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From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Ford's 15th Doc Ford thriller (after 2007's Hunter's Moon) may baffle newcomers with a backstory relating to the murder of Ford's parents. Ford, a marine biologist and covert operative who lives on Florida's Sanibel Island, is busy serving his shadowy U.S. government masters by researching the potential use by terrorists of jellyfish and other venomous sea creatures when he receives a desperate appeal for help from an old friend. Shay Money, a successful 26-year-old businesswoman who's about to be married, fears her future happiness is in jeopardy because an extortionist has videotaped her and three female friends in sexually compromising situations. While Ford manages to get the tape in exchange for a sizable payment, his suspicions that the criminal isn't done with Money are soon confirmed. His efforts to protect her lead him to the Caribbean and a sophisticated blackmail racket with a lengthy list of victims. Despite some awkward prose (The combination of flesh and death, the orderly geometrics of my wound, struck me as indefinably profound), series fans should enjoy the ride. Author tour. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Starred Review What happens in the Caribbean—at least on the tiny island of Saint Arc—definitely doesn’t stay there. Especially if you happen to be a rich, young woman out for a final fling with your girlfriends before tying the knot. That demographic is likely to snag you in the web of Saint Arc’s resident voodoo queen, the Widow, a sexually ambiguous dragon lady who runs a sophisticated blackmail enterprise. In this fifteenth outing for White’s beloved hero, marine biologist and special-ops agent Doc Ford, the Widow meets her match when she targets Ford’s goddaughter, Shay. Feeling a bit out of sorts since he retired from the clandestine services, Ford is ready to mix it up a little and heads off to the island to confront the blackmailers. He finds much more of a challenge than he expected and is happy to join forces with a mysterious island resident, a seventysomething Brit who appears to be a former special-ops type himself. White makes the most of this pairing (imagine Michael Caine as the Brit), injecting some bantering fun into the high-octane action. As always in this consistently entertaining series, the plot offers a fascinating mix of headline-grabbing crime (Caribbean vacations gone bad) and history (island archaeology, with a touch of those ever-popular Knights Templar). Like Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald at their best, White draws readers into his world with characters you’d pay just to hang out with and then hooks us with straight-ahead action. It’s an old-school combination, but it still works just fine. --Bill Ott

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. And seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can “catch up” to her in age. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past. From the people sheltering in the tube stations of London to the retired sailors who set off across the Channel to rescue the stranded British Army from Dunkirk, from shopgirls to ambulance drivers, from spies to hospital nurses to Shakespearean actors, Blackout reveals a side of World War II seldom seen before: a dangerous, desperate world in which there are no civilians and in which everybody—from the Queen down to the lowliest barmaid—is determined to do their bit to help a beleaguered nation survive. In her first novel since 2002, Nebula and Hugo award-winning author Connie Willis returns with a stunning, enormously entertaining novel of time travel, war, and the deeds—great and small—of ordinary people who shape history. In the hands of this acclaimed storyteller, the past and future collide—and the result is at once intriguing, elusive, and frightening.<

Product Description

This is a nasty novel of horror for people who want blood and violence.

Mercy Higgins is a recent college graduate who lives a fairly sheltered life. Following the death of her mother to cancer, her father brings her on a hike for a needed escape.

Victor Dolor has been secretly watching Mercy. Consumed with the certainty that the End of Everything is fast approaching and he must help “cleanse” the world for the coming Dark Time, Victor pursues Mercy for one purpose.

Up high on Blood Mountain, Victor brutally attacks her.

But that is only the beginning of the nightmare for Mercy. When her father is attacked as well, she is left alone to fight for herself.

And on Blood Mountain, the path to survival can get very gruesome.

This edition also includes the bonus short story, "Flies."

J.T. Warren is the author of HUDSON HOUSE, THE HOUSE ON MANGLE LANE, and CALAMITY.

“A welcome new entry into the world of supernatural fiction.”--Scott Nicholson, author of The Red Church and Liquid Fear on HUDSON HOUSE.

