Popular books

Jack Mcdevitt

Ancient Shores

<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Something very strange has turned up in Tom Lasker's wheat field: a ten-thousand-year-old sailboat made of an unknown substance. And then there's the Roundhouse, apparently a doorway to another world, sitting squarely on Sioux reservation land. How did they get there, and what do they signify for the people embroiled in their discovery? This is sci-fi on a grand scale by the author of The Engines of God. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Early in the next century, outside a North Dakota town, farmer Tom Lasker digs up a boat on his land. Not only is the vessel crafted from an unknown element, but Lasker's farm is on land that has been dry for 10,000 years. A search for further artifacts unearths a building of the same material and age that turns out to be an interdimensional transportation device. The building sits on land owned by the Sioux, who want to use it to regain their old way of life on another world; meanwhile, the U.S. government, fearful of change, wants to destroy the building. Right up to the climax, McDevitt (Engines of God) tells his complex and suspenseful story with meticulous attention to detail, deft characterizations and graceful prose. That climax, though, is another matter, featuring out-of-the-blue heroic intervention in a conflict between the feds and the Indians by, among others, astronaut Walter Schirra, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and SF writers Ursula K. LeGuin, Carl Sagan and Gregory Benford. "If the government wants to kill anyone else, it'll have to start with us," announces Stephen Jay Gould. That absurdity aside, this is the big-vision, large-scale novel McDevitt's readers have been waiting for. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><

John Mcelroy

Andersonville

Fifteen Months A Guest Of The So-called--Southern Confederacy--a Private Soldiers Experience In Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen, Blackshear And Florence.<

Chaz Mcgee

Angel Interrupted

Kevin Fahey was once a second-rate cop, a mediocre husband, and an absent father. But, ever since he was killed in a drug bust gone bad, he's been a lost soul, in limbo, searching, and hoping for redemption. Maggie Gunn, the detective who replaced Kevin on the force, is searching for the murderer of a nurse, in her own home, and the perpetrator of the abduction of a young boy from the park. Kevin helps Maggie, with her investigations, since he can go places she can't, and knows things she doesn't.<

Andrew Morton

Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography

<div><h3>Review</h3><p>"If there is a celebrity today who merits the spadework of an unauthorized Morton biography, it's Jolie, with a potential audience that includes just about anyone who has gone through a supermarket checkout line in the last decade, glanced at tabloid headlines about Angelina, say, open- mouth kissing her brother or swapping vials of blood with Billy Bob Thornton and wondered: "What was she thinking?"<br></p><p>If there's anyone to blame here, according to this book, it's the parents, since the bitter relationship between actor Jon Voight and Marcia Lynne (later Marcheline) Bertrand runs as a subplot throughout. Her father left Bertrand for another woman when Angelina was 2, and her mother/manager is portrayed as vacillating between being a laissez-faire hippie mother and a pushy sort of stage mom who, according to Morton, tried — among other things — to push her daughter into a relationship with Mick Jagger. <br></p><p>It's at this point [after Jolie and Brad Pitt come together] that the book seems to move into hyperdrive, with endless rounds of globe-trotting, location shooting, child-acquiring and philanthropic efforts. But the faster it seems to move, the harder it is to put down. Maybe that's because, like salt, we have a craving for explanation, for back story, and Morton's book offers a satisfying dose of both. While the healthier approach might be to limit the intake by vowing to pick it up occasionally and flip to the index for a snippet like: "Haven, James…relationship with" or "United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees," that's not likely to happen.<br></p><p>Chances are you won't be able to put this book down until your mouth is dry and your blood pressure is racing." <strong>—<strong><em>*Los Angeles</em></strong>* Times</strong></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>"I like to collect knives," says Angelina Jolie, "but I also collect first edition books." At first glance, she might seem to be someone without any secrets, talking openly about her love life, sexual preferences, drug use, cutting, and tattoos--and why she kissed her brother on the lips in public. And yet mysteries remain: What was really going on in her brief, impulsive marriages to Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, and what <em>is</em> going on in her partnership with Brad Pitt? What’s behind the oft-reported feud with her father, the Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight?  What drove her to become a mother of six children in six years? And—perhaps most puzzling of all—what about the other side of Angelina: How did this talented but troubled young actress, barely 35 years old, become a respected Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations as well as the "most powerful celebrity in the world" (unseating Oprah Winfrey) on <em>Forbes’</em> 2009 Celebrity 100 list?  </p><p>The answers that Andrew Morton has uncovered are astonishing, taking us deep inside Angelina’s world to show us what shaped her as a child, as an actress, and as a woman struggling to overcome personal demons that have never before been revealed. In this spellbinding biography, Andrew Morton draws upon far-reaching original interviews and research, accompanied by exclusive private photographs, to show us the true story behind both the wild excesses of Angelina’s youth and her remarkable work with children and victims of poverty and disaster today.</p></div><

