Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Literature & Fiction

For years, Alfred Ludens has pursued mathematician and philosopher Marcus Vallar in the belief that he possesses a profound metaphysical formula, a missing link of great significance to mankind. Luden's friends are more sceptical. Jack Sheerwater, painter, thinks Marcus is crazy. Gildas herne, ex-preist, thinks he is evil. Patrick Fenman, poet, is dying because he thinks Marcus has cursed him. Marcus has disappeared and must be found.

For $2 million, scientist Alex McAuliff is hired by Dunstone, Ltd. to survey the geology of Jamaica's dark, mysterious interior. There is a catch: no one can know Dunstone is involved. When British Intelligence learns of Alex's mission, they let him in on a little secret: the last survey team never made it home. McAuliff's reception to the island is far from warm, and now Alex is a marked man. Someone wants him dead—but who? The only one clue to his survival is a single mysterious word: Halidon.

Combining short fiction with speculative history, this entertaining book invites listeners to look at what didn't happen to gain a richer understanding of what did. What if Napoleon had become emperor of the United States? Could one faulty screw have altered America's atomic-bomb policy? If Lincoln had been assassinated during the Gettysburg Address, would the Confederate States have remained a separate country?

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come.

In a timeless tale of misguided romance and heartbreak, Jane Austen's first novel of love and marriage is seen through the eyes of two very different heroines, the Dashwood sisters—cautious, level-headed Elinor and impulsive lively Marianne—one representing sense and the other sensibility.

Ready for a story? Here's a selection of some of the finest science fiction shorts of recent years, including stories from Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Robert Sheckley, Terry Bisson, Avram Davidson, and Philip K. Dick.

When Jim Qwilleran's friend Polly decides to spend two weeks on vacation with an old girlfriend in Oregon, he finds himself at a loose end—but not for long. A visit from Nick Bamba brings news of a hotbed of mystery.

The survivors of The Other Side of Midnight come back for one last round of play in this compelling sequel set in post-war Europe. Catherine Douglas, victim of tragedy and amnesia, is taken in by the world's richest man, Greek shipping tycoon Constantin Demiris. Haunted by faint memories of the past, Catherine must remember the truth before Demiris, the man who killed her husband, sets his murderous sights on her.

In Downtown, we meet Michael Barnes, a Florida orange grower who finds himself in a Wall Street bar in New York City with a couple of hours to kill. It's a couple of hours that almost kill him, as he's swindled, robbed, framed for murder and hunted down by an assassin in one of the wildest, scariest, funniest, fastest 24 hours ever packed into one novel.

Nicholas Linnear won a major battle with the apocalyptic destruction of Floating City. But his enemy has retreated from the ruins left smoldering in the Vietnamese jungle, to regroup and mount the assault that will solidify his ultimate power-and destroy Linnear. That enemy is Mick Leonforte, scion of a proud and deadly Mafia dynasty.

They were called the Class from Hell - 34 inner-city sophomores she inherited from a teacher who'd been "pushed over the edge". She was told "those kids have tasted blood. They're dangerous." But Louanne Johnson had a different idea. Where the school system saw 34 unreachable kids, she saw young men and women with intelligence and dreams.

In 1920s China, the Peking opera was luxurious entertainment for the privileged class—but only children from the poorest families were sent to opera schools to train as actors. Xiao Douzi is brought to an opera school—and abandoned there by his mother, a prostitute who can no longer care for him. With seeds of bitterness sown in his soul, the nine-year-old boy endures hardships and misery to learn and perfect his craft. The novel focuses on the all-consuming love Xiao Douzi holds for the boy he befriends, and the beautiful female courtesan who comes between them.

In this white-knuckle 007 thriller, John Gardner leads master spy James Bond on the most complex and demanding assignment of his career. Across continents and through ever changing labyrinths of evil, Bond follows the traces of clues into the center of an organization more deadly than any terrorist army-a fanatical society code-named COLD, the Children of the Last Days. What he finds there could very well spell his own last days.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an excursion into boyhood, a return to the simple, rural Missouri world of Tom Sawyer, his friends Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher and Aunt Polly. It is a world of summertime and hooky, of pranks and punishments, of villains and adventure, seen through the eyes of a boy who might have been the young Mark Twain himself.

The lure of the American West is in the spirit of adventure, in the majestic expanse of unconquered wilderness and in rugged individuals on a quest for identity and sometimes for survival. Owen Wister's unsmiling Virginian... Dorothy M. Johnson's, "A Man Called Horse": These are a few of the colorful, even legendary characters who populate The American West in Fiction, a collection of stories edited by Jon Tuska.

In "Front Man", an aging screenwriter cast adrift in a youth-oriented Hollywood culture finds a scary way to make it back into the business. In "Nothing Will Hurt You", a father is obsessed by his daughter's murder and will stop at nothing to avenge her. In "Resurrection", a son is determined to preserve and care for a father in cryogenic sleep. David Morrell is a consummate storyteller, investing his tales with passion, sympathy, and irresistible narrative drive.

Are vampires a bloodthirsty menace to mankind? Or simply misunderstood creatures struggling to survive? After hearing these six entertaining stories, you'll be able to decide for yourself. From the horrifying to the humorous, some of today's finest authors share stories about one of the oldest imagined evils, the vampire. From Tanith Lee's chilling story to Esther Friesner's comic tale of rival teens trying to best one another, these stories bring vampires to (un)life, in all their majesty and terror.

Gilly Ramsey's lonely childhood was brightened only by visits to her godmother until her death, when the grown-up Gilly inherits the family cottage, “Thornyhold.” Set deep in a wild wood, with its magical and peaceful strength and its sovereign defenses against evil, Thornyhold is like something out of a fairy tale. The old house strikes an end to Gilly's bleak future, offering more than just a new home. It presents a chance to start over—despite its reputation for magic, history of witchcraft, and a resident black cat.

Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

Newly widowed, still beautiful, and suddenly wealthy, Maggie Pearson Stearn has come home to Wisconsin to start a new life. The recent death of her much-loved husband has left an empty space in her heart. Back on familiar ground, with a gratifying business venture off to promising start, she finds a new zest for life in the rekindling of old friendships—and of her love affair with her high-school sweetheart.