Review

Neville Jason, the reigning master of the classics audiobook, returns with his reading of the final volumes of White s beloved version of King Arthur and the Round Table. His plummy tones are as pleasing as ever and give White s epic its proper heroic English texture. Surprising, however, are the occasional eruptions of modernity of contemporary speech and intonation that emerge in Jason s reading. The effect, while disconcerting, is also pleasing, giving Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere, and their knotty romantic travails, a surprisingly up-to-date gloss. Another fine entry in Naxos ever-growing Complete Classics collection. --Publishers Weekly

Product Description

One of the most inventive and charming retellings of the Arthurian legend, this is the final part of The Once and Future King. In these last two books, the ageing king faces the greatest challenge of his reign, when his own son threatens to overthrow him and destroy everything he has worked for. In The Book of Merlyn, Arthurs tutor Merlyn reappears, and the ancient magician teaches him that, even in the face of apparent ruin, there is still hope.

SUMMARY: The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by "Publishers Weekly," and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century" by "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." "Shadow & Claw "brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume: "The Shadow of the Torturer" is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim. Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Magic stuff . . . a masterpiece . . . the best science fiction I've read in years!" "The Claw of the Conciliator "continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny. "Arguably the finest piece of literature American science fiction has yet produced [is] the four-volume Book of the New Sun."--"Chicago Sun-Times" "The Book of the New Sun establishes his preeminence, pure and simple. . . . The Book of the New Sun contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . once into it, there is no stopping.""--The New York Times Book Review" Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by "The Washington Post." A former engineer, he has written numerous books and won a variety of awards for his SF writing. "The Book of the New Sun," a series of four novels, is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe's most memorable work, hailed by "Publishers Weekly" as a "masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis"--and by "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction" as "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century." "Shadow & Claw" collects the first two novels in this Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning tetralogy: "The Shadow of the Torturer" and "The Claw of the Conciliator." ""The Book of the New Sun" establishes [Wolfe's] pre-eminence, pure and simple . . . "The Book of the New Sun" contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness, and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . Once into it, there is no stopping."--"The New York Times Book Review" "Arguably the best piece of literature American science fiction has yet produced."--"Chicago Sun-Times"<