L M Montgomery

Anne of Avonlea

L M Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables

L M Montgomery

Anne of the Island

Kelly Meding

Another Kind of Dead

<h3>Review</h3><p>“Kelly Meding is a real storyteller.”—Patricia Briggs, <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>River Marked</em><br /></p><p><em>From the Paperback edition.</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>She can heal her own wounds. She can nail a monster to a wall. But there’s one danger Evangeline Stone never saw coming.</strong><br /><br /><em>Been there. Done that.</em> Evy Stone is a former Dreg Bounty Hunter who died and came back to life with some extraordinary powers. Now all but five people in the world think she is dead again, this time for good—immolated in a factory fire set specifically for her. Evy and Wyatt, her partner/lover/friend, can no longer trust their former allies, or even the highest echelons of the Triads—the army of fighters holding back from an unsuspecting public a tide of quarreling, otherworldly creatures—they can trust only each other. Because when the Triads raided a macabre, monster-filled lab of science experiments and hauled away the remnants, they failed to capture their creator: a brilliant, vampire-obsessed scientist with a wealth of powerful, anti-Dreg weaponry to trade for what he desires most of all—Evy Stone: alive and well, and the key to his ultimate experiment in mad science.<br /></p><p><em>From the Paperback edition.</em></p><

Joe Mckinney

Apocalypse of the Dead

<h3>About the Author</h3><p>Joe McKinney is the author of numerous horror, crime, and science fiction novels, including Quarantined, Dodging Bullets, and the four-part Dead World series, which consists of Dead City, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters, and The Zombie King. He has a master's degree in English literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and has worked as a homicide detective and a disaster mitigation specialist for the San Antonio Police Department. Joe lives north of San Antonio with his wife and children. Todd McLaren was involved in radio for more than twenty years in cities on both coasts, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He left broadcasting for a full-time career in voice-overs, where he has been heard on more than 5,000 TV and radio commercials, as well as TV promos; narrations for documentaries on such networks as A&amp;E, Discovery, and the History Channel; and films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit?</p><

Boyd Morrison

The Ark

George R R Martin

Armageddon Rag

Seanan Mcguire

An Artificial Night

SUMMARY: Experience the thrill of the hunt in the third October Daye urban fantasy novel. October "Toby" Daye is a changeling-half human and half fae-and the only one who has earned knighthood. Now she must take on a nightmarish new challenge. Someone is stealing the children of the fae as well as mortal children, and all signs point to Blind Michael. Toby has no choice but to track the villain down-even when there are only three magical roads by which to reach Blind Michael's realm, home of the Wild Hunt-and no road may be taken more than once. If Toby cannot escape with the children, she will fall prey to the Wild Hunt and Blind Michael's inescapable power.<

Mike Mullin

Ashfall

<p class="description">Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don’t realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano, so large that the caldera can only be seen by plane or satellite. And by some scientific measurements, it could be overdue for an eruption.For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to seach for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.</p><

Ian Mcewan

Atonement

SUMMARY: On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister, Cecilia, strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.Atonement is Ian McEwan's finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, at its centre is a profound - and profoundly moving - exploration of shame and forgiveness, of atonement and the difficulty of absolution.<

