books tagged “apocalyptic”

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Alas, Babylon
by Pat Frank, David Brin

ISBN 0060741872 (0-06-074187-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.
But for one small Florida town, spared against all the odds, the struggle was just beginning, as men and women of all ages and races found the courage to join together and push against the darkness. [via]
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Apocalipsis
by Stephen King

ISBN 8497599411 (84-9759-941-1)
Softcover, Debolsillo

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Spanish edition [via]
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- Apocalipsis: ISBN 8497599411 (84-9759-941-1)
  Softcover, Debolsillo
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Assassins: Assignment--Jerusalem, Target--Antichrist
by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

ISBN 084232920X (0-8423-2920-X)
Hardcover, Tyndale House Pub

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Book summary:
Is it right to kill Satan's hit man? Would it help God's work? This installment in the Left Behind series picks up with Rayford Steele--"believer" and international fugitive--as he struggles with a plan to assassinate Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. Meanwhile, Carpathia has been busy rebuilding roads, airports, and a cellular/solar satellite phone system--all designed to help him become supreme ruler of the world--and even claim himself to be God. We also find ace reporter Buck Williams anonymously preaching to the masses of believers and converts through his cyberspace magazine The Truth. All the believers in the safe house, including Buck, Doc, Chloe, and Tsion, are suspicious of Hattie--former mistress of Carpathia--who claims to be a believer but may have already compromised their secret location when she tried to buy her way to Europe months before.
Fans of the series won't be disappointed. Jenkins's signature writing is at full force. Readers can count on a suspenseful plot, imaginative futuristic thinking, and familiar characters, all of which appear in the opening pages and are sustained until the last cliffhanger scene when God unleashes another earth-shattering disaster. [via]
More editions of Assassins: Assignment--Jerusalem, Target--Antichrist:
- Assassins: Assignment--Jerusalem, Target--Antichrist: ISBN 0842365559 (0-8423-6555-9)
  Softcover, Tyndale House Pub
- Assassins: Assignment--Jerusalem, Target--Antichrist: ISBN 084232920X (0-8423-2920-X)
  Hardcover, Tyndale House Pub
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Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 156000522X (1-56000-522-X)
Hardcover, Transaction Pub Large Print

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"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. [via]
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A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller, Mary Doria Russell

ISBN 0060892994 (0-06-089299-4)
Softcover, Eos

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Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes [via]
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A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Miller, Walter M., Jr.

ISBN 0553379267 (0-553-37926-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes [via]
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- A Canticle for Leibowitz: ISBN 0553379267 (0-553-37926-7)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut

ISBN 038533348X (0-385-33348-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Cat's Cradle, one of Vonnegut's most entertaining novels, is filled with scientists and G-men and even ordinary folks caught up in the game. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature. At one time, this novel could probably be found on the bookshelf of every college kid in America; it's still a fabulous read and a great place to start if you're young enough to have missed the first Vonnegut craze. [via]
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Cell
by Stephen King

ISBN 1416524517 (1-4165-2451-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books

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Witness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced. Casting aside his love of elaborate character and town histories and penchant for delayed gratification, King yanks readers off their feet within the first few pages; dragging them into the fray and offering no chance catch their breath until the very last page.
In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution.
Fans that have followed King from the beginning will recognize and appreciate Cell as a departure--King's writing has not been so pure of heart and free of hang-ups in years (wrapping up his phenomenal Dark Tower series and receiving a medal from the National Book Foundation doesn't hurt either). "Retirement" clearly suits King, and lucky for us, having nothing left to prove frees him up to write frenzied, juiced-up horror-thrillers like Cell. --Daphne Durham [via]
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The Children of Men
by P. D. James

ISBN 0307275434 (0-307-27543-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Told with P. D. James's trademark suspense, insightful characterization, and riveting storytelling, The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future, spends most of his time reminiscing. Then he is approached by Julian, a bright, attractive woman who wants him to help get her an audience with his cousin, the powerful Warden of England. She and her band of unlikely revolutionaries may just awaken his desire to live . . . and they may also hold the key to survival for the human race. [via]
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Earth Abides
by George R. Stewart

