By day Dagmar Shaw orchestrates vast games with millions of players spanning continents. By night, she tries to forget the sound of a city collapsing in flames around her. She tries to forget the faces of her friends as they died in front of her. She tries to forget the blood on her own hands.But then an old friend approaches Dagmar with a project. The project he pitches is so insane and so ambitious, she can't possibly say no. But this new venture will lead her from the world of alternate-reality gaming to one even more complex. A world in which the players are soldiers and spies and the name of the game is survival.ReviewPowerful ideas, brilliantly executed ... you should take this as a recommendation Charles Stross, award-winning author of HALTING STATE With admirable topicality, DEEP STATE concerns the fomenting of revolution against an repressive regime using modern networked communications TELEGRAPH A neatly plausible scenario that riffs off recent events in Iran to fine effect as Williams brings an SF sensibility to what's essentially a spy thriller. Recommended. BBC FOCUS Views: 64
At some point in each of our lives, if we're lucky, we become receptive to the messages of the universe. We must then choose between living or merely existing. This is a tale of such choosing. Never underestimate the power of dreams. Views: 64
ReviewThe Black Library's best-selling author, Dan Abnett, once again shows why he's the master of action and suspense! Product DescriptionInquisitor Gideon Ravenor and his team investigate corruption within the Imperium and find the taint runs deeper than they could possibly imagine. Views: 64
Product DescriptionDan Abnett, the Black Library's best-selling author, returns with more tales of Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor and his retinue of lethal operatives. First introduced in Dan's astonishing Eisenhorn trilogy, Ravenor has left his former master and is now investigating the spread of a unholy psychic substance called flects. As his investigation takes him into the higher echelons of the Imperial hierarchy, it becomes clear that this will be his most dangerous assignment yet. With a huge range of novels behind him, Dan once again shows why he is the master of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. About the AuthorDan Abnett lives and works in Maidstone, Kent, in England. Well known for his comic work, he has written everything from the Mr Men to the X-Men in the last decade. His work for the Black Library includes the popular strips Lone Wolves, Titan and Darkblade, the best-selling Gaunt's Ghosts novels, and the acclaimed Inquisitor Eisenhorn trilogy. Views: 64
As the summer of 1322 brings sun to the Devonshire countryside, it seems that the small village of Sticklepath is destined to remain in darkness. An afternoon of innocent adventure becomes one of gruesome terror when two playmates uncover the body of a young girl up on the moors. As the news spreads through the village, one name is on everyone's lips. The body must be that of Aline, the ten-year-old daughter of Swetricus, who went missing six years ago. Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock are summoned to the scene to investigate, but find their progress blocked at every turn. There seems to be an unspoken agreement amongst the villagers to ensure that the truth behind Aline's death is never discovered. But what reason could they possibly have for shielding a murderer? As the King's men slowly break down the wall of silence they discover that the village has plenty to hide. Aline is not the only young girl to have been found dead in recent years, and it seems that the villagers have been concealing not only a serial killer, but, judging by the state of the girls' bodies, a possible case of cannibalism. Or, if the rumours are to be believed, a vampire! That would certainly explain the haunted looks in the eyes of so many villagers, and the strange voices heard late at night from the Sticklepath cemetery… Views: 64
An intense friendship fractures in this gritty, realistic novel from the author of Beautiful, Clean, and Crazy, which School Library Journal called compelling and moving. Max would follow Sadie anywhere, so when Sadie decides to ditch her problems and escape to Nebraska for the summer, its only natural for Max to go along. Max is Sadies confidante, her protector, and her best friend. This summer will be all about them. This summer will be perfect. And then they meet Dylan. Dylan is dark, dangerous, and intoxicating, and he awakens something in Max that she never knew existed. No matter how much she wants to, she cant back away from him. But Sadie has her own intensity, and has never allowed Max to become close with anyone else. Max doesnt know who she is without Sadie, but shed better start learning. Because if she doesnt make a decisionabout Dylan, about Sadie, about herselfits going to be made for her. Views: 64
Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, Brokeback Mountain is her masterpiece. Brokeback Mountain was originally published in The New Yorker. It won the National Magazine Award. It also won an O. Henry Prize. Included in this volume is Annie Proulx's haunting story about the difficult, dangerous love affair between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy. Also included is the celebrated screenplay for the major motion picture " Brokeback Mountain," written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. All three writers have contributed essays on the process of adapting this critically acclaimed story for film. Views: 64
A woman dead in a derelict hotel. Hardly an unusual sight working homicide. Already under IA scrutiny, Blake must hunt the killer through a maze of cults, criminals, fake mediums, and things which make him question his sanity. All while trying to shoot as few people as possible. Fatally, at least. And there's the very unreal possibility of his soul becoming food for things that shouldn't exist. Views: 64
