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From Publishers Weekly
It is difficult to understand how so slight a book can make for such tedious reading. The prolific Anthony's ( Virtual Mode ) latest novel is about a group of humans bicycling along the ocean floor. Anthony does try to provide a framework for the idea--this novel is ostensibly about a benevolent alien race seeking to save the Earth, along with untold numbers of "alternate worlds," from a fatal collision with a meteor. But Anthony was clearly so enamored with his concept of a waterlogged Le Mans that virtually the entire novel takes place underwater, while the rest of the plot is left high and dry. Anthony slips in some tension, which revolves not around the Earth's imminent demise, but around the question of whether Don, one of the bikers, will find himself sexually attracted to another biker, Melanie, who is hairless. There is also a mildly lewd encounter with a mermaid. The book is careless, too--at one point, one of the characters describes an event that happened to him as having happened to someone else. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Anthony's latest explores the sea's ancient mysteries--on wheels. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Description
Alexander has never been in space, zooted around in zero-G, scored a goal in Z-Crosse or fired a legionary battle rifle. He’s never thought of standing guard on the bridge of the famous U.S.S. Iowa, which everyone says is haunted. Even though his parents are Citizens, life on post war Terra isn’t easy: few of the anti-grav units work anymore, the food synthesizer broke years ago and there are no spare parts, and labor-robots were outlawed in the last wars. Alexander lives the life of a nineteenth century farmer on 23rd century Earth, doing chores from dawn to dusk with school squeezed in between—at night he gazes at the stars, looking forward to the day when his father lets him go on his interstellar freighter runs. Everything changes on Service Day, when an officer from the Fleet visits school and hands him an appointment to the Space Academy. Thrilled, Alexander puts on a space suit and leaves the farm behind, but his excitement is tempered when he discovers that he’s the key to a galaxy-wide intrigue that involved his father—his father the farmer and freighter captain, or could he be something else?
For more on Alexander's adventures go to www.dragons-and-dreadnauts.com or the author's blog at www.christopherlanderson.wordpress.com
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Dido and Simon are in danger in this new addition to the Wolves Chronicles. Dido, back in England from America, is almost instantly kidnapped and taken to a derelict mansion surrounded by a deadly moat. The evil baron residing there, who is also a werewolf, wants desperately to know where King Dick is hidden. For the king is dying, and the evil baron wants to put his own demented son on the throne. Meanwhile Simon is with the ailing king. Not only does King Dick want Simon to paint a portrait of him and his family, but Simon is also next in line for the throne. However, they do need to find the coronet for the ceremony that will crown Simon. Though the coronet is rumored to be in the derelict mansion where Dido is imprisoned, no one can find it. It’s one cliffhanging, hair-raising chapter after another in this tongue-in-cheek, devilishly delicious adventure.From the Hardcover edition.<
At first, Colene didn't believe the strange man she found lying on the side of the road. He spoke of a different world filled with wonder, was dressed in clothes she had never seen before, and knew a language she had never heard. He said that he loved her and wanted to take her back to his home. Colene suspected Darius was crazy-until he vanished before her eyes. Well, if falling in love was crazy, Colene was now fully prepared to say goodbye to reality-and hello to an infinite world of dragons and monsters and impossible dreams...
