Zecharia Sitchin

The 12th Planet

Amazon.com Review

Zecharia Sitchen's The 12th Planet is the starting point on a quest that spans six books and 20 years worth of ancient aliens, genetic manipulation, and scrutiny of linguistic minutiae. If we trust Sitchen's translation abilities, we must be prepared for the imminent return of an alien race who created us some 300,0x00 years ago. The 12th Planet is perhaps the best written of Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series; full of example after example of ancient Sumerian passages, astronomical observations, archaeological finds, and technological coincidences supporting his theories. The price we pay for all this evidence is a bit of a dry read at times, but the ideas Sitchin proposes are more than scintillating enough to make up for the overtly scholastic tone of his text. --Brian Patterson

Review

"One of the most important books on Earth's roots ever written."
(East West Journal )

"Sitchin is a zealous investigator into man's origins . . . a dazzling performance."
(Kirkus Reviews )

"Sitchin's works are outstandingly different from all others that present this central theme. His linguistic skills in the languages of antiquity and his pursuit of the earliest available texts and artifacts make possible the wealth of photographs and line drawings appearing in his books from tablets, monuments, murals, pottery, and seals."
(_Rosemary Decker, historian and researcher_ )

"Read this book to see from a perspective not often offered. Read it to expand your picture of our tiny existence. And beyond that, just enjoy the theorizing and information provided. There are few places that you can find such a compilation." (__News Worth World in Perspective_, Oct 2007_ )

" . . . an array of evidence to support the assertion that the earth had been visited by ancient alien astronauts in its past. Sitchin based his conclusions on the written records of Sumer, the "sudden civilization" that sprang up virtually overnight in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley of modern Iraq." (_
American Buddhist Journal, Feb 2009_ )

" . . . [supplies] an array of evidence to support the assertion that the earth had been visited by ancient alien astronauts in its past. Sitchin based his conclusions on the written records of Sumer, the 'sudden civilization' that sprang up virtually overnight in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley of modern Iraq. . . . he found an astonishing array of facts that could be corroborated by modern research. What he found was literally mind boggling in 1976, and it remains so today." (_
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal, Feb 2009_ )

“Exciting . . . credible . . . most provocative and compelling. The 12th Planet presents documentation for a radical new theory which, by answering some age-old questions, merely widens the ripples in the pool. (As the author notes, “If the Nefilim . . . created Man on Earth, who created the Nefilim?”)
(Library Journal )

“For thousands of years priests, poets, and scientists have tried to explain how man was created. . . . Now a recognized scholar has come forth with a theory that is the most astonishing of all.”
(United Press International )

Alexander Mccall Smith

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom

Review

'There is something almost divinely appealing about the way Alexander McCall Smith writes about daily life in Botswana ... it is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging ... his novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think about them without smiling' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

Product Description

Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has turned his hand to humour. The delightful result is a creation of comic genius. For in the unnaturally tall form of Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, we are invited to meet a memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and of Inspecteur Clouseau's hapless gaucherie. Von Igelfeld inhabits the rarefied world of the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, a world he shares with his equally tall and equally ridiculous colleagues, Professors Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. Their unlikely adventures are described in three deliciously funny instalments: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.

Whitley Strieber

2012: The War for Souls

From Publishers Weekly

Strieber's epic sequel to 2006's The Grays blends equal parts science fiction thriller, supernatural horror and provocative spiritual speculation. As struggling author Wylie Dale works on his latest novel, which revolves around an upcoming date when the earth crosses both the galactic equator and the solar ecliptic—a time that the Maya predicted would mark the cataclysmic end of this age—he begins to uncover evidence that what he's writing about is actually happening on a parallel earth. If nothing is done, on December 21, 2012, gateways will open into this world and reptilian invaders will not only enslave humanity but feast on their succulent souls as well. While Strieber's exploration into the existence and import of the soul isn't exactly profound, it is wildly entertaining. Fans of apocalyptic page-turners like King's The Stand and Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer will enjoy this ambitious—and audacious—tale as it invokes everything from rectal probes and Ann Coulter to the destruction of the Great Pyramid of Giza._ (Sept.)_
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Archaeologist Martin Winters gets out of the collapsing Great Pyramid of Khufu just in time to see a gigantic lens arise from the rubble. Simultaneously at equally ancient monument sites all over the world, other lenses emerge. What's happening is a kind of alien invasion, but the aliens, whose advance agents have been subverting human society for some time, aren't really another species. They're their world's degenerates, whose earlier incursions into human history inspired the way the evil beings of religious mythology have been represented. In short, they're demons, fortunately killable but possessed of awesome power by the standards of Martin's world, which is one of three parallel Earths. The others are the invaders' and ours, in which buff sf writer Wiley Dale is compulsively and automatically writing Martin's story, which is more transmission than story. Eventually the demonic aliens pop up in Wiley's as well as Martin's Kansas homeland. Each Earth has advantages over the others; one of those, in both Martin's and the aliens' worlds, is that the physical existence of the soul has been discovered. The implications of that discovery drive the action of Strieber's hyperactive cosmological thriller. Despite Wiley and his cop buddy's excruciating hardy-har-he-man palaver and the exposition turning to cardboard whenever love is mentioned, it's immensely entertaining, and it's optioned for a big, splashy, FX-laden movie. Oh boy! Olson, Ray

Tarah Scott

A Knight of Passion

Product Description

Lady Riana Ellis will risk the fires of Hell for those she loves. Can she let a man do the same for her?

