books tagged “specfic”

books tagged “specfic”

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  • An Acceptable Time
    by Madeleine L'Engle
    ISBN 0440208149 (0-440-20814-9)
    Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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    Book summary:

    A flash of lightning, quivering ground, and, instead of her grandparents' farm, Polly sees mist and jagged mountains -- and coming toward her, a group of young men carrying spears.

    Why has a time gate opened and dropped Polly into a world that existed 3,000 years ago? Will she be able to get back to the present before the time gate closes -- and leaves her to face a group of people who believe in human sacrifice?

    This Commemorative Edition includes a new introduction by the Author. [via]

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  • Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
    by Lewis Carroll, Donald J Grey
    ISBN 0393958043 (0-393-95804-3)
    Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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    Welcome to Wonderland! Lewis Carroll's timeless masterpiece is brought to life as never before in this pop-up extravaganza by J.Otto Seibold, the renowned artist of OLIVE, THE OTHER REINDEER.

    You've never seen Alice like this before! Acclaimed artist J. Otto Seibold---the creator of OLIVE, THE OTHER REINDEER---brings readers a fantastical Wonderland filled with surprises.
    Lewis Carroll's classic tale of magic and discovery comes to life in this pop-up extravaganza. Readers are invited to follow Alice on her journey, down the rabbit hole and through Wonderland, to meet all the colorful characters she encounters along the way. This exceptional interactive feast offers Alice fans of every age an unforgettable glimpse into the adventure and wild fun that is Wonderland.
    [via]

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  • Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
    by Anthony Browne, Lewis Carroll
    ISBN 0394805925 (0-394-80592-5)
    Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books

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    Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.

    For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • Alphabet of Thorn
    by Patricia A. McKillip
    ISBN 0441012434 (0-441-01243-4)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    Book summary:

    Fantasy author Patricia A. McKillip, the 21st century's response to Hans Christian Andersen, has mastered the art of writing fairy tales -- as evidenced by previous works like The Tower at Stony Wood, Ombria in Shadow, and In the Forests of Serre. Alphabet of Thorn is yet another timeless fable suitable for children and adults alike.

    In the kingdom of Raine, a vast realm at the edge of the world, an orphaned baby girl is found by a palace librarian and raised to become a translator. Years later, the girl -- named Nepenthe -- comes in contact with a mysterious book written in a language of thorns that no one, not even the wizards at Raine's famous Floating School for mages, can decipher. The book calls out to Nepenthe's very soul, and she is soon privately translating its contents. As she works tirelessly transcribing the book -- which turns out to be about the historical figures of Axis, the Emperor of Night, and Kane, his masked sorcerer -- the kingdom of Raine is teetering on the brink of chaos. The newly crowned queen, a mousy 14-year old girl named Tessera who wants nothing to do with matters of state, hides in the woods as regents plot revolution. The queen's destiny, however, is intertwined with Nepenthe's ability to unravel the mystery of the thorns.

    [via]

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  • The Anubis Gates
    by Tim Powers
    ISBN 0441004016 (0-441-00401-6)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    Author Tim Powers evokes 17th-century England with a combination of meticulously researched historic detail and imaginative flights in this sci-fi tale of time travel. Winner of the 1984 Philip K. Dick Award for best original science fiction paperback, this 1989 edition of the book that took the fantasy world by storm is the first hardcover version to be published in the United States. In his brief introduction, Ramsey Campbell sets The Anubis Gates in an adventure context, citing Powers's achievement of "extraordinary scenes of underground horror, of comedy both high and grotesque, of bizarre menace, of poetic fantasy."

    The colonization of Egypt by western European powers is the launch point for power plays and machinations. Steeping together in this time-warp stew are such characters as an unassuming Coleridge scholar, ancient gods, wizards, the Knights Templar, werewolves, and other quasi-mortals, all wrapped in the organizing fabric of Egyptian mythology. In the best of fantasy traditions, the reluctant heroes fight for survival against an evil that lurks beneath the surface of their everyday lives. [via]

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  • Archangel
    by Sharon Shinn
    ISBN 0441004326 (0-441-00432-6)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Set in a society founded as an egalitarian utopia but now tainted with vices and inequity, Sharon Shinn's love story is plotty and calamitous. Rachel and Gabriel have nothing in common beyond wishing that the god Jovah had ordained they wed other people, yet they must cooperate in singing a mass to the god on the occasion of Gabriel's elevation to Archangel. Upright Gabriel has enemies among both mortal and angelic peoples who prefer to risk world destruction over his restoration of the old order. [via]