John Man

Attila the Hun

The name Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarism, savagery and violence. His is a truly household name, but what do we really know about the man himself, his position in history and the world in which he lived? This riveting biography reveals the man behind the myth. In the years 434-454AD the fate of Europe hung upon the actions of one man, Attila, king of the Huns. The decaying Roman Empire still stood astride the Western World from its twin capitals of Rome and Constantinople, but it was threatened by a new force, the much-feared Babarian horde. It was Attila who united the Barbarian tribes into a single, amazingly effective army and launched two violent attacks against the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire, attacks which earned him his reputation for mindless devastation, and brought an end to Rome's pre-eminence in Europe. Attila was coarse, capricious, arrogant, ruthless and brilliant. An illiterate and predatory tribal chief, he had no interest in administration, but was a wily politician who, from his base in the grasslands of Hungary, used secretaries and ambassadors to bring him intelligence on his enemies. He was a leader whose unique qualities made him supreme among tribal leaders, but whose weaknesses ensured the collapse of his empire after his death.<

Andy Mcnab

Avenger

Hooman Majd

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

Robert R Mccammon

Baal

Barry Maitland

Babel

<p>Murder, fundamentalism, intrigue - and that's just the start of <i>Babel</i>, Maitland's gripping sixth Brock and Kolla mystery.<p>Professor Springer, one of Britain's leading philosophers, is brutally murdered on the steps of a London university. He was well-known for his stand against fundamentalism, but was that reason enough to kill him? Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla start looking for answers in London's Arab communities, but perhaps Springer's enemy can be found closer to home. As suspicions fall on the factions within the university, Springer's colleague, the Professor of Genetics, becomes involved. Is he as dangerous and unethical as he seems?<p>Brock and Kolla must work closer than ever before, sifting through the clues to find the real killer before further violence erupts.<p>'Maitland gets better and better, and Brock and Kolla are in impressive team who deserve to become household names.' - Publishing News<p>'Maitland is a...<

Jonathan Maberry

Bad Moon Rising

<h3>Review</h3><p>''One of the best supernatural thrillers of recent years.'' --John Connolly, <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Each year, the residents of Pine Deep host the Halloween Festival, drawing tourists and celebrities from across the country to enjoy the deliciously creepy fun. Those who visit the small Pennsylvania town are out for a good time, but those who live there are desperately trying to survive...For a monstrous evil lives among them, a savage presence whose malicious power has grown too powerful even for death to hold it back. Only a handful of brave souls stand against the King of the Dead and a red wave of destruction. Daylight is fading and a bad moon is rising over Pine Deep. Keep watching the shadows... </p><

Carson Mccullers

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe: And Other Stories

<div><p class="description">When she was only twenty-three her first novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter , created a literary sensation. She is very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition.<br>A grotesque human triangle in a primitive Southern town… A young boy learning the difficult lessons of manhood… A fateful encounter with his native land and former love… These are parts of the world of Carson McCullers – a world of the lost, the injured, the eternal strangers at life's feast. Here are brilliant revelations of love and longing, bitter heartbreak and occasional happiness – tales that probe the very heart of our lives.</p> <h3>Product Description</h3><p>A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers' best stories, including her beloved novella "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe." A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose cafe serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind," McCullers' first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Carson McCullers was born at Columbus, Georgia, in 1917. She published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter at the age of twenty-three. Her other works include Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), The Member of the Wedding (1946), The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951), The Square Root of Wonderful (1958), a play, Clock Without Hands (1961), Sweet as a Pickle, Clean as a Pig (1964) and The Mortgaged Heart (published posthumously in 1972). She died in 1967. </p> </div><

Charlotte Macleod

The Balloon Man

Greg Marinovich

The Bang-Bang Club

<p>During the final, bloody days of South African apartheid, four remarkable young men&#8212;photographers, friends, and rivals&#8212;banded together.<

