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See Upcoming Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Releases
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Previous Staff Picks
Featured author: M.R. Sellars
Staff Picks for September/October 2006
Andrew's Staff Picks
H.P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales by Douglas A. Anderson, ed.
"In 1929-30, H.P. Lovecraft made some lists of both literary and popular stories "having the greatest amount of truly cosmic horror and macabre convincingness." These lists of his favorite weird tales make for a truly landmark Lovecraftian anthology. We present Lovecraft's own favorite horror stories, including some well-known classics, alongside of a number of excellent rare tales by forgotten authors. Many of these stories are classics, inspiring several generations since of the world's best horror authors. Contributors include Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, M. P. Shiel, A. Merritt, Walter de la Mare, Paul Suter, M. L. Humphreys, H.F. Arnold, Everil Worrell, Arthur J. Burks, and John Martin Leahy. This is the anthology of favorite weird tales that Lovecraft himself hoped to compile!"
$14.00
Already Dead by Charlie Huston
"Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they're true. Only it's not like the movies or old man Stoker's storybook. It's worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt.
There's a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks' brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he's still the one who has to deal with them. That's just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.
From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he's not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he's tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that's eating at him isn't his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn't make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan-it ain't easy. It's worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition-the city's most powerful Clan-and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who's gone missing in Alphabet City.
Now the Coalition and the girl's high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up."
$12.95
Dreams Underfoot by Charles De Lint
'Welcome to Newford. . . .'
Welcome to the music clubs, the waterfront, the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.
Like Mark Helprin's "A Winter's Tale" and John Crowley's "Little, Big, Dreams Underfoot" is a must-read book not only for fans of urban fantasy but for all who seek magic in everyday life.
$16.95
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
'The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" is a thrilling debut novel that casts the rivalry between two of pulp fiction's most revered writers into its own saga, which bursts from the pages with blood, cruelty, fear, mystery, vengeance, courageous heroes, evil villains, dames in distress, secret identities, disguises, global schemes, hideous deaths, beautiful psychics, superweapons, cliff-hanging escapes, and other outrageous pulp lies that are all completely true.
Return to 1937, when America is turning to the pulps for relief from the Depression, and meet Walter Gibson, the mind behind "The Shadow," and his rival for the top-selling spot on the nation's newsstands, Lester Dent, creator of "Doc Savage." The murder of Gibson's friend H. P. Lovecraft -- victim of a mysterious death that literally makes the skin crawl -- is about to bring these two writers face to face with a peril sprung from the pulps.
"The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" is at once a valentine to an old-fashioned genre as well as a modern, meta-literary examination of the classic hero pulp. From the palaces and battlefields of warlord-plagued China to the seedy waterfronts of Providence, Rhode Island; from frozen seas and cursed islands to the dizzying and labyrinthine alleys and tunnels of lower Manhattan, Dent and Gibson, joined by the young pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard and a host of colorful characters, finally step out from behind the shadows of their creations to take part in a heroic journey far greater than any story they have imagined as they race to stop a madman destined to create a new empire born of, and based in, pure, gaseous evil.
"The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" is a swashbuckling romantic tale of writersand writing, magic and love, marriage and fatherhood, and ambition and loss that weaves the true lives of its real-life characters into a fictional epic.
$24.00
DMZ Volume 1: On The Ground by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli
A near-future America is torn by war between the Free Armies, who control New Jersey and the inland, and the United States, ensconced in New York City's boroughs. In the war-torn DMZ of Manhattan, Matty Roth, hired as a phototech intern to a famous battlefield journalist, is stranded when the rest of his crew is killed. Overcoming initial panic, he decides to remain as the sole embedded journalist in the devastated, largely depopulated city. It's a career-making assignment--if it doesn't get him killed. Befriended by former med student Zee, who runs a clinic, Matty discovers a society struggling to survive amid skirmishes and snipers (appropriate soundtrack music: Talking Heads' "Life during Wartime"). Of the " DMZ" issues" "collected here, the first three establish its premise. In the succeeding two, Matty discovers the "Ghosts of Central Park"--paramilitaries who defend the now-deforested preserve and its zoo animals--and chases a robber who steals his press badge. Wood's writing does justice to the intriguing concept, and Burchielli's jagged artwork effectively conveys the characters' desperation.
$9.99
Lelia's Staff Picks
The Mournful Teddy by John J. Lamb
"Lamb's first mystery, Echoes of the Lost Order, established him as a mystery author to watch and The Mournful Teddy, first in the Bear Collector's series, is every bit as good. Brad Lyon, a retired San Francisco homicide cop, has moved with his wife, Ashleigh, to her Virginia mountains hometown. The idyllic setting is disturbed by the discovery of a body in the river at Brad and Ash's back door and Brad's cop instincts kick in when the local sheriff refuses to treat the death as a possible homicide. In the meantime, the couple has an exhibit of her teddy bears at an extravaganza where a rare and very valuable bear is set to be auctioned--but how could there be a connection between a murder and teddy bears? Lamb blends police procedural with traditional mystery to create an intriguing puzzle with more than a little edge, while offering lots of fascinating information about the world of collectible teddy bears.
$6.99
Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book by Shel Silverstein
This is a book that is not exactly for Silverstein's usual little kid audience but is an absolutely loopy collection of alphabet rhymes for older kids and those really tall, forty-plus kids who normally pass as adults but can still laugh themselves silly and say repeatedly, 'That is SO wrong'. As one Amazon reviewer says, 'No loving parent subjects a child to an unnecessary risk of maturity', and, by the same token, no adults should deny themselves the pleasure of indulging in this subversive humorfest.
