Nicola Griffith0.0 Nicola Griffith, winner of the Tiptree Award and the Lambda Award for her widely acclaimed first novel Ammonite, now turns her attention closer to the present in Slow River, the dark and intensely involving story of a young woman's struggle for survival and independence on the gritty underside of a near-future Europe.
She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van de Oest was the daughter of one of the world's most powerful families...and now she was nobody.
Then out of the rain walked Spanner, an expert data pirate who took her in, cared for her wounds, and gave her the freedom to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore if she didn't want to be found: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped...but she paid for her newfound freedom in crime, deception, and degradation--over and over again.
Lore had a choice: She could stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner...and risk losing herself forever. Or she could leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and inventing her future.
But to start again, Lore required Spanner's talents--Spanner, who needed her and hated her, and who always had a price. And even as Lore agreed to play Spanner's games one final time, she found that there was still the price of being a Van de Oest to be paid. Only by confronting her past, her family, and her own demons could Lore meld together who she had once been, who she had become, and the person she intended to be....
In Slow River, Nicola Griffith skillfully takes us deep into the mind and heart of her complex protagonist, where the past must be reconciled with the present if the future is ever to offer solid ground. Slow River poses a question we all hope never to need to answer: Who are you when you have nothing left?
Нил Стивенсон4.0 В мире недалекого будущего гениальный ученый, нарушая закон, создает интерактивный учебник для воспитания «идеальной леди». Но совсем случайным образом эта интерактивная говорящая книга-букварь попадает к маленькой девочке Нелл из деклассированной семьи. Кем станет Нелл в будущем и как сложится ее дальнейшая судьба — вот то, что предстоит узнать читателю…
Tim Powers3.7 Powers has created a strange and wonderful Los Angeles in which to set this novel: a city full of ghosts - and full, too, of unpleasant characters who extend their lives and enhance their power by catching and absorbing the ghosts of the recently dead. Young Koot Parganas is growing up in Los Angeles in the 1990's, but his parents won't let him do anything normal. His weirdo parents venerate the spirits of dead Mahatmas. At the age of eleven, Koot has disobeyed his parents, broken into a plaster bust of Dante, stolen the small glass vial concealed inside it, and set in motion events that will change his own life, and everyone else's. For trapped in the vial was the preserved ghost of Thomas Alva Edison, and there is no telling what power the possession of that ghost could confer. The exposure of Edison's ghost lights up a beacon for those who can see such things. Koot is pursued through the dark underside of the city, aided by allies as strange as his enemies: a bum and his dog; a man concealed by the ghostly mask of Houdini; a psychiatrist sorceress; and a former television child-star who has been dead for several years, but who is not yet ready to leave his body of abandon his revenge on the woman who murdered his godfather.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman0.0 It is a season of many wonders, with many secrets ripe for discovering ...and some best left in shadow, unexplored. Summer has come to Sauterelle Lake. And inquisitive young Nick is discovering many things he doesn't want to know: About a pretty girl with hypnotic eyes who talks to his soul... About a wild creature--a wolf--whose features shine with an intelligent, un-lupine knowing... About a strange, inhospitable family occupying a cabin that is meant to be empty. This summer, nature's magic is not the only sorcery traveling on the wind. And the real trick will be surviving until the autumn.
Роберт Сойер4.2 Галактику пронизывает обширная, неизвестно кем построенная сеть межзвёздных порталов, позволяющих мгновенно перемещаться на огромные расстояния. Человечество совместно с двумя инопланетными цивилизациями ведёт исследования новых областей Галактики по мере того, как узлы сети становятся доступны для посещения. Для координации этой работы, а также с целью установления контактов с новооткрытыми цивилизациями Содружество планет построило огромный научно-исследовательский корабль «Старплекс». Его первому директору, канадскому социологу Кейту Лансингу придётся преодолевать враждебность подчинённых, трудности межвидового общения, технические проблемы и собственный кризис среднего возраста, занимаясь при этом поиском ответов на фундаментальные вопросы жизни, Вселенной и всего остального.
Patricia A. McKillip4.7 When Corbet Lynn returns home to rebuild his family's estate, his grandfather's curse is rekindled-and lures a free spirited woman from the woods that border Lynn Hall.
"Weaves a dense web of desire and longing, human love and inhuman need." (Publishers Weekly)
"The prose is impeccable, the story memorable, and the characters admirable." (Science Fiction Chronicle)
Аллен Стил3.8 Повесть развенчивает эпоху космоопер. Эпоха романтики в космосе, эпоха ожидания счастья и чудес в вакууме звездного пространства сменилась эпохой бизнеса и зарабатывания денег, космос оказался реальным, холодным и безразличным, а не игрушечным, теплым и комфортным. Неисправимые романтики не способны прижиться в новом мире. Знаменитый защитник правопорядка Капитан Фьючер — на самом деле свихнувшийся неудачник, который слоняется по солнечной системе на ржавой посудине без дела и без цели...
Урсула Ле Гуин3.7 Рожденная рабыней на планете Уэрел, она жила в годы великих перемен. Что такое любовь мужчины и женщины, их тяга друг к другу в сравнении с историей двух миров, великими революциями, надеждами и нескончаемыми страданиями наших собратьев? Мелочь. Но ведь и ключ, открывающий двери, тоже невелик. Вот история ее жизни...
Кент Брюстер0.0 The story is about a desk clerk who is checking in all the animals that are brought to the pound. It explores the idea of what might happen if unwanted pets, strays and pesky animals were intelligent enough to talk.
