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SUMMARY:
Inspired by the glory of Tang Dynasty China in the eighth century, Guy Gavriel Kay melds history and the fantastic into something both powerful and emotionally compelling. Under Heaven is a novel on the grandest narrative scale, encompassing the intimate details of individual lives in an unforgettable time and place. Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in that empire's last war against their western enemies from Tagur, twenty years before. Forty thousand men on both sides were slain beside a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently. To honour his father's memory, Tai has spent two years of official mourning alone at the battle site among the ghosts of the dead, laying to rest their unburied bones. One spring morning, he learns that others have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess in Tagur is pleased to present him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, given, she writes, in recognition of his courage, and honour done to the dead. You gave a man one of the famed Sardians to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Tai starts east towards the glittering, dangerous imperial capital and gathers his wits for a return from solitude by a mountain lake to his own forever-altered life.

Review

"The brothel of Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy requires no time and space coordinates. It is a fictional universe unto itself—rich and bawdy and violent and sad, with a beating human heart underneath. I love Koja’s daring and flair."
—Louis Bayard, author of The Black Tower

"Koja can pack a lot Dickensian humor into a sentence . . . [she] takes a page from Victorian lit in her writerliness, and she reveals human nature like someone slipped her the manual."
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

"This book made me drunk. Koja’s language is at its poetic best, and the epic drama had me digging my nails into my palms. It’s like a Tom Waits hurdy-gurdy loser’s lament come to life, as sinister as a dark circus."
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

"Unlike anything I’ve ever read, a world unto itself, spun out of fevered, sensual prose and vivid, compelling characters."
—Lewis Shiner

"A gothic, glam-rock take on love and sex and death that reads a little like what would happen if Sarah Waters and Angela Carter played a drunken game of Exquisite Corpse in a brothel . . . will make you want to get out your very finest crushed velvet, drink a couple bottles of wine, and do something a little bit illegal with someone very good-looking. In other words, it’s a winner."
—Tor.com

"All the elements of a great novel are present in Koja’s work: from suspense and intrigue to undying love and toxic jealousies, this highly developed read is brimming with imaginative flair and originality."
—Lambda Literary

"People will probably love this book or hate it–possibly both. But let me just say that it would take an author of extraordinary talent to open with a scene of a woman being sodomized by a ventriloquist’s dummy and make me want to keep reading. And Kathe Koja is that talented. Five stars."
—Speak Its Name

"The velvet and brocade, the rips and tears, the music and theater, you see it all as you read about what the denizens of the Poppy do to stay in business, stay ahead of the tide, stay alive."
—Colleen Mondor, Chasing Ray

"Frequently changing viewpoints and fluid segues in and out of flashback illuminate actions readers have already witnessed. Part of the fun is heading into the past after knowing the future; even when you know where the story will go, you wonder what will happen next."
—Ann Arbor Observer

"I loved Under the Poppy. It pours like chocolate—laced with brandy; sexy and utterly compelling!"
—Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint

"An atmospheric tale for those who like their historical fiction on the dark and lurid side. Those readers who enjoyed Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin or Sarah Water’s Fingersmith will find similar themes.”
—Library Journal

“A page turner with riveting language and close attention to sensory detail. Set in late 19th-century Brussels, the story follows the adventures of puppeteer Istvan and brothel owner Rupert who bond as friends and lovers.”
—Publishers Weekly

Product Description

Love: it’s a triangle. War: is coming. Betrayal: is inevitable. Sex: watch out for the naughty puppets.