Christopher Moore

Bangkok Noir

<div><p>Bangkok is one of the great cities in the world, but unlike other great metropolises it has no noir tales to its name. <em>Bangkok Noir</em> puts that to right.</p> <p>In this first ever noir anthology of Bangkok, twelve seasoned and internationally known—Thai and Western—writers have come together to make a powerful collection of crime fiction short stories that portray the dark side of this Asian metropolis where the lives of most citizens seem as far away from heaven as its Thai name Krungthep is distant from its meaning—City of Angels.</p> <p>In Bangkok Noir, the twelve short stories of various shades of black involve gangsters and hitmen, love and betrayal, the supernatural, the possessed and the dispossessed, and the far distant future. Titles in this collection include: John Burdett’s <em>Gone East</em>, Stephen Leather’s <em>Inspector Zhang and the Dead Thai Gangster</em>, Tew Bunnag’s <em>The Mistress Wants Her Freedom</em>, Colin Cotterill’s <em>Halfhead</em>, Pico Iyer’s <em>Thousand and One Nights</em>, and Christopher G. Moore’s <em>Dolphin Inc.</em></p> <p><strong>The authors and publisher will donate half of their earnings from this book to selected charity organizations which provide education to needy children in Thailand.</strong></p> <p>More information: <strong>www.bangkoknoir.info</strong></p></div><

Patricia A Mckillip

The Bards of Bone Plain

<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. World Fantasy Award–winner McKillip (The Bell at Sealey Head) offers a rich, resonant story of poetry, riddles, mystery, and magic. Phelan Cle never wanted to be a bard--that's his decidedly unmusical father's ambition for him--but now that he's about to graduate from Bardic School at Caerau, he's determined to make it easy on himself. He chooses what should be a straight-forward thesis topic: Bone Plain, where legend says all poetry originated, where Nairn the Wanderer, the Fool, the Cursed, the Unforgiven, one of the greatest bards in history, failed the mysterious Three Trials and disappeared forever. History surrounds the school and the nearby standing stones, where archaeologist Princess Beatrice digs up an unusual artifact that may hold the key to the mysteries of Bone Plain. McKillip seduces readers with lyrical prose; intriguing, complex characters; and resonant riddles-within-riddles. (Dec.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From Booklist</h3><p>Readers already familiar with the author will enjoy a fascinating tale of music and bards, legends and reality, and, most of all—magic. For those exposed to McKillip for the first time, a treasure awaits them in the pages of this story. Set in a medieval-like period, where kings still rule and their courts are the center of the social order, the book throws in a more modern element of archaeology, with its constant reach into the past, seeking explanations. The story starts with Phelan Cle and his enigmatic father, characters who become exquisitely developed over the course of the tale. Woven in alternating chapters is the legend of Nairn, the Wandering Bard. The reader is pulled from the current trials and tribulations occurring in Phelan’s life into the legend of Nairn, until the reality and the legend slowly become mirrors of each other, and then finally fused together. Almost (Thomas) Hardy-ish in the level of description, the author never loses the reader in description for description’s sake. Each element described serves to further the story. --Rebecca Gerber </p><

China Miéville

Bas-Lag #01 - Perdido Street Station

<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none—not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory. Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger. While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . . A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination. From the Trade Paperback edition.</p><

China Miéville

Bas-Lag #02 - The Scar

<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations. Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .China Miéville is a writer for a new era—and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.From the Trade Paperback edition.</p><

China Miéville

Bas-Lag #03 - Iron Council

<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later. It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places. In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope. In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . . The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day. From the Hardcover edition.</p><

Graham Masterton

Basilisk

Linda Mooney

A Battle Lord’s Heart

Jamie Mcguire

Beautiful Disaster

<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate percentage of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance between her and the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend America, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.<br /></p><p>Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the charming college co-ed. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his charms, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’ apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.<br /></p><

Anchee Min

Becoming Madame Mao

Toni Morrison

Beloved

Una madre: Sethe, la esclava que mata a su propia hija para salvarla del horror, para que la indignidad del presente no tenga futuro posible. Una hija: Beloved, la niña que desde su nacimiento se alimentó de leche mezclada con sangre, y poco a poco fue perdiendo contacto con la realidad por la voluntad de un cariño demasiado denso. Una experiencia: el crimen como única arma contra el dolor ajeno, el amor como única justificación ante el delito y la muerte como paradójica salvación ante una vida destinada a la esclavitud. Con este dolor y este amor en apariencia indecibles, la ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 1993 ha construido una soberbia novela, que en 1988 le valió el Premio Pulitzer.<

John Mcnamara

Beowulf

SUMMARY: Written in Old English sometime before the tenth century A.D., this classic tale describes the adventures of a great Danish warrior of the sixth century<