ISBN 0345487133 (0-345-48713-3)
Softcover, Del Rey

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An instant classic upon its original publication in 1949 and winner of the first International Fantasy Award, Earth Abides ranks with On the Beach and Riddley Walker as one of our most provocative and finely wrought post-apocalyptic works of literature. Its impact is still fresh, its lessons timeless. When a plague of unprecedented virulence sweeps the globe, the human race is all but wiped out. In the aftermath, as the great machine of civilization slowly, inexorably, breaks down, only a few shattered survivors remain to struggle against the slide into barbarism . . . or extinction. This is the story of one such survivor, Isherwood Ish Williams, an intellectual loner who embraces the grim duty of bearing witness to what may be humanitys final days. But then he finds Em, a wise and courageous woman who coaxes his stunned heart back to life and teaches him to hope again. Together, they will face unimaginable challenges as they sow the seeds of a new beginning. One of the finest of all post-holocaust novels. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [via]
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Good Omens
by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, David Frampton

ISBN 0441003257 (0-441-00325-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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The world is going to end next Saturday, just before dinner, but it turns out there are a few problems--the Antichrist has been misplaced, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles, and the representatives from heaven and hell decide that they like the human race. Reprint. NYT. AB. [via]
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- Good Omens: ISBN 0441003257 (0-441-00325-7)
  Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Good Omens
by Terry Pratchett

ISBN 0552137030 (0-552-13703-0)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square

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Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... [via]
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- Good Omens: ISBN 0552137030 (0-552-13703-0)
  Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

ISBN 0060853972 (0-06-085397-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... [via]
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Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days
by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

ISBN 0842329129 (0-8423-2912-9)
Softcover, Tyndale House Pub

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Piloting his 747, Rayford Steele is musing about his wife Irene's irritating religiosity and contemplating the charms of his "drop-dead gorgeous" flight attendant, Hattie. First Irene was into Amway, then Tupperware, and now it's the Rapture of the Saints--the scary last story in the Bible in which Christians are swept to heaven and unbelievers are left behind to endure the Antichrist's Tribulation. Steele believes he'll put the plane on autopilot and go visit Hattie. But Hattie's in a panic: some of the passengers have disappeared! The Rapture has happened, abruptly driverless cars are crashing all over, and the slick, sinister Romanian Nicolae Carpathia plans to use the UN to establish one world government and religion. Resembling "a young Robert Redford" and silver-tongued in nine languages, Carpathia is named People's "Sexiest Man Alive." (This reviewer, a former People writer, finds this plot twist plausible.) Meanwhile, Steele teams up with Buck Williams, a buck-the-system newshound, to form the Tribulation Force, an underground of left-behind penitents battling the Antichrist.
Ex-presidential candidate Pat Robertson briefly outsold Michael Crichton with his apocalypse novel The End of the Age (now available on audiocassette), and the similar The Third Millennium sells well, but the Left Behind series is the absolute champion in the race to make the Book of Revelation into racy thriller reading. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Left Behind: The Kids Attack of Apoliyon
by Jerry B. Jenkins, Jerry Jenkins

ISBN 1414305400 (1-4143-0540-0)
Softcover, Tyndale House Pub

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Piloting his 747, Rayford Steele is musing about his wife Irene's irritating religiosity and contemplating the charms of his "drop-dead gorgeous" flight attendant, Hattie. First Irene was into Amway, then Tupperware, and now it's the Rapture of the Saints--the scary last story in the Bible in which Christians are swept to heaven and unbelievers are left behind to endure the Antichrist's Tribulation. Steele believes he'll put the plane on autopilot and go visit Hattie. But Hattie's in a panic: some of the passengers have disappeared! The Rapture has happened, abruptly driverless cars are crashing all over, and the slick, sinister Romanian Nicolae Carpathia plans to use the UN to establish one world government and religion. Resembling "a young Robert Redford" and silver-tongued in nine languages, Carpathia is named People's "Sexiest Man Alive." (This reviewer, a former People writer, finds this plot twist plausible.) Meanwhile, Steele teams up with Buck Williams, a buck-the-system newshound, to form the Tribulation Force, an underground of left-behind penitents battling the Antichrist.
Ex-presidential candidate Pat Robertson briefly outsold Michael Crichton with his apocalypse novel The End of the Age (now available on audiocassette), and the similar The Third Millennium sells well, but the Left Behind series is the absolute champion in the race to make the Book of Revelation into racy thriller reading. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of Left Behind: The Kids Attack of Apoliyon:
- Left Behind: The Kids Attack of Apoliyon: ISBN 1414305400 (1-4143-0540-0)
  Softcover, Tyndale House Pub
Lucifer's Hammer
by Larry Niven

ISBN 0449208133 (0-449-20813-3)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Monumental devastation will sweep across the globe if the newly-discovered Hamner-Brown comet collides with the one major obstacle in its path: Earth.

