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Almost Adam by Petru Popescu
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Raptor Red
Robert T. Bakker - 1995
She is an intelligent killer...So begins one of the most extraordinary novels you will ever read. The time is 120 million years ago, the place is the plains of prehistoric Utah, and the eyes belong to an unforgettable heroine. Her name is Raptor Red, and she is a female raptor dinosaur.Painting a rich and colorful picture of a lush prehistoric world, leading paleontologist Robert T. Bakker tells his story from within Raptor Red's extraordinary mind, dramatizing his revolutionary theories in this exciting tale. From a tragic loss to the fierce struggle for survival to a daring migration to the Pacific Ocean to escape a deadly new predator, Raptor Red combines fact and fiction to capture for the first time the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of the most magnificent, enigmatic creatures ever to walk the face of the earth.
Neanderthal
John Darnton - 1996
Now, enter the world of Neanderthal...The expedition of the century...uncovers the find of the millennium...Neanderthal.In the remote mountains of central Asia, an eminent Harvard archeologist discovers something extraordinary. He sends a cryptic message to two colleagues. But then, he disappears.Matt Mattison and Susan Arnot-- once lovers, now academic rivals-- are going where few humans have ever walked, looking for a relic band of creatures that have existed for over 40,000 years, that possess powers man can only imagine, and that are about to change the face of civilization forever.
Subterranean
James Rollins - 1999
Beneath the ice a hand-picked team of specialist makes its way toward the center of the world. They are not the first to venture into this magnificent subterranean labyrinth. Those they follow did not return.Over the rocks...Across the yawning caverns...beyond the black river...You are not alone. Into the darkness where breathtaking wonders await you-and terrors beyond imagining...Revelations that could change the world-things that should never be disturbed...At the bottom of the earth is the beginning. Keep moving toward a miracle that cannot be, toward a mystery older than time.
Timeline
Michael Crichton - 1999
Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival -- six hundred years ago.
In the Courts of the Sun
Brian D'Amato - 2009
Math prodigy Jed De Landa is enlisted to decipher an ancient Mayan codex containing the secrets of the Sacrifice Game. It foretells the end of civilization, and only Jed can prevent the coming apocalypse.
Weaveworld
Clive Barker - 1987
With its volatile mix of the fantastical and the contemporary, the everyday and the otherworldly, Weaveworld is an epic work of dark fantasy and horror -- a tour de force from one of today's most forceful and imaginative artists.Barker turns from his usual horror to epic-length fantasy for this account of the Fugue, a magical land inhabited by descendants of supernatural beings who once shared the earth with humans. The Fugue has been woven into a carpet for protection against those who would destroy it; the death of its guardian occasions a battle between good and particularly repulsive evil forces for control of the Fugue. Weaveworld is rich with memorable characters, exciting situations, and pockets of Barker's trademark horror.
The Terror
Dan Simmons - 2007
As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.
Freedom and Necessity
Steven Brust - 1997
Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...
Temple
Matthew Reilly - 1999
To the Incan people, it is still the ultimate symbol of their spirit. To William Race, an American linguist enlisted by the U.S. Army to decipher the clues to its location, it's the ultimate symbol of the apocalypse...Carved from a rare stone not found on Earth, the idol possesses elements more destructive than any nuclear bomb--a virtual planet killer. In the wrong hands it could mean the end of mankind. And whoever possesses the idol, possesses the unfathomable--and cataclysmic--power of the gods...Now, in the foothills of the Andes, Race's team has arrived--but they're not alone. And soon they'll discover that to penetrate the temple of the idol is to break the first rule of survival.Because some treasures are meant to stay buried..and forces are ready to kill to keep it that way...
11/22/63
Stephen King - 2011
What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force. Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination.So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
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.
Empire
Orson Scott Card - 2006
The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own. When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on?Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War.
The Dig
Michael Siemsen - 2010
Mystified experts, confounded by the impossible timeline they receive from traditional dating methods, call upon a stubborn twenty-something with a unique talent. Matthew Turner's gift is also his curse: whenever he touches an object, his consciousness is flooded with the thoughts and feelings of those who touched it before him, be it last week or centuries ago. It's a talent that many covet, some fear, and almost no one understands. Despite being exploited as a child and tormented by the unpleasant experiences imprinted on him from the various items he's "read," Matt agrees to travel from New York to the forests of Kenya. There, threatened by unknown enemies, and helped by a beautiful but prickly ally who begins to understand his strange ability, his mind journeys back in geological time to make a discovery so shocking that it forces us to rewrite all human history.
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown - 2000
What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization -- the Illuminati. In a desperate race to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and deserted cathedrals, and into the depths of the most secretive vault on earth...the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.(back cover)