Tag: Books Received

Books Received 12/13/07

0439837766Fall Of The Templar
Author: Derek Benz, J. S. Lewis

Book Description: The epic battle between the Grey Griffins and forces of evil continues, as Max, Harley, and Natalia face off against Morgan La Fey and Lord Sumner. The friends also struggle to find a way to save Ernie, who remains trapped in an enchanted coma, and Max must come to terms with his father’s most wicked betrayal. The Grey Griffins and the Templar knights stage the last stand-off to save the world and the Land of Faerie….

 

0345480309Dragon Harper
Author: Anne Mccaffrey, Todd J. Mccaffrey

Book Description: Life in the Harper Hall is busy for best friends Kindan, Nonala, and Kelsa. As the only female apprentices, Nonala and Kelsa are the butt of jokes and easy targets for the bully Vaxoram and his cronies. But when Kindan springs to Kelsa’s defense, he winds up in a fight for his life against the older, bigger Vaxoram – a fight that will lead to a surprising friendship. | Meanwhile, in nearby Fort Hold, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs is about to hatch, and Lord Bemin’s beautiful young daughter, Koriana, is determined to Impress one of the delightful creatures. At the hatching, Kindan Impresses a fire-lizard of his own . . . and wins the heart of Koriana. But Lord Bemin mistrusts harpers and will not hear of a match between his daughter and the low-born Kindan. | Then fate intervenes in the form of a virulent plague as fast-spreading as it is deadly. Arising suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the contagion decimates hold after hold, paying no heed to distinctions of birth. In this feverish crucible, friendship and love will be tested to the breaking point and beyond. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity. | The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.

 

0316020575Another One Bites the Dust
Author: Jennifer Rardin

Book Description: Jaz Parks has enough trouble in her personal life. What she doesn’t need is more trouble with her vampire boss and another mission. This time she has to retrieve a vital piece of biotechnology by killing the maniac who stole it: an ancient Chinese vamp. Their cover in this mission: professional entertainers at the Corpus Christi’s Winter Festival. The crew’s all here: a psychic, a techno-wizard, a singing vampire, a juggling PI, and Jaz. Holy crap in a bottomless well, Jaz is going to bellydance. It’s definitely, probably, quite possibly going to be the end of the world as we know it.

 

0345458559Tales Before Tolkien
Editor: Douglas A. Anderson

Book Description: Terry Brooks. David Eddings. George R. R. Martin. Robin Hobb. The top names in modern fantasy all acknowledge J. R. R. Tolkien as their role model, the author whose work inspired them to create their own epics. But what writers influenced Tolkien himself? Here, internationally recognized Tolkien expert Douglas A. Anderson has gathered the fiction of authors who sparked Tolkien’s imagination in a collection destined to become a classic in its own right. | Andrew Lang’s romantic swashbuckler, “The Story of Sigurd,” features magic rings, an enchanted sword, and a brave hero loved by two beautiful women— and cursed by a ferocious dragon. Tolkien read E. A. Wyke-Smith’s “The Marvelous Land of Snergs” to his children, delighting in these charming tales of a pixieish people “only slightly taller than the average table.” Also appearing in this collection is a never-before-published gem by David Lindsay, author of Voyage to Arcturus, a novel which Tolkien praised highly both as a thriller and as a work of philosophy, religion, and morals. | In stories packed with magical journeys, conflicted heroes, and terrible beasts, this extraordinary volume is one that no fan of fantasy or Tolkien should be without. These tales just might inspire a new generation of creative writers.

 

0756404657Fellowship Fantastic
Editors: Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes

Book Description: The bonds of friendship and fellowship are key to many fine fantasy and science fiction novels, most notably Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Now top tale-spinners offer their own unique takes on fellowship in thirteen original stories, featuring a girl who finds her best friend through a portal to another world, an adventure on an alternate Earth where a not-quite Holmes and Watson take on a fascinating challenge, a group of urban mages playing the "True Game" for high stakes, a squire determined to help his master’s ghost fulfill his final mission, and more. Together, these stories dramatically illustrate how fellowships can alter destiny and change worlds.