For millionaire Tim Hamner, the comet is a ticket to immortality. For filmmaker Harvey Randall, it's a shot to redeem a flagging career. And for astronauts John Baker and Rick Delanty, it's a second chance for glory in outer space.

But for a world gripped by comet fever, fascination quickly turns to fear. And only those who survive the impact will know the even greater terror, when rich and poor, politicians and killers, turn to each other or against each other--and the remnants of humanity grow savage to battle for what little remains . . .

Including an all-new introduction by the authors! [via]
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Mundo Feliz
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 8497594258 (84-9759-425-8)
Softcover, Debolsillo

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Un mundo feliz es posiblemente la novela mas leida de Huxley, y su influencia es evidente tanto en buena parte de la novela de ciencia ficcion de calidad como en las novelas filosoficas. Presenta un mundo en el que el Estado controla hasta el mas minimo detalle de la vida de los individuos, a los que mantiene en una ignorancia, producto de un depurado lavado de cerebro. Mas tarde el autor escribiria Nueva visita a un mundo feliz, donde analizaria lo que habia escrito anos antes y sacaria conclusiones muy distintas sobre el destino de la humanidad. [via]
More editions of Mundo Feliz:
- Mundo Feliz: ISBN 9871138512 (987-1138-51-2)
  Softcover, Random House Mondadori
- Mundo Feliz: ISBN 8497594258 (84-9759-425-8)
  Softcover, Debolsillo
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Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist
by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

ISBN 0842329242 (0-8423-2924-2)
Softcover, Tyndale House Pub

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Book summary:
Antichrist. The very word send shivers through us. And Nicolae Carpathia certainly does not disappoint as Antichrist. Nicolae is the third book in Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, and is preceded by book one, Left Behind, and book two, Tribulation Force.
Nicolae Carpathia becomes the focus as he continues to consolidate his power, unifying political states ("Global Community"), media ("Global Community Network," "Global Weekly"), and religions ("Enigma Babylon One World Faith") under a Nicolae-appointed supreme pontiff. Nicolae himself is grand potentate of the global community.
Our heroes, pilot Rayford Steele and journalist Buck Williams, along with the rest of the Tribulation Force, continue their struggle to survive and protect their families in the midst of global war and destruction. They have come to recognize Nicolae Carpathia to be the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible, and to them it comes as no great revelation that this man, who presented himself as a charming and benevolent leader, has been unmasked as a ruthless and cruel tyrant, manipulating people and events to serve his own ends. And his ends are undoubtedly evil.
It becomes apparent that the chaos and turmoil created by Nicolae are the fulfillment of John's prophesy of the seven seals as recorded in the book of Revelation. And it becomes also apparent they are now facing the sixth seal, a great earthquake which is sometimes called "the wrath of the lamb." This upheaval of the earth, with its accompanying death and destruction, is familiar apocalyptic imagery: a blood-red moon, a sun turned black, and the stars falling from the sky. And the Tribulation Force discovers that these incredible descriptions turn out to be not so very far from the truth.
Who survives? How? What does Nicolae have in mind for the world? Readers of the first two books should not be disappointed with this third installment to this chilling tale. [via]
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On the Beach
by Nevil Shute

ISBN 1842322761 (1-84232-276-1)
Softcover, House of Stratus Ltd

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Book summary:
"The most shocking fiction I have read in years. What is shocking about it is both the idea and the sheer imaginative brilliance with which Mr. Shute brings it off."
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
They are the last generation, the innocent victims of an accidental war, living out their last days, making do with what they have, hoping for a miracle. As the deadly rain moves ever closer, the world as we know it winds toward an inevitable end.... [via]
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Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood

