books tagged “Fic”

This 1993 winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award focuses on Zhang Zhong Shan, a young engineer in a U.S. dominated by a hugely successful Marxist China. The fact that he's gay in an era where homosexuality is punishable by death, and that he's only half Asian--his mother was Hispanic, but his parents had his genes altered to suppress his ancestry--add to his frustration and feelings of oppression. When he loses his place in the social labor system, Zhang moves to Shanghai and finds work within a Marxist system whose injustices he recognizes and whose delusions he resists. Using the resources available, Zhang struggles to shape a place for himself, and manages to affect the lives of others in the process. [via]

The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self. [via]

From the bestselling author of Tailchaser's Song comes the first volume in an epic fantasy trilogy with all the magic, wonder, and magnificence of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. A young magician's apprentice's dreams of adventure come true when his world is torn apart by war and dark sorcery. Advertising in Locus. [via]

A wealthy corporation owner hires a space pilot to track down her insane brother, a man who might have just created the first fully conscious artificial intelligence. Reprint. NYT. K. [via]

A meditation on memory and loss. Sebald re-creates the lives of four exiles--five if you include his oblique self-portrait--through their own accounts, others' recollections, and pictures and found objects. But he brings these men before our eyes only to make them fade away, "longing for extinction." Two were eventual suicides, another died in an asylum, the fourth still lived under a "poisonous canopy" more than 40 years after his parents' death in Nazi Germany.

Sebald's own longing is for communion. En route to Ithaca (the real upstate New York location but also the symbolic one), he comes to feel "like a travelling companion of my neighbor in the next lane." After the car speeds away--"the children pulling clownish faces out of the rear window--I felt deserted and desolate for a time." Sebald's narrative is purposely moth-holed (butterfly-ridden, actually--there's a recurring Nabokov-with-a-net type), an escape from the prison-house of realism. According to the author, his Uncle Ambros's increasingly improbable tales were the result of "an illness which causes lost memories to be replaced by fantastic inventions." Luckily for us, Sebald seems to have inherited the same syndrome. --Kerry Fried [via]

In this remarkable work of fiction, W.G. Sebald explores the power of memory as he traces the lives of four people uprooted by war and prejudice. Each of the stories reflect the tragic impact of World War II on the survivors, who struggle with a loss of home, a loss of language, and a loss of self. Through memories, each person attempts to make sense of their histories and bridge the chasm the war ripped in their lives. Combined with each story are photographs that purport to show the subjects of the stories. The combination of photographs, biography, and autobiography combine to form a meditative, lyrical story that is at once powerful and introspective. [via]

paperback. [via]

A guide to reading "A Farewell to Arms" with a critical and appreciative mind. Includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list. [via]

"Some of the most witty, uncannily original short fiction in Western Literature."The New Yorker

The entrancing world of toys, animals, magical kingdoms, and mystical beings is magnificently brought to life by master storyteller Hans Christian Andersen in this, the fourth title in Chronicle Books' extremely successful Classic Illustrated Edition series. Beautifully illustrated with charming turn of the century pictures by such notable artists as Arthur Rackham, Maxwell Armfield, and Edmund Dulac, this stunning book is a visual feast for children and adults alike.

This collection contains the following stories:

• The Emperor's New Clothes
• The Little Mermaid
• The Little Match Girl
• The Nightingale
• The Princess and the Pea
• The Steadfast Tin Soldier
• Thumbelina
• The Tinderbox
• The Ugly Duckling

In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new cosmology, a galaxy-spanning "Net of a Million Lies," some finely imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense.

Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone--but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike "Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.

Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band--heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet.

Vinge's climax is suitably mindboggling. This epic combines the flash and dazzle of old-style space opera with modern, polished thoughtfulness. Pham Nuwen also appears in the nifty prequel set 30,000 years earlier, A Deepness in the Sky. Both recommended. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk [via]

With potent, dreamlike art and compelling prose, the first two volumes of this extraordinary trilogy have captured the creative imaginations of readers and literary reviewers around the world. USA Today called Griffin & Sabine "wondrous, ingenious" and "gorgeous." The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "The somewhat conspiratorial thrill of reading other people's mail....becomes so infectious, it's impossible to stop until the book's end." Now, in this final volume, the two artists' haunting correspondence comes to an astonishing conclusion. [via]

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. For centuries, gleemen have told of The Great Hunt of the Horn. Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen. [via]

With three million copies in print, the Griffin & Sabine Trilogy has captivated readers worldwid with the saga of two unlikely lovers and the conspiratorial thrill of reading their private correspondence. It has been said that Nick Bantock's innovative fusion of lush illustration, creative storytelling, and pioneering paper technology created a new genre of fiction. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of this landmark publication, Chronicle Books and Nick Bantock have created this limited edition of Griffin & Sabine, available only while supplies last. It includes never-before-seen artwork, a special postcard, and a letter from Nick Bantock himself, all in a new binding. Whether reading it for the first time or the first time in ten years, the magic of Griffin & Sabine continues to weave its spell. A tribute to a legacy, Griffin & Sabine: Tenth Anniversary Limited Edition is destined to become a collector's item.

Visit griffinandsabine.com! [via]

The six titles of the Griffin & Sabine saga are now featured in a deluxe wooden case that includes a special keepsake print. Griffin & Sabine Deluxe Boxed Set features the six beloved titles in the Griffin & Sabine saga: Griffin & Sabine, Sabine's Notebook, The Golden Mean, The Gryphon, Alexandria, and The Morning Star. The books are housed in a handsome wooden case, which also includes a special keepsake print suitable for framing. The Griffin & Sabine books have spent a combined 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. They are renowned for Nick Bantock's distinctive artwork, selling over 3 million copies. The six books tell the story of a mystical romance through correspondence, featuring lavishly illustrated postcards and letters that can be pulled from real envelopes. [via]

A scholar of fairy tales, Maria Tatar, provides a fascinating introduction about the history and meaning of the stories assembled by the Brothers Grimm. She writes, for example, "We now know that the stories collected in the nineteenth-century folktale anthologies ...had their origins in an irreverent peasant culture that arose in conscious opposition to the feudal state's ruling class. By overdoing it in the realm of storytelling, these narrators were able to alleviate--if only temporarily--some of the tedium that marked the daily life of their audience ... [These tales] can be seen as the ancestors of our urban legends about vanishing hitchhikers and cats accidentally caught in the dryer or as the preliterate equivalents of tabloid tales describing headless bodies found in topless bars. But in many ways, it is the horror film to which the matter and manner of these folktales has most conspicuously migrated. Like horror films, folktales trade in the sensational--breaking taboos and enacting the forbidden with uninhibited energy."

The text of the 19 tales in this collection is based on the 1822 edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Nursery and Household Tales) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm--before the tales were expurgated and rewritten to make them more "suitable" for children. It's bound in a handsome faux-antique format, and lavishly illustrated by Tracy Arah Dockray (15 full-page color paintings, and a black-and-white drawing on nearly every page). Most of the tales will be unfamiliar to American and English readers, who may be surprised by the graphic descriptions of incest, murder, mutilation, and cannibalism. Chronicle Books has done us a service in helping restore to our adult culture these vivid, evocative folktales. --Fiona Webster [via]

Here are the books that help teach Shakespeare plays without the teacher constantly needing to explain and define Elizabethan terms, slang, and other ways of expression that are different from our own. Each play is presented with Shakespeare's original lines on each left-hand page, and a modern, easy-to-understand "translation" on the facing right-hand page. All dramas are complete, with every original Shakespearian line, and a full-length modern rendition of the text. These invaluable teaching-study guides also include: 1. Helpful background information that puts each play in its historical perspective. 2. Discussion questions that teachers can use to spark student class participation, and which students can use as springboards for their own themes and term papers. 3. Fact quizzes, sample examinations, and other features that improve student comprehension of what each play is about. [via]

In an abandoned mining colony at the Lunar Ice Pit Station, two experiments may science forever. One is achieving Absolute Zero--a temperature so cold it can bend the laws of physics. The other involves 410 human heads, severedand fr ozen for decades, whose memories may hold the keys to death...and beyond. Martin's. [via]

In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil Hrabal takes us on a tremendously funny and satirical trip through 20th-century Czechoslovakia.

A discussion of several UFO sightings including a description of the objects and speculations about their origins. [via]

The little girl performed her long journey in safety; and at Northampton was met by Mrs. Norris, who thus regaled in the credit of being foremost to welcome her, and in the importance of leading her in to the others, and recommending her to their kindness. Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, or speaking one word where he spoke ten, by the mere aid of a good-humored smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two. . . . [via]

Avec Moby Dick, Melville a donné naissance à un livre-culte et inscrit dans la mémoire des hommes un nouveau mythe : celui de la baleine blanche. Fort de son expérience de marin, qui a nourri ses romans précédents et lui a assuré le succès, l'écrivain américain, alors en pleine maturité, raconte la folle quête du capitaine Achab et sa dernière rencontre avec le grand cachalot. Véritable encyclopédie de la mer, nouvelle Bible aux accents prophétiques, parabole chargée de thèmes universels, Moby Dick n'en reste pas moins construit avec une savante maîtrise, maintenant un suspense lent, qui s'accélère peu à peu jusqu'à l'apocalypse finale. L'écriture de Melville, infiniment libre et audacieuse, tour à tour balancée, puis hachée au rythme des houles, des vents et des passions humaines, est d'une richesse exceptionnelle. Il faut remonter à Shakespeare pour trouver l'exemple d'une langue aussi inventive, d'une poésie aussi grandiose. --Scarbo [via]

Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family. "I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein. As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the author of the _Pickwick Papers,_ I consulted with a professional friend who had a Yorkshire connection, and with whom I concerted a pious fraud. He gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of my traveling companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy who had been left with a widowed mother who didn't know what to do with him; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy compassion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a Yorkshire school; I was the poor lady's friend, traveling that way; and if the recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his neighborhood, the writer would be very much obliged. I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to deliver a letter until I came to a certain town which shall be nameless. The person to whom it was addressed, was not at home; but he came down at night, through the snow, to the inn where I was staying. It was after dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table. I am afraid he is dead now. . . . -- Charles Dickens [via]

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted. "May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C. (that is, the Perpetual Vice-President -- Member Pickwick Club), presiding. The following resolutions unanimously agreed to: -- "That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C. (the General Chairman -- Member Pickwick Club), entitled 'Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats;' and that this Association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., for the same. . . ." [via]

A guide to reading "Invisible Man" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list. [via]

GriffinFoolish man. You cannot turn me into a phantom because you are frightened. You do not dismiss a muse at a whim. If you will not join me, then I will come to you. Sabine

Sabine was supposed to be imaginary, a friend and lover that Griffin had created to soothe his loneliness. But she threatens to become embodied, to appear on his doorstep, in fact. So he runs.

Griffin & Sabine, the most creative and talked-about bestseller of 1991, left readers on the edge of a precipice. With Sabine's Notebook, they beginalong with Griffinthe fall. Once again, the story is told through strangely beautiful postcards and richly decorated letters that must actually be pulled from their envelopes to be read. But this volume is also a sketchbook and diary kept by the possibly unreal Sabine, who is living in Griffin's house in London while he wanders through Europe, North Africa, and Asia, backwards through layers of ancient civilizationsand of himself.

Filled with her delicately macabre drawings and notations, the notebook adds a darker element of visual intrigue to their complex and mysterious world. For the thousands who finished Griffin & Sabine and asked, "What happened next?," this second volume in the trilogy provides the answersbut raises new and even more haunting questions of its own. [via]

sci-fi [via]

Like father, like son. Alexis Paulvitch survived the vengeance of Tarzan . . . and now he wants revenge. He means to lure Greystoke's son, young Jack Clayton, away from London, and do away with him. But Jack Clayton is smarter than Paulvitch reckons. He foils the plot, escaping into the jungle with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. And there young Jack Clayton begins to establish a reputation of his own -- as Korak, the Killer. Korak finds his own place in the jungle amidst the great apes . . . and finds something much, much more. When he rescues beautiful young Meriem from a band of Arab raiders, and begins to fall in love with her . . . "Edgar Rice Burroughs . . . has probably changed more destinies than any other writer in American history." -- Ray Bradbury "I want to go along with Ray Bradbury's views on the importance of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was Burroughs who turned me on, and I think he is a much underrated writer. The man who can create Tarzan, the best-known character in the whole fiction, should not be taken too lightly!"-- Arthur C. Clarke [via]

Climb aboard for the swashbuckling adventure of a lifetime. Treasure Islandhas enthralled (and caused slight seasickness) for decades. The names Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins are destined to remain pieces of folklore for as long as children want to read Robert Louis Stevenson's most famous book. With it's dastardly plot and motley crew of rogues and villains, it seems unlikely that children will ever say no to this timeless classic. --Naomi Gesinger [via]

The visionary Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938), one of the century's great authors, first gained fame during the 1920s and 1930s when his short stories, novels, satires, journalism, children's books, and plays made him the most important writer in his native country. War With the Newts, one of the great dystopian satires of the century, is about the discovery by a Dutch sea-captain of a race of giant, intelligent, talking, and walking newts. When humans begin to exploit the newts as slaves, the creatures organize to fight the oppression, taking up arms and challenging the humans for control of newt destiny and freedom. [via]

Plot synopsis of this classic is made meaningful with analysis and quotes by noted literary critics, summaries of the work's main themes and characters, a sketch of the author's life and times, a bibliography, suggested test questions, and ideas for essays and term papers. [via]

Orson Scott Card's Xenocide is a space opera with verve. In this continuation of Ender Wiggin's story, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to immolate the rebellious planet of Lusitania, home to the alien race of pequeninos, and home to Ender Wiggin and his family. Concealed on Lusitania is the only remaining Hive Queen, who holds a secret that may save or destroy humanity throughout the galaxy. Familiar characters from the previous novels continue to grapple with religious conflicts and family squabbles while inventing faster-than-light travel and miraculous virus treatments. Throw into the mix an entire planet of mad geniuses and a self-aware computer who wants to be a martyr, and it's hard to guess who will topple the first domino. Due to the densely woven and melodramatic nature of the story, newcomers to Ender's tale will want to start reading this series with the first books, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. --Brooks Peck [via]