July 2010
22 posts
3 tags
July 22
The End of Mr. Y - Scarlett Thomas - A graduate student named Ariel finds a mysterious book called The End of Mr Y, which supposedly kills all who read it. Her professor has disappeared, and so has the author. She discovers that through the book you can enter into other dimensions through the minds and consciousnesses of other people, and that others have also tried to tap into this mysterious...
3 tags
July 21
The Safety of Unknown Cities - Lucy Taylor - The graphic, violent and sexual story of Val, whose mother gouged her eyes out with a spoon when she was a child. Val seeks intense stimulation and experiences, especially sexual, and when she hears about “The City”, a fabled place full of excitement and sexual depravity, she tries to find it and lose herself. Meanwhile, someone is trying...
3 tags
3 tags
July 19
The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces - Ray Vukcevich - Skylight Howells is a detective who is also brilliant at disguising himself. So brilliant that he sometimes forgets who he really is. He’s also addicted to tap-dancing. Bad. Can he solve the mystery of the missing brother of the beautiful woman who’s also wanted for the murder of several software documentation specialists? ...
3 tags
July 18
The Grand Ellipse - Paula Volsky - A Female academic, author and explorer named Luzelle Devaire participates in a world tour race called The Grand Ellipse. The prize for winning this race is a private audience with the King. The world is threatened with war and the neutral King, although he may have the means to stop invading armies, prefers to stay neutral. Will the beautiful and intelligent...
3 tags
July 17
Opalite Moon - Denise Vitola - in the future, life is cripplingly beurocratic, the world is a poverty stricken metropolitan nightmare where everyone is looking for new-agey answers and people can only be convicted of a crime if they’re caught in the act. Detective Ty Merrick and her partner Detective LaRue are tasked with investigating the triple homicide of members of a religious sect. Oh,...
3 tags
3 tags
July 15
The Atrocity Shop - Kurt Von Trojan - Mr. Bonus Adulator works in ‘The Atrocity Shop’, where he sells films, photos and other documentation of atrocities to the well-to do. Originally banned, and the cover artist withdrew illustration the night before publication, so the cover shows…the author’s butt!?
3 tags
July 14
High Times: An Alien Paradise - Mark R. Viliborghi - The author claims that this book is fiction in movie form from a very lucid dream. It involves the house band at ‘High Times”, a group of quirky characters leading a pseudo-hippy lifestyle who eventually discover that aliens have been living in the basement and stealing their power. Includes terrible-sounding sex scenes and ample...
3 tags
July 13
Stardoc - S.L. Viehl - An earth doctor escapes her stressful life and overbearing father and moves to a Free Clinic on another planet, populated by aliens and only a few humans. She struggles with her own family issues, a pushy and telepathic co-worker, her lack of knowledge of alien physiology, and her father pressuring her to return home. Then the planet is struck by an epidemic that throws...
3 tags
3 tags
July 11
Nurk - Ursula Vernon - (8+) Nurk is a small shrew who, equipped with a boat made from a snail shell and a mysterious letter asking for help, goes off to rescue the prince of the fireflies, or some such creature. A big adventure for a little guy.
3 tags
July 10
Empire of the Ants - Bernard Weber - A down on his luck locksmith and his family are bequeathed an apartment by their uncle who was killed by a swarm of wasps. The only condition is: don’t EVER go in the cellar. Only the dog goes in the cellar, and then comes back dead, followed by most of the rest of the family, the police and firemen. Also, this book follows the story of a colony of...
3 tags
July 9
Mockymen - Ian Watson - An aging Norwegian commissions a young couple to create a puzzle featuring themselves, nude, in front of a specific statue. The puzzle turns out to be some sort of Nazi occult bullshit, and everything goes haywire. Somehow this is connected to the Mockymen, aliens who arrive to future earth with dangerous drugs, which leave people open to possession. Can one savvy broad...
3 tags
3 tags
July 7
Mood Shifts - Dan Weiss - In the future, people have the ability to enter places similar to spas and change part or all of their minds forever. Lose memories or traits that are undesirable, or change their character totally. The future is shallow, and only Fred Duff the professional consumer seems to notice or care how hellish things have become…
3 tags
July 6
The Apocalypse Troll - David Weber - Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna must travel from the 25th back to the 21st century to protect earthlings of the past from the giant Kanga Trolls who have also traveled back in time to hit humanity where it hurts. What is a Kanga Troll? I can’t tell you eeeverything!
3 tags
July 5
Astronomy - Richard Wadholm - A female agent, Susan, is sent to Post-war Germany to tackle the monsters called into our dimension by Nazi occult dabblers. She and her fellow agents are trying to save the world from these monsters by working with some of the terrible monsters of the Third Reich…horrifying!
3 tags
3 tags
July 3
WE - Yevgeny Zamyatin - A 1920’s precursor to Brave New World and 1984 explores the world of the 26th century where all minds and actions are controlled by the One State. Living quarters have glass walls, art and sex are manipulated and scheduled, and happiness is doled out in controlled quantities by the State. As the society are about to spread their lifestyle to other planets, the...
3 tags
July 2
The Flaxen Femme Fatale - John Zakour - Zach Nixon Johnson is the last freelance private investigator in the world, and he is asked to find the military’s missing secret weapon: a dangerous, powerful psychic named Natasha. She appears in a dream, asking to be left alone, but he pursues her. She turns the whole world against him to show her powers, but he keeps at it with the help of his...
3 tags
July 1
Lord Demon - Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold. Kai Wren is a powerful but reclusive demon, part of a group of exiled demons who live on another plane. Kai likes to capture/contain people, creatures and worlds in bottles which are used by other Demons as retreats from their regular lives. But someone wants to Kill Kai. Who could it be…?