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  • The Black Cauldron
    by Lloyd Alexander
    ISBN 0440227437 (0-440-22743-7)
    Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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    In the imaginary Land of Prydain, where "evil is never distant," it has become imperative that the Black Cauldron, chief implement of the diabolical Arawn, be destroyed. In this cauldron Arawn has created his terrible army of deathless warriors from the stolen bodies of the slain. For each of those chosen to journey to Arawn's domain, the quest has a special meaning, and to Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, the adventure becomes a glorious opportunity to wear his first sword and prove himself a man among men.


    From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]

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  • Bloody Bones
    by Laurell K. Hamilton
    ISBN 0425205673 (0-425-20567-3)
    Hardcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    When Anita Blake's boss at Animators, Inc., informs her that she's expected to raise 300-year-old zombies from a field of jumbled bones just to settle a land dispute, she's understandably annoyed. But as soon as she arrives in Branson, Missouri, to do the deed, the job gets more interesting. A psychotic sword-wielding vampire starts committing multiple murders in the area, and Anita must call on Jean-Claude, her powerful fanged suitor, for help. As always, Anita prevails over the undead, keeping Jean-Claude at arm's length, clearing the cemetery land of an ancient enchantment, and nailing the vampiric killer in one fell swoop. [via]

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  • The Blue Sword
    by Robin McKinley
    ISBN 0441068804 (0-441-06880-4)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Hillfolk. Her life is quiet and ordinary-until the night she is kidnapped by Corlath, the Hillfolk King, who takes her deep into the desert. She does not know the Hillfolk language; she does not know why she has been chosen. But Corlath does. Harry is to be trained in the arts of war until she is a match for any of his men. Does she have the courage to accept her true fate?
    [via]

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  • The Book of Lost Tales
    by J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien
    ISBN 0395354390 (0-395-35439-0)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916-1917 when he was twenty-five years old and left incomplete several years later. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for the Lost Tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriel (or AElfwine) to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the Tales are found the earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of Nargothrond and Gondolin; of the geography and cosmography of the invented world.
    The Book of Lost Tales will be published in two volumes; this first part contains the Tales of Valinor; and the second will include Beren and Luthien, Turin and the Dragon, and the only full narratives of the Necklace of the Dwarves and the Fall of Gondolin. Each tale is followed by a commentary in the form of a short essay; together with the texts of associated poems; and each volume contains extensive information on names and vocabulary in the earliest Elvish languages. Further books in this series are planned to extend the history of Middle-earth as it was refined and enlarged in later years, and will include the Long Lays of Beleriand, the Ambarkanta or Shape of the World, the Lhammas or Account of Tongues, annals, maps, and many other unpublished writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
    [via]

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  • The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1
    by J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien
    ISBN 0395409276 (0-395-40927-6)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Book summary:

    The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916, when he was twenty-five years old, and left incomplete several years later. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for the Lost Tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend and association, they are set in the narrative frame of the great westward voyage of a mariner named Eriel (or AElfwine). His destination is Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle where Elves dwell; from them he learns their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. The Tales include the earliest accounts of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of Nargothrond and Gondolin; of the geography and cosmography of their invented world.
    The Book of Lost Tales is published in two volumes. The first contains the Tales of Valinor; and this second past includes Beren and Luthien, Turin and the Dragon, and the only full narratives of the Necklace of the Dwarves and the Fall of Gondolin. Each tale is followed by a commentary, together with associated poems, and each volume contains extensive information on names and vocabulary of the earliest Elvish languages. Additional books in this series will extend the history of Middle-earth as it was refined and enlarged in later years and will include the long Lays of Beleriand, the Ambarkanta or Shape of the World, the Lhammas or Account of Tongues, annals, maps, and many other previously unpublished writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
    [via]

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  • Children of Dune
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0441104029 (0-441-10402-9)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    The bestselling science fiction series of all time continues! In this third installment, the sand-blasted world of Arrakis has become green, watered and fertile. Old Paul Atreides, who led the desert Fremen to political and religious domination of the galaxy, is gone. But for the children of Dune, the very blossoming of their land contains the seeds of its own destruction. The altered climate is destroying the giant sandworms, and this in turn is disastrous for the planet's economy. Leto and Ghanima, Paul Atreides's twin children and his heirs, can see possible solutions--but fanatics begin to challenge the rule of the all-powerful Atreides empire, and more than economic disaster threatens...
    [via]

