Rudy Rucker0.0 Nested Scrolls reveals the true life adventures of Rudolf von Bitter “Rudy” Rucker—mathematician, transrealist author, punk rocker, and computer hacker. It begins with a young boy growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a businessman father who becomes a clergyman, and a mother descended from the philosopher Hegel. His career goals? To explore infinity, popularize the fourth dimension, seek the gnarl, become a beatnik writer, and father a family.
All the while Rudy is reading science fiction and beat poetry, and beginning to write some pretty strange fiction of his own—a blend of Philip K. Dick and hard SF that qualifies him as part of the original circle of writers in the early 1980s that includes Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, John Shirley, and Lewis Shiner, who were the founders of cyberpunk.
At one level, Rucker’s genial and unfettered memoir brings us a first-hand account of how he and his contemporaries ushered in our postmodern world. At another, this is the wry and moving tale of a man making his way from one turbulent century to the next.
Nested Scrolls is like its author: sweet, gentle, honest, and intellectually fierce.
Steven R. Boyett0.0 Decades ago a young rock and blues guitarist and junkie named Niko signed in blood on the dotted line and in return became the stuff of music legend. But when the love of his damned life grows mortally and mysteriously ill he realizes he's lost more than he bargained for--and that wasn t part of the Deal.
So Niko sets out on a harrowing journey from the streets of Los Angeles through the downtown subway tunnels and across the redlit plain of the most vividly realized Hell since Dante, to play the gig of his mortgaged life and win back the purloined soul of his lost love.
Mortality Bridge remixes Orpheus, Dante, Faust, the Crossroads legend, and more in a beautiful, brutal--and surprisingly funny--quest across a Hieronymous Bosch landscape of myth, music, and mayhem; and across an inner terrain of addiction, damnation, and redemption.
Paul Guinan, Anina Bennett0.0 Meet Boilerplate, the world’s first robot soldier—not in a present-day military lab or a science-fiction movie, but in the past, during one of the most fascinating periods of U.S. history. Designed by Professor Archibald Campion in 1893 as a prototype, for the self-proclaimed purpose of “preventing the deaths of men in the conflicts of nations,” Boilerplate charged into combat alongside such notables as Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia. Campion and his robot also circled the planet with the U.S. Navy, trekked to the South Pole, made silent movies, and hobnobbed with the likes of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla.
You say you’ve never heard of Boilerplate before? That’s because this book is the fanciful creation of a husbandand-wife team who have richly imagined these characters and inserted them into accurate retellings of history. This full-color chronicle is profusely illustrated with graphics mimicking period style, including photos, paintings, posters, cartoons, maps, and even stereoscope cards. Part Jules Verne and part Zelig, it’s a great volume for a broad range of fans of science fiction, history, and robots.
Doug Dorst0.0 A "dark and funny debut"(Seattle-Times) about a young police officer struggling to maintain a sense of reality in a town where the dead outnumber the living.
Colma, California, the "cemetery city" serving San Francisco, is the resting place of the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Wyatt Earp, and William Randolph Hearst. It is also the home of Michael Mercer, a by-the-book rookie cop struggling to settle comfortably into adult life. Instead, he becomes obsessed with the mysterious fate of his predecessor, Sergeant Wes Featherstone, who spent his last years policing the dead as well as the living. As Mercer attempts to navigate the drama of his own daily life, his own grip on reality starts to slip-either that, or Colma's more famous residents are not resting in peace as they should be.
