Books Received 11/28/07

0765318210Voices From the Street
Author: Philip K. Dick

Book Description: Stuart Hadley is a radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life; a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled. Something is missing from his life. Hadley is a restless young man-an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He reacts to the love of his wife and the kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear. He tries to fill his void first with drinking, and then with an affair, and finally with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working, and it is driving him crazy.Voices from the Street is the story of Hadley’s descent into depression and madness, and his emergence out the other side.

 

0765319233Chronicles of the Black Company
Author: Glen Cook

Book Description: Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more…. This omnibus edition comprises The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose.

 

0670060593The Starry Rift
Editor: Jonathan Strahan

Book Description: Truly successful science fiction does two things: it gives credible glimpses into the future while entertaining the reader. With this in mind, noted anthologist Jonathan Strahan—who is also the reviews editor of Locus magazine—asked sixteen of today’s most inventive, compelling writers to look past the horizon of the present day. Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys), Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners), Garth Nix (the Abhorsen Trilogy), Scott Westerfeld (Uglies; Pretties; Specials) and their colleagues have crafted a dazzling range of stories. Whether on spaceships, in suburbia, or in simulated gaming worlds, whether about cloning, battle tactics, or corporate politics, the stories of The Starry Rift will give every reader something to consider. This original anthology is crucial reading for those who want to see where the future—and the future of science fiction—is headed.

 

1595141847Tim, Defender of the Earth!
Author: Sam Enthoven

Book Description: Tim, Defender of the Earth, is a rock’em, sock‘em thriller filled with smoke, spectacle, and big-time adventure. Big Ben will fall! Westminster Abbey will crumble! London will never be the same!

TIM, aka Tyrannosaurus: Improved Model, is the product of a top-secret government military experiment, and he couldn’t be more loveable. Sure, he’s an enormous monster to most, but at heart he’s just a big, awkward, thirteen-yearold who realizes he could be all that stands between the earth and total destruction. (Take that, Godzilla.)

Now TIM must form an unlikely alliance with fifteen-year-olds Chris and Anna in order to save humanity from the greatest threat it has ever known: Anna’s father, the brilliant and demented Professor Mallahide, and his growing tide of vicious, all-consuming nanobots. Will TIM prevail and save the British Isles and the world from evil? We’ll all have to hold hands, read, and believe—in TIM, Defender of the Earth!

 

0525479554Gods of Manhattan
Author: Scott Mebus

Book Description
Look. What do you see? Sidewalks, skyscrapers, pigeons? But there’s more. More that only twelve-year-old Rory Hennessey can see. More that only Rory can reveal to others.

So, look again. What do you see? Layered on our own New York is a spirit city inhabited by warrior cockroaches, malevolent subway trains, kung fu rodents, hungry gargoyles, and children made entirely of papier-mache. Built by history and legend, it’s ruled by the Gods of Manhattan, lions of New York like Peter Stuyvesant and Babe Ruth.

Now everyone is racing to find Rory—the boy who can see. The boy who can change the destiny of New York.