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David Weber

Path of the Fury

VENGEANCE IS A DISH BEST SERVED HOT.Imperial Intelligence couldn't find them, the Imperial Fleet couldn't catch them, and local defenses couldn't stop them. It seemed the planet-wrecking pirates were invincible. But the pirates made a big mistake when they raided ex-commando leader Alicia DeVries' quiet home world, tortured and murdered her family, and then left her for dead.Since the Imperial forces seem hog-tied, Alicia decides to turn "pirate" herself, and steals a cutting-edge AI ship from the Empire to start her vendetta. Her fellow veterans think she's crazy, the Imperial Fleet has shoot-on-sight orders. And of course the pirates want her dead, too. But Alicia DeVries has two allies nobody knows about, allies as implacable as she is: a self-aware computer, and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's most ancient legends. And this trio of furies won't rest until vengeance is served.<

David Weber

The Shadow of Saganami

Saganami Island

The Star Kingdom of Manticore is once again at war with the Republic of Haven after a stunning sneak attack. The graduating class from Saganami Island, the Royal Manticoran Navy's academy, are going straight from the classroom to the blazing reality of all-out war.Except for the midshipmen assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, that is. They're being assigned to the Talbott Cluster, an out of the way backwater, far from the battle front. The most they can look forward to is the capture of the occasional pirate cruiser and the boring duty of supporting the Cluster's peaceful integration with the Star Kingdom at the freely expressed will of eighty percent of the Cluster's citizens. With a captain who may have seen too much of war and a station commander who isn't precisely noted for his brilliant and insightful command style, it isn't exactly what the students of Honor Harrington, the "Salamander," expected.But things aren't as simple -- or tranquil -- as they appear. The "pirates" they encounter aren't what they seem, and the "peaceful integration" they expected turns into something very different. A powerful alliance of corrupt Solarian League bureaucrats and ruthless interstellar corporations is determined to prevent the Cluster's annexation by the Star Kingdom . . . by any means necessary. Pirates, terrorists, genetic slavers, smuggled weapons, long-standing personal hatreds, and a vicious alliance of corporate greed, bureaucratic arrogance, and a corrupt local star nation with a powerful fleet, are all coming together, and only Hexapuma, her war-weary captain, and Honor Harrington's students stand in the path.They have only one thing to support and guide them: the tradition of Saganami. The tradition that sometimes a Queen's officer's duty is to face impossible odds . . . and die fighting.<

David Weber

Crown of Slaves

Wages of Sin

The Star Kingdom's ally Erewhon is growing increasingly restive in the alliance because the new High Ridge regime ignores its needs. Added to the longstanding problem of a slave labor planet controlled by hostile Mesans in Erewhon's stellar backyard, which High Ridge refuses to deal with, the recent assassination of the Solarian League's most prominent voice of public conscience indicates the growing danger of political instability in the Solarian League-which is also close to Erewhon.In desperation, Queen Elizabeth tries to defuse the situation by sending a private mission to Erewhon led by Captain Zilwicki, accompanied by one of her nieces. When they arrive on Erewhon, however, Manticore's envoys find themselves in a mess. Not only do they encounter one of the Republic of Haven's most capable agents-Victor Cachat-but they also discover that the Solarian League's military delegation seems up to its neck in skullduggery.And, just to put the icing on the cake, the radical freed slave organization, the Audubon Ballroom, is also on the scene-led by its notorious and ruthless assassin, Jeremy X.<

David Weber

In Fury Born

Unleash the Fury!Zhikotse. Shallingsport. Louvain. Sacred fields of battle on far-flung worlds where warriors of the Imperial Cadre spent blood and lives defending human civilization. Alicia DeVries was there; she led the charge. Her reward? Betrayal by a deceitful empire. Retirement to obscurity.Now Alicia is the only survivor of a brutal attack on her frontier-world family. Not since the mighty Achilles has the ancient spirit of the Fury Tisiphone taken up residence inside a human being. But not since Achilles has a warrior so skilled, so implacable, and possessing so much battle sense sprung up among the mass of humankind. Hero of the Empire. Holder of the Banner of Terra.<

David Weber

Wind Rider's Oath

War God

In The War God’s Own, Bahzell had managed to stop a war by convincing Baron Tellian, leader of the Sothōii, to “surrender” to him, the War God’s champion. Now, he has journeyed to the Sothōii Wind Plain to oversee the parole he granted to Tellian and his men, to represent the Order of Tomanâk, the War God, and to be an ambassador for the hradani. What’s more, the flying coursers of the Sothōii have accepted Bahzell as a windrider-the first hradani windrider in history. And since the windriders are the elite of the elite among the Sothōii, Bahzell’s ascension is as likely to stir resentment as respect. That combination of duties would have been enough to keep anyone busy-even a warrior prince like Bahzell-but additional complications are bubbling under the surface. The goddess Shīgū, the Queen of Hell, is sowing dissension among the war maids of the Sothōii. The supporters of the deposed Sothōii noble who started the war are plotting to murder their new leige lord and frame Bahzell for the deed. Of course, those problems are all in a day’s work for a champion of the War God. But what is Bahzell going to do about the fact that Baron Tellian’s daughter, the heir to the realm, seems to be thinking that he is the only man-or hradani-for her?<

David Weber

Sword Brother

War God

A brand new 50,000 word novella, Sword Brother.From the 20007 year edition of "Oath of Swords"<

David Weber

Crusade

Starfire

Spacers call the warp point Charon's Ferry.No star ship has ever entered it and returned since a vengeful Orion task force pursued a doomed Terran colonization fleet into it in 2206.Almost a century has passed. The fiery hatreds of a quarter-century of warfare between the Terran Federation and the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieeee, the cat-like species humans called the "Orions," have eased at least a little. The "Grand Alliance" forged by the need to fight side-by-side against the genocidal Rigelians remains, but there are those on either side who continue to hate, continue to distrust.Now the strength of that war-forged alliance is about to be tested. For Charon's Ferry is about to give up the secret of its dead. A ship has emerged from the deadly warp point at last. A ship which responds to the challenge of an Orion star ship using ancient human communications codes . . . then opens fire.The holocaust of interstellar warfare has been ignited anew, in a bloody crusade to free Holy Mother Terra.<