Кори Доктороу3.9 ""Младшие братья"" – против всемогущего Старшего Брата. Семнадцатилетний хакер и его команда – против Системы. Они – короли Сети, они уверены, что могут все. Но Система следит за каждым из нас… И каждый из нас в одночасье может попасть в ее когти. Свобода давно уже стала мифом. Люди – пешки в Большой игре пра-вительств и спецслужб. И каждому, кто хочет нанести Системе ответный удар, надо быть не только отчаянно смелым, но и очень, очень умным…
Нэнси Фармер4.3 Почти два года миновало с тех пор, когда Джек, ученик друида по прозвищу Драконий Язык, совершил вместе с Олафом Однобровым плавание в страну великанов. Джеку теперь тринадцать, и, по обычаям жителей Скандинавии, он считается взрослым мужчиной. Ну а если тебе тринадцать и ты уже взрослый мужчина, значит, самое время отправляться в новое путешествие. На этот раз путь лежит в Эльфландию, Землю Серебряных Яблок, единственное место на свете, где время замерло неподвижно. Попасть туда очень трудно, дорога тянется под землей, а коварные подземные обитатели хитроумней и опасней наземных. Но Джек не падает духом, он помнит наставление Олафа, великого воина-берсерка: «Главное — никогда не отчаиваться, даже если падаешь с утеса. До земли путь неблизкий; мало ли что может случиться, пока летишь». Впервые на русском языке роман-бестселлер от автора «Дома скорпиона», книги, ставшей сенсацией и награжденной многими литературными премиями.
Тим Пратт0.0 In this debut novel, acclaimed short-story author Tim Pratt delivers an exciting heroine with a hidden talent–and a secret duty. Witty and suspenseful, here is a contemporary love song to the West that was won and the myths that shape us….
As night manager of Santa Cruz’s quirkiest coffeehouse, Marzi McCarty makes a mean espresso, but her first love is making comics. Her claim to fame: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a cowpunk neo-western yarn. Striding through an urban frontier peopled by Marzi’s wild imagination, Rangergirl doles out her own brand of justice. But lately Marzi’s imagination seems to be altering her reality. She’s seeing the world through Rangergirl’s eyes–literally--complete with her deadly nemesis, the Outlaw.
It all started when Marzi opened a hidden door in the coffeehouse storage room. There, imprisoned among
the supplies, she saw the face of something unknown…and dangerous. And she unwittingly became its guard. But some primal darkness must’ve escaped, because Marzi hasn’t been the same since. And neither have her customers, who are acting downright apocalyptic.
Now it’s up to Marzi to stop this supervillainous superforce that’s swaggered its way into her world. For Marzi, it’s the
showdown of her life. For Rangergirl, it’s just another day....
Джек Вэнс0.0 Вопреки романтическим мечтам молодого Мирона Тэйни, родители хотели, чтобы он делал карьеру на бирже, но его экстравагантная двоюродная бабка назначила Мирона капитаном своей космической яхты, отправившись в межзвездные просторы на поиски клиники, обещавшей вернуть ей молодость. В приступе раздражения богатая старуха бросила Мирона на далекой планете, где ему удалось устроиться на должность суперкарго трампового звездолета «Гликка». Он посетил многие экзотические миры Ойкумены, где его ждали неожиданные приключения — и не менее неожиданные злоключения... Джек Вэнс, общепризнанный мастер космического детектива,рассказывает колоритную историю, полную зловещих и счастливых встреч, юмора, прозорливых наблюдений и страстного желания увидеть невиданное — зова странствий, делающего нас молодыми до конца наших дней.
Mark Budz0.0 IT’S A POST-ECOCAUST WORLD.
WELCOME TO IT.
In the San Jose of tomorrow, all of nature is gengineered—from the warm-blooded plants to the designer people. But even in a rigidly controlled biosystem, with its pheromone-induced social order, the American dream is still the American dream. Caught between these new-old worlds, Rigo is on his way up—he’s going to be part of tomorrow, even if it means he has to leave today behind.
Written off as a sellout on the streets of his old ’hood, Rigo’s got his own ap in an aplex, a 9-to-5er, and a girl. He’s got opportunity. If he works hard, his job with a heavyweight
politicorp could give him a chance to move up in the clades. But when he’s chosen as part of a team to construct a new colony on a nearby comet, Rigo smells a setup. And when disaster strikes, he learns that if there’s a way to bend the rules, there’s also a way to break them…
