An act of infidelity tears apart the members of a Depression-era familyFriends always envied the Crown marriage, but for Lucy, something was missing. During a family trip to Vermont in the summer of 1937, her husband, Oliver, is called away. When Lucy falls into an affair with a younger man, her son, Tony, walks in on them. The betrayal rips apart the family, ultimately estranging Lucy from her son. Twenty years later, the two run into each other at a bar in Paris, and Lucy realizes that she may have found her best chance at absolution. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Irwin Shaw including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author's estate.

SUMMARY:Milton Firebrass, once Mark Twain's enemy and now his greatest ally, plans to build a giant airship that can fly to the North Pole of Riverworld. Once there, he hopes to learn the secret of the mysterious tower that dominates the landscape and find the answer to his most urgent question: could the tower contain the Ethicals, the enigmatic beings that created Riverworld? Meanwhile, Jill Gulbirra is challenged for the job of piloting the airship by none other than Cyrano de Bergerac. As if there were not enough challenges facing the crew, they soon suspect there is an agent of the Ethicals among their number, plotting their destruction....Biography From Wikipedia - Philip José FarmerBorn: January 26, 1918, Terre Haute, Indiana, USADied: February 25, 2009 (aged 91), Peoria, Illinois, USAPhilip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds and real and fake authors as epitomized by his Wold Newton family group of books. These tie all classic fictional characters together as real people and blood relatives resulting from an alien conspiracy. Such works as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) are early examples of literary mashup.Literary critic Leslie Fiedler compared Farmer to Ray Bradbury as both being "provincial American eccentrics" ... who... "strain at the classic limits of the [science fiction] form", but found Farmer distinctive in that he "manages to be at once naive and sophisticated in his odd blending of theology, pornography, and adventure".Farmer was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana. According to colleague Frederik Pohl, his middle name was in honor of an aunt, Josie. Farmer grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where he attended Peoria High School. His father was a civil engineer and a supervisor for the local power company. A voracious reader as a boy, Farmer said he resolved to become a writer in the fourth grade. He became an agnostic at the age of 14. At age 23, in 1941, he married and eventually fathered a son and a daughter. After washing out of flight training in World War II, he went to work in a local steel mill. He continued his education, however, earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Bradley University in 1950.Farmer had his first literary success in 1952 with a novella called The Lovers, about a sexual relationship between a human and an extraterrestrial. It won him the Hugo Award as "most promising new writer", the first of three. Thus encouraged, he quit his job to become a full-time writer, entered a publisher’s contest, and promptly won the $4,000 first prize for a novel that contained the germ of his later Riverworld series. The book was not published and Farmer did not get the money. Literary success did not translate into financial security, and in 1956 he left Peoria to launch a career as a technical writer. He spent the next 14 years working in that capacity for various defense contractors, from Syracuse, New York to Los Angeles, California, while writing science fiction in his spare time.He won a second Hugo after the publication of his 1967 novella Riders of the Purple Wage, a pastiche of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as well as a satire on a futuristic, cradle-to-grave welfare state. Reinvigorated, Farmer became a full-time writer again in 1969. Upon moving back to Peoria in 1970, he entered his most prolific period, publishing 25 books in 10 years. His novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go (a reworked, previously unpublished version of the prize-winning first novel of 20 years before) won him his third Hugo in 1971. A 1975 novel, Venus on the Half-Shell, created a stir in the larger literary community and media. It purported to be written in the first person by one “Kilgore Trout”, a fictional character appearing as an underappreciated science fiction writer in several of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. The escapade did not please Vonnegut when some reviewers not only concluded that it had been written by Vonnegut himself, but that it was a worthy addition to his works. Farmer did have permission from Vonnegut to write the book, though Vonnegut later said he regretted giving permission.Farmer had both critical champions and detractors. Leslie Fiedler proclaimed him "the greatest science fiction writer ever" and lauded his approach to storytelling as a “gargantuan lust to swallow down the whole cosmos, past, present and to come, and to spew it out again”. Isaac Asimov praised Farmer as an "excellent science fiction writer; in fact, a far more skillful writer than I am...." But Christopher Lehmann-Haupt described him in The New York Times in 1972 as “a humdrum toiler in the fields of science fiction”.Farmer died on February 25, 2009. At the time of his death, he and his wife Bette had two children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.Riverworld seriesThe Riverworld series follows the adventures of such diverse characters as Richard Burton, Hermann Göring, and Samuel Clemens through a bizarre afterlife in which every human ever to have lived is simultaneously resurrected along a single river valley that stretches over an entire planet. The series consists of To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), The Dark Design (1977), The Magic Labyrinth (1980) and Gods of Riverworld (1983). Although Riverworld and Other Stories (1979) is not part of the series as such, it does include the second-published Riverworld story, which is free-standing rather than integrated into one of the novels.The first two Riverworld books were originally published as novellas, "The Day of the Great Shout" and "The Suicide Express", and as a two-part serial, "The Felled Star", in the science fiction magazines Worlds of Tomorrow and If between 1965 and 1967. The separate novelette "Riverworld" ran in Worlds of Tomorrow in January 1966. A final pair of linked novelettes appeared in the 1990s: "Crossing the Dark River" (in Tales of Riverworld, 1992) and "Up the Bright River" (in Quest to Riverworld, 1993). Farmer introduced himself into the series as Peter Jairus Frigate (PJF).The Riverworld series originated in a novel, Owe for the Flesh, written in one month in 1952 as a contest entry. It won the contest, but the book was left unpublished and orphaned when the prize money was misappropriated, and Farmer nearly gave up writing altogether. The original manuscript of the novel was lost, but years later Farmer reworked the material into the Riverworld magazine stories mentioned above. Eventually, a copy of a revised version of the original novel surfaced in a box in a garage and was published as River of Eternity by Phantasia Press in 1983. Farmer's Introduction to this edition gives the details of how it all happened.World of Tiers seriesThe series is set within a number of artificially constructed parallel universes, created tens of thousands of years ago by a race of human beings who had achieved an advanced level of technology which gave them almost godlike power and immortality. The principal universe in which these stories take place, and from which the series derives its name, consists of an enormous tiered planet, shaped like a stack of disks or squat cylinders, of diminishing radius, one atop the other. The series follows the adventures of several of these godlike humans and several "ordinary" humans from Earth who accidentally travel to these artificial universes. (One of those "ordinary" humans was Kickaha, real name Paul Janus Finnegan (PJF) who becomes the main protagonist in the series.) The series consists of The Maker of Universes (1965), The Gates of Creation (1966), A Private Cosmos (1968), Behind the Walls of Terra (1970), The Lavalite World (1977) and More Than Fire (1993). Roger Zelazny has mentioned that The World of Tiers was something he had in his mind when he created his Amber series. A related novel is Red Orc's Rage (1991), which does not involve the principal characters of the other books directly, but does provide background information to certain events and characters portrayed in the other novels. This is the most "psychological" of Farmer's novels.