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  • Andersen, H. C.: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories
    The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories
    by H. C. Andersen, Erik Christian Haugaard
    ISBN 0385019017 (0-385-01901-7)
    Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books

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    Translated by Erik Hougaard, this is the only version available in trade paperback that presents the fairy tales exactly as Andersen collected them in the original Danish edition in 1874.  His notes accompany the text. [via]

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  • The Curse of Chalion
    by Lois McMaster Bujold
    ISBN 0380979012 (0-380-97901-2)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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    In a dazzling display of invention and storytelling, the incomparable Lois McMaster Bujold offers us the razor-keen edge of a very different sword...

    The Curse of Chalion

    On the eve of the Daughter's Day -- the grand celebration that will honor the Lady of Spring, one of the five reigning deities -- a man broken in body and spirit makes his way slowly down the road to Valenda. A former courtier and soldier, Cazaril has survived indignity and horrific torture as a slave aboard an enemy galley. Now he seeks nothing more than a menial job in the kitchens of the Dowager Provincara, in the noble household where he served as page in his youth.

    But the gods have greater plans for this humbled man. Welcomed warmly, clothed and fed, he is named, to his great surprise, secretary tutor to the Royesse Iselle -- the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is destined to be the next ruler of the land. But the assignment must ultimately carry Cazaril to the one place he fears even more than the sea: to the royal court of Cardegoss, rife with intrigues and lethal treacheries.

    In Cardegoss, the powerful enemies who once placed Cozoril in chains and bound him to a Roknori oar now occupy the most lofty positions in the realm, beneath only the Roya himself. Yet something for more sinister than their scheming hangs like a sword over the royal family: a curse of the blood that taints not only those who would rule, but those who stand in their circle. The life and future of both Iselle and her entire blighted House of Cholion lie in dire peril. The only recourse left to her loyal, damaged servant is the employment of the darkest and most forbidden of magics -- a choice that Will indelibly mark Cazaril as a tool of the miraculous ... and trap him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death for as long as he dares walk the five-fold pathway of the gods.

    Only Robert A. Heinlein has won more Hugo Awards for Best Novel than Lois McMaster Bujold, a singularly lauded author whose work has been compared to Jane Austen's. Now channeling her remarkable storytelling genius in an exciting new direction, she creates a riveting tale rich in atmosphere, magic, character, and consequence that twists and turns in unanticipated ways. Much more than simply the next eagerly awaited tour de force by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion is a stunning masterwork of fantastic invention that demonstrates the vast range of her astonishing tolents -- and elevates her into the pantheon of premier contemporary fantasists.

    [via]

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  • Declare
    by Tim Powers
    ISBN 0380976528 (0-380-97652-8)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    This supernatural suspense thriller crosses several genres--espionage, geopolitics, religion, fantasy. But like the chicken crossing the road, it takes quite a while to get to the other side. En route, Tim Powers covers a lot of territory: Turkey, Armenia, the Saudi Arabian desert, Beirut, London, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow. Andrew Hale, an Oxford lecturer who first entered Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service as an 18-year-old schoolboy, is called back to finish a job that culminated in a deadly mission on Mount Ararat after the end of World War II. Now it's 1963, and cold war politics are behind the decision to activate Hale for another attempt to complete Operation Declare and bring down the Communist government before Moscow can harness the powerful, other-worldly forces concentrated on the summit of the mountain, supposed site of the landing of Noah's ark. James Theodora is the über-spymaster whose internecine rivalry with other branches of the Secret Intelligence Service traps Hale between a rock and a hard place, literally and figuratively. There's plenty of mountain and desert survival stuff here, a plethora of geopolitical and theological history, and a big serving of A Thousand and One Nights, which is Hale's guide to the meteorites, drogue stones, and amonon plant, which figure in this complicated tale. There's a love story, too, and a bizarre twist on the Kim Philby legend that posits both Philby and Hale as the only humans who can tame the powers of the djinns who populate Mount Ararat.