David Weber

In Death Ground

Starfire

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Three thousand years after Sun Tszu wrote those words, in the time of the Fourth Interstellar War, the ancient advice still holds true. The "Bugs" have overwhelming numbers, implacable purpose, and a strategy that's mind-numbingly alien. They can't be reasoned or negotiated with. They can't even be communicated with. But what they want is terrifyingly clear. The sentient species in their path aren't enemies to be conquered; they're food sources to be consumed.Totally oblivious to their own losses, rumbling onward like some invincible force of nature, their enormous fleets are as unstoppable as Juggernaut. Yet for the desperate Federation Navy and its enemies-turned-allies, the Orions, there is nowhere to go. Their battered, outnumbered ships are all that stand between the billions upon billions of defenseless civilians on the worlds behind them and an enemy from the darkest depths of nightmare, and there can be no retreat. But at least their options are clear.As Sun Tzu said, in death ground, there is only one strategy:<

David Weber

Shiva Option

Starfire

DEFEAT WAS NOT AN OPTION. The war wasn't going well. The mind-numbingly alien Arachnids were an enemy whose like no civilized race had ever confronted. Like some carnivorous cancer, the "Bugs" had overrun planet after planet . . . and they regarded any competing sentient species as only one more protein source. They couldn't be reasoned with, or even talked to, because no one had the least idea of how to communicate with a telepathic species with no recognizable language . . . and whose response to any communication attempt was a missile salvo. No one knew how large their civilization-if it could be called a "civilization"-actually was, or how it was organized, but the huge fleets they threw against their opponents suggested that it was enormous. The Grand Alliance of Humans, Orions, Ophiuchi, and Gorm, united in desperate self-defense, have been driven to the wall. Billions of their civilians have been slaughtered. Their most powerful offensive operation has ended in shattering defeat and the deaths of their most experienced and revered military commanders. The edge in technology with which they began the war is eroding out from under them and whatever they do, the Bugs just keep coming. But the warriors of the Grand Alliance know what stands behind them and they will surrender no more civilians to the oncoming juggernaut. They will die first . . . and they will also reactivate General Directive 18, however horrible it may be. Because when the only possible outcomes are victory or racial extermination, only one option is acceptable. The Shiva Option<

David Weber

Insurrection

Starfire

And peace isn’t always wonderful. Once the enemy was defeated, the central governments of the Inner Worlds were anything but willing to relinquish their wartime powers. To insure that their grip on the reins of power remained firm, the establishment plans to allow the non-human beings of the Khanate to join the Federation, thus reducing the Fringe Worlds voting bloc to impotent minority status. The ruthless bureaucrats of the Corporate Worlds are smugly confident that this power play will keep the colonial upstarts in their place. But the Fringers have only one answer to that: Insurrection<

Sarah Waters

The Night Watch

<p>Sarah Waters’ fourth novel, The Night Watch, is set in 1940s London, during and after the Second World War, and is an innovative departure from her previous three lesbian Victorian historical fictions. Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999) and Fingersmith (2002) depend on melodramatic scenes of excess and chicanery, with occasional references to postmodern thinking. In comparison, The Night Watch is more constrained in its telling of love stories and secrets. Its tone echoes the view we have, in the 21st century, of rationed wartime Britain and the use of the more distant third-person, rather than the confiding first-person, signals a further diversion from the earlier works.</p><p>The structure of The Night Watch is worth remarking upon as it begins at the end in 1947. The second section takes us back to 1944, and the third and final section is set in 1941. The decision to use this type of structure is brave, even foolhardy, because of the problems in pulling it off convincingly, but Waters’ subtlety and restraint in pulling back the layers reveals the extent of her authorial control.</p><p>This novel is essentially concerned with five main characters (Kay, Viv, Helen, Julia and Viv’s brother, Duncan) and their separate private lives. The connections between these people are also elemental to the narrative. Coincidence plays a significant role in the unfolding of past events as their lives are shown to overlap. This use of coincidence has been a feature of Waters’ previous novels, but this time she uses it casually, and as an extra element, rather than for the purposes of manipulating the plot out of hand as was deemed necessary in a melodrama such as Fingersmith.</p><p>The love stories of Kay, Viv and Helen are central and, as the narrative traces back to 1941, we learn how their present views of relationships have been shaped by these past events. As with her previous novels, Waters continues to use lesbian relationships as a main focus of the narrative, but shifts away to examine the affair between Viv and Reggie, and the horrific illegal abortion she undergoes to spare her father from further shame.</p><p>Repression becomes a touchstone as many of the characters keep a secret or carry a weight of shame. The converse of this theme of fear of discovery is the examination of bravery. This is most notable in the second and third sections which are, necessarily, concerned with the bombing of London. A re-evaluation of the definition of courage is undertaken and is perhaps most poignant in the prison scene, where Duncan ’s cell mate, conscientious objector Fraser, asks himself if he is ‘simply a – a bloody coward’ when he is overwhelmed by the fear of death. The deconstruction of received morality, of what is to be brave or selfish in this time of heightened emotions, is also examined when Helen considers the effect the war has had on her ethics: ‘In the first blitz, she’d tried to help everyone; she’d given money to people, sometimes, from her own purse. But the war made you careless. You started off, she thought sadly, imagining you’d be a kind of heroine. You end up thinking only of yourself.’</p><p>The reason for Duncan ’s imprisonment is one of the well-kept secrets of the novel and is only (partially) explained in the third section. This use of the hidden truth and the hints at the unspoken strengthen the evocation of the period, where loose lips could potentially sink ships, and walls had ears. When revelations are made, they are, more often than not, as subdued as the repressed tone permits and this allows the novel to maintain the same pace throughout.</p><p>Despite this steady pace, Waters still enables the readers to see how the war also had a liberating effect on women such as Kay. Her gallantry and masculine demeanour was of use during the bombings whilst she worked as an ambulance driver, but in the beginning of the novel, in 1947, it is clear that with the return to peace time her short hair and male clothing are once more worthy of ridicule.</p><p>As with all of Waters’ novels, The Night Watch has been praised by critics for the attention to detail and meticulous research. This work stretches beyond the limits of the previous three, though, and is certainly her most impressive to date. Her control in depicting the central characters gradually is in itself an indicator of skilful writing. As this is also combined with a believable and interested evocation of period and place, this novel must be recommended highly.</p><