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Books Received 12/10/07

0765314894In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
Author: S.M. Stirling

Book Description: In the parallel world first introduced in S. M. Stirling’s The Sky People, aliens terraformed Mars (and Venus) two hundred million years ago, seeding them with life-forms from Earth. Humans didn’t suspect this until the twentieth century, but when the first probes landed on our sister worlds, and found life—intelligent life, at that—things changed with a vengeance. By the year 2000, America, Russia, and the other great powers of Earth are all contending for influence and power amid the newly-discovered inhabitants of our sister planets. | Venus is a primitive world. But on Mars, early hominids evolved civilization earlier than their earthly cousins, driven by the needs of a harsh world growing still harsher as the initial terraforming runs down. Without coal, oil, or uranium, their technology was forced into different paths, and the genetic wizardry of the Crimson Dynasty united a world for more than twenty thousand years. | Now, in a new stand-alone adventure set in this world’s 2000 AD, Jeremy Wainman is an archaeologist who has achieved a lifelong dream; to travel to Mars and explore the dead cities of the Deep Beyond, searching for the secrets of the Kings Beneath the Mountain and the fallen empire they ruled. | Teyud Zha-Zhalt is the Martian mercenary the Terrans hire as guide and captain of the landship Intrepid Traveller. A secret links her to the deadly intrigues of Dvor il-Adazar, the City That Is A Mountain, where the last aging descendant of the Tollamune Emperors clings to the remnants of his power…and secrets that may trace their origin to the enigmatic Ancients, the Lords of Creation who reshaped the Solar System in the time of the dinosaurs. | When these three meet, the foundations of reality will be shaken—from the lost city of Rema-Dza to the courts of the Crimson Kings.

 

1892391554The New Weird
Editors: Ann VanderMeer & Jeff VanderMeer

Book Description: This avant-garde anthology that presents and defines the New Weird—a hip, stylistic fiction that evokes the gritty exuberance of pulp novels and dime-store comic books—creates a new literature that is entirely unprecedented and utterly compelling. Assembling an array of talent, this collection includes contributions from visionaries Michael Moorcock and China Miéville, modern icon Clive Barker, and audacious new talents Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, and Sarah Monette. An essential snapshot of a vibrant movement in popular fiction, this anthology also features critical writings from authors, theorists, and international editors as well as witty selections from online debates.

 

0765317672Truancy
Author: Isamu Fukui

Book Description: In an alternate world, in a nameless totalitarian city, the autocratic Mayor rules the school system with an iron fist, with the help of his Educators. Fighting against the Mayor and his repressive Educators is a group of former students called the Truancy, whose goal is to take down the system by any means possible—at any cost. | Against this backdrop, fifteen-year-old Tack is just trying to survive. His days are filled with sadistic teachers, unrelenting schoolwork, and indifferent parents. Things start to look up when he meets Umasi, a mysterious boy who runs a lemonade stand in an uninhabited district. | Then someone close to Tack gets killed in the crossfire between the Educators and the Truants, and Tack swears vengeance. To achieve his purpose, he abandons his old life and joins the Truancy. There, he confronts Zyid, an enigmatic leader with his own plans for Tack. But Tack soon finds himself torn between his desire for vengeance and his growing sympathy for the Truants…. | Isamu Fukui wrote Truancy during the summer of his fifteenth year. The author’s purpose is not just to entertain, but to make a statement about the futility of the endless cycle of violence in the world as well as the state of the educational system. And, as he put it, “I need to be in school myself if I want to write about it.”

 

0316068004Black Ships
Author: Jo Graham

Book Description: The world is ending. One by one the mighty cities are falling, to earthquakes, to flood, to raiders on both land and sea. In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, it is her destiny to counsel kings. When nine black ships appear, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must decide between the life she has been destined for and the most perilous adventure — to join the remnant of her mother’s people in their desperate flight. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest, and only she can dare the gates of the Underworld itself to lead him to his destiny. In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.

