Outcasts of Heaven Belt

Outcasts of Heaven Belt

Joan D. Vinge

Science Fiction & Fantasy

They came from the distant plant called Morningside on a desperate quest for aid from Heaven Belt. Heaven Belt -- the fabulous asteroid system that was, so legend said, as rich as old Earth. But before the starship Ranger could even explain its mission, it was attacked by the people of the outermost asteroid. For civil war had long since transformed the Belters into isolated societies slowly dying out for lack of technology and natural resources. Crippled, with most of its crew dead, the Ranger soon became a valuable technological prize fought over by everyone in the Belt. And for the Ranger's crew, what began as a mission of hope became a breathtaking race for survival.
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Baal

Baal

Robert McCammon

Literature & Fiction / Horror / Historical Fiction

He is the foul seed of evil the dark prophet who sees what is - and creates what will always be. Across the earth, he spreads his fiendish blasphemy, unleashes his holocaust, proclaims himself messiah. But he is Baal, the prince of demons. Fear him. He will never be destroyed. A woman is raped and a child is born - they call him Baal. He is too much to handle and his mother puts him in an orphanage where he leads the children on a rampage of violence. This is the beginning of a life which unleashes unimaginable evil upon the world.
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The Throwback

The Throwback

Tom Sharpe

Literature & Fiction

When Lockhart Flawse is catapulted out of his upper-class and rapunzel-esque life with the curmudgeonly Flawse Senior, he must enter the world of suburbia, and marriage. Rendered an absolute twit in modern society by his medieval upbringing, Lockhart must resort to drastic tactics in his attempt to return to Flawse House. Faced with the horrors of suburbia, he must either terrorise, blackmail and potentially kill an entire street of his tenants, or attempt to find his unknown and elusive father in order to inherit the estate. However, with the belief that he was dropped into his mother's arms by a stork, killing a street of people may be the wiser option for the socially inept young man. He is also under mounting pressure, as it may all be in vain if his gold-digging mother-in-law has her way. Now the wife of Flawse Senior, she has decided that if Lockhart's wealthy grandfather can't have the decency to die on his own, she will take matters into her own hands.
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Shosha

Shosha

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Science Fiction & Fantasy / Literature & Fiction / Science

Shosha is a hauntingly lyrical love story set in Jewish Warsaw on the eve of its annihilation. Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring Yiddish writer and the son of a distinguished Hasidic rabbi, struggles to be true to his art when faced with the chance at riches and a passport to America. But as he and the rest of the Writers' Club wait in horror for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, Aaron rediscovers Shosha, his childhood love-still living on Krochmalna Street, still mysteriously childlike herself-who has been waiting for him all these years.
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The Far Pavilions

The Far Pavilions

M. M. Kaye

Literature & Fiction / Children's Books / Mystery & Thrillers

A magnificent romantic/historical/adventure novel set in India at the time of mutiny. The Far Pavilions is a story of 19th Century India, when the thin patina of English rule held down dangerously turbulent undercurrents. It is a story about and English man - Ashton Pelham-Martyn - brought up as a Hindu and his passionate, but dangerous love for an Indian princess. It's a story of divided loyalties, of tender camaraderie, of greedy imperialism and of the clash between east and west. To the burning plains and snow-capped mountains of this great, humming continent, M.M. Kaye brings her quite exceptional gift of immediacy and meticulous historical accuracy, plus her insight into the human heart.
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Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

William Kennedy

Literature & Fiction

Billy Phelan, a slightly tarnished poker player, pool hustler, and small-time bookie, moves through the lurid nighttime glare of a tough Depression-era town. A resourceful man full of Irish pluck, Billy works the fringes of Albany sporting life with his own particular style and private code of honor until he finds himself in the dangerous position of potential go-between in the kidnapping of a political boss's son. In relating Billy's fall from the underworld grace and his storybook redemption, Kennedy captures the seamy underside of a brassy, sweaty city that would prefer to pretend that the Depression doesn't exist.
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Kirlian Quest

Kirlian Quest

Piers Anthony

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Alternate cover edition can be found here Herald the Healer, from infamous Andromeda Slash, high aura Outworlder Flint descendant, eases passing of quadpoint Smallbore; she warns of danger. Lovely human Psyche is not possessed; her Kirlian aura fluctuates; Prince orders her burnt. Astronomer Hweeh collapses into puddle at thought of faroff Amoeba - invading. The solution lies in Ancient ruins on Mars. Includes 2-pg symbols Political Geography.
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Sacajawea

Sacajawea

Anna Lee Waldo

Historical Fiction

Clad ln a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushlng Forces of America’s destiny: Sacajawea. child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark‘s historic trek-beautiful spear of a dying nation. She knew many men, walked many miles. From the whispering prairies, across the Great Divide to the crystal-capped Rockies and on to the emerald promise of the Pacific Northwest, her story overflows with emotion and action ripped from the bursting fabric of a raw new land. Ten years In the Writing, SACAJAWEA unfolds an immense canvas of people and events, and captures the eternal longings of a woman who always yearned for one great passion-and always it lay beyond the next mountain.
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Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Robin McKinley

Science Fiction & Fantasy / Children's Books / Young Adult

A strange imprisonment... Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage. When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?" Robin McKinley's beloved telling illuminates the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple, Beauty and the Beast.
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Killing Mr. Griffin

Killing Mr. Griffin

Lois Duncan

Mystery & Thrillers / Young Adult / Children's Books

They only meant to scare him. Mr. Griffin is the strictest teacher at Del Norte High, with a penchant for endless projects and humiliating his students. Even straight-A student Susan can't believe how mean he is to the charismatic Mark Kinney. So when her crush asks Susan to help a group of students teach a lesson of their own, she goes along. After all, it's a harmless prank, right? But things don't go according to plan. When one "accident" leads to another, people begin to die. Susan and her friends must face the awful truth: one of them is a killer. Leave the lights on when reading this classic thriller! This new edition features modernized text and a new introduction by Lois Duncan, the master of teen horror.
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Mission of Gravity

Mission of Gravity

Hal Clement

Hal Clement

Mesklin is a vast, inhospitable, disc-shaped planet, so cold that its oceans are liquid methane and its snows are frozen ammonia. It is a world spinning dizzyingly, a world where gravity can be a crushing 700 times greater than Earth's, a world too hostile for human explorers. But the planet holds secrets of inestimable value, and an unmanned probe that has crashed close to one of its poles must be recovered. Only the Mesklinites, the small creatures so bizarrely adapted to their harsh environment can help. And so Barlennan, the resourceful and courageous captain of the Mesklinite ship Bree, sets out on an heroic and appalling journey into the terrible unknown . . .
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