Virginia Woolf

Flush

Flush es un `cocker spaniel` de orejas largas, cola ancha y unos `ojos atónitos color avellana`. A los pocos meses de su nacimiento es regalado a la ya famosa poestisa Elizabeth Barret. Fluxh se convertirá en su compañero inseparable y, posteriormente, en el cómplice de sus amoríos con el poeta Robert Browning, aunque primero debe superar la animadversión y los celos que siente ante su afortunado rival.<

Virginia Woolf

Al Faro

<p>Tal y como viene siendo habitual en la obra de Virginia Woolf, en?Al Faro? no se descubre nada nuevo para los incondicionales de la autora. Tanto en el argumento como en la técnica narrativa se pueden encontrar elementos comunes: personajes atormentados e insatisfechos consigo mismos y con la realidad que les ha tocado vivir, paisajes agrestes y desfavorables para la convivencia y habitabilidad humana, y la novedosa utilización de la tercera persona y del reproducción de los pensamientos de los protagonistas.</p><p>Este hecho puede dificultar la lectura a los no duchos en la materia, lo que no le quita un ápice a la tensión narrativa, al contrario, quizás se deba prestar más atención y leer con más tranquilidad. Apenas hay separación entre los participantes de un diálogo, sino que se reproducen literalmente lo que se les pasa por la cabeza, puede dar la sensación de que no hay contacto físico entre los individuos, lo que lleva al desconcierto y a darle a la incomunicación una importancia aún mayor.</p><p>La señora Ramsay planea hacer una excursión a un faro con sus ocho hijos y algunos amigos, pero el mal tiempo y la autoridad de un marido prepotente hará que sus planes se deshagan, lo que supone un enfrentamiento entre los miembros de la familia contra el señor Ramsay. La excursión podría interpretarse como una viaje?iniciático?, una válvula de escape ante la opresión, una huida en busca de la verdad por una mismo.</p><p>En cuanto a los personajes suelen repetirse los mismos roles que tanto obsesiona a la autora: la mujer,?realizada? como madre de familia numerosa, pero frustrada a nivel intelectual por la sociedad machista de la época victoriana, la estigmatización de la solterona,?obligada? a elegir entre la búsqueda de su felicidad, materializada en su cultivo profesional, pero casi siempre abandonada por?el qué dirán?, la figura del hombre, que aparece como una figura paternalista,?ejecutor? del carácter más rebelde y sublime de la mujer. Y, en cuanto los fenómenos atmosféricos, el mar, las tempestades, el viento… todos aliados en la eterna lucha de sexos, en la incompatibilidad, en la incomunicación…</p><p>Esposas rebeldes de pensamiento pero no de acción, mujeres que luchan por defender su valía, no sólo en el campo de la maternidad, individuos que oprimen, otros que son oprimidos…Todo tejido en todo a la complejidad del carácter de Virginia Wolf, que, o desconcierta y engancha, o harta.</p><p>Pero que, sobre todo, no pasa desapercibida…</p><

David Weber

1633

Janusz L Wiśniewski

S@motność w sieci

S@motność w Sieci opisuje miłość dwójki Polaków, którzy prawie całą swoją znajomość ograniczają do kontaktów w Internecie. Jakub, ceniony na świecie polski genetyk, na stałe pracuje i mieszka w Niemczech. Któregoś dnia otrzymuje na ICQ wiadomość od Polki, chcącej zwierzyć mu się ze swoich problemów. Ta niewinna wiadomość zapoczątkowuje ich znajomość i fascynację sobą nawzajem. Uczucie, którym się darzą, w pewnym momencie przeradza się w coś na miarę miłości na odległość… Akcja powieści widziana jest oczami dwóch osób: Jakuba i Jej (nie wiadomo, jak ma na imię bohaterka, mimo iż jest jedną z głównych postaci, choć w filmie nadano jej imię Ewa). Autor często zmienia bohatera, który rozwija akcję – raz obserwujemy działania Jakuba, raz Jej. Taki sposób prowadzenia akcji pozwala czytelnikowi lepiej poznać obydwoje bohaterów. Bieżące wydarzenia często przerywane są retrospekcjami z przeszłości postaci, co pozwala czytelnikom lepiej zrozumieć uczucia bohaterów w danym momencie oraz w kontekście całej książki. Książka ukazała się w Polsce w czasie, w którym miłość przez Internet była jeszcze czymś niewyobrażalnym. Obecnie internetowe miłości zadziwiają coraz mniej osób, dlatego książka nieco straciła na swojej oryginalności i niepowtarzalności, ponieważ wirtualne miłości są coraz częściej spotykanym motywem w romansach i powieściach miłosnych.<