ISBN 0385721676 (0-385-72167-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland. Snowman (a man once known as Jimmy) sleeps in a tree and just might be the only human left on our devastated planet. He is not entirely alone, however, as he considers himself the shepherd of a group of experimental, human-like creatures called the Children of Crake. As he scavenges and tends to his insect bites, Snowman recalls in flashbacks how the world fell apart.
While the story begins with a rather ponderous set-up of what has become a clichéd landscape of the human endgame, littered with smashed computers and abandoned buildings, it takes on life when Snowman recalls his boyhood meeting with his best friend Crake: "Crake had a thing about him even then.... He generated awe ... in his dark laconic clothing." A dangerous genius, Crake is the book's most intriguing character. Crake and Jimmy live with all the other smart, rich people in the Compounds--gated company towns owned by biotech corporations. (Ordinary folks are kept outside the gates in the chaotic "pleeblands.") Meanwhile, beautiful Oryx, raised as a child prostitute in Southeast Asia, finds her way to the West and meets Crake and Jimmy, setting up an inevitable love triangle. Eventually Crake's experiments in bioengineering cause humanity's shockingly quick demise (with uncanny echoes of SARS, ebola, and mad cow disease), leaving Snowman to try to pick up the pieces. There are a few speed bumps along the way, including some clunky dialogue and heavy-handed symbols such as Snowman's broken watch, but once the bleak narrative gets moving, as Snowman sets out in search of the laboratory that seeded the world's destruction, it clips along at a good pace, with a healthy dose of wry humor. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca [via]
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Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler

ISBN 1888363258 (1-888363-25-8)
Hardcover, Seven Stories Press

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Book summary:
Octavia E. Butler, the grande dame of science fiction, writes extraordinary, inspirational stories of ordinary people. Parable of the Sower is a hopeful tale set in a dystopian future United States of walled cities, disease, fires, and madness. Lauren Olamina is an 18-year-old woman with hyperempathy syndrome--if she sees another in pain, she feels their pain as acutely as if it were real. When her relatively safe neighborhood enclave is inevitably destroyed, along with her family and dreams for the future, Lauren grabs a backpack full of supplies and begins a journey north. Along the way, she recruits fellow refugees to her embryonic faith, Earthseed, the prime tenet of which is that "God is change." This is a great book--simple and elegant, with enough message to make you think, but not so much that you feel preached to. [via]
More editions of Parable of the Sower:
- Parable of the Sower: ISBN 0941423999 (0-941423-99-9)
  Hardcover, Pub Group West
- Parable of the Sower: ISBN 1888363258 (1-888363-25-8)
  Hardcover, Seven Stories Press
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The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

ISBN 0307265439 (0-307-26543-9)
Hardcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including last year's bestselling No Country for Old Men, and this year's The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham

Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane

[via]

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The Road: ISBN 0307265439 (0-307-26543-9)
Hardcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc
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Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides
by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

ISBN 0842365532 (0-8423-6553-2)
Softcover, Tyndale House Pub

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Book summary:
Having survived the wrath of the Lamb--a global earthquake in the 21st month of the Tribulation--pilot Rayford Steele and reporter Buck Williams now embark on a journey of absorbing adventure and Christian triumph. Soul Harvest is book four in the enormously popular Left Behind series (seven books are planned in all), based on those who are left behind in the Rapture. Written with the same gripping pace of Tom Clancy and John Grisham (film rights have already been sold for the first two books), the authors take us to Iraq, America, underground shelters, and the bottom of the Tigris river as Steele and Williams search for loved ones. Meanwhile, biblical prophecies are fulfilled at every turn, including the great soul harvest. For many Christian followers, this series has become a tangible and thrilling testament to the Book of Revelations. --Gail Hudson [via]
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- Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides: ISBN 0842365532 (0-8423-6553-2)
  Softcover, Tyndale House Pub
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The Stand
by Stephen King

ISBN 0385121687 (0-385-12168-7)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing

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Book summary:
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of The Stand:
- The Stand: ISBN 0385121687 (0-385-12168-7)
  Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition
by Stephen King

ISBN 1568495714 (1-56849-571-4)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition:
Swan Song
by Robert R. McCammon

ISBN 0671741039 (0-671-74103-9)
Softcover, Pocket Books

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More editions of Swan Song:
- Swan Song: ISBN 0913165468 (0-913165-46-8)
  Hardcover, Dark Harvest Books
- Swan Song: ISBN 0671741039 (0-671-74103-9)
  Softcover, Pocket Books
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This Is the Way the World Ends
by James Morrow

ISBN 0156002086 (0-15-600208-6)
Softcover, Harvest Books

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Book summary:
The Gullivers Travels of the nuclear age, the Alice in Wonderland of the arms race, this mordantly funny and visionary tale of the apocalypse was a Nebula finalist. The trouble starts when George Paxton ingenuously signs an admission of complicity in starting World War III. The only book in the last ten years that Ive read twice...a remarkable achievement (Arthur C. Clarke).
[via]
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Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama of Those Left Behind
by Tim F. Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