SUMMARY: I Master of the House of Chains “It was in my hair, Severian,” Dorcas said. “So I stood under the waterfall in the hot stone room—I don’t know if the men’s side is arranged in the same way. And every time I stepped out, I could hear them talking about me. They called you the black butcher, and other things I don’t want to tell you about.”“That’s natural enough,” I said. “You were probably the first stranger to enter the place in a month, so it’s only to be expected that they would chatter about you, and that the few women who knew who you were would be proud of it and perhaps tell some tales. As for me, I’m used to it, and you must have heard such expressions on the way here many times; I know I did.”“Yes,” she admitted, and sat down on the sill of the embrasure. In the city below, the lamps of the swarming shops were beginning to fill the valley of the Acis with a yellow radiance like the petals of a jonquil, but she did not seem to see them.“Now you understand why the regulations of the guild forbid me from taking a wife—although I will break them for you, as I have told you many times, whenever you want me to.”“You mean that it would be better for me to live somewhere else, and only come to see you once or twice a week, or wait till you came to see me.”“That’s the way it’s usually done. And eventually the women who talked about us today will realize that sometime they, or their sons or husbands, may find themselves beneath my hand.”“But don’t you see, this is all beside the point. The thing is…” Here Dorcas fell silent, and then, when neither of us had spoken for some time, she rose and began to pace the room, one arm clasping the other. It was something I had never seen her do before, and I found it disturbing.“What is the point, then?” I asked.“That it wasn’t true then. That it is now.”“I practiced the Art whenever there was work to be had. Hired myself out to towns and country justices. Several times you watched me from a window, though you never liked to stand in the crowd—for which I hardly blame you.”“I didn’t watch,” she said.“I recall seeing you.”“I didn’t. Not when it was actually going on. You were intent on what you were doing, and didn’t see me when I went inside or covered my eyes. I used to watch, and wave to you, when you first vaulted onto the scaffold. You were so proud then, and stood just as straight as your sword, and looked so fine. You were honest. I remember watching once when there was an official of some sort up there with you, and the condemned man and a hieromonach. And yours was the only honest face.”“You couldn’t possibly have seen it. I must surely have been wearing my mask.”“Severian, I didn’t have to see it. I know what you look like.”“Don’t I look the same now?”“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “But I have been down below. I’ve seen the people chained in the tunnels. When we sleep tonight, you and I in our soft bed, we will be sleeping on top of them. How many did you say there were when you took me down?”“About sixteen hundred. Do you honestly believe those sixteen hundred would be free if I were no longer present to guard them? They were here, remember, when we came.”Dorcas would not look at me. “It’s like a mass grave,” she said. I could see her shoulders shake.“It should be,” I told her. “The archon could release them, but who could resurrect those they’ve killed? You’ve never lost anyone, have you?”She did not reply.“Ask the wives and the mothers and the sisters of the men our prisoners have left rotting in the high country whether Abdiesus should let them go.”“Only myself,” Dorcas said, and blew out the candle.* * *Thrax is a crooked dagger entering the heart of the mountains. It lies in a narrow defile of the valley of the Acis, and extends up it to Acies Castle. The harena, the pantheon, and the other public buildings occupy all the level land between the castle and the wall (called the Capulus) that closes the lower end of the narrow section of the valley. The private buildings of the city climb the cliffs to either side, and many are in large measure dug into the rock itself, from which practice Thrax gains one of its sobriquets—the City of Windowless Rooms.Its prosperity it owes to its position at the head of the navigable part of the river. At Thrax, all goods shipped north on the Acis (many of which have traversed nine tenths of the length of Gyoll before entering the mouth of the smaller river, which may indeed be Gyoll’s true source) must be unloaded and carried on the backs of animals if they are to travel farther. Conversely, the hetmans of the mountain tribes and the landowners of the region who wish to ship their wool and corn to the southern towns bring them to take boat at Thrax, below the cataract that roars through the arched spillway of Acies Castle.As must always be the case when a stronghold imposes the rule of law over a turbulent region, the administration of justice was the chief concern of the archon of the city. To impose his will on those without the walls who might otherwise have opposed it, he could call upon seven squadrons of dimarchi, each under its own commander. Court convened each month, from the first appearance of the new moon to the full, beginning with the second morning watch and continuing as long as necessary to clear the day’s docket. As chief executor of the archon’s sentences, I was required to attend these sessions, so that he might be assured that the punishments he decreed should be made neither softer nor more severe by those who might otherwise have been charged with transmitting them to me; and to oversee the operation of the Vincula, in which the prisoners were detained, in all its details. It was a responsibility equivalent on a lesser scale to that of Master Gurloes in our Citadel, and during the first few weeks I spent in Thrax it weighed heavily upon me.It was a maxim of Master Gurloes’s that no prison is ideally situated. Like most of the wise tags put forward for the edification of young men, it was inarguable and unhelpful. All escapes fall into three categories—that is, they are achieved by stealth, by violence, or by the treachery of those set as guards. A remote place does most to render escapes by stealth difficult, and for that reason has been favored by the majority of those who have thought long upon the subject.Unfortunately, deserts, mountaintops, and lone isles offer the most fertile fields for violent escape—if they are besieged by the prisoners’ friends, it is difficult to learn of the fact before it is too late, and next to impossible to reinforce their garrisons; and similarly, if the prisoners rise in rebellion, it is highly unlikely that troops can be rushed to the spot before the issue is decided.A facility in a well-populated and well-defended district avoids these difficulties, but incurs even more severe ones. In such places a prisoner needs, not a thousand friends, but one or two; and these need not be fighting men—a scrubwoman and a street vendor will do, if they possess intelligence and resolution. Furthermore, once the prisoner has escaped the walls, he mingles immediately with the faceless mob, so that his reapprehension is not a matter for huntsmen and dogs but for agents and informers.In our own case, a detached prison in a remote location w<