Stuart Woods

Blood Orchid

<p>Blood Orchid is the third adventure of one of Stuart Woods's most engaging characters, Chief of Police Holly Barker. This time out, Holly is trying to get her life back together after the shattering loss of her fiancé. With the help of her wily Doberman, Daisy, and her father, Ham, she throws herself back into the job with a vengeance. At a local restaurant, Holly and Ham meet a gentleman new to the area, rich and dapper developer Ed Shine, who has found an evocative name for both his favorite flower and his latest real-estate venture: the "Blood Orchid."</p><p>But before Holly can settle into her routine again, bullets crash into the home of a friend and a floater is found bobbing in the Intercoastal Waterway. Holly connects these events to the death-by-sniper-fire of two Miami businessmen and a man evading questions at a Federal agency-but she can't imagine how these violent occurrences could be related to her own quiet, unspoiled town of Orchid Beach. Joining forces with a handsome FBI agent, she tracks the clues straight to their source, only to find a scam more lucrative and more dangerous than any this idyllic town-or Holly-has ever seen.</p><

Stuart Woods

Strefa Zamknięta

Stanowisko zastępcy szeryfa w uroczym miasteczku na Florydzie wydaje się major Holly Barker kuszącą propozycją. Ale Orchid Beach wcale nie jest spokojne. Ani bezpieczne. Już pierwszego dnia Holly rozpoczyna śledztwo w sprawie zabójstwa. I przekonuje się, że mordercą może być ktoś, kogo zna…<

Stuart Woods

New York Dead

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>Woods's latest (after Palindrome) is a slick thriller set in Manhattan's Upper East Side, the stomping ground of Stone Barrington, a well-bred but unpretentious detective who, in a city of several million people, always ends up in the right place at the right time. Late one evening, as Stone trudges home from Elaine's Restaurant, popular TV newscaster Sasha Nijinsky plummets 12 stories from her terrace and lands on a heap of dirt 20 yards away from him-remarkably, still alive. Stone fails to apprehend the person who flees Sasha's penthouse and, after the ambulance carrying her collides with a fire truck, Sasha herself disappears. Despite the fact that no corpse is in evidence, the baffled NYPD eagerly pins a murder rap on Sasha's distraught lesbian lover. Stone refuses to accept his colleagues' pat solution and even maintains that Sasha might have survived thanks to skydiving training and her billowing, parachute-like robe. Bed-hopping TV newspeople, a sexy blonde judge sporting a red dress beneath her robes, a serial killer targeting cabbies and a creepy med-school dropout turned mortician who idolizes Sasha romp through this calculatedly melodramatic crime story all the way to its grisly B-movie finale. 75,000 first printing; $125,000 ad/promo; author tour.</p><

Stuart Woods

Iron Orchid

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>Having ditched her Orchid Beach, Fla., police chief post, returning supersleuth Holly Barker opts for a CIA career in Woods's by-the-numbers thriller, the fourth in the Barker series (Blood Orchid). Barely through basic training at a highly regimented CIA "training farm," Barker's class is suddenly enlisted to track down calculating killer (and opera buff) Teddy Fay (first seen in Woods's Capital Crimes). An ex-CIA agent himself, Fay uses insider information to continue assassinating international political figures who also happen to be enemies of the U.S. Barker stakes out the Metropolitan Opera House, and narrowly misses Teddy in disguise in several contrived set pieces. The narrative accelerates from a somewhat sluggish first half when CIA operatives' solid deliberation moves Barker ever closer to nabbing the elusive Fay-who, by the way, lives mere blocks away from her. But Fay dupes the CIA again, with the help of a Santa Claus costume, and assassinates a Saudi prince before vanishing. Woods's latest lacks the urgent plotting and bracing thrills needed to make it truly memorable, and though Barker is a tough, formidable protagonist, the question remains why she, after absconding with over $5.5 million in untraceable drug money, bothers to clock in at all. Only Barker's dog, Daisy the Doberman, knows for sure.</p><

Stuart Woods

Santa Fe Dead

<p>New York Times bestseller Stuart Woods returns with a fast-paced thriller, starring Ed Eagle, the take-no-prisoners attorney from Santa Fe Rules and Short Straw.When last we encountered Ed Eagle, he had been the target of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by his wife, Barbara, the ultimate black widow. But when Barbara escapes from police custody, Ed knows that not only will his life be in danger but also the life of his new girlfriend, and, of course, of any rich man unlucky enough to be lured into Barbara's web. To add to his troubles, Ed has taken on a new client, Don Wells, who may or may not have murdered his own wife and son.</p><p>From the posh resorts of southern California to the New Mexico desert and the seedy hotels of Tijuana, Ed Eagle will follow every lead – and hope that he doesn't wind up Santa Fe Dead.</p><

Stuart Woods

Cold Paradise

<p>On the Gold Coast of Florida, Stone Barrington hunts a master of disguise and deceit in this latest thriller in his compulsively readable, bestselling series.</p><p>"Stuart Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller." – Chicago Tribune</p><p>Cop-turned-investigator Stone Barrington has the street-smarts, dry wit, and debonair charm his fans love, and Palm Beach -the setting of his new adventure-is his most glamorous scene-of-the-crime yet. In Cold Paradise, he becomes reacquainted with a case he thought was buried years ago-and must settle romantic entanglements that haunt him still.</p><p>Luxuriating in the winter warmth of a Palm Beach cafŽ, Stone is stunned to recognize someone he thought was dead: the beautiful Allison Manning, a woman he had defended against a murder charge on a Caribbean island in Dead in the Water. Allison is alive and well-and suddenly very rich. And she needs a favor: Might Stone help her square a charge of insurance fraud that's been hanging over her head for years?</p><p>But first, Stone must find the man who is stalking her. He suspects more than one man: an elusive writer who never shows his face; an enigmatic businessman with a past he won't reveal; and even Allison's former husband-whom they have all thought dead since those days in the Caribbean. Only Stone can thwart the sly and greedy plan to steal the millions at stake in this crafty new thriller.</p><

