's pledged to serve her people with honesty and without using the disguise and deception of a glamorie. Though Fer has also made a critical mistake--she's trusted others to fulfill the same vow, one that many are unwilling and unable to keep.Now an oath has been broken, and the Forsworn, a renegade group of Lords and Ladies, has unleashed the consequences of their betrayal onto the lands. A stillness is creeping into the realm, threatening to destroy them all, and only Fer has the power to fight it. But she can't do it alone. Yet when help arrives, it comes from Rook, a puck-boy whose very nature is to trick her. Can Fer trust the unbound puck to stay... Views: 146
When Maxim, a space explorer from Earth, accidentally discovers a planet inhabited by humanoids who destroy his spaceship, he thinks of himself as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. But after his experiences in the planet's nightmarish military and mental health facilities, he begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park. The Inhabited Island is one of the Strugatsky brothers' most popular and acclaimed novels, yet the only previous English-language edition was based on a heavily censored version. Now, in a sparkling new translation by award-winning translator Andrew Bromfield, this landmark novel can be newly appreciated by both longtime Strugatsky fans and new explorers of the Russian science fiction masters' astonishingly rich oeuvre. Views: 146
Stealing isn't her biggest crime. Magic is. In a near-future city shielded from the elemental magic raging through the wastelands, seventeen-year-old Ridley steals from the wealthy and secretly gives to those in need—which is far less of a crime than the other thing she spends her free time doing: using magic. Ridley's managed to stay under the radar for years, but the night she steals a gold figurine from the richest family in the city, everything starts to unravel. A stranger follows her home and ends up murdered outside the antique store she lives above. Her best friend—who definitely wasn't there—is accused of the crime. And that family Ridley stole from? Their son just walked into her store. As heir to the city's largest fortune, Archer Davenport represents everything Ridley hates. She'd prefer to stay well away from him, but he has a problem only Ridley can solve: Turns out that ancient figurine... Views: 146