$12.00
No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews
Croquet is a genteel game, usually played on a summer afternoon on a tranquil green lawn. Extreme Croquet is a whole other story. That's what Meg Langslow and her new friends (whether she wants to call them friends or not) are playing on the several-acre farm of her new neighbor. It's a countryside studded with rocks, steep hills, and placid, seemingly immovable cows.
Extreme Croquet is the current rage in Caerphilly, where Meg and her fiance, Michael, have bought a house. While this society game can get quite warm, it hasn't reached the stage of actual homicide---at least not until Meg knocks her ball down a small cliff and encounters the body of a dead woman. Her head has been bashed in, illustrating, perhaps, one of the many uses of a croquet mallet. It turns out that Michael knew the woman from years before. Meg finds herself further drawn in when it's discovered that the woman was seeking to expose the bad dealings of a certain local society lady's ancestors.
In the meantime, the old house needs many basic improvements and swarms with an entire family of working men, including countless second cousins, sawing and pounding away. Meg's father is the overseer but is easily distracted since he has a tendency to become wrapped up in his current animal charges---this time it's ducks.
$23.95 prior to 25% new hardcover discount
Riptide by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
"For generations, treasure hunters have tried to unlock the deadly puzzle known as the Water Pit: a labyrinth of shafts and tunnels that honeycombs the heart of a small island off the coast of Maine. Reputed to be the hiding place of pirate treasure, the Water Pit possesses an inexplicable ability to kill those who venture into it, from professionals to innocent explorers. The most comprehensive, high-tech expedition ever assembled has come to Maine and to Dr. Malin Hatch, owner of the island. While the treasure hunters have their reasons for mounting this assault - $2 billion in gold - Hatch has his own motives to join them. For Hatch, whose brother died on Ragged Island thirty years before, the only escape from the curse is through the black swirling waters and bloodstained chambers of the Pit."
$7.50
Carbs & Cadavers by J.B. Stanley
James "Professor Puff" Henry may as well have "loser" stamped on his forehead. Divorced, overweight, shy, and living at home, he relies on books and his favorite snack-cheese puffs-for sweet relief from his problems. A former English lit profesat William and Mary, he moves back to Quincy's Gap, a small Virginia town in the Shenandoah Valley, to take care of his recently-widowed father. To improve his social life and waistline, he joins a supper club for dieters who lovingly call themthe "Flab Five." Avoiding carbs is nearly impossible in this deep-fried potato-loving land, so a mysterious death in their small burg provides an effective, if disturbing, distraction. While dodging delectable temptations, Professor Henry and his fellow dieters work together to shed pounds and find the killer who has struck fear in this tight-knit community.
$12.95
Charity's Staff Picks
Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
First novel in a new mystery series starring two cranky but brilliant old detectives whose lifelong friendship was forged solving crimes for the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit. The author tells the story of John May and Arthur Bryant's first and last case and how along the way they changed the face of detection. The story opens with the bombing of the PCU's headquarters which claims Bryant's life. Much of the story revolves around May resurrecting their first case which revolved around a theater production of Orpheus with actors being killed while the city of London was being blitzed.
$6.99
Murder Room by P. D. James
Commander Adam Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne - a Museum dedicated to the the interwar years with a room celebrating the most notorious murders of that time. He is called to investigate the killing of one of the family trustees who was planning to close the museum against the wishes of the rest of the family. Dalgliesh soon discovers that everyone has something to gain from the crime. When it becomes clear that the murderer has been inspired by the real-life crimes from the murder room - and is preparing to kill again, Dalgliesh knows that to solve this case he has to get into the mind of a ruthless killer.
$13.95
Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin by Nancy Atherton
This installment in the phantom-detective series finds Lori Shepherd feeling a touch world-weary, volunteering at the Radcliffe Infirmary where she can spread a little good cheer. There she meets Elizabeth Beacheam, a kind, retired legal secretary with no family, except a brother who has mysteriously disappeared. But after only a few visits, Miss Beacham suddenly passes away, leaving Lori to tie up the loose ends of her late friend's life. Lori soon discovers that hidden among Miss Beacham's belongings are clues that Lori believes her friend left for her to discover. Armed with the generous help of a handsome neighbor and, as always, Aunt Dimity's supernatural skills, Lori begins to unearth Miss Beacham's secrets and, ultimately, the surprising truth about her next of kin.
$7.99
Now May you Weep by Deborah Crombie
Newly appointed Detective Inspector Gemma James has never thought to question her friend Hazel Cavendish about her past. So it is quite a shock when Gemma learns that their holiday retreat to a hotel in the Scottish Highlands is, in fact, Hazel's homecoming - and that fellow guest Donald Brodie was once Hazel's lover, despite a vicious, long-standing feud between their rival, fine whiskey distilling families. And the fires of a fierce and passionate affair may not have burned out completely - on Brodie's part at least, since he's prepared to destroy Hazel's marriage to win back his "Juliet." But when a sudden, brutal murder unleashes a slew of sinister secrets and long-seething hatreds, putting Hazel's life in peril, Gemma knows she will need help unraveling this very bloody knot - and calls for the one man she trusts more than any other, Duncan Kincaid, to join her far from home.
$7.50
Arson and Old Lace by Patricia Harwin
Catherine Penny, a retired librarian from New York, recently divorced, moves to England. Her 17th century cottage is across the road from a crusty neighbor who gets himself killed and the cottage set on fire. Catherine finds it difficult to convince anyone that the neighbor was murdered. It is a delightful cozy with the twist of having an American sleuth in England.
$6.99
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