 

1564149560A Wizard’s Bestiary
Author: Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, Ash Dekirk

Book Description: Strange beasts of all kinds have crawled, run, swam, and flown through humanity’s imagination and travelers’ tales since the dawn of time. From Gryphons and Unicorns, to Dragons, Mermaids, and even more bizarre and fantastical animals, A Wizard’s Bestiary takes you on a magical journey through the ages and around the world, to discover elusive creatures of myth and legend. Beware–here be Monsters!

 

imageNorthlanders: Sven the Returned
Author: Brian Wood, Artist: Davide Gianfelice

Book Description: NORTHLANDERS is a series of epic tales following unique individuals during the Viking Age, coming head-to-head with the end of history’s first millennium, struggling to balance the traditions and beliefs of their old ways with the rapidly-changing Europe around them. The first story arc of the series, “Sven the Returned”, tells the story of a 20-something warrior returning to his hometown after a mysterious 10-year absence. Eager to reclaim his vast inheritance, he finds his people enslaved by his brutal and corrupt uncle. Sven must then make his choice:  he can cut and run, or he can stay and fight to free his people and clear his family name.

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Books Received 11/28/07

0765318210Voices From the Street
Author: Philip K. Dick

Book Description: Stuart Hadley is a radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life; a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled. Something is missing from his life. Hadley is a restless young man-an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He reacts to the love of his wife and the kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear. He tries to fill his void first with drinking, and then with an affair, and finally with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working, and it is driving him crazy.Voices from the Street is the story of Hadley’s descent into depression and madness, and his emergence out the other side.

 

0765319233Chronicles of the Black Company
Author: Glen Cook

Book Description: Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more…. This omnibus edition comprises The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose.

 

0670060593The Starry Rift
Editor: Jonathan Strahan

Book Description: Truly successful science fiction does two things: it gives credible glimpses into the future while entertaining the reader. With this in mind, noted anthologist Jonathan Strahan—who is also the reviews editor of Locus magazine—asked sixteen of today’s most inventive, compelling writers to look past the horizon of the present day. Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys), Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners), Garth Nix (the Abhorsen Trilogy), Scott Westerfeld (Uglies; Pretties; Specials) and their colleagues have crafted a dazzling range of stories. Whether on spaceships, in suburbia, or in simulated gaming worlds, whether about cloning, battle tactics, or corporate politics, the stories of The Starry Rift will give every reader something to consider. This original anthology is crucial reading for those who want to see where the future—and the future of science fiction—is headed.

 

1595141847Tim, Defender of the Earth!
Author: Sam Enthoven

Book Description: Tim, Defender of the Earth, is a rock’em, sock‘em thriller filled with smoke, spectacle, and big-time adventure. Big Ben will fall! Westminster Abbey will crumble! London will never be the same!

TIM, aka Tyrannosaurus: Improved Model, is the product of a top-secret government military experiment, and he couldn’t be more loveable. Sure, he’s an enormous monster to most, but at heart he’s just a big, awkward, thirteen-yearold who realizes he could be all that stands between the earth and total destruction. (Take that, Godzilla.)

Now TIM must form an unlikely alliance with fifteen-year-olds Chris and Anna in order to save humanity from the greatest threat it has ever known: Anna’s father, the brilliant and demented Professor Mallahide, and his growing tide of vicious, all-consuming nanobots. Will TIM prevail and save the British Isles and the world from evil? We’ll all have to hold hands, read, and believe—in TIM, Defender of the Earth!

 

0525479554Gods of Manhattan
Author: Scott Mebus

Book Description
Look. What do you see? Sidewalks, skyscrapers, pigeons? But there’s more. More that only twelve-year-old Rory Hennessey can see. More that only Rory can reveal to others.

So, look again. What do you see? Layered on our own New York is a spirit city inhabited by warrior cockroaches, malevolent subway trains, kung fu rodents, hungry gargoyles, and children made entirely of papier-mache. Built by history and legend, it’s ruled by the Gods of Manhattan, lions of New York like Peter Stuyvesant and Babe Ruth.

Now everyone is racing to find Rory—the boy who can see. The boy who can change the destiny of New York.