    This is an easy book to get lost in, and Powers's many fans will have a field day with it. The rest of us may have a harder time. --Jane Adams [via]

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  • Deerskin
    by Robin McKinley
    ISBN 044100069X (0-441-00069-X)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    From the award-winning author of Sunshine comes a novel that "will involve readers from the first to the last page with its sheer beauty, its anguish, agony, horror, despair, and, ultimately, its joy" (Kliatt).

    As Princess Lissar reaches womanhood, it is clear to all the kingdom that in her breathtaking beauty she is the mirror image of her mother, the queen. But this seeming blessing forces her to flee for safety from her father's lust and madness. With her loyal dog Ash at her side, Lissar will unlock a door to a world of magic, where she will find the key to her survival-and an adventure beyond her wildest dreams.

    [via]

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  • Jones, Diana Wynne: Dogsbody
    Dogsbody
    by Diana Wynne Jones
    ISBN 0394820312 (0-394-82031-2)
    Hardcover, Random House Children's Books

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  • Dune
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0399128964 (0-399-12896-4)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

    The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

    Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. --Brooks Peck [via]

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  • Dune: La Batalla De Corrin
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0441013597 (0-441-01359-7)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    Book summary:

    This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

    The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

    Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. --Brooks Peck [via]

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  • Dune Messiah
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0441172695 (0-441-17269-5)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    mass market paperback book [via]

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  • Far Horizons
    by Robert Silverberg
    ISBN 0380976307 (0-380-97630-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Far Horizons is the science fiction equivalent of Robert Silverberg's bestselling fantasy anthology Legends. For both books, Silverberg invited some of the most renowned authors in the field to write a new story based on their most popular series or settings. For instance, the first story in Far Horizons is Ursula K. Le Guin's "Old Music and the Slave Women," which takes place in the same Hainish universe as her famous novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Dan Simmons wrote a piece set in the realm of Hyperion, Anne McCaffrey turned in a Helva story from the world of The Ship Who Sang, and so on.

    Like Legends, the list of writers in Far Horizons reads like a Who's Who of the genre: Le Guin, Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card, David Brin, Simmons, Nancy Kress, Frederik Pohl, Gregory Benford, McCaffrey and Greg Bear, as well as Silverberg himself. And like Legends, the authors take a page or two to introduce their stories so that newcomers won't be totally lost. The average story in Far Horizons is, as you might expect, a significant cut above the average SF story, although this anthology is not quite as successful as its predecessor. Authors like Le Guin and Simmons have come up with some first-rate stuff, but Card and McCaffrey have produced stories that are mediocre at best. Overall, though, the book has far more ups than downs, and serious readers won't want to miss this one. Those new to the world of SF will also find Far Horizons an invaluable reference when they're looking for good authors to read. --Craig E. Engler [via]

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  • Foucault's Pendulum
    by Umberto Eco
    ISBN 0436140969 (0-436-14096-9)
    Hardcover, Secker & Warburg

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    Book summary:

    Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth [via]

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  • Herbert, Frank: God Emperor of Dune
    God Emperor of Dune
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0441294677 (0-441-29467-7)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    More than three thousand years have passed since the first events recorded in DUNE. Only one link survives with those tumultuous times: the grotesque figure of Leto Atreides, son of the prophet Paul Muad'Dib, and now the virtually immortal God Emperor of Dune. He alone understands the future, and he knows with a terrible certainty that the evolution of his race is at an end unless he can breed new qualities into his species. But to achieve his final victory, Leto Atreides must also bring about his own downfall ... [via]

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  • Andersen, H. C.: Hans Andersen
    Hans Andersen
    by H. C. Andersen, Michael Foreman, Erik Christian Haugaard
    ISBN 0385133642 (0-385-13364-2)
    Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books

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  • Hans Christian Andersen the Complete Fairy Tales and Stories
    by H. C. Andersen, Virginia Haviland
    ISBN 0385189516 (0-385-18951-6)
    Softcover, Anchor Books

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    Book summary:

    Translated by Erik Hougaard, this is the only version available in trade paperback that presents the fairy tales exactly as Andersen collected them in the original Danish edition in 1874.  His notes accompany the text. [via]

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  • Hero and the Crown
    by Robin McKinley
    ISBN 0441013058 (0-441-01305-8)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    Book summary:

