Countles emigrants who've hit the shores of New York have long since Americanized their names and bought into their new culture. That's just what half-breed djinn, Rabriel, does when he suddenly finds himself in Manhattan. He changes his name to John Denny and sets up shop, selling wishes to those who can afford them. Only when the gods come calling does he learn that he's violated some core rules of the universe. Now he's face with becoming indentured to one of them, and who it will be depends on how he performs on a test they've created just for him.
The magnificent title story of this collection of fairy tales for adults describes the strange and uncanny relationship between its extravagantly intelligent heroine--a world renowned scholar of the art of story-telling--and the marvelous being that lives in a mysterious bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable. The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor. "A dreamy treat.... It is not merely strange, it is wondrous." --Boston Globe "Alternatingly erudite and earthy, direct and playful.... If Scheherazade ever needs a break, Byatt can step in, indefinitely." --Chicago Tribune "Byatt's writing is crystalline and splendidly imaginative.... These [are] perfectly formed tales." --Washington Post Book World
Quantum Hughes' life is stuck on repeat. While trapped in The LOOP, he struggles to free himself from a glitch that forces him to re-live the same day over and over.
Geralt is a witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. He roams the country seeking assignments, but gradually comes to realise that while some of his quarry are unremittingly vile, vicious grotesques, others are the victims of sin, evil or simple naivety. One reviewer said: 'This book is a sheer delight. It is beautifully written, full of vitality and endlessly inventive: its format, with half a dozen episodes and intervening rest periods for both the hero and the reader, allows for a huge range of characters, scenarios and action. It's thought-provoking without being in the least dogmatic, witty without descending to farce and packed with sword fights without being derivative. The dialogue sparkles; characters morph almost imperceptibly from semi-cliche to completely original; nothing is as it first seems. Sapkowski succeeds in seamlessly welding familiar ideas, unique settings and delicious twists of originality: his Beauty wants to rip the throat out of a sensitive Beast; his Snow White seeks vengeance on all and sundry, his elves are embittered and vindictive. It's easily one of the best things I've read in ages.'
Discover the “extraordinary” (The Washington Post) debut novel that “announces the arrival of a literary supernova” (The New York Times Book Review),“a drama of childhood that is as wild as it is intimate” (Chigozie Obioma). WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Library Journal In a sprawling Indian city, a boy ventures into its most dangerous corners to find his missing classmate. . . . Through market lanes crammed with too many people, dogs, and rickshaws, past stalls that smell of cardamom and sizzling oil, below a smoggy sky that doesn’t let through a single blade of sunlight, and all the way at the end of the Purple metro line lies a jumble of tin-roofed homes where nine-year-old Jai lives with his family. From his doorway, he can spot the glittering lights of the city’s fancy high-rises, and though his mother works as a maid in one, to him they seem a thousand miles away. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line plunges readers deep into this neighborhood to trace the unfolding of a tragedy through the eyes of a child as he has his first perilous collisions with an unjust and complicated wider world. Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari, and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force, and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again. Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is extraordinarily moving, flawlessly imagined, and a triumph of suspense. It captures the fierce warmth, resilience, and bravery that can emerge in times of trouble and carries the reader headlong into a community that, once encountered, is impossible to forget.
Alex Award-winning author P. Djèlí Clark, A Dead Djinn in Cairo is a Tor.com original historcal fantasy set in an alternate early twentieth century infused with the otherworldly. Egypt, 1912. In Cairo, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine. What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and a plot that could unravel time itself. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Sarah Chartimands is a captain in a magic world. Her ship: The Lady Flotsam. Her crew: pirates. After rescuing an old friend and mentor, Sarah sets out for the haul of a lifetime: the King's gold. However, when not all goes according to plan, she finds herself on the run, outnumbered, and questioning her reality; all in a city trying to kill her. This adventure is loaded to the brim with guns, swords and spells. Can Sarah salvage a botched plan? More importantly, will she find a way out, alive?
Presents proof that an advanced black African civilization inhabited the Sahara long before Pharaonic Egypt • Reveals black Africa to be at the genesis of ancient civilization and the human story • Examines extensive studies into the lost civilization of the “Star People” by renowned anthropologists, archaeologists, genetic scientists, and cultural historians as well as the authors’ archaeoastronomy and hieroglyphics research • Deciphers the history behind the mysterious Nabta Playa ceremonial area and its stone calendar circle and megaliths Relegated to the realm of archaeological heresy, despite a wealth of hard scientific evidence, the theory that an advanced civilization of black Africans settled in the Sahara long before Pharaonic Egypt existed has been dismissed and even condemned by conventional Egyptologists, archaeologists, and the Egyptian government. Uncovering compelling new evidence, Egyptologist Robert Bauval and astrophysicist Thomas Brophy present the anthropological, climatological, archaeological, geological, and genetic research supporting this hugely debated theory of the black African origin of Egyptian civilization. Building upon extensive studies from the past four decades and their own archaeoastronomical and hieroglyphic research, the authors show how the early black culture known as the Cattle People not only domesticated cattle but also had a sophisticated grasp of astronomy; created plentiful rock art at Gilf Kebir and Gebel Uwainat; had trade routes to the Mediterranean coast, central Africa, and the Sinai; held spiritual and occult ceremonies; and constructed a stone calendar circle and megaliths at the ceremonial site of Nabta Playa reminiscent of Stonehenge, yet much older. Revealing these “Star People” as the true founders of ancient Egyptian civilization, this book completely rewrites the history of world civilization, placing black Africa back in its rightful place at the center of mankind’s origins.
A 3-volume definitive career/biography of stop motion animator/visual effects creator Ray Harryhausen, written over a period of 10 years with Harryhausen's cooperation. This edition, Vol. 2, features interviews with Ray and his colleagues, and is profusely illustrated with hundreds of rare images (many never previously published). In-depth chapters cover Mighty Joe Young, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came From Beneath the Sea, The Animal World, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Supplemental material includes advertising art & posters from different countries, Filmographies of key cast and crew, Glossary of technical terminology, Ray Harryhausen "Timeline," trivia and obscure facts and figures related to Ray's films, and a section on Harryhausen collectibles.
