New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has always been on the cutting-edge of science fiction. In Body, Inc., he creates a tomorrow where genetic manipulation has become ubiquitous, and the very meaning of what it is to be human is undergoing drastic transformation.In a world deeply wounded by centuries of environmental damage, two unlikely souls join forces: Dr. Ingrid Seastrom has stumbled into a mystery involving quantum-entangled nanoscale implants--a mystery that just may kill her. Whispr is a thief and murderer whose radical body modifications have left him so thin he is all but two-dimensional. Whispr has found a silver data-storage thread, a technology that will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He is also going mad with longing for Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Their quest to learn the secrets of the implant and the thread--which may well be the same secret--has led them to the South African Economic Combine, otherwise known as...

Amazon.co.uk Review In this latest novel from the poet laureate of Gen X—who is himself now a dangerously mature 36—boy does indeed meet girl. The year is 1979, and the lovers get right down to business in a very Couplandian bit of plein air intercourse: "Karen and I deflowered each other atop Grouse Mountain, among the cedars beside a ski slope, atop crystal snow shards beneath penlight stars. It was a December night so cold and clear that the air felt like the air of the Moon—lung-burning; mentholated and pure; hint of ozone, zinc, ski wax, and Karen's strawberry shampoo." Are we in for an archetypal '80s romance, played out against a pop-cultural backdrop? Nope. Only hours after losing her virginity, Karen loses consciousness as well—for almost two decades. The narrator and his circle soldier on, making the slow progression from debauched Vancouver youths to semi-responsible adults. Several end up working on a television series that bears a suspicious resemblance to The X-Files (surely a self-referential wink on the author's part). And then … Karen wakes up. Her astonishment— which suggests a 20th-century, substance-abusing Rip Van Winkle—dominates the second half of the novel, and gives Coupland free reign to muse about time, identity, and the meaning (if any) of the impending millennium. Alas, he also slaps a concluding apocalypse onto the novel. As sleeping sickness overwhelms the populace, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a universal yawn—which doesn't, fortunately, outweigh the sweetness, oddity, and ironic smarts of everything that has preceded it. —This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Synopsis Girls, memory, parenting, millennial fear — all served Coupland-style. Karen, an attractive, popular student, goes into a coma one night in 1979. Whilst in it, she gives birth to a healthy baby daughter; once out of it, a mere eighteen years later, she finds herself, Rip van Winkle-like, a middle-aged mother whose friends have all gone through all the normal marital, social and political traumas and back again…This tragicomedy shows Coupland in his most mature form yet, writing with all his customary powers of acute observation, but turning his attention away from the surface of modern life to the dynamics of modern relationships, but doing so with all the sly wit and weird accuracy we expect of the soothsaying author of Generation X, Shampoo Planet, Life After God, Microserfs and Polaroids from the Dead.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's delectable first novel, announced the arrival of 'a fresh voice with a mind behind it,' as Muriel Spark has written. 'She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides'--and her reputation and accomplishment have grown with each of her five subsequent novels.Now, with her first collection--seventeen stories that span her entire career--Jeanette Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. Whether transporting us to bizarre new geog-raphies--a world where sleep is illegal, an island of diamonds where the rich wear jewelry made of coal--or revealing so perfectly, so exactly, the joy and pain of owning a brand-new dog, she proves herself a master of the short form.For her readers, a celebration--and for everyone else, a wonderful introduction to this highly original and consistently daring writer, who has become 'one of our most brilliant, visionary...

When a stroke fells radical New York lawyer Joel Litvinoff, a secret is revealed that forces Audrey, his wife, to reexamine everything she believed about their forty-year marriage. In the meantime Joel's children are struggling with their own dilemmas and doubts. Disillusioned revolutionary Rosa has been drawn into the world of Orthodox Judaism. Karla, a devoted--and married--social worker hoping to adopt a child, is falling in love with the owner of a newspaper stand. Lenny, the ne'er-do-well, faces yet another relapse into heroin addiction. In the course of battling their own demons--and one another--the Litvinoffs must reexamine long-held articles of faith and decide what--if anything--they still believe in.

In the third volume of Exordium, this swashbuckling space opera continues with Brandon and the Rifter crew of the Telvarna arriving at the Panarchic Navy's headquarters. The Rifters are imprisoned, and Brandon finds himself, as sole heir to the Phoenix Throne, fighting a battle of symbols, his only weapon his wits as he strives against the powerful and sophisticated aristocrats who hide lethal intent behind urbanity and style. His goal is to win back control of the Navy and rescue his father from the vicious end planned for him by the usurping Doljharians, resulting in a race to the harsh planet of Gehenna.

Kate Blackwell is the symbol of success, the beautiful woman who parlayed her inheritance into an international conglomerate. Winner of a unique position among the wealthy and world-renowned, she's also a survivor as indomitable as her father, who returned from the edge of death to wrench a fortune in diamonds from the hard South African soil. Now, celebrating her ninetieth birthday, Kate surveys the family she has manipulated, dominated, and loved: the fair and the grotesque, the mad and the mild, the good and the evil-her winnings in life. Is she the master of the game?

In this collection of short stories, bestselling author Marge Piercy brings us glimpses into the lives of everyday women moving through and making sense of their daily internal and external worlds. Keeping to the engaging, accessible language of Piercy's novels, the collection spans decades of her writing along with a range of locations, ages, and emotional states of her protagonists. From the first-person account of hoarding and a girl's narrative of sexual and spiritual discovery to the recounting of a past love affair, each story is a tangible, vivid snapshot in a varied and subtly curated gallery of work. Whether grappling with death, familial relationships, friendship, sex, illness, or religion, Piercy's writing is as passionate, lucid, insightful, and thoughtfully alive as ever.

This is the only authoritative text of this late novel. It reproduces the manuscript which Mark Twain wrote last, and the only one he finished or called the "The Mysterious Stranger." Albert Bigelow Paine's edition of the same name has been shown to be a textual fraud.

Not After Midnight is a collection of short stories by Daphne du Maurier, all with different characters and themes but similar in that they touch on the supernatural or strange events. " Don't Look Now " — this novella features John and Laura who are on holiday in Venice. But it is a dangerous place for them as they are being followed by two old sisters and there is a killer on the loose. " Not After Midnight " is a tale about a lonely teacher who goes on a painting holiday in Crete and meets a strange American couple. The woman invites him to visit them in their hotel room but "not after midnight," the reason for this becoming clear as the story progresses. In " A Border Line Case ", a young actress pursues old family friend Nick after the death of her father. She discovers he is an IRA executive and accompanies him on a bombing raid in Ireland, but soon learns he is not all he seems to be. In " The Way of the Cross ", a disparate group of pilgrims from the same village embark on a trip to frenetic, dusty Jerusalem. Their regular vicar is taken ill and replaced by The Reverend Babcock, a rough diamond from Leeds. On the first night, young Robin, a precocious nine-year-old, suggests a walk to the Garden of Gethsemane. In the dark, among the bushes and trees, two people overhear things about themselves that force them to re-evaluate their lives. Subsequently the whole group learn a great deal about themselves and their loved ones, and return home better people. " The Breakthrough " is a science fiction-style story set in a deserted lab in the wilds of Norfolk. A man is sent to help with a new computer but soon realizes the strange purpose of the scientific team and decides to leave. However, he gets caught up in the experiment and stays. Mac, the leader of the group, is convinced that he can trap the life force, or soul, at the point of death and utilize its energy. His guinea pig Ken is the affable young assistant who happens to be dying of leukemia. Needless to say, the plan goes horribly awry.