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Fantasy / Science Fiction
BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR Set in a world in which the Reformation failed, this award-winning science fiction novel is "one of the best . . . alternate-worlds novels in existence" (Philip K. Dick).
In Kingsley Amis's virtuoso foray into virtual history it is 1976, but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart's second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice. In the audience is a select group of experts whose job is to determine whether that faultless voice should be preserved by performing a certain operation. Art, after all, is worth any sacrifice. How Hubert realizes what lies in store for him and how he deals with the whirlpool of piety, menace, terror, and passion that he soon finds himself in are the subject of a classic piece of counterfactual fiction equal to Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. The Alteration won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel in 1976.
In Kingsley Amis's virtuoso foray into virtual history it is 1976, but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart's second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice. In the audience is a select group of experts whose job is to determine whether that faultless voice should be preserved by performing a certain operation. Art, after all, is worth any sacrifice. How Hubert realizes what lies in store for him and how he deals with the whirlpool of piety, menace, terror, and passion that he soon finds himself in are the subject of a classic piece of counterfactual fiction equal to Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. The Alteration won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel in 1976.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NOW AN EXCITING SERIES FROM NETFLIX - The shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning in this "tour de force of genre-bending, a brilliantly realized exercise in science fiction."--The New York Times Book Review
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold.
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NOW AN EXCITING SERIES FROM NETFLIX - The shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning in this "tour de force of genre-bending, a brilliantly realized exercise in science fiction."--The New York Times Book Review
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold.
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold.
Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled the North American continent, Card has created an alternate frontier America: a world where folk magic really works, and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies. Charms and beseechings, hexes and potions, all have a place in the lives of the people of this world. "Knacks" abound: Dowsers find water, the second sight warns of dangers to come, and a torch can read the heart of anyone. And Alvin Miller, the seventh son of a seventh son, is a very special man indeed. Alvin is a Maker, and what he can make is a new future for America. But to do that he must defeat his ancient enemy, the Unmaker, whose cruel whispers and deadly plots have threatened Alvin's life at every turn. Now a grown man and a journeyman smith, Alvin has returned to his family and friends in the town of Vigor Church, to share in their isolation, to work as a blacksmith, and to try to teach anyone who will learn the knack of being a Maker. For Alvin has had a vision of the city he will build, and he knows that he cannot build it alone. But the Unmaker is not through with Alvin. If that spirit of destruction cannot stop him by magic, or war and devastation, then it will try to crush the young Maker by simpler means - more human means. By lies and innuendo, and by false accusations, Alvin is driven from his home back to Hatrack River, only to find that the Unmaker has been there before him, and that he must now stand trial for his life.
"One of [Le Guin's] most radical novels. . . . A study in what a complete and utter rejection of capitalism and patriarchy might look like--for society and for the art of storytelling."--The Millions
Ursula K. Le Guin's magnificent work of imagination, a visionary, genre-crossing story about a future utopian community on the Northern California coast, hailed as "masterly" (Newsweek), "hypnotic" (People) and "[her] most consistently lyric and luminous book" (New York Times). This new edition features an introduction by Shruti Swamy, author of A House is a Body, as well as extra material that includes interviews and liner notes to the book's musical soundtrack.
Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary projects, a novel that took more than five years to complete. Blending story and fable, poetry, artwork, and song, Always Coming Home is this legendary writer's fictional ethnography of the Kesh, a people of the far future living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley.
Having survived ecological catastrophe brought on by relentless industrialization, the Kesh are a peaceful people who reject governance and the constriction of genders, limit population growth to prevent overcrowding and preserve resources, and maintain a healthy community in which everyone works to contribute to its well-being. This richly imagined story unfolds through a series of narrated "translations" that illuminate individual lives, including a woman named Stone Telling, who travels beyond the Valley and comes to reside with another tribe, the patriarchal Condor people. With sharp poignancy, Le Guin explores the complexities of the Kesh's unified society and presents to us--in exquisite detail--their lives, histories, adventures, customs, language, and art.
In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component--original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton--bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life.
In the style of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, Dave Eggers' The Circle a post-apocalyptic examination of nostalgia, loss and the possibility of starting over. Allow us to introduce you to the newest product from PINA, the world's largest tech company. "Port" is a curiously irresistible device that offers the impossible: space-time travel mysteriously powered by nostalgia and longing. Step inside a Port and find yourself transported to wherever and whenever your heart desires: a bygone youth, a dreamed-of future, the fabled past. In the near-future world of Liz Harmer's extraordinary novel, Port becomes a phenomenon, but soon it is clear that many who pass through its portal won't be coming back--either unwilling to return or, more ominously, unable to do so. After a few short years, the population plummets. The grid goes down. Among those who remain is Marie, a thirtysomething artist living in a small community of Port-resistors camping out in the abandoned mansions of a former steel town. As winter approaches the group considers heading south, but Marie clings to the hope that her long lost lover will one day return to the spot where he disappeared. Meanwhile, PINA's corporate campus in California has become a cultish enclave of survivors. Brandon, the right-hand man to the mad genius who invented Port, decides to get out. He steals a car and drives north-east, where he hopes to find his missing mother. And there he meets Marie. The Amateurs is a story of rapture and romance, and an astoundingly powerful tale about what happens when technology meets desire.
