Clockwork Century #04 - Ganymede
Praise for The Clockwork Century:
“An intimate, well-crafted portrait of a nurse on a mission adds depth to this exceptional Civil War steampunk thriller.”
--Publishers Weekly, starred review, on *Dreadnought
“Dreadnought offers plenty of fun: fast-paced battle scenes, thundering locomotives and the gem of the book, its heroine. Vivid, believable and endearingly stubborn, she’s an enjoyable companion for those taking the time to read a book which challenges the notion that steampunk must assume Victorian attitudes with its goggles and corsets.”
--Seattle Times
“Boneshaker* is without a doubt Cherie Priest’s breakthrough work: this hollering, stamping, crackling thing is the best fun you’ll have with a book all year.”
--Warren Ellis
“A propulsive, breathless read, an action movie that tears across the country, stopping just long enough to take snapshots of the race and gender politics of the time, to put a human face on history.”
--The Stranger on Dreadnought
The air pirate Andan Cly is going straight. Well, straighter. Although he’s happy to run alcohol guns wherever the money’s good, he doesn’t think the world needs more sap, or its increasingly ugly side-effects. But becoming legit is easier said than done, and Cly’s first legal gig—a supply run for the Seattle Underground—will be paid for by sap money.
New Orleans is not Cly’s first pick for a shopping run. He loved the Big Easy once, back when he also loved a beautiful mixed-race prostitute named Josephine Early—but that was a decade ago, and he hasn’t looked back since. Jo’s still thinking about him, though, or so he learns when he gets a telegram about a peculiar piloting job. It’s a chance to complete two lucrative jobs at once, one he can’t refuse. He sends his old paramour a note and heads for New Orleans, with no idea of what he’s in for—or what she wants him to fly.
But he won’t be flying. Not exactly. Hidden at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain lurks an astonishing war machine, an immense submersible called the Ganymede. This prototype could end the war, if only anyone had the faintest idea of how to operate it…. If only they could sneak it past the Southern forces at the mouth of the Mississippi River… If only it hadn’t killed most of the men who’d ever set foot inside it.
But it’s those “if onlys” that will decide whether Cly and his crew will end up in the history books, or at the bottom of the ocean.
The Barnes & Noble Review
December 1997
The Cobra Event is a petrifying, fictional account of a very real threat: biological terrorism.
Seventeen-year-old Kate Moran wakes one morning to the beginnings of a head cold but shrugs it off and goes to school anyway. By her midmorning art class, Kate's runny nose gives way to violent seizures and a hideous scene of self-cannibalization. She dies soon after. When a homeless man meets a similarly gruesome - and mystifying - fate, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta sends pathologist Alice Austen to investigate. What she uncovers is the work of a killer, a man who calls himself Archimedes and is intent on spreading his deadly Cobra virus throughout New York City. A silent crisis erupts, with Austen and a secret FBI forensic team rushing to expose the terrorist.
Even more frightening than Preston's story about the fictitious Cobra virus, however, is the truth that lies beneath it. As the author writes in his introduction, "The nonfiction roots of this book run deep.... My sources include eyewitnesses who have seen a variety of biological-weapons installations in different countries, and people who have developed and tested strategic bioweapons." In fact, the only reason The Cobra Event was not written as nonfiction is that none of Preston's sources would go on record.
Woven throughout the novel are sections of straight nonfiction reporting that reveal the terrifying truth about the development of biological weapons and the clandestine operations of Russia and Iraq. Three years of research and more than 100 interviewswithhigh-level sources in the FBI, the U.S. military, and the scientific community went into The Cobra Event. The result is sure to shock you.
Since being gifted-or cursed-with the ability to touch a lifeless body and relive the deceased's final moments, Olivia Wainwright has died a hundred deaths. And every glimpse into this darkness draws her deeper into danger.
Though he doesn't believe in psychics, Savannah Detective Gabe Cooper offers her a glimmer of light. As their bond deepens, Olivia will have to choose between her cold gift and the warmth Gabe can provide. And Gabe can't refuse when she needs his help solving a crime that's haunted her for over a decade-her own murder.
"Parrish doesn't do things by halves: the chemistry is hot, the bad guy is truly evil and the paranormal aspects are dark and haunting. Her full commitment to both romance and suspense heightens the impact and sweeps the reader along the twisty path to a satisfying climax." - Publisher's Weekly
"This is truly a compelling and gut-wrenching tale. Parrish skillfully weaves paranormal elements into a taut murder mystery. Very rarely do you find an author who masters suspense, paranormal, character development, romantic conflict and resolution with such grace and ease. Parrish is top notch and this is a must-read for paranormal and suspense fans. 4 1/2 stars" - Romantic Times Magazine
Perhaps it was a disservice to collect all of Parker's stories in one place. Despite insistence to the contrary in a reasoned but ultimately unconvincing introduction by Regina Barreca, Parker wrote decently about the same things over and over and over. This volume includes 13 stories and nine sketches which were previously uncollected, but they blend right in with the other material on drinking and divorce among those of a certain class. Parker's stories tend to float in the shallow end of the literary pool. It's not that any individual piece is of poor quality, it's just that, collectively, the the sameness becomes unbearable. Her humor, in particular, strikes the same note every time. A quick run-through of several plots exhibits this perfectly: two women insincerely discuss an impending divorce; a couple gets drunk in preparation for becoming teetotalers the next day. The nine sketches included here are more of the same, minus any actual plot. Descriptions such as "Lloyd wears washable neckties," are amusing, but go no further. It is ironic that feminist critics are attempting to resurrect Parker, since her writing makes her disdain for her own sex perfectly clear: she feels free to disparage these women for whom marriage and dinner parties are everything, but she always goes for the easy laugh at their expense rather than explore the larger context that forced them into such rigid roles.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Now remembered almost soley as the lone female member of the New York writers' group known as the Algonquin Round Table, Parker was one of the most popular and published writers of the interwar years whose stories and light verse were eagerly sought by the best magazines. Although widely represented in short story anthologies, Parker's entire corpus of stories has never been collected in a single volume: editor Breese includes 13 stories and nine "sketches" not previously anthologized. Read as a collection, however, the famous sardonic wit becomes too intrusive, and similarities of plot and character are annoyingly apparent. Reliance on heavy social drinking as a staple of her plots is less humorous to Nineties readers, and some of Parker's ideas on the relationship between the sexes are equally dated. Still, many of the stories, such as the often reprinted "Big Blonde," are moving, and the whole volume is an unsettling portrait of the era. For all fiction and research collections.?Shelley Cox, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Confession of Brother Haluin
SUMMARY: On his deathbed, Brother Haluin confesses to a shocking act in his past--and then recovers. To atone, Haluin determines to make a journey of expiation with Brother Cadfael and embarks on an arduous journey that leads to discoveries of deceit, betrayal, revenge . . . and murder. "Each addition to the series is a joy".--USA Today.
