Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle De Cuir" in All Categories

Time is a resource that has to be managed. On Discworld, the Monks of History store time and pump it from the places where it's wasted — li ke underwater (how much time does a codfish need?) to places that need it —like cities, where there's never enough of time.

Dib is an Earthlike planet, only slightly smaller, with shorter days and longer years, in orbit around twin suns. On the continent of Geo, in the city of Velon in the nation of Inimata, a man lies dead in his study. In life, Professor Orno Linus was a world-class scholar: an astrophysicist, a dead-language linguist, and an expert in (and apparent true believer of) the religious concept of the Cull, i.e., the end of the world. Widely respected, nothing about Linus’s expertise suggests somebody might want him dead.

This portrait of Mari Sandoz’s pioneer father grew out of “the silent hours of listening behind the stove or the wood box, when it was assumed, of course, that I was asleep in bed. So it was that I heard the accounts of the hunts,” Sandoz recalls. “Of the fights with the cattlemen and the sheepmen, of the tragic scarcity of women, when a man had to ‘marry anything that got off the train,’ of the droughts, the storms, the wind and isolation. But the most impressive stories were those told to me by Old Jules himself.”

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

In a not-too-distant future that is not quite ours, there has been a major scientific breakthrough. It is a way to open windows into the past, permitting historical researchers to view, but not participate, in the events of the past.

In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.

A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women, though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained and dumped. But more than money, more than women, Sam Gunn loves justice—and he really does love money and women.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell once wrote of a world where abuse of power begins with an abuse of language and a bastardization of truth. Some of today's most exciting voices in speculative fiction explore the ramifications of those ideas in Ignorance Is Strength.

An insidious cabal has decided to change the direction of the United Alliance of Stars (UAS) with a coup d’etat - but not through a military takeover. They have devised a subtler coup: the manipulation of the Committee, the 15-star system that sets policy for the UAS. The UAS Committee enlists their de facto troubleshooter, Anna Paulus, to shut down the cabal, but they insists she leave the NIA and manage UAS Committee Security. For Anna it’s a nightmare scenario, leaving her safe world for a completely new environment dominated by macho men with years of combat experience.

Meet Stellar - an urban crime-fighter who tackles injustice with swift and decisive action, carrying the burden of freeing society from oppression, fighting for the weak and wounded. She is brave. She is beautiful. She is just a comic book character…or at least she was. Macy Davis is an athletic high school student with an eye for Patrick Newell, the young artist who created Stellar. When Macy’s best friend, Keri Cartwright, discovers Patrick’s comic book heroine, she convinces Macy to masquerade as Stellar.

The world didn't end with a bang, it didn't go out in a ball of fire and fury, nor did it end in ice. But in some strange way, ice was the end - or maybe it was the beginning of something more. When Bethany finds herself suddenly alone in a world that was alive only moments before, she flees into the streets of her town in search of her family. Panicked by the immobile people surrounding her, she is almost captured by the monsters hunting her until Cade steps in.

The war is tearing our world apart. Instead of big armies with tanks in the field, the Vampire War is fought in the streets, neighbor against neighbor, family against family. Anyone can turn at any time. The blood hunger can suddenly appear in the middle of a kiss. The person who sleeps next to you every night could wake up in the dead of night... hungry. So hungry.

The idea was simple enough for the alien race who took Aneka Jansen from Earth in 2011. Take a human, make her into a perfect tool to observe humanity from the inside, and so determine how best to advance this young race into their future. Unfortunately for them and her, their plans went awry, and Aneka became the only survivor on a dead ship marooned in deep space.

In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.

Prince Roger is coming home, but home isn't what it was when he left. Traitors have murdered his brother and sister, his nieces and nephews. His mother, the empress, is still alive but in the hands of Roger's own biological father, who controls her through drugs and physical and psychological torture. A new heir to the throne has been conceived, and once the child is born his mother will no longer be necessary to the traitors' plans.

Hercule Poirot investigates a string of murders that appear to be disconnected on the surface, but Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective sees only tiny detail that link them all together. For some obscure reason that Poirot is determined to uncover, the number four keeps popping up with every killing. Poirot soon learns that there is in fact an international crime gang dubbed “The Big Four,” and he sets off after them. With Hastings once again at his side, Monsieur Poirot travels all over Europe to find them, but the pair always seem to be a step behind this shadowy syndicate.

From the moment John Varley burst onto the scene in 1974, his short fiction was like nothing anyone else was writing. His stories won every award the science fiction field had to offer, many times over. His first collection, The Persistence of Vision, published in 1978, was the most important collection of the decade and changed what fans would come to expect from science fiction.

Onboard an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a faraway planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally - one that may determine humanity’s true destiny.

There is a book that is shrouded in mystery. Some even say it's a myth. Within its pages is a play - one that brings madness and despair to all who read it. It is the play of the King in Yellow, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. The King in Yellow is a collection of stories interwoven loosely by the elements of the play, including the central figure himself.

The Baxters make plans to come together for a summer lakeside reunion, a celebration like they haven’t had in years. But before the big day, the unthinkable happens. As the Baxter family rallies together, memories come to light in the grief-stricken hours of waiting and praying, memories that bring healing and hope during a time when otherwise darkness might have the final word.

A young girl dreams of seeing the stars and meeting aliens. Her chance comes in the form of a project offering a college education, a commission in the SAS Fleet, and a partnership with an alien. She successfully qualifies and wins one of the coveted 10 positions. Of Course everything comes with a price - the alien is a parasite that inhabits the body and mind, and is there for life. Is it a dream or nightmare come true? Maybe both?