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Audiobooks Received 11/20/07

0739357123Selections from Dreamsongs 1
Author: George R.R. Martin, Narrator: Various

Book Description: Gathered in Volume I are the very best of George R. R. Martin’s early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards—winning stories–plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin’s New York Times bestselling children’s book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.

Contents: Introduction; A Four-Color Fanboy; Only Kids Are Afraid Of The Dark; The Fortress; And Death His Legacy; The Filthy Pro; The Hero; The Exit To San Breta; The Second Kind Of Loneliness; With Morning Comes Mistfall; The Light Of Distant Stars; A Song For Lya; This Tower Of Ashes; And Seven Times Never Kill A Man; The Stone City; Bitterblooms; The Way Of Cross And Dragon.

 

073935714XSelections from Dreamsongs 2
Author: George R.R. Martin, Narrator: Various

Book Description: Included in Volume II are acclaimed stories such as "Sandkings," which won both the Nebula and Hugo awards, and the Bram Stoker Award-winning  "The Pear-Shaped Man."

Contents: The Heirs Of Turtle Castle; The Lonely Songs Of Laren Dorr; In The Lost Lands; Hybrids & Horrors; Meathouse Man; Remembering Melody; Sandkings; Nightflyers; The Monkey Treatment; The Pear-Shaped Man; A Taste Of Tuf; A Beast For Norn; Guardians

 

0739357166Selections from Dreamsongs 3
Author: George R.R. Martin, Narrator: Various

Book Description: Included in Volume III are acclaimed stories such as the World Fantasy Award winner “The Skin Trade” as well as the first novella in the Ice and Fire universe, “The Hedge Knight,” plus two never-before-published screenplays.

Contents: The Siren Song Of Hollywood; Doing The Wild Card Shuffle; Shell Games; From The Journal Of Xavier Desmond; The Heart in Conflict; Under Siege; The Skin Trade; Unsound Variations; The Glass Flower; The Hedge Knight; Portraits Of His Children

 

0739342754Blade Runner
Author: Philip K. Dick, Narrator: Scott Brick

Book Description: It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard’s assignmet–find them and then…"retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn’t want to be found!

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Books Received 11/20/07

0316018929Debatable Space
Author: Philip Palmer

Book Description: Flanagan (who, for want of a better word, is a pirate) has a plan. The plan, at first, seems simple. Kidnap the Cheo’s daughter, demand a vast ransom for her safe return, sit back and wait. The Cheo is the ruler of the universe known to mankind. Only, Lena isn’t Cheo’s daughter and the plan is far from simple. Fortunately, Flanagan has had a lifetime to work it out. Unfortunately, he has far less time to execute it. DEBATABLE SPACE is a space opera of extraordinary imagination, and a brilliantly plotted novel of revenge.

 

1591025966The Metatemporal Detective
Author: Michael Moorcock

Book Description: Seaton Begg and his constant companion, pathologist Dr "Taffy" Sinclair, both head the secret British Home Office section of the Metatemporal Investigation Department–an organization whose function is understood only by the most high-ranking government people around the world–and a number of powerful criminals.

Begg’s cases cover a multitude of crimes in dozens of alternate worlds, generally where transport is run by electricity, where the internal combustion engine is unknown, and where giant airships are the chief form of international carrier. He investigates the murder of English Prime Minister "Lady Ratchet," the kidnaping of the king of a country taken over by a totalitarian regime, and the death of Geli Raubel, Adolf Hitler’s mistress. Other adventures take him to a wild west where "the Masked Buckaroo" is tracking down a mysterious red-eyed Apache known as the White Wolf; to 1960s’ Chicago where a girl has been killed in a sordid disco; and to an independent state of Texas controlled by neocon Christians with oily (and bloody) hands. He visits Paris, where he links up with his French colleagues of the Sûreté du Temps Perdu. In several cases the fanatical Adolf Hitler is his opponent, but his arch-enemy is the mysterious black sword wielding aristocrat known as Zenith the Albino, a drug-dependent, charismatic exile from a distant realm he once ruled.