Product Description

A massive alien artifact is discovered beneath the desert outside of Laguna, New Mexico. Before its existence can be concealed, the object unearths itself and news of the discovery is leaked to the international media. As religious leaders strive to reconcile the artifact’s existence with their faiths, and governments wrestle over its many secrets and how to exploit them, ordinary men and women around the world struggle to make sense of a perpetual onslaught of live and unfiltered news broadcasts about the object. When a survey team is sent in to examine and explore it, they discover that not only is the artifact still operational, but it is conscious and has been waiting for tens of millions of years…

From Publishers Weekly

The tense eighth installment of Knight's Vampire Earth series (a welcome improvement over 2008's Fall with Honor) continues David Valentine's adventures in 2076 as the invading Kurian Order decides to exterminate rebellious Earthlings. The Southern Command authorizes Valentine to wage a guerrilla war with the goal of creating a Kentucky freehold. His ragtag battalion (including some controversial Quisling and alien Grog recruits) must deal first with a power plant outage that blacks out Evansville and Owensboro and then a blizzard and the Kurians' plot to unleash a ravies epidemic on the human herd. Knight keeps the conflict interesting but says too little about the inscrutable Kurians, who are like magicians, always diverting attention from the operating hand. Even readers familiar with the series would welcome a glossary and more background on the various alien races. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Gritty realism, Lovecraftian villains, and boffo action scenes."
-S. M. Stirling, national bestselling author of The Scourge of God

Product Description

The national bestselling "master of deception and tension" (Black Gate) returns to the Vampire Earth...

The race is on to claim the area between the Ohio River and Tennessee. What's left of the resistance is hiding out in the tangle of central Kentucky hills- leaving the powerful, well-organized Kurian vampires the opportunity to fill the void.

Major David Valentine knows there's only one way for them to find help before the Kurians settle in: a desperate dash by hijacked rail, followed by a harrowing river journey.

Valentine unites friends old and new in the effort- but the Kurian Order won't easily yield the blood-soaked Kentucky soil.

About the Author

E. E. Knight resides in Chicago. He enjoys his short commute between reality and his imaginary worlds but still manages to get lost.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Dean Koontz’s unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, *Velocity* would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life.**Velocity**Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. *If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.*It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police to get involved. Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: *The choice is yours*.

From Publishers Weekly

King's first book about former Philadelphia cop Max Freeman turned loose in the Florida Everglades (The Blue Edge of Midnight) boasted several strengths-a protagonist who shimmered with life in spite of a cliched backstory (he was wounded in a shootout at a robbery scene, where one of his shots killed a 12-year-old boy), a riveting supporting cast of local weirdos and a fully credible subplot about an urban man learning to love the hardships of the natural world. A few traces of those strengths survive in King's second book about Freeman, but not enough to give the series the feeling of inevitable success it originally enjoyed. For one thing, Freeman has little opportunity to commune with nature this time around. He spends much of his days and nights driving his pickup truck down the seedier streets of West Palm Beach in search of whoever is knocking off a bunch of very old African-American ladies who sold off their insurance policies early. The Florida hermits and con men of the first book have been supplanted by a rather ordinary crew of street thugs and drug dealers. But if the lackluster setting and cast disappoint King's fans, it's only because the standard set by his first book was so high-there's still plenty here to reward the reader: the rapid-fire, gritty dialogue and the charms of our hard-living, earthy hero. Freeman's lawyer chum, Billy Manchester, a genius who stutters in public, reprises his fascinating role, and a new love interest, a sad-eyed lady cop, adds a pleasing twist. Though not as inspired as its precursor, this still is satisfying fare.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Starred Review King, a longtime police and criminal courts reporter in South Florida, proves that the success of his first detective novel, The Blue Edge of Midnight [BKL F 1 02], was no fluke. This one stars the same ex-Philly cop with the shattered psyche dragged into doing some sleuthing; features the same evocative detective digs, a one-room stilt shack hidden in the middle of the Everglades; and is shot through with the same burgeoning suspense and rich, brooding atmosphere. There is one important difference, though. This time detective hero Max Freeman, traumatized from the memory of a shooting that left a 12-year-old dead, takes a few steps toward recovery, moving slowly toward the light and away from what he calls the "dead zone time," when it seems the dark silence will never lift. It begins with a call from Freeman's oldest friend, an ex-cop who needs help investigating the murders of five elderly women in the Fort Lauderdale area. Freeman uncovers an elaborate insurance scam and a serial killer as the plot moves toward a chilling climax. King sets up a powerful parallel between the primordial feel of the Everglades and the mean streets of South Florida, with civilization seeming much more cutthroat. King seems well on his way to creating a knockout series. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved