Book picks similar to
The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies by Clive Barker
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Heiress Without a Cause
Sara Ramsey - 2012
With rumors of insanity swirling around them, his sisters desperately need a chaperone. Ferguson thinks he’s found the most proper woman in England–and he won’t ruin her, even if he secretly desires the passionate woman trapped beneath a spinster’s cap.One chance to break the rules...Lady Madeleine Vaillant can’t face her blighted future without making one glorious memory for herself. In disguise, on a London stage, she finds all the adoration she never felt from the ton. But when she’s nearly recognized, she will do anything to hide her identity–even setting up her actress persona as Ferguson’s mistress. She’ll take the pleasure he offers, but Madeleine won’t lose her heart in the bargain.One season to fall in love...Every stolen kiss could lead to discovery, and Ferguson’s old enemies are determined to ruin them both. But as their dangerous passion ignites their hearts and threatens their futures, how can an heiress who dreams of freedom deny the duke who demands her love?
Born to be Riled
Jeremy Clarkson - 1999
Jeremy Clarkson, it has to said, sometimes finds the world a maddening place. And nowhere more so than from behind the wheel of a car, where you can see any number of people acting like lunatics while in control (or not) of a ton of metal.In this collection of classic columns, first published in 1999, Jeremy takes a look at the world through his windscreen, shakes his head at what he sees - and then puts the boot in. Among other things, he explains:* Why Surrey is worse than Wales* How crossing your legs in America can lead to arrest* The reason cable TV salesmen must be punched * That divorce can be blamed on the birth of JesusRaving politicians, pointless celebrities, ridiculous 'personalities' and the Germans all get it in the neck, together with the stupid, the daft and the ludicrous, in a tour de force of comic writing guaranteed to have Jeremy's postman wheezing under sackfuls of letters from the easily offended. Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard
Oasis
Dima Zales - 2016
It's meant to be a paradise, a place where we are all content. Vulgarity, violence, insanity, and other ills are but a distant memory, and even death no longer plagues us.I was once content too, but now I'm different. Now I hear a voice in my head, and she tells me things no imaginary friend should know. Her name is Phoe, and she is my delusion.Or is she?Note: This book contains some strong language. We felt it was important for the censorship theme of the novel. If such words offend you, you might not enjoy this book.
Stinger
Robert R. McCammon - 1988
Inferno is a town in trouble, driven to the brink by racial tension, gang violence, and a collapsing economy. But things can always get worse, and they do so with astonishing speed when an unidentified spacecraft crash lands in the desert outside of town, followed by a second craft bearing the alien being who will soon be known as Stinger. Stinger is a kind of interstellar hunter on a mission he intends to complete, whatever the cost. He brings with him an endless array of technological marvels and an infinite capacity for destruction that threaten the existence of Inferno, its inhabitants, and the larger world beyond"--Dust jacket flap.
Time Travel: A History
James Gleick - 2016
Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.
Seeing Further: Ideas, Endeavours, Discoveries and Disputes — The Story of Science Through 350 Years of the Royal Society
Bill BrysonJohn D. Barrow - 2010
A twenty-eight year old — and not widely famous — Christopher Wren was giving a lecture on astronomy. As his audience listened to him speak, they decided that it would be a good idea to create a Society to promote the accumulation of useful knowledge.With that, the Royal Society was born. Since its birth, the Royal Society has pioneered scientific exploration and discovery. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, John Locke, Alexander Fleming — all were fellows.Bill Bryson’s favourite fellow was Reverend Thomas Bayes, a brilliant mathematician who devised Bayes’ theorem. Its complexity meant that it had little practical use in Bayes’ own lifetime, but today his theorem is used for weather forecasting, astrophysics and stock market analysis. A milestone in mathematical history, it only exists because the Royal Society decided to preserve it — just in case. The Royal Society continues to do today what it set out to do all those years ago. Its members have split the atom, discovered the double helix, the electron, the computer and the World Wide Web. Truly international in its outlook, it has created modern science.Seeing Further celebrates its momentous history and achievements, bringing together the very best of science writing. Filled with illustrations of treasures from the Society’s archives, this is a unique, ground-breaking and beautiful volume, and a suitable reflection of the immense achievements of science.
The Cobra Event
Richard Preston - 1997
By her midmorning art class, Kate's runny nose gives way to violent seizures and a hideous scene of self-cannibalization. She dies soon after. When a homeless man meets a similarly gruesome and mystifying fate, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta sends pathologist Alice Austen to investigate. What she uncovers is the work of a killer, a man who calls himself Archimedes and is intent on spreading his deadly Cobra virus throughout New York City. A silent crisis erupts, with Austen and a secret FBI forensic team rushing to expose the terrorist.Even more frightening than Preston's story about the fictitious Cobra virus, however, is the truth that lies beneath it. As the author writes in his introduction, "The nonfiction roots of this book run deep.... My sources include eyewitnesses who have seen a variety of biological-weapons installations in different countries, and people who have developed and tested strategic bioweapons." In fact, the only reason The Cobra Event was not written as nonfiction is that none of Preston's sources would go on record.Woven throughout the novel are sections of straight nonfiction reporting that reveal the terrifying truth about the development of biological weapons and the clandestine operations of Russia and Iraq. Three years of research and more than 100 interviewswithhigh-level sources in the FBI, the U.S. military, and the scientific community went into The Cobra Event. The result is sure to shock you.
