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China Miéville

Bas-Lag #01 - Perdido Street Station

SUMMARY:
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.

China Miéville

Bas-Lag #02 - The Scar

SUMMARY:
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.

China Miéville

Bas-Lag #03 - Iron Council

SUMMARY:
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.

Jamie Mcguire

Beautiful Disaster

Product Description

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.

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.

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

The Best of C. L. Moore

edited by Lester Del Rey

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Janet Morris

Beyond Sanctuary

Tempus. Warrior-servant of the god of storm and war. A hero cursed with immortality in a world where death haunts every shadow...

Sanctuary. The meanest, seediest town in all of fantasy. Plagued by magic and murder, the heart of Thieves' World...

Now, in an exciting departure, Janet Morris, one of Thieves' World's most popular authors, takes her character, Tempus, beyond the city walls, beyond imaginable dangers...

Beyond Sanctuary

The Sacred Band Goes North - To War!

Here is the first full-length novel from the notorious "Thieves World" fantasy universe, where gods still stalk the land, warring with demons and human sorcerers and trampling unfortunate humanity underfoot.

If you like stories of bold brave knights employed in meritorious duty, or tales of ladies delicate and fair, be warned. Sanctuary-the meanest, seediest town in all of fantasy-may be too much for you sensibilities. There wizards, bards and maidens mingle with murderers and thieves, and the fight breaking out at the next table may be the one that ends your life.

The hero of "Beyond Sanctuary" is Tempus, leader of mercenaries and warrior-servant of Vashanka, god of storm and war. With Niko, Cime, and the Froth Daughter Jihan, Tempus faces the Archmage Datan and his unholy followers in a battle for the Rankan Empire's survival and that of his very soul.

Karen Marie Moning

Beyond the Highland Mist

From Publishers Weekly

Moning offers the promise of a terrific plotline in her debut romance: a troubled young woman, Adrienne is transported from the 20th century to 16th-century Scotland by an evil jester to take revenge on a Scottish laird. The author has the right characters: there's the heroine who doesn't trust beautiful men and a handsome hero cursed to love a woman who will not return his love. Add gypsies and Scottish mysticism, against the backdrop of the stark beauty of the Highlands, and you've got an intriguing story. The lovers endure quite a bit of torment in order to find happiness, a downer that even Moning's doses of humor can't always leaven. Unfortunately, Moning doesn't fully deliver: she too often relies on transparent plot devices, and while her falconry imagery is both poignant and sensual, it will remind readers of Elizabeth Lowell's Untamed.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

He would sell his warrior soul to possess her....

An alluring laird...

He was known throughout the kingdom as Hawk, legendary predator of the battlefield and the boudoir.No woman could refuse his touch, but no woman ever stirred his heart--until a vengeful fairy tumbled Adrienne de Simone out of modern-day Seattle and into medieval Scotland.Captive in a century not her own, entirely too bold, too outspoken, she was an irresistible challenge to the sixteenth-century rogue.Coerced into a marriage with Hawk, Adrienne vowed to keep him at arm's length--but his sweet seduction played havoc with her resolve.

A prisoner in time...

She had a perfect "no" on her perfect lips for the notorious laird, but Hawk swore she would whisper his name with desire, begging for the passion he longed to ignite within her.Not even the barriers of time and space would keep him from winning her love.Despite her uncertainty about following the promptings of her own passionate heart, Adrienne's reservations were no match for Hawk's determination to keep her by his side. . . .

Janet Morris

Beyond the Veil

 In the thrilling sequel to Beyond Sanctuary, Tempus leads his Stepsons on a deadly journey into the heart of evil, to combat an unholy alliance of magic led by Roxane and her tame demons. The battle will be met in the witch-plagued city of Tyse, darker and more dangerous than Sanctuary itself, and heroes are welcome there only if they are able to face the horrifying unknown beyond Wizardwall...

Now, in the second full-length novel inspired by Thieves' World, author Janet Morris takes her character Tempus beyond Sanctuary, beyond the darkest shadows of imagination...

Beyond the Veil

Here is the second full-length novel from the notorious Thieves' World universe. Set in Tyse, a town so mean and magic-ridden as to make Sanctuary seem like a singles' bar, Beyond the Veil features Tempus -Thieves' World's most popular and misunderstood character - and introduces Kama, the Riddler's daughter, as well as Ranke's deservedly infamous shock troops, the Third Commando.

Janet Morris

Beyond Wizardwall

 In this searing conclusion to her Thieves' World novel trilogy, Janet Morris takes her character Tempus and his Stepsons into the treacherous lair of Death's Queen. The Rankan emperor's life is at stake, and Tempus's very soul hangs in the balance.

In an explosive clash of duelling forces, the fate of an empire shall be forged by powers both mortal and immortal - beyond Sanctuary, beyond the veil of black and deadly magic...

Beyond Wizardwall

"The searing conclusion to her Thieves' World Trilogy!.

In Beyond Wizardwall, the northern adventures of Tempus and his Stepsons come to their apocalyptic conclusion at the Festival of Man, where the games are not the scheduled ones of prowess at swordplay or chariot-racing, but games of assassination and treachery, with the Rankan emperor's life and the honor of the Sacred Band at stake..."    

Shane Maloney

The Big Ask

The fourth Murray Whelan adventure.

Murray is in serious trouble. With a disastrous election result looming, his days as a political minder seem numbered. But when his boss Angelo Agnelli picks a fight with the trucking industry and Murray finds himself on the receiving end of a fist at a city nightclub, his employment prospects are the least of his problems.

And that's before he finds himself in the back of a truck at the fruit and vegetable market at five in the morning, sampling Heather Maitland's melons. With a runaway son on his hands, the police at his heels and a gun buried in the backyard, Murray faces his toughest test yet.

'Another triumph for Maloney, who is one of our best and most consistently original crime writers. Highly recommended.' Canberra Times

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