Book picks similar to
Violet Eyes by John Everson
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The Nanotech War
Steven Piziks - 2002
With wagon trains, ships, satellites and starships, humanity has chosen to seek out the new frontier, to explore new worlds, and to go where no human has gone before-even to the furthest reaches of the Delta Quadrant. There, Captain Janeway and the crew of the "Starship Voyager(TM) " have discovered many strange and wondrous civilizations...but few as alien as the Chiar. An advanced and scienti?c people who have made great strides with nanotechnology, the Chiar expanded internally rather than externally. Every inch of their planet is crawling with the tiniest bits and pieces of arti?cial intelligence imaginable, working in concert as the new lifeblood of this mechanical world. The people themselves are inseparable from their nanites, which layer their skin and provide extra limbs or senses as required.Caught up in a bitter civil con?ict, some Chiar will try to take advantage of their meeting with the crew of "Starship Voyager." They imagine that their homegrown nanites can harness the incredible power of the deadly Borg, and instead set in motion an experiment that goes devastatingly out of control.
48
James Herbert - 1996
The really unfortunate took years. The survivors - people like me, who had the blood group that kept us safe from the disease - were now targets for those who believed our blood could save them.I survived for three years. I lived alone, spending my days avoiding the fascist Blackshirts who wanted my blood for their dying leader. Then I met the others - and life got complicated all over again . . .
They All Died Screaming
Kristopher Triana - 2020
Once you get it, you simply cannot stop screaming. You can’t eat or sleep. It drives you more and more insane until you can’t stand to be alive a second longer.When the phenomenon hits Chuck's city, the chronically unemployed pervert joins a band of misfits to make his final stand.Can Chuck, a bitter bartender, a dockside prostitute, a conspiracy theorist, and a homeless man find a way out of the apocalypse…Or will they all die screaming?They All Died Screaming is a plague novel by Splatterpunk Award-winning author Kristopher Triana. It is a pitch black book about the lowly and downtrodden being the last people on earth.
Black Sun Rising
C.S. Friedman - 1991
On the distant world of Erna, four people--Priest, Adept, Sorcerer, and Apprentice--are drawn together to battle the forces of evil, led by the demonic fae, a soul-destroying force that preys on the human mind.
Paingod and Other Delusions
Harlan Ellison - 1965
Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths.Contents:7 · New Introduction: Your Basic Crown of Thorns · in 19 · Spero Meliora · in 24 · Paingod · ss Fantastic Jun ’64 35 · “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman · ss Galaxy Dec ’65 49 · The Crackpots [Kyben] · nv If Jun ’56 89 · Sleeping Dogs · ss Analog Oct ’74 100 · Bright Eyes · ss Fantastic Apr ’65 112 · The Discarded [“The Abnormals”] · ss Fantastic Apr ’59 125 · Wanted in Surgery · nv If Aug ’57 156 · Deeper Than the Darkness · nv Infinity Science Fiction Apr ’57
Fallen Dragon
Peter F. Hamilton - 2001
But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination
Oath of Swords
David Weber - 1995
He's no knight in shining armor. He's a hradani, a race known for their uncontrollable rages, bloodthirsty tendencies, and inability to maintain civilized conduct. None of the other Five Races of man like the hradani. Besides his ethnic burden, Bahzell has problems of his own to deal with: a violated hostage bond, a vengeful prince, a price on his head. He doesn't want to mess with anybody else's problems, let alone a god's. Let alone the War God's! So how does he end up a thousand leagues from home, neck-deep in political intrigue, assassins, demons, psionicists, evil sorcery, white sorcery, dark gods, good gods, bad poets, greedy landlords, and most of Bortalik Bay? Well, it's all the War God's fault.
Black Trillium
Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1990
Binah must pass along her protectorship to the triplet princess of Ruwenda. She bestows upon the infant girls the power of the rare and mystical Black Trillium-badge of the royal house, symbol of an ancient magic. While the sisters blossom into beautiful young women, neighboring Labornok use a dark magician to sunder Binah's protection. As invaders pour into Ruwenda, the Archimage orders the princesses to flee-and changes them to search for three magical talismans which when brought together will be their only chance to regain their kingdom and free its people. Each must accomplish her task separately-and to succeed, each must also confront and conquer the limits of her own soul.
The Devil's Alphabet
Daryl Gregory - 2009
Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)–vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn’t change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.
Wyrd Sisters: The Play
Stephen Briggs - 1996
It's all there - a wicked duke and duchess, the ghost of the murdered king, dim soldiers, strolling players, a land in peril. And who stands between the Kingdom and destruction? Three witches. Granny Weatherwax (intolerant, self-opinionated, powerful), Nanny Ogg (down-to-earth, vulgar) and Magrat Garlick (naïve, fond of occult jewellery and bunnies).Stephen Briggs has been involved in amateur dramatics for over 25 years and he assures us that the play can be staged without needing the budget of Industrial Light and Magic. Not only that, but the cast should still be able to be in the pub by 10 o'clock!Oh, and a world of advice omitted from the play text:LEARN THE WORDSHavelock, Lord Vetinari
The Weight of Blood
David Dalglish - 2010
Instead, they become his greatest disciples, charged with leading his army of undead.While they prepare, Harruq trains with an elf named Aurelia, to whom he owes his life. She is a window into a better world, but as war spreads between the races their friendship takes a dire turn.Velixar orders them to fight alongside the humans, changing Aurelia from friend to foe. To protect her, Harruq must turn against his brother and fight the killing nature of his orcish heritage.To side with one means to turn on another. No matter Harruq’s decision, someone he loves will die.
Working Stiff
Rachel Caine - 2011
Now, Bryn faces being terminated--literally, and with extreme prejudice.With the help of corporate double-agent Patrick McCallister, Bryn has a chance to take down the bigger problem--pharmaceutical company Pharmadene, which treats death as the ultimate corporate loyalty program. She'd better do it fast, before she becomes a zombie slave--a real working stiff. She'd be better off dead...
Angel Time
Anne Rice - 2009
At its center: Toby O’Dare—a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases—just now: Lucky the Fox—and takes his orders from “The Right Man.”Into O’Dare’s nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O’Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O’Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.
The Runelords
David Farland - 1998
The pair races to warn the king of the impending danger and realizes that more than the royal family is at risk--the very fate of the Earth is in jeopardy.
The Skittering
David Haynes - 2020
But what emerges from the shadows of the town’s waste plant is beyond anything found in nature.Fist-sized cockroaches. Bird-sized wasps. Spiders, millipedes, ticks, all swollen to enormous bulk with vicious appetites to match. And other things, creatures that should never exist.Through the night they come, slithering, buzzing, scuttling, crawling over skin, burrowing into flesh, making the town their nest.Time is soon running out for Crease and the other survivors, as that hideous skittering noise closes in from all around…