As whore for the Duchess of Arundel, Lady Riana Ellis keeps her sister safe from the duke’s lascivious desires. But the duchess now demands that Riana murder the man already sent to her bed.

But the wrong knight arrives.

Time is running out. Riana has set into motion the downfall of the duke and duchess. If she and her sister don’t escape, they’ll be crushed when Arundel falls. To ensure her sister’s freedom, Riana must give the performance of her life and fool the man in her bed...and the woman watching them.

Sir Bryant Cullen determines to have the duchess’ whore. Her land is a prize, but it’s her secrets he wants. Once he knows what she knows, he will control one of the most powerful houses in Scotland. And she will be his.

But Riana waits for no man to save her, trusts no man-no matter how much he sets her body on fire. When Sir Bryant puts his life on the line for her, how will she stop his sacrifice?

S M Stirling

A Meeting at Corvallis

In the tenth year of The Change, the survivors in western Oregon have learned how to live in a world without technology. But a confrontation between the forces of those who would rebuild the world peacefully and the feared Protector, who will use whatever means at his command to extend his power, threatens to plunge the entire region into open warfare.

Christopher Stasheff

A Wizard in Rhyme #02 - The Oathbound Wizard

From Publishers Weekly

Poetry's magic--real magic--draws Matthew, Lord Wizard of Merovence, deeper into trouble in this sequel to Her Majesty's Wizard . In his alternative world, where words become truth and magic spells are created by verse, Matt's thoughtless declaration that (in order to be a worthy suitor to Alisande, the queen of Merovence) he would unthrone Gordogrosso, evil sorcerer-king of neighboring Ibile, lands him in the middle of that unhappy kingdom. He's joined by Narlh, a discontented dracogriff with an inferiority complex; Fadecourt, a cyclops with an unsavory reputation in Ibile; and the beautiful and noble Yverne, fleeing the attentions of the king's hoodlums. As the ill-assorted band moves in on Gordogrosso, Queen Alisande marshals her knights to save the beloved commoner whom she cannot wed (even though he is a wizard), and Matt's magic produces unusual results, including the addition of Robin Hood and his band to his forces. Stasheff's fantasy romp has a strong theological underpinning: God is serious about his creatures and about their taking responsibility for themselves, their actions and their words.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Prevented by his lack of royal blood from marrying the woman he loves, former college student Matt Mantrell--now Court Wizard to Queen Alisande--swears an oath to overthrow a neighboring tyrant and finds himself bound to carry out his promise. Aided by a group of companions, including a neurotic griffin, a cultured cyclops, and minions from heaven and faerie, Matt enters a land of darkness and evil to fight the good--and seemingly impossible--fight. Fans of pure fantasy will enjoy this sequel to Her Majesty's Wizard ( LJ 10/15/86).
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Christopher Stasheff

A Wizard in Rhyme #04 - The Secular Wizard

From Publishers Weekly

This is the latest enjoyable installment in the escapades of Matt Mantrell and Saul ("Wizard of Sarcasm") Bremener, former graduate students now living happily in an alternate world where verse has magical powers. When the evil King Maledicto of Latruria ("Italy by any other name") is killed, his grandson Prince Boncorro, having determined to be loyal to neither Good nor Evil, introduces supply-side economics to his goods-based kingdom. Matt, now Lord Wizard of neighboring Merovence, investigates the changes Boncorro has wrought. His "incognito" expedition is a curious one, impeded by occasional contretemps and the specious reasoning and obtuseness of several characters (Queen Alisande, Matt's wife, is particularly ill-served by multiple scenes apparently intended to show that pregnancy can make a woman moody). Readers older than Stasheff's usual audience may be bemused by the presences of Chancellor Rebezo and a friendly ghost called Spiro. Fans of the series' previous volumes should find this one, though a progression for neither author nor reader, as pleasant a distraction as those. Science Fiction Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The fourth book in Stasheff's Wizard in Rhyme series stands quite well on its own. Young King Boncorro is turning the land of Latruria into an earthly paradise, and the malcontents of neighboring Merovence are muttering that Boncorro's rule would be good for their own realm. But there are suspicions about what Boncorro is really up to, and Lord Wizard Matt Mantrell has to assume his minstrel disguise and go investigating. He finds a good many surprises, including the ease with which he is unmasked by Boncorro's chancellor, and barely escapes with both life and knowledge. Stasheff's series continues to be distinguished by intelligence, literacy, and wit, so put this volume confidently alongside its predecessors on your fantasy shelves. Roland Green

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