    From childhood, Aerin had been haunted by the story of her mother - a "witchwoman" who enspelled the king and then died in childbirth, leaving behind a newborn daughter and an heirless land. Left to her own devices, Aerin grew up wild, doing her best to live up to her reputation as the disappointment of the realm. But little did the young princess know the long-dormant powers of her mother would wield their own destiny, and leave Aerin with a duty to her scornful homeland that she couldn't refuse.
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  • The Hidden Land
    by Pamela Dean
    ISBN 0441329098 (0-441-32909-8)
    Softcover, Putnam Berkley

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    Book summary:

    The five cousins are still trapped in the Secret Country, and must play their parts. When the King is poisoned, Ted-Prince Edward-must take the throne, even though he has no idea how to rule a country, battle magic, or inspire followers.  Soon enough he will have to do all three because the Country is on the verge of war with the treacherous Dragon King.  

    [via]

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  • The Hobbit
    by J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael Hague
    ISBN 0395520215 (0-395-52021-5)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Book summary:

    "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

    The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.

    The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • The Hobbit or There and Back Again
    by J. R. R. Tolkien
    ISBN 0395177111 (0-395-17711-1)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Book summary:

    Hardcover printing of the Hobbit by Houghton Mifflin copyright 1966 [via]

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  • Howl's Moving Castle
    by Diana Wynne Jones
    ISBN 0441346642 (0-441-34664-2)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter.

    After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls.

    The Hatter sisters--Sophie, Lettie, and Martha--and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning.

    In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle?

    Diana Wynne Jones's entrancing fantasy is filled with surprises at every turn, but when the final stormy duel between the Witch and the Wizard is finished, all the pieces fall magically into place. [via]

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  • I, Robot
    by Isaac Asimov
    ISBN 0385050488 (0-385-05048-8)
    Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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    In this collection, one of the great classics of science fiction, Asimov set out the principles of robot behavior that we know as the Three Laws of Robotics. Here are stories of robots gone mad, mind-reading robots, robots with a sense of humor, robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world, all told with Asimov's trademark dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction. [via]

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  • Illustrated Dune
    by Frank Herbert
    ISBN 0425038912 (0-425-03891-2)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    New, unused, never read condition+ [via]

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  • Jurassic Park
    by Michael Crichton
    ISBN 0394588169 (0-394-58816-9)
    Hardcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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    Unless your species evolved sometime after 1993 when Jurassic Park hit theaters, you're no doubt familiar with this dinosaur-bites-man disaster tale set on an island theme park gone terribly wrong. But if Speilberg's amped-up CGI creation left you longing for more scientific background and ... well, character development, check out the original Michael Crichton novel. Although not his best book (get ahold of sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain for that), Jurassic Park fills out the film version's kinetic story line with additional scenes, dialogue, and explanations while still maintaining Crichton's trademark thrills-'n'-chills pacing. As ever, the book really is better than the movie. --Paul Hughes [via]

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  • The Killing Dance
    by Laurell K. Hamilton
    ISBN 0425209067 (0-425-20906-7)
    Hardcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Anita Blake, vampire hunter, is now herself a hunted woman. Who put the $500,000 price on her head--a man or a monster? It's not just her own skin she needs to save; the rivalry between her werewolf boyfriend, Richard, and Marcus, the other alpha werewolf in his pack, has come to full boil. And there's always Jean-Claude, the vampire who's been waiting for just the right moment to slip inside Anita's head and heart. Don't assume anything, though--Hamilton's probably got a few more surprises in store. [via]