In each story the Metatemporal Detectives’ cases take them to worlds at once like and unlike our own, sometimes at odds with and sometimes in league with the beautiful adventuresses Mrs. Una Persson or Lady Rosie von Bek. At last Begg and Sinclair come face to face with their nemesis on the moonbeam roads which cross between the universes, where the great Eternal Balance itself is threatened with destruction and from which only the luckiest and most daring of metatemporal adventurers will return.

These fast-paced mysteries pay homage to Moorcock’s many literary enthusiasms for authors as diverse as Clarence E. Mulford, Dashiell Hammett, Georges Simenon, and his boyhood hero, Sexton Blake.

 

0765341549Dzur
Author: Steven Brust

Book Description: In which Vlad Taltos confronts the Left Hand of the Jhereg…and discovers the game has more players than he thought

Vlad Taltos, short-statured, short-lived human in an Empire of tall, long-lived Dragaerans, has always had to keep his wits about him. Long ago, he made a place for himself as a captain of the Jhereg, the noble house that runs the rackets in the great imperial city of Adrilankha. But love, revolution, betrayal, and revenge ensued, and for years now Vlad has been a man on the run, struggling to stay a step ahead of the Jhereg who would kill him without hesitation.
Now Vlad’s back in Adrilankha. The rackets he used to run are now under the control of the mysterious “Left Hand of the Jhereg”—a secretive cabal of women who report to no man. His ex-wife needs his help. His old enemies aren’t sure whether they want to kill him, or talk to him and then kill him. A goddess may be playing tricks with his memory. And the Great Weapon he’s carrying seems to have plans of its own…
Picking up directly where Issola left off, Dzur gives us Vlad Taltos at his best—swashbuckling storytelling with a wry and gritty edge.

 

0809572680The Surgeon’s Tale
Author: Cat Rambo, Jeff VanderMeer

Book Description: In a world where magic is fading and science begun to ascend, a young surgeon in medical school experiences an obsession so forbidden that its realization will change him forever. "She looked as if she were asleep, still with that slight smile, floating on the thick sargassum, glowing from the emerald tincture that would keep the small crabs and other scavengers from her. She looked otherworldly and beautiful." Sometimes life is not enough. Also including five more stories of dark wonder from Rambo and VanderMeer, from "The Dead Girl’s Wedding March" to "The Farmer’s Cat." Enter a world of rat suitors, severed arms, and Fungi Et Fruits de Mer, served up with prose both appetizing and uncanny. Dark fantasy has never been quite so decadent . . .

 

0316003395Evil for Evil
Author: K. J. Parker

Book Description: Civitas Vadanis is in trouble. The Mezentines have declared war; and the Mezentines are very focused on their goals when it comes to killing. Duke Valens, of Civitas Vadanis, has a dilemma. He knows that his city cannot withstand the invading army; yet its walls are his only defence against the Mezentines. Perhaps the only way to save his people is to flee, but that will not be easy either. Ziani Vaatzes, an engineer exiled by the Mezentines for his abominable creations, has already proven that he can defend a city. But Ziani Vaatzes has his own concerns, and the fate of Civitas Vadanis may not be one of them.

 

1416915273The Time Thief
Author: Linda Buckley-Archer

Book Description: What happens when a seventeenth-century bad guy has twenty-first-century technology?

An accident with an antigravity machine catapulted Peter Schock and Kate Dyer back to 1763. A bungled rescue attempt leaves Peter stranded in the eighteenth century while a terrifying villain, the Tar Man, takes his place and explodes onto twenty-first-century London. Concerned about the potentially catastrophic effects of time travel, the NASA scientists responsible for the situation question whether it is right to rescue Peter. Kate decides to take matters into her own hands, but things don’t go as planned. Soon the physical effects of time travel begin to have a disturbing effect on her. Meanwhile, in our century, the Tar Man wreaks havoc in a city whose police force is powerless to stop him.Set against a backdrop of contemporary London and revolutionary France, The Time Thief is the sequel to the acclaimed The Time Travelers.