The largest private gun squad in history follows Bolan to France, only to find the war has started without them, and 20 dead Frenchmen are mute testimony to the profinciency of the Executioner. . .
Out of his experiences working on a chain gang, Donn Pearce created Cool Hand Luke, war hero turned "pretty evil feller," whose refusal to "git his mind right" becomes part of his fellow convicts' mythology of survival.
WHO BUMPED OFF THE BUMP-AND-GRINDER? Usually, when you call a burlesque act a “show stopper,” you don't mean it quite so literally. But this time, that's just what happened: The show stopped dead, and so did the girl. And as I looked at her nearly naked and completely lifeless body and the bottle of poison in her hand with my fingerprints all over it, I thought to myself: Porkpie, you're in for it this time…
SUMMARY: In Boston, a young woman finds herself pregnant--even though she is still a virgin. In Ireland, another young woman discovers she is in the same impossible condition. And in cities all around the world, medical authorities are overwhelmed by epidemics, droughts, famines, floods, and worse. It all feels like a sign that something awful is coming. Anne Fitzgerald, a former nun turned private investigator, is hired by the Archdiocese of Boston to investigate the immaculate conceptions. Even as she comes to care about and trust the young women, she realizes that both are in great danger. Terrifying forces of light and darkness are gathering. Stepping into uncharted territory where the unknown is just the beginning, Anne must discover the truth--to save the young women, to save herself, and to protect the future of all mankind.
SUMMARY: Thirty-one-year-old Victorian gentlewoman Amelia Peabody has not only inherited her father's fortune, but she is also blessed with his strong will as well. Now she's headed for Cairo, accompanied by a girl with a tarnished past, to indulge her passion for Egyptology. Little did she know that murder and a homicidal mummy lay in wait for her.
A voice speaking out of a distant past, describes the consequences of his desperation: his daughter and two sons are condemned to the hold of an English slave ship bound for America in 1753. Here are the stories of these children: Nash, Martha, and Travis. Yet as the narrative unfolds, we come to understand that although they are his children, they are also all of slavery's children. Nash, returning to Africa in the 1830's a Christian-educated adult, a missionary to the new territory of Liberia, slowly becoming a part of the world his 'masters' intended him to convert...Martha, her own daughter and husband sold away from her, settling in the American wild west of the late nineteenth century, freeing herself from slavery but never from the weight of "such misery in one life"...Travis, an American GI stationed in a small Yorkshire village during the Second World War, finding an acceptance in England that he doesn't know at home and that he may not be able to promise his half-English son...These brilliantly resonant stories-along with the slave ship captain's journal and the lamentations of the children's father-become a "many-tongued chorus of common memory" so vivid and powerful that it bridges the gaps between continents and centuries, inextricably linking the many generations of the African diaspora, one to the other.
Joe knew his mother was cruel and violent, but he trusted his beloved father to protect him from her. When a freak accident saw his father burn to death in front of him, Joe was left at the mercy of his mother. Without the love of his friend and brother, he wouldn't have survived. With them, he went on to spend his life fighting child abuse.Joe was just five years old and the horrific scene literally struck him dumb. He didn't speak for four and a half years, which meant he was unable to ask anyone for help as his life turned into a living hell.His schizophrenic mother and two of his older brothers spent the following years beating him, raping him and locking him in the cellar at the family home. Fed on scraps that he was forced to lick from the floor, he was sometimes left naked in the dark for three days without human contact.Unable to read or write, all Joe could do to communicate his suffering was draw pictures.The violence and sexual abuse grew in severity as more people, including his stepfather, were invited to use him in any way they chose.The only thing that saved Joe was the kindness of his elder brother and his only school friend, both of whom showed him that love was possible even in the darkest of situations.At fourteen he finally found the courage to run away, hiding in a hut by a railway line, fed on scraps by some local children who found him.Joe's is the ultimate insider's story, casting light into the darkest of hidden worlds, and a truly inspirational account of how one small boy found the strength to overcome almost impossible odds and become a remarkable man. Now that he has found his voice again, Joe speaks out against child abuse and helps support and protect other children whose lives have been blighted by it.
SUMMARY: "Cry, the Beloved Country" is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. "Cry, the Beloved Country" is a classic tale, passionately African, timeless and universal, and beyond all, selfless.