"Gripping...a first-rate nail biter."
--Tampa Tribune
James Rollins--the author of The Doomsday Key, The Last Oracle, The Judas Strain, Black Order, and other pulse-pounding, New York Times bestsellers--carries readers into the heart of darkness in his classic thriller, Amazonia. Lincoln Child, New York Times bestselling co-author (with Douglas Preston) of Cemetery Dance and other Agent Pendergast thrillers, raves, "Amazonia grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go until the very last page is turned."
A double-agent sacrifices all his ideals in order to save his smuggler lover before a government coup takes over their decadent city in Lara Elena Donnelly's glam spy thriller debut, now a Nebula finalist for Best Novel!
"Exploring the roots of hatred, nationalism, and fascism, while at the same time celebrating the diversity, love, romance, fashion, and joy the world is capable of producing." --Bookriot In Amberlough, amidst rising political tensions, three lives become intertwined with the fate of the city itself. The Smuggler: By day, Aristide Makricosta is the emcee for Amberlough City's top nightclub. By night, he moves drugs and refugees under the noses of crooked cops. The Spy: Covert agent Cyril DePaul thinks he's good at keeping secrets, but after a disastrous mission abroad, he makes a dangerous choice to protect himself...and hopefully Aristide too. The Dancer: Streetwise Cordelia Lehane, burlesque performer at the Bumble Bee Cabaret and Aristide's runner, could be the key to Cyril's plans--if she can be trusted. As the twinkling marquees lights yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means -- and people -- necessary. Including each other. "James Bond by way of Oscar Wilde." --Holly Black "Sparkling with slang, full of riotous characters, and dripping with intrigue, Amberlough is a dazzling romp through a tumultuous, ravishing world." --Robert Jackson Bennett, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award and the Edgar Award "Astonishing first novel!" --World Fantasy Award-winning author Ellen Kushner
Set in the blockbuster and award-winning universe of League of Legends: Arcane and written by award-winning author C. L. Clark, discover a thrilling epic fantasy novel where Ambessa Medarda truly learns what it means to be a Chosen of the Wolf. Medarda over all. Ambessa Medarda: Warrior, general, mother. She is a woman to be feared, and the Medardas are unrivaled in their pursuit of glory. She has led conquests and armies. She has slain legendary beasts. She has made grave sacrifices in her ascent up the ranks. And for this she was rewarded: She entered the realm of death and was granted a vision of herself upon the throne of the vast Noxian empire. But before she can lead her empire, she must become head of her own clan. Yet the title is contested by her cousin and former confidante, Ta'Fik. He knows the bloody sins of Ambessa's past. And he knows he cannot allow her to rise. They will fight a war for the very soul of the Medardas. But the war won't be fought on battlefields alone. Ambessa's daughter, Mel, can deftly break through the walls around anyone's heart, and she'll put her talents to use for her mother. Yet despite Mel's strength, Ambessa sees only a child who lacks her killer instincts. Mel knows she can be the leader Ambessa wants her to be, if only she gives her time. With her family betraying her, enemies closing in on all sides, and unseen forces moving in the shadows, every day proves more dangerous than the last. But Ambessa will not bow. She will burn the world down to claim her place in it.
Some places are too good to be true.
Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map.
In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things.
After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ...
From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.
Since it was first published, American Gods became an instant classic.Now discover the mystery and majesty of American
Gods in this beautiful reissue of the Author's
Preferred Text edition. Featuring a new preface by Neil Gaiman in honor of the novel's 20th anniversary, this commemorative volume is a true celebration
of a modern masterpiece.
Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.
But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and a rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.
Life as Wednesday's bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined--it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own.
From #1 New York Times
bestselling author Neil Gaiman, a contemporary masterpiece combing mythology,
adventure, and illusion―one of ten classic Gaiman works repackaged with elegant
original watercolor art by acclaimed artist Henry Sene Yee
Released from
prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a stranger offers him a
job and Shadow, with nothing to lose, accepts. But a storm is coming. Beneath the placid surface of
everyday life, a war is being fought - and the prize is the very soul of
America.
adventure, and illusion, American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an
America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a
contemporary masterpiece.
"Piercingly observed, jaggedly
poetic, ruthlessly cutting a path through graveyards of dead stars and dead
money and dead feelings, this novel is the map back to dawn." -- Steve Erickson
"American Gods manages to reinvent, and reassert, the enduring
importance of fantastic literature itself in this late age of the world. Dark
fun, and nourishing to the soul." -- Michael
Chabon
Now a STARZ(R) Original Series produced by FremantleMedia North America starring Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Emily Browning, and Pablo Schreiber.
Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.
But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and a rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.
Life as Wednesday's bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined. Soon Shadow learns that the past never dies . . . and that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing--an epic war for the very soul of America--and that he is standing squarely in its path.
"Mystery, satire, sex, horror, poetic prose--American Gods uses all these to keep the reader turning the pages."--Washington Post
Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident.Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible.He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever he the same...
Now a STARZ(R) Original Series - Season 3 premiere in January 2021
"Pointed, occasionally comic, often scary, consistently moving and provocative....American Gods is strewn with secrets and magical visions."--USA Today
Newly updated and expanded with the author's preferred text. A modern masterpiece from the multiple-award-winning master of innovative fiction, Neil Gaiman.
First published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic, lauded for its brilliant synthesis of "mystery, satire, sex, horror, and poetic prose" (Washington Post) and as a modern phantasmagoria that "distills the essence of America" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). It is the story of Shadow--released from prison just days after his wife and best friend are killed in an accident--who gets recruited to be bodyguard, driver, and errand boy for the enigmatic trickster, Mr. Wednesday. So begins Shadow's dark and strange road trip, one that introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. For, beneath the placid surface of everyday life, a storm is brewing--an epic war for the very soul of America--and Shadow is standing squarely in its path.
"Original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive."--George R. R. Martin
"Mystery, satire, sex, horror, poetic prose....If you have enjoyed John Crowley's Little, Big or Stephen King's The Stand or the urbane horror fiction of Jonathan Carroll...then American Gods arrives just in time."
--Washington Post
"Dark fun, and nourishing to the soul."
--Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
It has been a decade since #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book) rocked the literary world with American Gods--his breathtaking tale of the war on Earth between old gods and new. For those who have yet to experience Gaiman's bestselling tour de force--a novel USA Today called "a powerful, searing force that makes readers confront what is real and what is not"--and for those eager to enter this astonishing world again, comes the Author's Preferred Text 10th Anniversary Edition. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Bram Stoker Awards, with a special introduction by the author, this is American Gods as Neil Gaiman always meant it to be.
Contains:
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1953--1956
Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth / The Space Merchants
Theodore Sturgeon / More Than Human
Leigh Brackett / The Long Tomorrow
Richard Matheson / The Shrinking Man
978-1-59853-158-9 American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956--1958
Robert Heinlein / Double Star
Alfred Bester / The Stars My Destination
James Blish / A Case of Conscience
Algis Budrys / Who?
Fritz Leiber / The Big Time
978-159853-159-6 Following its acclaimed three-volume edition of the novels of science fiction master Philip K. Dick, The Library of America now presents a two-volume anthology of nine groundbreaking works from the golden age of the modern science fiction novel. Long unnoticed or dismissed by the literary establishment, these "outsider" novels have gradually been recognized as American classics. Here are genre-defining works by such masters as Robert Heinlein, Richard Matheson, James Blish, and Alfred Bester. The themes range from time travel (Fritz Leiber's The Big Time) to post-apocalyptic survival (Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow), from the prospect of a future dominated by multinational advertising agencies (Pohl and Kornbluth's The Space Merchants) to the very nature of human identity in a technological age (Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and Algis Budrys's Who?). The range of styles is equally diverse, by turns satiric, adventurous, incisive, and hauntingly lyrical. Grappling in fresh ways with a world in rapid transformation, these visionary novels opened new imaginative territory in American writing. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1953--1956
Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth / The Space Merchants
Theodore Sturgeon / More Than Human
Leigh Brackett / The Long Tomorrow
Richard Matheson / The Shrinking Man
978-1-59853-158-9 American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956--1958
Robert Heinlein / Double Star
Alfred Bester / The Stars My Destination
James Blish / A Case of Conscience
Algis Budrys / Who?
Fritz Leiber / The Big Time
978-159853-159-6 Following its acclaimed three-volume edition of the novels of science fiction master Philip K. Dick, The Library of America now presents a two-volume anthology of nine groundbreaking works from the golden age of the modern science fiction novel. Long unnoticed or dismissed by the literary establishment, these "outsider" novels have gradually been recognized as American classics. Here are genre-defining works by such masters as Robert Heinlein, Richard Matheson, James Blish, and Alfred Bester. The themes range from time travel (Fritz Leiber's The Big Time) to post-apocalyptic survival (Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow), from the prospect of a future dominated by multinational advertising agencies (Pohl and Kornbluth's The Space Merchants) to the very nature of human identity in a technological age (Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and Algis Budrys's Who?). The range of styles is equally diverse, by turns satiric, adventurous, incisive, and hauntingly lyrical. Grappling in fresh ways with a world in rapid transformation, these visionary novels opened new imaginative territory in American writing. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
As Stephen King will attest, the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation's brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and--of course--Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.