ISBN 0842365516 (0-8423-6551-6)
Softcover, Tyndale House Pub

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- Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama of Those Left Behind: ISBN 0842365516 (0-8423-6551-6)
  Softcover, Tyndale House Pub
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Watchmen
by Alan Moore

ISBN 0930289234 (0-930289-23-4)
Softcover, Dc Comics

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Book summary:
Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but Watchmen remains the critics' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and recently From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to garner praise since.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of Watchmen:
- Watchmen: ISBN 0930289234 (0-930289-23-4)
  Softcover, Dc Comics
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Watchmen : The Absolute Edition
by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

ISBN 1401207138 (1-4012-0713-8)
Hardcover, DC Comics

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Book summary:
Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but Watchmen remains the critics' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and recently From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to garner praise since.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control--indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of Watchmen : The Absolute Edition:
- Watchmen : The Absolute Edition: ISBN 1401207138 (1-4012-0713-8)
  Hardcover, DC Comics

Spanish

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Buenos Presagios: Las Buenas Y Ajustadas Profecfas De Agnes La Chalada/Good Omens The Nice & Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch
by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Maria Ferrer

ISBN 159497098X (1-59497-098-X)
Softcover, Public Square Books

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Book summary:
Nota: En los titulos y nombres de autores, los marcos ortograficos han sido omitidos para facilitar las busquedas de Internet. Las Buenas y Ajustadas Profecias de Agnes la Chalada anuncian que el mundo se acabara un sabado. El proximo sabado, de hecho. Justo despues de la hora del te. . .
English: According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter--the world's only totally reliable guide to the future--the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea... From two delightful imaginations comes an unforgettable story in which the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles, the hound of the devil chases sticks, and the end of the world is subject to Murphy's Law... From Amazon.com. . . Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... [via]
More editions of Buenos Presagios: Las Buenas Y Ajustadas Profecfas De Agnes La Chalada/Good Omens The Nice & Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch:
- Buenos Presagios: Las Buenas Y Ajustadas Profecfas De Agnes La Chalada/Good Omens The Nice & Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch: ISBN 159497098X (1-59497-098-X)
  Softcover, Public Square Books
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Nicolas: El Surgimiento Del Anticristo
by Tim Lahaye

ISBN 0789904578 (0-7899-0457-8)
Softcover, Editorial Unilit

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Book summary:
Book 3 in the Left Behind Series
The seven-year tribulation is nearing the end of its first quarter, when prophecy says that "the wrath of the Lamb" will be poured out upon the earth. Rayford Steele becomes the ears of the tribulation saints at the highest level of the Carpathia regime while Buck Williams attempts a rescue run from Israel through the Sinai. [via]
More editions of Nicolas: El Surgimiento Del Anticristo:
- Nicolas: El Surgimiento Del Anticristo: ISBN 0789904578 (0-7899-0457-8)
  Softcover, Editorial Unilit
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Un Mundo Feliz
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 840142321X (84-01-42321-X)
Softcover, Plaza & Janes Editories, S.A.

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Book summary:
Un mundo feliz es posiblemente la novela mas leida de Huxley, y su influencia es evidente tanto en buena parte de la novela de ciencia ficcion de calidad como en las novelas filosoficas. Presenta un mundo en el que el Estado controla hasta el mas minimo detalle de la vida de los individuos, a los que mantiene en una ignorancia, producto de un depurado lavado de cerebro. Mas tarde el autor escribiria Nueva visita a un mundo feliz, donde analizaria lo que habia escrito anos antes y sacaria conclusiones muy distintas sobre el destino de la humanidad. [via]
More editions of Un Mundo Feliz:
- Un Mundo Feliz: ISBN 840142321X (84-01-42321-X)
  Softcover, Plaza & Janes Editories, S.A.
Un Mundo feliz/ A Happy World
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 9706438874 (970-643-887-4)
Softcover, Selector S.A. De C.V.

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More editions of Un Mundo feliz/ A Happy World:
- Un Mundo feliz/ A Happy World: ISBN 9706438874 (970-643-887-4)
  Softcover, Selector S.A. De C.V.

French

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Le Meilleur Des Mondes
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 2266113135 (2-266-11313-5)
Softcover, Distribooks Inc

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Book summary:
16,8x10,8x1,8cm. Poche. [via]
More editions of Le Meilleur Des Mondes:
- Le Meilleur Des Mondes: ISBN 2266113135 (2-266-11313-5)
  Softcover, Distribooks Inc

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