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  • Lays of Beleriand
    by J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien
    ISBN 0395486831 (0-395-48683-1)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    This is the third volume of the History of Middle-earth, which comprises here-tofore unpublished manuscripts that were written over a period of many years before Tolkien's Simlarillion was published. Volumes 1 and 2 were the Book of Lost Tales, Part One and The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two. Together, these volumes encompass an extraordinarily extensive body of material ornamenting and buttressing what must be the most fully realized world ever to spring from a single author's imagination.
    "I write alliterative verse with pleasure," wrote J.R.R. Tolkien in 1955, "though I have published little beyond the fragments in The Lord of the Rings, except The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth." The first of the poems in The Lays of Beleriand is the previously unpublished Lay of the Children of Hurin, his early but most sustained work in the ancient English meter, intended to narrate on a grand scale the tragedy of Turin Turambar. It was account of the killing by Turin of his friend Beleg, as well as a unique description of the great redoubt of Nargothrond. The Lay of the Children of Hurin was supplanted by the Lay of Leithian, "Release from Bondage", in which another major legend of the Elder Days received poetic form, in this case in rhyme. The chief source of the short prose tale of Beren and Luthien is The Silmarillion. This, too, was not completed, but the whole Quest of the Silmaril is told, and the poem breaks off only after the encounter with Morgoth in his subterranean fortress. Many years later, when The Lord of the rings was finished, J.R.R. Tolkien returned to the Lay of Leithian and started on a new version, which is also given in this book.
    Accompanying the poems are commentaries on the evolution of the history of the Elder Days, which was much developed during the years of the composition of the two Lays. Also included is the notable criticism in detail of the Lay of Lethian by C.S. Lewis, Tolkien's friend and colleague, who read the poem in 1929. By assuming that this poem is actually a fragment from a past lost in history, Lewis underlined the remarkable power of its author's imaginative talents and academic competence.
    [via]

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  • Le Petit Prince
    by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
    ISBN 0395240050 (0-395-24005-0)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div

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    The Educational Edition of this contemporary masterpiece features full-color reproductions of Saint-Exupery's original drawings. The text is presented unabridged and includes John Richardson Miller's introduction to the author's life and works, notes, a bibliography, and a complete end vocabulary. [via]

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  • Mists of Avalon
    by Marion Zimmer Bradley
    ISBN 0394524063 (0-394-52406-3)
    Hardcover, Random House Inc

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    Even readers who don't normally enjoy Arthurian legends will love this version, a retelling from the point of view of the women behind the throne. Morgaine (more commonly known as Morgan Le Fay) and Gwenhwyfar (a Welsh spelling of Guinevere) struggle for power, using Arthur as a way to score points and promote their respective worldviews. The Mists of Avalon's Camelot politics and intrigue take place at a time when Christianity is taking over the island-nation of Britain; Christianity vs. Faery, and God vs. Goddess are dominant themes.

    Young and old alike will enjoy this magical Arthurian reinvention by science fiction and fantasy veteran Marion Zimmer Bradley. --Bonnie Bouman [via]

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  • Obsidian Butterfly
    by Laurell K. Hamilton
    ISBN 0441007813 (0-441-00781-3)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Anita Blake, the tough, sexy vampire executioner, zombie animator, and police consultant for preternatural crimes in St. Louis, hunts monsters in New Mexico in the ninth book of Laurell K. Hamilton's excellent series. Edward, Anita's mentor in slaying, asks Anita to return the favor that she has owed him since she killed a backup he brought in to protect her. He needs Anita's preternatural expertise as well as her firepower. Something is skinning and mutilating a few of its chosen victims, and dismembering others. Edward has no idea what creature could be responsible for such heinous crimes.

    Summoning Anita has its downside for Edward, since it means letting her onto his turf. Anita is surprised to find that this normally aggressive man has a personal life, and shocked by his ability to be entirely different from the stone cold killer she's known. She also has problems with the cop in charge in Albuquerque, who believes her powers must be evil, and with the other backups Edward has brought in. Most of all, she has to deal with her own vulnerability--she's tried to shut down her ties to her vampire and werewolf lovers and go it alone, but it turns out to be harder than she thought.

    Anita's usual supporting cast is missing, and she's taking time out from her complex love life, but there's plenty of bloody action, vampires, werewolves, and Aztec ritual. Plus a lot more about Edward. Fans will find this installment similar to the earlier books in the series, particularly The Laughing Corpse. --Nona Vero. [via]

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  • A Planet Called Treason
    by Orson Scott Card
    ISBN 044016897X (0-440-16897-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • Quicksilver
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0380977427 (0-380-97742-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-all before the year 1700.

    In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel.