Stuart Woods

Orchid Blues

<p>Chief of Police Holly Barker-the heroine introduced in the New York Times bestselling Orchid Beach-returns with her trusty Doberman, Daisy, to track an unusual band of thieves in this second thriller in Stuart Woods's newest and most captivating series.</p><p>"Holly Barker-tough and tight-lipped-is fun to watch as she maneuvers among city politicians and wary colleagues, one of whom may be a murderer." (Entertainment Weekly review of Orchid Beach)</p><p>Holly is on her way to be married to Jackson Oxenhandler, her steady beau, when her wedding day is shattered by a serious crime that takes place very close to home. A highly disciplined team of men hit a bank in Orchid Beach, Florida, and the waves from this robbery nearly capsize Holly's life. She vows to find these men-who have been careful enough to leave nothing behind except the corpse of a bank customer-and quickly, she discovers evidence that leads her into the midst of what appears to be a politically motivated clan. Her father, Ham, a retired army chief master sergeant, is her ticket into this strange world, and what Ham inds there stuns both Holly and her FBI contact, Harry Crisp.</p><p>Holly and Ham find themselves sucked into a whirlpool of crazed criminality and, in the end, the FBI can do little to help them. This time, Holly, Ham, and Daisy are on their own, and they wouldn't have it any other way.</p><

Stuart Woods

L.A. Dead

<p>Amazon.com Review</p><p>Stuart Woods is a master of the glitzy, high-concept, suspense thriller, and Stone Barrington, hero of five previous mysteries, is the kind of private cop who glides gracefully between lavishly detailed dinners, private jets, fancy parties, sexy assignations in luxury hotels, and the occasional murder investigation. Occasionally he gets his hands dirty, but more often it's his sheets. L.A. Dead finds him in Venice, where he's about to marry the beautiful (but seriously crazy) daughter of a high-ranking Mafioso, whose other daughter happens to be married to Stone's best friend-an NYPD cop, naturally. The civil ceremony's over, but the church wedding is only hours away when Stone is called to L.A., where his former lover has just discovered her husband's dead body. The lover is Arrington (an oddity, given Stone's surname; did Woods just run out of imagination here?), the dead husband is a famous movie star, and everyone believes she killed him. Everyone except Stone, who's still in love with Arrington. He has a helluva time interviewing (and bedding) all the women in her circle, including the dead husband's private secretary, Arrington's best friend, her lawyer's mistress, and a number of Hollywood wives. Jackie Collins does the ladies better, but Stone manages to save the damsel in distress, get rid of his nutty near-wife without offending her father, and wrap up all the details except the most important one. No doubt he's saving that for the next book. In the meantime, Woods's many fans will snap this up and spend the interim wondering: if Stone marries the woman of his dreams, will that make her Arrington Barrington?</p><

Stuart Woods

Two-Dollar Bill

<p>Stone Barrington is caught between a clever con man-who's just become his client-and a beautiful prosecutor in this stylish thriller in the bestselling series.</p><p>Two-Dollar Bill delivers all the storytelling twists and whip-smart banter readers have come to love in Stuart Woods's thrillers. In this latest, Stone Barrington, the suave Manhattan cop-turned-lawyer, is back on his home turf facing down a brilliant Southern flimflam man.</p><p>The fun-and action-begins with what Stone believes will be a quiet dinner with his ex-partner, Dino, but they are interrupted by Billy Bob, a filthy rich, smooth-talkin' Texan, who strolls in and parks himself at their table. He's in town "to make money," he says, unwrapping his wad of rare two-dollar bills, and in need of an attorney-namely, Stone-though he won't say why or when such representation will be necessary. As they leave the restaurant, however, an unknown assailant shoots at Stone and his cohorts-and the wily Southerner has spread his two-dollar bills around to everyone like confetti.</p><p>Against his better judgment, Stone offers Billy Bob a safe haven for the night but almost immediately begins to suspect that he's made several precipitous misjudgments-for the slippery out-of-towner has gone missing and someone has been found dead-in Stone's town house no less. Stone is now caught between a beautiful federal prosecutor and a love from his past, a con man with more aliases than hairs on his head, and a murder investigation that could ruin them all.</p><

Stuart Woods

Shoot Him If He Runs

<p>In the newest addition to the bestselling series, Stone Barrington and Holly Barker pursue a master spy and murderer in a tropical paradise where very little is as it seems.</p><p>Teddy Fay, a rogue agent last seen escaping an imploding building in Iron Orchid, has been considered dead for some time now. But President Will Lee thinks Teddy may still be alive. In a top-secret Oval Office meeting, Stone learns that he and his cohorts, Holly Barker and Dino Baldachetti, are being sent to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Marks, courtesy of the CIA, to track down Teddy once and for all.</p><p>St. Marks is a vacationer’s paradise, but its luxurious beach clubs and secluded mountain villas are home to corrupt local politicians and more than a few American ex-pats with murky personal histories. Stone and Holly soon discover that in St. Marks, everyone is hiding something, and Teddy Fay may just be hiding in plain sight.</p><

Stuart Woods

Hot Mahogany

One night at Elaine’s, Stone Barrington – back in Manhattan after chasing down the bad guys in the Caribbean – meets Barton Cabot, older brother of his sometime ally, CIA boss Lance Cabot. Barton’s career in army intelligence is even more top secret than his brother’s, but he’s suffering from amnesia following a random act of violence. Amnesia is a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chockfull of state secrets, so Lance hires Stone to watch Barton’s back. As Stone discovers, Barton is a spy with a rather unusual hobby: building and restoring antique furniture. The genteel world of antiques and coin dealers at first seems a far cry from Stone’s usual underworld of mobsters, murderers, and spies. But Barton also is a man with a past, and one event in particular – in the jungles of Vietnam more than thirty years earlier – is coming back to haunt his present in ways he’d never expected. Stone soon finds out that Barton, and some shady characters of his acquaintance, may be hiding a lot more than just a few forged antiques.<