Against a Dark Background
Iain M. Banks - 1993
On an island with a glass shore - relic of some even more ancient conflict - she discovers she is to be hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes she is the last obstacle before their faith's apotheosis. She has to run, knowing her only hope of finally escaping the Huhsz is to find the last of the ancient, apocalyptically powerful but seemingly cursed Lazy Guns. But that is just the first as well as the final step on a search that takes her on an odyssey through the exotic Golterian system and results in both a trail of destruction and a journey into her own past, as well as that of her family and the system itself; a journey that changes everything.
Dreamsongs, Volume I
George R.R. Martin - 2003
Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)
Hunted
A.D. Starrling - 2012
One fall night in Boston, the Hunt starts again, resulting in Soul's fifteenth death and triggering a chain of events that sends him on the run with Reid Hasley, a former US Marine and his human business partner. From Paris to Prague, their search for answers leads them deep into the Immortal societies and brings them face to face with someone from Soul’s past. Shocking secrets are revealed and fresh allies come to the fore as they uncover a new and terrifying threat to both immortals and humans.To defeat his enemies, Soul must embrace his tortured fate and become the Hunter. But time is running out. Can he protect the ones he loves and prevent another Immortal War before his seventeenth and final death?Hunted is the first installment in AD Starrling’s bestselling supernatural thriller series Seventeen. If you like high-octane, fast-paced adventures that combine science and fantasy then you’ll love the world of Seventeen.
Abduction
Robin Cook - 2000
A mysterious transmission from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean leads a crew of divers and oceanographers to investigate a phenomenon beyond scientific understanding....And to the discovery that will permanently change everything we have previously come to know about life on this Earth.
Ash
Jason Brant - 2013
10:32 AM EST: An entire floor of government agents leap to their death from their office building. 12:57 PM EST: All the police officers inside a station murder each other. And the day has just begun. Lieutenant Asher Benson left Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and a Purple Heart. His doctors warned that the symptoms would be life altering. They had no idea. As his body healed, the thoughts of those around him began to echo through Ash’s mind, stretching the boundaries of his sanity. Five years later, Ash is drowning the voices with copious amounts of booze and self-loathing. When unidentified intelligence agents abduct him in broad daylight, Ash is thrust into a world of espionage and assassinations. A unique terrorist is operating on U.S. soil, and the government needs Ash, and the malady that has plagued him for half a decade, to find the killer. *Ash is the first book in the Asher Benson thriller series, which is full of snarky humor and nonstop action.
Passionate Thirst
Cameron Dean - 2006
For her, killing vampires isn't just a job-it's personal: She's still haunted by erotic memories of an all-consuming affair with Ash, a seductive vampire who thrilled her-and then nearly destroyed her. Now, working undercover in a Las Vegas casino, she seduces the most powerful undead-right before she drives a stake through their unbeating hearts.When hot-ticket singer Temptation McCoy sweeps into town for a major concert, Candace is tapped for security. But after meeting Temptation, Candace feels the cold, tingling sensation that can mean only one thing: There's a vampire in the diva's entourage. To complicate matters, Ash suddenly appears in Sin City, vowing to do anything and everything to draw Candace back into his arms. Overwhelmed by desire and suspicion, she lets down her guard . . . a move that could cost Candace her life.
Works of Jules Verne : Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon; Around the World in Eighty Days
Jules Verne - 1929
They have been the subject of films, radio dramatizations and have even been presented on ice Read the originals now and one of the world's greatest ever story tellers will give you hours of pleasure and enjoyment.Stories included are: "Around the World in 80 Days, The Clipper of the Clouds, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon" and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."
The Forgotten Village
John Steinbeck - 1941
There have been several notable examples of this pen-camera method of narration, but The Forgotten Village is unique among them in that the text was written before a single picture was shot. The book and the movie from which it was made have, thus, a continuity and a dramatic growth not to be found in the so-called "documentary" films. The camera crew that, headed by Kline and with Steinbeck's script at hand, recorded this narrative of birth and death, of witch doctors and vaccines, of the old Mexico and the new, spent nine months off the trails of Mexico. They traveled thousands of miles to find just the village they needed; they borrowed children from the government school, took men from the fields, their wives from the markets, and old medicine woman from her hut by the side of the trail. The motion picture they made (for release in 1941) is 8,000 feet long. From this wealth of pictures 136 photographs were selected for their intrinsic beauty and for the graceful harmony with which they accompany Steinbeck's text. This new script-photograph technique of narration conveys its ideas with unexcelled brilliance and immediacy. In the hands of such master story-tellers as Steinbeck and Kline, it makes the reader catch his breath for the beauty and the truth of the tale.