    The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]

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  • Song for the Basilisk
    by Patricia A. McKillip
    ISBN 0441006787 (0-441-00678-7)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    As a child, Rook had been taken in by the bards of Luly, and raised as one of their own. Of his past he knew nothing--except faint memories of fire and death that he'd do anything to forget. But nightmares, and a new threat to the island that had become his own, would not let him escape the dreaded fate of his true family. Haunted by the music of the bards, he left the only home he knew to wander the land of the power-hungry basilisk who had destroyed his family. And perhaps, finally, to find a future in the fulfillment of his forgotten destiny. [via]

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  • Spindle's End
    by Robin McKinley
    ISBN 0441008658 (0-441-00865-8)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    Renowned fantasy writer Robin McKinley, author of the lush "Beauty and the Beast" retellings Beauty and Rose Daughter, has produced another re-mastered fairy tale, this time about the dreamy Sleeping Beauty. Much like in the original story, the infant princess, here named Rosie, is cursed by an evil fairy to die on her 21st birthday by pricking her finger on a spindle. That same day, Rosie is whisked away into hiding by a peasant fairy who raises her and conceals her royal identity. From that point on, McKinley's plot and characterization become wildly inventive. She imagines Rosie growing up into a strapping young woman who despises her golden hair, prefers leather breeches to ball gowns, and can communicate with animals. And on that fateful birthday, with no help from a prince, Rosie saves herself and her entire sleeping village from destruction, although she pays a realistic price. In a final master stroke, McKinley cleverly takes creative license when the spell-breaking kiss (made famous in "Sleeping Beauty") comes from a surprising source and is bestowed upon the character least expected.

    Although the entire novel is well written, McKinley's characterization of Rosie's animal friends is exceptionally fine. Observations such as "...foxes generally wanted to talk about butterflies and grasses and weather for a long time while they sized you up," will spark reader's imaginations. It won't be hard to persuade readers of any age to become lost in this marvelous tale; the difficult part will be convincing them to come back from McKinley's country, where "the magic... was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk dust...." Highly recommended. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert [via]

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  • Stories and Tales
    by Hans Christian Andersen, H. W. Dulcken, A. W. Bayes
    ISBN 0415285984 (0-415-28598-4)
    Softcover, Routledge

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    A true classic of Western literature, Stories and Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, arguably the most notable children's writer of all, has delighted young and old for generations. This unique collection was first translated for George Routledge over 130 years ago. Completely reset, but preserving the original, beautiful illustrations by A.W. Bayes, engraved by the masters of Victorian book illustration, the Brothers Dalziel, this marvellous book will be treasured by young and old alike. [via]

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  • Stranger in a Strange Land
    by Robert A. Heinlein
    ISBN 039910772X (0-399-10772-X)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.

    The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the 60's to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, provocative as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck [via]

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  • Stranger in a Strange Land/30th Anniversary, Uncut Version
    by Robert A. Heinlein
    ISBN 0399135863 (0-399-13586-3)
    Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.

    The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the 60's to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, provocative as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck [via]

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  • Subtle Knife
    by Philip Pullman
    ISBN 0440238145 (0-440-23814-5)
    Softcover, Laurel Leaf

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    With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Critics lobbed around such superlatives as "elegant," "awe-inspiring," "grand," and "glittering," and used "magnificent" with gay abandon. Each reader had a favorite chapter--or, more likely, several--from the opening tour de force to Lyra's close call at Bolvangar to the great armored-bear battle. And Pullman was no less profligate when it came to intellectual firepower or singular characters. The dæmons alone grant him a place in world literature. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch, or had his heroine and her too, too sullied parents consumed him? And what of the belief system that pervaded his alternate universe, not to mention the mystery of Dust? More revelations and an equal number of wonders and new players were definitely in order.

    The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother's increasing instability and separate them.

    As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family's tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: "She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will." What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: "The cat stepped forward and vanished." Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape--one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: "Her expression was a mixture of the very young--when she first tasted the cola--and a kind of deep, sad wariness." Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.

    As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who "had trafficked with spirits, and it showed"; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra's father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can't quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.

    Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes--small- and large-scale--will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. "You think things have to be possible," Will demands. "Things have to be true!" It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. --Kerry Fried [via]

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  • The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
    by Steven Brust
    ISBN 0441084109 (0-441-08410-9)
    Hardcover, Ace Fantasy Books

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    Once upon a time there was a kingdom that lived in darkness, for the sun, the moon and the stars were hidden in a box, and that box was hidden in a sow's belly, and that sow was hidden in a troll's cave, and that cave was hidden at the end of the world.
     
    Once upon a time there was a studio of artists who feared they were doomed to obscurity, for though they worked and they worked, no one was interested in the paintings that stood in racks along their studio walls.
     