David Weber

Storm From the Shadows

Saganami Island

<p>Perfidious Plots, </p><p>Courageous Resolve—and, </p><p>of course, </p><p>Starships Blown to Smithereens!</p><p>The Solarian League Navy has been the premier navy of the galaxy for centuries. Indeed, no one can remember a time when it hasn't been acknowledged as the most powerful fleet in existence. </p><p>Until now, that is.</p><p>A conference to end the terrible war between the Peeps of Haven and the Manticorean Star Kingdom is slated. Peace is finally within reach. </p><p>Yeah, right. </p><p>Not with the slaver conspiracy that calls itself Manpower, Inc. pulling intergalactic strings. The plan? To plunge the Star Kingdom into a two-front war with Peeps and Sollies—a process calculated to blast Honor Harrington's home system to smoking ruin!</p><p>Assassination's afoot. And out on the galactic frontier known as the Verge, big trouble boils over as Solarian League arrogance butts up against the steely resolve of Harrington protégé Michelle Henke, aka Admiral Gold Peak. </p><p>Too bad for the Sollies. For Harrington's officers have a habit of coming through in the clutch and finding a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But most of all—whatever the odds—they never, ever give up the fight!</p><

Stuart Woods

Swimming To Catalina

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>Formerly a cop and now a lawyer, Stone Barrington is plummeting to the bottom of the ocean with an anchor chained to his waist at the start of Woods's 17th novel (after Dead in the Water, 1997), a smoothly presented if slight thriller that ambles pleasurably through a kidnapping plot involving Barrington's ex-lover (improbably named Arrington). Her husband, actor Vance Calder, flies Barrington out to Hollywood to help find her. In L.A., Barrington goes from flavor-of-the-minute to persona non grata in less time than it takes a flop to disappear from a multiplex. Naturally he's suspicious, so he starts investigating on his own and finds links aplenty among Calder, a mobster named Onofrio Ippolito (head of the Safe Harbor Bank) and labor fixer David Sturmach. The plot moves quickly and is full of dialogue and genial if unsurprising gibes at self-centered stars. Unsurprising is the key word here. Neither the mystery nor the romantic subplot contributes much in the way of suspense to this pleasant, inoffensive airplane read. $250,000 ad/promo; BOMC alternate. (May) simultaneously with Swimming to Catalina.</p><

Stuart Woods

Short Straw

<p>Short Straw reintroduces Santa Fe lawyer Ed Eagle, who first appeared in Stuart Woods's 1992 thriller, Santa Fe Rules. In his first adventure, Ed fell in love with the seductive Barbara Kennerly, and married her-against his better judgment.</p><p>Turns out that Ed should have listened to his intuition. Ed Eagle awakens the morning after his fortieth birthday to find that Barbara has vanished, and Ed's money-from his business, his bank, and his brokerage accounts-has been wired to the Cayman Islands. Barbara, it appears, had drugged his birthday wine, neatly cleaned him out and then fled to Mexico, from where she can't be extradited. And as if that weren't bad enough, when Ed arrives at work that morning he discovers that he's been assigned a new client who looks like nothing but trouble-Joe Big Bear, a part-time mechanic charged with a triple homicide. Ed hires two slightly shady investigators to search for his wife. But when they track Barbara down in Puerto Vallarta, they discover that Joe Big Bear may also be embroiled in Barbara's plot. Ed soon finds himself caught in a scheme that is much more far reaching-and deadly-than anyone would have expected.</p><

Stuart Woods

Capital Crimes

<p>Someone is out to kill the nation's high-level politicos in this electrifying new thriller in the bestselling Will Lee series.</p><p>Will Lee, the courageous and uncompromising senator from Georgia, is back – now as President of the United States, in this fifth book of the New York Times bestselling series. When a prominent conservative politician is killed inside his lakeside cabin, authorities have no suspect in sight. Then two more seemingly isolated deaths-achieved by very different means-are feared to be linked to the same murderer. With the help of his CIA director wife, Kate Rule Lee, Will is thrust in the middle of the deadly game to catch the most clever and professional of killers before he can strike again.</p><p>From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway in Maine, Will, Kate, and the FBI track their man and set a trap with extreme caution and care-and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for.</p><

Stuart Woods

Reckless Abandon

<p>Cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington tracks a mobster hiding deep inside the witness protection program in this next thriller in the New York Times-bestselling series.</p><p>Stone Barrington is, once again, right at home in New York City; but this time he is joined by the tenacious Holly Barker from Orchid Blues, the lady police chief of Orchid Island, Florida. In Reckless Abandon, Holly finally makes it to Manhattan, hot on the trail of an evil fugitive from her jurisdiction. Stone is, well, glad to see her, right up until the moment when her presence creates a great danger to both of them-and to their surprise, she becomes the pursued, not the pursuer.</p><p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>It's double the pleasure and double the fun as Woods brings series character Holly Barker, chief of the Orchid Beach, Fla., police department (of Orchid Blues, etc.), onstage to co-star with PI Stone Barrington (of Dirty Work, etc.) in his latest adventure. Holly's come to New York hot on the trail of Trini Rodriguez, a bad guy she thought she'd stabbed to death in an earlier adventure. He's currently wanted for (among other things) blowing up a dozen people by hiding bombs in the caskets of two of his earlier victims and detonating them at the funeral. But finding him won't be so simple: he's been placed in the FBI Witness Protection Program and is working with the Feds and the CIA to catch an Arab terrorist group trying to employ the Mafia in a money-laundering scheme. Shortly after Holly takes up residence in Stone's guest room, the two of them are hip deep in the dangerous caseâ€"and likewise each other. They go at it so often it's hard to say what's going to kill Stone first: the Mafia, Arab terrorists or the athletic, all-night sex. Cross-pollinating all these characters from various books makes for some heavy-handed background exposition at times, but readers with no previous experience will still enjoy this amusing, full-throttle sex and crime romp. Stone's ex-partner and best pal, Dino Bachetti, head of the detective squad at the 19th precinct, sums up Stone's appeal, and that of the entire series, when he says of his friend: "Wherever you go, people drop dead, and women take off their underwear." That's it in a nutshell.</p><