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From Publishers Weekly
Veteran SF author Anthony's second entry in his Mode Series finds four travelers between parallel universes rescued by a woman who needs their help in overthrowing her world's despotic rulers. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
As Colene, the teenage heroine of Virtual Mode ( LJ 2/15/91), and her traveling companions continue their trek across the dimensions of reality, they encounter a fractal world where a young woman struggles to change her oppressive society. This second in Anthony's "Mode" books serves as a painless introduction to one of science's most intriguing concepts as well as a story of adventure and romance. The author's protagonists are as ingenuous as ever, infusing his story with an innocence that wavers between charming and cloying. His enthusiasm for new ideas, however, is infectious, and his imagination shows no signs of wear. Expected patron demand warrants purchase by most libraries. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Publishers Weekly
Despite some fresh characters and situations, the uneven third installment of Anthony's new series (after Virtual Mode and Fractal Mode ) ultimately lapses into formula. Escaping an unhappy childhood, 14-year-old Colene has discovered travel on the Virtual Mode, a buffer zone that connects Earth with thousands of alternate realities. With three companions--Darius, Nona and the telepathic horse Seqiro--she meets Burgess, a tentacled being from a world whose evolutionary development differs dramatically from that of Earth. Anthony effectively conveys Burgess's radical otherness through the creature's community-oriented vocabulary, but he is less successful with the human characters, each of whom is defined by an overly simple trait: Darius is honest, Nona beautiful, Colene intelligent but depressed. Travel along the Virtual Mode allows for several imaginative settings and encounters, including a land of giants and a world where horses keep humans as slaves. The plot lacks a strong through-line, however, and the group's adventures soon become cliched; there seems to be no problem their combined abilities can't wrap up quickly and tidily, leaving them poised for the next adventure. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This is the third and possibly concluding volume of Anthony's Mode series, in which the characters pass freely from one universe to another in a world where all these universes rub elbows, sometimes doing so just in the nick of time. Main characters Colene and Darius continue very much as before, but the telepathic horse Seqiro definitely comes into his own this time (Anthony has always had a knack for equine characters, sometimes a greater knack than he's had for his human ones). Also, there are a well-drawn alien named Burgess and a journey back to Earth, where Colene has some hope of making peace with her none-too-functional family. The Mode series proves Anthony's versatility, at least, and to his large and devoted following it may offer more. Roland Green
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From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Anthony packs his fourth and concluding volume set in the Mode multiverse (Virtual Mode; etc.) with a huge variety of characters, a brisk, episodic plot, plenty of sex and some superficial emotional heft. A trio of cat-based androids from DoOon Mode accepts a challenge posed by the evil Emperor Ddwng to find clinically depressed, suicidal 14-year-old Colene and her loving, stable husband, Darius, to force them to hand over the powerful Chip. With the Chip, Ddwng will be able to travel the multiverse and raid it ruthlessly for supplies and genetic material. Surprisingly, Darius agrees to turn the Chip over (could it be he knows something that Ddwng does not?), and he and his telepathically linked friends, now counting the cat androids among their number, traverse the alternative realities of the Modes to Darius's home Mode, finding adventure and solving problems along the way. In so doing they grow closer, eventually forming a hive a mentally joined group of beings that shares thoughts and emotions. Feeling she must separate from the hive to conquer her fears, Colene faces in the highly disturbing last chapter her greatest fear sex and discovers what happened in her past that has scarred her so terribly. Unwary readers who get this far may feel as Colene does, "deeply buried in awfulness, with no way to escape," but Anthony's legions of adolescent fans should be immune to what others may consider bad taste and bad writing.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Fleeing a real world that has become too harsh for her to accept, Colleen enters a fantastic realm of varying "modes," where she finds a group of companions to accompany her on a journey toward healing and self-knowledge. Ultimately, Colleen must face the monster responsible for her troubled past and find a way to save all the worlds that she has come to love. Concluding his Mode series (Virtual Mode, Fractal Mode, Chaos Mode), Anthony delivers a parable that uses high-tech trappings to conceptualize the struggle between good and evil. The author's large following should guarantee a demand for this cleverly told sf adventure. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, drugs, porn and more. Ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage, it is a tale of life lived without restraint; of money and the disasters it can precipitate. From the Trade Paperback edition.<
BODY AND SOUL
The song. That’s what London constable and sorcerer’s apprentice Peter Grant first notices when he examines the corpse of Cyrus Wilkins, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho’s 606 Club. The notes of the old jazz standard are rising from the body—a sure sign that something about the man’s death was not at all natural but instead supernatural.
Body and soul—they’re also what Peter will risk as he investigates a pattern of similar deaths in and around Soho. With the help of his superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, and the assistance of beautiful jazz aficionado Simone Fitzwilliam, Peter will uncover a deadly magical menace—one that leads right to his own doorstep and to the squandered promise of a young jazz musician: a talented trumpet player named Richard “Lord” Grant—otherwise known as Peter’s dear old dad.