    Steven Brust's fantasy novel The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars is a tale of two quests, of two young men who are reaching for the moon. And the sun. And the stars.
    [via]

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  • The Tower at Stony Wood
    by Patricia A. McKillip
    ISBN 0441008291 (0-441-00829-1)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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    World Fantasy Award-winning author McKillip (Song for the Basilisk) returns with another lyrical, richly detailed fantasy. Cyan Dag, knight of Gloinmere, is sworn to serve King Regis Aurum of Yves. Cyan's oath leads him headlong into dangerous magical territory, however, when Idra, Bard of Skye, reveals that the King's new bride, Lady Gwynne, is an impostor. The true Lady Gwynne is trapped in an enchanted stone tower in distant Skye, a magical mirror her only means of viewing the outside world. Bound by his oath to protect the King, Cyan rides west to free Lady Gwynne. In the meantime, Thayne Ysse, son of the king of Ysse, has never forgotten his father's defeat at the hands of King Regis Aurum. Now he seeks a tower guarded by a dragon, a tower filled with gold enough to raise a new army and defeat Yves once and for all. And in another ancient tower outside the coastal village of Stony Wood, Melanthos, the daughter of a land-bound selkie and a fisherman, obsessively embroiders pictures of a lonely woman trapped in a distant tower who may or may not be real. Although Cyan Dag took up his quest with one goal in mind, he soon realizes that the only route to saving Lady Gwynne lies tangled with the lives of Thayne and Melanthos, and in the mysterious motives of Idra and her woods-wise sister Sidera. Once again McKillip skillfully knits disparate threads into a rewardingly rich and satisfying story. --Charlene Brusso [via]

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  • Bradbury, Ray: The Toynbee Convector
    The Toynbee Convector
    by Ray Bradbury
    ISBN 0394547039 (0-394-54703-9)
    Hardcover, Random House Inc

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  • Unfinished Tales
    by J. R. R. Tolkien
    ISBN 0395324416 (0-395-32441-6)
    Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Edited by Christopher Tolkien, Unfinished Tales is a posthumous collection of narratives ranging from the time of The Silmarillion - the Elder days of Middle-earth - to the end of the War of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. Among the stories told are Gandalf's account of sending the dwarves to Bibo's party at Bag End, the tale of the appearance of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor along the coast of Beleriand, and a description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan. It also contains the only story from the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known of such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri, and the legend of Amroth. [via]

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  • Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth
    by J. R. R. Tolkien
    ISBN 0395299179 (0-395-29917-9)
    Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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    Edited by Christopher Tolkien, Unfinished Tales is a posthumous collection of narratives ranging from the time of The Silmarillion - the Elder days of Middle-earth - to the end of the War of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. Among the stories told are Gandalf's account of sending the dwarves to Bibo's party at Bag End, the tale of the appearance of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor along the coast of Beleriand, and a description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan. It also contains the only story from the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known of such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri, and the legend of Amroth. [via]

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  • Stasheff, Christopher: The Warlock in Spite of Himself
    The Warlock in Spite of Himself
    by Christopher Stasheff
    ISBN 0441005608 (0-441-00560-8)
    Softcover, Ace Books

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  • Wrapt in Crystal
    by Sharon Shinn
    ISBN 0441006167 (0-441-00616-7)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    Wrapt in Crystal examines religious faith and the nature of love while providing a riveting murder mystery. Shinn's setting is the desert planet Semay, whose culture and language are mostly Spanish, with some French and Italian influences. Here, two orders of priestesses worship the goddess Ava: the Triumphantes, who live in worldly comfort and celebrate her with joy; and the Fideles, who renounce wealth to serve the poor and see her as the comforter of the hungry, the sick, and the sorrowful.

    A serial killer is murdering members of both orders alternately, and Semay has asked Interfed, an alliance of federated planets with an elite peacekeeping force called the Moonchildren, for assistance. Cowen Drake, the Moonchild assigned, is under pressure to solve the case quickly, impressing Semay with the benefits of joining Interfed and keeping the priestesses safe. Though he has lost his own faith, Drake sets out to understand the victims, the orders, and the role of religion in Semay. His guides are the powerful, charismatic Jovieve, head of the Triumphantes, and the self-abnegating, dedicated Laura.

    Readers will find the characters compelling, the suspense taut, and the developing love story moving. If you enjoyed Shinn's Samaria trilogy, you shouldn't miss this one. --Nona Vero [via]

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