Stuart Woods

Imperfect Strangers

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>Though Woods's (Heat) latest caper provides all the credibility of a soap opera, the novel also offers some of the guilty pleasures attendant to that TV format. When wine merchant Sandy Kinsolving meets art dealer Peter Martindale on a flight from London to NYC (the novel's primary locations), they are inspired by watching Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train to hatch their own version of that classic plot-in which two strangers each agree to commit murder for the other. It seems that both men have "troublesome" wives, so why doesn't Sandy kill Peter's spouse and Peter return the favor? After one lady is duly offed, however, events careen out of control. In fact, so many subsequent episodes occur (many of them preposterous and too tidily handled) that the murder pact gets lost. As often happens in the world of soaps, a glossy veneer lends an air of sophistication-a corner suite at London's Connaught Hotel, a cashier's check for $28 million-and, also, of unreality. (Even the dialogue begins to smack of Noel Coward.) Enjoyable for a time, the tony tinsel is overtaken by a blandness that ultimately undercuts the novel's would-be dramatic and psychological aspects. BOMC, QPB alternates; Harper Audio.</p><

Stuart Woods

Dark Harbor

<p>Stone Barrington investigates the secrets of a CIA officer's suicide in this next thriller in the bestselling series.</p><p>Stuart Woods's newest bestseller, Dark Harbor, brings us the perfect mix of sexy intrigue and swift suspense that have earned him legions of fans over the years. In this latest thriller, Stone enters the picturesque town Dark Harbor off the coast of Maine, where the shocking deaths of three people have cast a long shadow over this island haven-a locale as mysterious as it is exclusive.</p><p>Stone Barrington hasn't heard from his cousin, Dick Stone, in years-though he has fond memories of a teenage summer spent at his house in Maine. Then, Lance Cabot of the CIA interrupts an otherwise pleasant meal at Elaine's with news of Dick's death-apparently by his own hands. It seems that Dick Stone, a quiet family man who doubled as a CIA agent, methodically executed his wife, daughter, and then himself-or did he? What would cause a loving father and husband to murder his family as they slept? Before his death, Dick had appointed Stone executor of his will, giving him full control of the disposition of a sizable family estate. Was Dick preparing for his suicide, or forewarning Stone of his murder?</p><p>With the help of his ex-partner, Dino, and his friend Holly Barker, Stone must settle the estate and piece together the elusive facts of his cousin's life and death as a CIA operative. At every step Stone knows he is being watched by Dick's family-and one of them just may be a killer.</p><

Stuart Woods

Under the Lake

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>The Edgar Award-winning author of Chiefs (basis of a TV miniseries) and the bestselling Deep Lie now offers a highly readable if somewhat overheated thriller-cum-gothic that includes murder, drug smuggling, faith healing, hallucinations, revenants and incest. A one-time ace reporter rents a cabin in a backwoods Georgia town, then stumbles upon and determines to solve the town mystery, which involves a seemingly affable sheriff, an autocratic town father and an incest-ridden family whose once-prosperous farm now lies under a lake. He joins forces with a plucky female reporter bent on proving that the sheriff is "dirty," and there's never a dull moment as the story surges toward its exciting climax. The conclusion is a little too far-fetchedbut by that time readers have had more than their money's worth. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates.</p><

Bernard Werber

La Révolution des fourmis

Que peuvent nous envier les fourmis? L'humour, l'amour, l'art. Que peuvent leur envier les hommes? L'harmonie avec la nature, l'absence de peur, la communication absolue.Après des millénaires d'ignorance, les deux civilisations les plus évoluées de la planète vont-elles enfin pouvoir se rencontrer et se comprendre? Sans se connaître, Julie Pinson, une étudiante rebelle, et 103e, une fourmi exploratrice, vont essayer de faire la révolution dans leur monde respectif pour le faire évoluer.Les Fourmis était le livre du contact, Le Jour des fourmis le livre de la confrontation. La Révolution des fourmis est le livre de la compréhension.Mais au-delà du thème des fourmis, c'est une révolution d'humains, une révolution non violente, une révolution faite de petites touches discrètes et d'idées nouvelles que nous propose Bernard Werber.À la fois roman d'aventures et livre initiatique, ce couronnement de l'épopée myrmécéenne nous convie à entrer dans un avenir qui n'est peut-être pas seulement de la science-fiction…La Révolution des fourmis appartient au domaine des livres enchanteurs où Von apprend et où l'on se distrait. Ne perdez pas une seconde pour lire ce prodige.Annette Colin-Simard, Le Journal du Dimanche.Site internet de l'auteur: www.werber.imaginet.fr<