C L Moore

The Best of C. L. Moore

<div><div>The Best of C. L. Moore</div><div><br></div><div>edited by Lester Del Rey</div><div><br></div><div>C. L. Moore was one of the pioneers of women's science fiction writing. In these ten stories published from 1933 to 1946 in such magazines as Weird Tales, Famous Fantastic Mysteries,and Astounding Science Fiction, Moore displays her broad interest and particular style. She wrote simple stories around potentially profound ideas. Her characters in these stories (collected in this 1975 edition) are often very much the cinematic ideals, stunning soft women, tall blonde studly men, and I wouldn't want to use any of these for sexual role models. Even so, Moore is credited with creating strong willed female characters, for a genre (dare I say pulp?) that until then was dominated by men. Still, her women often fawn over the male characters, or they are agents of men's downfall. Her imagery is full of superlatives stumbling upon piles of superlatives. It is mythical, and sometimes overtly Freudian. These stories might not be much more than historical curiosities. A couple, though, particularly the last, are well done.</div><div><br></div><div>Shambleau is a dark and vaguely erotic horror tale of Northwest Smith, a swashbuckling (early version of Han Solo?) character on Mars meeting up with a haunting and deadly vision from interplanetary mythology.</div><div>Black Thirst takes Smith into the dark underworld of the planet Venus, on a mystical journey into beauty and evil. This story doesn't work as well as the earlier adventure, as Moore seems to be stumbling over herself to find words for greater and greater beauty and evil. The language of the story suffers from this eflorescence of adjectives.</div><div>The Bright Illusion is Moore taking on the aphorism "beauty is only skin deep" by sending a man to a distant planet with bizarre residents, and having him face his illusions of beauty. The story's brevity, though, brings to mind another myth: "love at first sight". Too short for her to have really made her point.</div><div>In Black God's Kiss, Moore descends again into a vivid and quite Freudian subterrenean hell. Her heroine is in search for a weapon of great strength and evil, but finds a revealing aspect of herself in the end. A queasy, somewhat numbing, tale.</div><div>Tryst in Time is a pretty entertaining but basically absurd tale of a young perfect male specimen who, after living a full life of adventure, sets out to travel through time. Along the way, he meets a mysterious perfect female specimen. They enchant each other, and a strange and unexplained connection is made. It doesn't make much sense, but the story is amusingly told.</div><div>In Greater than Gods, a genetic scientist in the 23rd century, about to make a breakthrough in gender selection, gets the frightening opportunity of seeing the various outcomes of a decision many generations into the future. The choice before him becomes far more weighty. His solution, though, is a bit of a cop-out, and the original decision is contrived. There is an old-fashioned (or sexist) tone to the tale as well, but with some hope for a balanced resolution.</div><div>Fruit of Knowledge revives the mythology of Lilith, perhaps the first bride of Adam in Eden. It is more or less a straight retelling, in detail, of a myth suggesting that Adam went out of Eden still longing for his first flawed bride.</div><div>No Woman Born is a longer story that takes the form of a long debate about the wavering humanity of a brain encased in metal. A beautiful stage performer is brought back to the limelight by a latter-day Frankenstein. The story is weighted down by all the talk, though.</div><div>Daemon, again, is mythical, as a mentally challenged young man relates his abandonment on an Atlantic island, where he encounters the forest sprites exiled since the advent of Christianity. The tale is interesting, but its mythology somewhat simplistic.</div><div>Vintage Season, the best and last in this collection, is a tale whose tone would be familiar, years later, to fans of The Twilight Zone, (for which Moore did write one episode) as it has that same ironic moral logic. Mysterious tourists from a far-off place visit an English city to experience an historic event. Do the locals know what they're in for? This story was adapted into a television movie in 1992.</div><div>At the end of this collection, in an afterword titled "Footnote to Shambleau... and Others", Moore tells a little bit about her writing process. It ends up being much more random than one might expect.</div><div><br></div></div><

Amy Meredith

Betrayal

Michael Moorcock

Between the Wars #01 - Byzantium Endures

Michael Moorcock

Between the Wars #02 - The Laughter of Carthage

Michael Moorcock

Between the Wars #03 - Jerusalem Commands

Michael Moorcock

Between the Wars #04 - The Vengeance of Rome

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