"This madcap adventure mixes small-town teachers, barkeeps, teenagers, and fry-cooks with international spies, terrorists, and political refugees. But it is the writing itself that is the true star here, as Clarke delves deep into the hidden and mixed emotions we carry for the ones we love, turning out sentence after sentence that will make you stop to admire its clear, crisp daring and perfect delivery. Yes! I thought, as I read these pages. That's how you write a good book." —Hannah Tinti, author The Good Thief Take the format of a spy thriller, shape it around real-life incidents involving international terrorism, leaven it with dark, dry humor, toss in a love rectangle, give everybody a gun, and let everything play out in the outer reaches of upstate New York—there you have an idea of Brock Clarke's new novel, The Happiest People in the World. Who are "the happiest people in the world"? Theoretically, it's all the... Views: 64
A New York Times Notable BookA Washington Post, Los Angeles times, and San Jose Mercury News Best Book of the YearHa Jin’s seismically powerful new novel is at once an unblinking look into the bell jar of communist Chinese society and a portrait of the eternal compromises and deceptions of the human state. When the venerable professor Yang, a teacher of literature at a provincial university, has a stroke, his student Jian Wan is assigned to care for him. Since the dutiful Jian plans to marry his mentor’s beautiful, icy daughter, the job requires delicacy. Just how much delicacy becomes clear when Yang begins to rave.Are these just the outpourings of a broken mind, or is Yang speaking the truth—about his family, his colleagues, and his life’s work? And will bearing witness to the truth end up breaking poor Jian’s heart? Combining warmth and intimacy with an unsparing social vision, The Crazed is Ha Jin’s most enthralling book to date.From the Trade Paperback edition.Amazon.com ReviewSet during the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989, The Crazed, a novel from Ha Jin, the award-winning author of the bestseller Waiting, unites a prominent Chinese university professor who suffers a brain injury and Jien Wen, a favorite student and future son-in-law who becomes his caretaker. As Professor Yang rants about his earlier life, his bizarre outbursts begin to strike Jien as containing some truth and, considering the uncertain times, he puzzles over their meaning. When Jien realizes that his additional responsibilities make sitting for his Ph.D. exams impossible, Meimei, his fiancée, promptly discards him, branding him as unloving, since passing the exams would have ensured they would both have attended graduate school in Beijing. Unmoored from the university, and unconnected to anything else, Jien joins the student movement and as a result becomes a police suspect. Problematic to the plot is that Meimei is hardly warm to Jien; their relationship never appears to be anything but doomed. The professor's hallucinatory diatribes comprise the bulk of the novel, and initially it seems unlikely that a story will ever evolve from these ramblings. But with Yang indisposed, minor characters from the university conspire to devise means to further their personal agendas. A mystery results, as university and literature department personnel plot to have someone other than Jien marry Meimei. Jin's prose is succinct, but the most interesting parts of Jien's life occur, unfortunately, at the end of the book, leaving readers who fell for Waiting wanting more. --Michael FerchFrom Publishers WeeklyOn the day after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, Jian Wan, the narrator of Ha Jin's powerful new novel, comes upon two weeping students. "I'm going to write a novel to fix all the fascists on the page," says one of them. The other responds, "yes... we must nail them to the pillory of history." Ha's novel is written in the conviction that writers don't nail anyone to anything: at best, they escape nailing themselves. Jian is a graduate student in literature at provincial Shanning University. In the spring of 1989, his adviser, Professor Yang, suffers a stroke, and Jian listens as the bedridden Yang raves about his past. Yang's bitterness about his life under the yoke of the Communist Party infects Jian, who decides to withdraw from school. His fiancee Professor Yang's daughter, Meimei breaks off their engagement in disgust, but Jian is heartened by a trip into the countryside, after which he decides that he will devote himself to helping the province's impoverished peasants. His plan is to become a provincial official, but the Machiavellian maneuverings of the Party secretary of the literature department a sort of petty Madame Mao cheat him of this dream, sending him off on a hapless trip to Beijing and Tiananmen Square. Despite this final quixotic adventure, Ha's story is permeated by a grief that won't be eased or transmuted by heroic images of resistance. Jian settles for shrewd, small rebellions, to prevent himself from becoming "just a piece of meat on a chopping board." Like Gao Xingjian, Ha continues to refine his understanding of politics as an unmitigated curse.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 64
Abbey Mei Otis's short stories are contemporary fiction at its strongest: taking apart the supposed equality that is clearly just not there, putting humans under an alien microscope, putting humans under government control, putting kids from the moon into a small beach town and then the putting the rest of the town under the microscope as they react in ways we ope they would, and then, of course, in ways we'd hope they don't. Otis has long been fascinated in using strange situations to explore dynamics of power, oppression, and grief, and the twelve stories collected here are at once a striking indictment of the present and a powerful warning about the future. Views: 64