Annie Wang

The People’s Republic of Desire

<p>Those who know little to nothing about Chinese culture will receive an eye-opening experience of how China was and how China is now through Annie Wang’s novel The People’s Republic of Desire.</p><p>Wang takes readers on a journey with four cosmopolitan women learning to live life in the new China. Niuniu, the book’s narrator, is a Chinese American woman, who spent seven years living in the States obtaining her degree in journalism. In the book, Niuniu is now considered a “returnee” when she goes back to China to get over a broken heart. What she meets upon return to her homeland is not the traditional Confucian values she left, but a new modern China where Western culture seems to have taken over – to an extreme.</p><p>Niuniu, the narrator of the book, is called a “Jia Yangguiz” which means a “fake foreign devil” because of her Westernized values. Her friend Beibei is the owner of her own entertainment company and is married to a man who cheats, so Beibei deals with his infidelity by finding her own young lovers. Lulu is a fashion magazine editor who has been having a long-term affair with a married man, and thinks nothing of having several abortions to show her devotion to him. CC, also a returnee, struggles with her identity between Chinese and English.</p><p>In The People’s Republic of Desire the days of the 1989 idealism and the Tiananamen Sqaure protests seem forgotten to this new world when making a fast yuan, looking younger, more beautiful, and acting important seems to be of the most concern to this generation.</p><p>Wang uses these four woman to make humorous and sometimes sarcastic observations of the new China and accurately describes how Western culture has not only infiltrated China, but is taken to the extreme by those who have experienced a world outside the Confucian values. What was once a China consumed with political passions, nepotism, unspoken occurrences, and taboos is now a world filled with all those things once discouraged – sex, divorce, pornography, and desire for material goods. It’s taken the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” to an all-time high.</p><p>Wang offers a glimpse of modern day Beijing and what it would take for any woman – returnee or otherwise – to move forward and conquer dilemmas in the fast-moving Chinese culture. The characters joke that “nowadays, the world is for bad girls” and all the values of their youth have been lost to this new modern generation of faking their identity, origin, and accent. It seems that such a cultural shock would be displeasing to those who knew the old China, but instead these young women seem to be enjoying the newfound liberties.</p><p>If you’re looking for a quick read with a plot, you won’t find it in The People’s Republic of Desire. Each of the 101 chapters read like individual short stories, separate stories about friends, family, and other individuals who Niuniu is acquainted with or meets and through which Wang weaves a humorous and often sarcastic trip into Beijing, China.</p><p>The book is filled with topics of family, friends, Internet dating, infidelity, rich, poor, and many of the same ideals most cultures worry themselves about. Many of the chapters end with popular phrases that give the reader an insight into Chinese culture and language. Wang does seem to use Niuniu’s journalistic background to intertwine the other characters and come to a somewhat significant conclusion.</p><p>As the press release states, “Wang paints an arresting portrait of a generation suffocating in desire. For love. For success. For security. For self actualization. And for the most elusive aspiration of all: happiness.”</p><p>With The People’s Republic of Desire, Wang does just that. She speaks not only of the new culture but also of the old ways and how China used to be. She may have educated readers about the new China with her knowledge of the Western and Chinese culture, but also Wang hits the nail on the head when it comes to showing most people’s needs. After all, aren’t most human beings striving for many of these same elusive dreams?</p><p>Joanne D. Kiggins</p><p>***</p><p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>As Wang reveals in intimate detail, today's affluent Beijing women – educated, ambitious, coddled only children enamored of all things Western – are a generation unto themselves. The hyperobservant narrator of this fascinating novel (after Lili: A Novel of Tiananmen) is 20-something Niuniu, a journalist who was born in the United States but grew up in China and returned to America for college and graduate school. Now she's back in Beijing nursing a broken heart and discovering "what it means to be Chinese" in a money- and status-obsessed city altered by economic and sexual liberalization. Supporting Niuniu – and downing a few drinks with her – are her best buddies: entrepreneurial entertainment agent Beibei, sexy fashion mag editor Lulu and Oxford-educated CC. Sounds like the cast of Sex in the Forbidden City, but the thick cultural descriptions distinguish the novel from commercial women's fiction. A nonnative English speaker, Wang observes gender politics among the nouveau riche in careful, reportorial prose. Though Niuniu's romantic backstory forms a tenuous thread between the chapters, and the novel – based on Wang's newspaper column of the same title – doesn't finally hold together, this is a trenchant, readable account of a society in flux.</p><

Winxp

ОТ ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВА ОБ АВТОРЕ

Irving Wallace

The Prize

<p>‘THE NOBEL FOUNDATION OF STOCKHOLM IS PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE TODAY BEEN VOTED THIS YEARS NOBEL PRIZE STOP THE AWARD CEREMONY WILL TAKE PLACE IN STOCKHOLM’… Six people receive the cable of notification; men and women for whom the only common factor is the Nobel citation-‘for researches in support of humanitarian ideals’.</p><p>These are the major actors in Irving Wallace’s exciting, behind-the-headlines story of the Nobel Prize, five men and a woman elected to receive the supreme palm of mankind’s honours, to be fêted as almost superhuman beings, their achievements to be discussed and applauded, their private lives to be spotlighted in the blinding glare of international publicity. As they converge on Stockholm, The Prize evolves into an explosive evocation of the maze of political intrigue and personal conflict that surrounds and seeks to influence the awards; of the pressures brought to bear on the juries that decide the awards; of international ploy and counter-ploy for prestige in the Cold War; of men and women with their own private stakes in the greatest prize of all.</p><

Shiloh Walker

Telling Tales

Telling Tales Shiloh Walker Sheriff Kellan Grant has been dreaming of Darci Law for a very long time. Wild, sexy dreams. But he was badly burned once, and is interested in only one thing when it comes to women. Kellan knows that Darci will make him want more than one night in her arms, so he keeps his distance. Darci's dreams about Kellan are so intense that they leave her shaking and feeling obsessed. She can't stop thinking about the sexy sheriff-the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he. But he never so much as looks in her direction. So when Kellan shows up at her front door, she is understandably a little confused, but ready to take advantage of any opportunity to finally get close to the man who haunts her dreams. Hot, liquid excitement swamps her system as midnight images rush through her head. He is finally within reach. Then Kellan tells her why he has come. There has been a murder. And she is his number one suspect.<

Robert Charles Wilson

Axis

Spin

<p>Wildly praised by readers and critics alike, Robert Charles Wilson's Spin won science fiction's highest honor, the Hugo Award for Best Novel.</p><p>Now, in Spin's direct sequel, Wilson takes us to the "world next door"—the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life, and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world—and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria.</p><p>Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when an infall of cometary dust seeds the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world will become very alien indeed—as the nature of time is once again twisted, by entities unknown.</p><

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