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Audiobooks Received 11/10/07

0061445584Mister B. Gone
Author: Clive Barker, Narrator: Doug Bradley

Book Description: Mister B. Gone marks the long-awaited return of Clive Barker, the great master of the macabre, to the classic horror story. This bone-chilling novel, in which a medieval devil speaks directly to the reader, claims to be a never-before-published demonic memoir penned in the year 1438. The sole copy was, so the story goes, created by the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg himself. But this historic piece of writing immediately vanished without a trace.

Until now…

A demon known as Jakabok has embedded his very self inside each word of this meticulously printed tale of autobiographical terror. The reader is taunted and teased by his pleas for release from the confines of the very ink and paper that provide the vehicle for his life story. Little do they know, the depths of horror they hold in their hands. Reader beware, indeed, as Jakabok (aka Mister B.) escorts you on an unforgettable journey into the ultimate origins of good and evil.

 

006144775720th Century Ghosts
Author: Joe Hill, Narrator: David Ledoux

Book Description: A dazzlingly original, award-winning collection of visions and nightmares from the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box.

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She’s also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon on an afternoon in 1945 . . . Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn’t easy to make friends when you’re the only inflatable boy in town . . . Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he’s an eight-foot tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing . . . John Finney is locked in a basement that’s stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead . . .

The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past . . .

 

0061373877Neverwhere
Author: Neil Gaiman, Narrator: Neil Gaiman

Book Description: Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew.

"A fantastic story that is both the stuff of dreams and nightmares" (San Diego Union-Tribune), Neil Gaiman’s first solo novel has become a touchstone of urban fantasy, and a perennial favorite of readers everywhere.

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Books Received 11/9/07

image Tunnels
Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Book Description: 14-year-old Will Burrows has little in common with his strange, dysfunctional family. In fact, the only bond he shares with his eccentric father is a passion for archaeological excavation. So when his dad mysteriously vanishes, Will is compelled to dig up the truth behind his disappearance. He unearths the unbelievable: a subterranean society that time forgot. "The Colony" has existed unchanged for a century, but it’s no benign time capsule of a bygone era. Because the Colony is ruled by a merciless overclass, the Styx. Will must free his father–is he also about to ignite a revolution?

 

0441015271Captain’s Fury
Jim Butcher

Book Description: After two years of bitter conflict with the hordes of invading Canim, Tavi of Calderon, now Captain of the First Aleran Legion, realizes that a peril far greater than the Canim exists-the mysterious threat that drove the savage Canim to flee their homeland. Now, Tavi must find a way to overcome the centuries-old animosities between Aleran and Cane if an alliance is to be forged against their mutual enemy. And he must lead his legion in defiance of the law, against friend and foe–or no one will have a chance of survival . . .

 

image A Companion to Wolves 
Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear

Book Description: A Companion to Wolves is the story of a young nobleman, Isolfr, who is chosen to become a wolfcarl — a warrior who is bonded to a fighting wolf. Isolfr is deeply drawn to the wolves, and though as his father’s heir he can refuse the call, he chooses to go. 

The people of this wintry land depend on the wolfcarls to protect them from the threat of trolls and wyverns, though the supernatural creatures have not come in force for many years. Men are growing too confident. The wolfhealls are small, and the lords give them less respect than in former years.  But the winter of Isolfr’s bonding, the trolls come down from the north in far greater numbers than before, and the holding’s complaisance gives way to terror in the dark.

Isolfr, now bonded to a queen wolf, Viradechtis, must learn where his honor lies, and discover the lengths to which he will to go when it, and love for his wolf, drive him.

 

image Physics of the Impossible 
Michio Kaku

Book Description: One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent technologies and devices deemed equally impossible today might become commonplace in the future.

From teleportation to the routine use of force fields, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today. He explains how:

  • The science of optics, electromagnetism, and light may be able to be used to simulate invisibility
  • Enhancing the sensitivity of MRI devices may someday allow us to read minds
  • Magnetic fields, superconductors, and nanotechnologies may eventually enable scientists to levitate an elevator in outer space

 

An extraordinary scientific adventure, PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE takes readers on a journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains.

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