Prospect Andrew Tug Tugger wants two things. One, to become a member of the Ravage Motorcycle Club, and two, Blaze, the sexy brunette whose eyes set him on fire. Only one of those things is under his control, and he is done waiting. It’s time to take what he wants. Blaze has been running from her tragic past for over four years. She is finally feeling settled, after stripping her way through school and building a life in Sumner, her first safe haven. She keeps everyone at arm’s length, afraid to let anyone discover the secrets she holds within. Tug sets out to make Blaze his, but will someone get burned in the process? Will Blaze run again when her new world is threatened? Or will she allow Tug to consume her?

The best stories of the year, as selected by the one of the world's most honoured science fiction authors and his long-time collaborator. Here in one affordable volume is the best short science fiction of the year as selected from magazines, anthologies and journals. It is the first in a prestigious new series from ibooks. Robert Silverberg, a multiple winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards as a writer, has complied a distinguished record as an anthologist over the past 35 years. Among the famous books he has edited are THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME, THE NEW DIMENSIONS, UNIVERSE and THE ALPHA SERIES. His long list of science fiction and fantasy novels include such titles as DYING INSIDE and THE ALIENS YEARS.

Touch-sensitive FBI agent Lily Yu and her werewolf bond-mate are recruited by the Secret Service to help identify elected officials who have accepted demonic pacts. But Lily must turn to fellow agent Cynna Weaver for help when Cynna's former teacher, a demon master, emerges as the main suspect behind the pacts. After a demon commits a gruesome murder, sorcerer Cullen Seabourne joins the team racing the clock to find the apprentice of evil who uses demons to kill. Cynna and Cullen must work together- a challenge indeed when each has good reason to ignore the desire simmering between them. But passion and events both spiral out of control as an ancient prophecy is fulfilled- and the lupi's greatest enemy sets her sights on total devastation.

RED HAZE: THE LURE OF THE PACKBOOK 2 OF THE RED HAZE CHRONICLES He is part man, part wolf.He is terrorism’s worst enemy.His NATO codename is Red Haze and he is about to do battle with the greatest threat to European peace and stability, since the Second World War. Dateline: 19 March 2003 22.00 HoursThe South Rumaila Oilfields, Southern Iraq A Special Air Service Recon Team parachute behind enemy lines at the beginning of Operation Telic, the British controlled section of the second allied invasion of Iraq.Among the four-man team is Trooper Ashley ‘Ash’ Piper.After an initial attack on an Iraqi armoured column, Piper and his team are ambushed by Iraqi troops. Bloody mayhem and chaos ensue, with Piper suddenly, unexpectedly transforming into a horrifying wolf-like creature, eviscerating and ripping his enemies to shreds whilst saving the lives of two of his terrified colleagues. But why has this happened, and what disturbing secret is the SAS Trooper withholding, a secret originating from within the darkest recesses of his boyhood past? Only time will tell as Europe suddenly faces a series of sickening terrorist attacks across England, France, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Taking responsibility for the dreadful atrocities are a newly formed Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist Cell, ‘The European Muslim Freedom Fighters’, seemingly in response to the American and British invasion of Iraq. But what are the real facts behind the brutal carnage and mayhem engulfing Europe, bringing about dire retribution against the target countries innocent Muslim and immigrant populations? In response to this new, insidious threat, Ash Piper finds himself embroiled in a world of sexual sadism and vicious close combat as he begins to unravel the truth regarding the dealings of German microchip magnate Otto Von Kurst and his mistress, the beautiful, sadistic physician, Doctor Lana Franke. But all is not what it seems as Piper discovers Von Kurst has shadowy links to Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS ‘Totenkopf’ (Death’s Head) division and the highly respected Russian businessman and entrepreneur, Vitali Menkov. In this, the second in a series of open ended, ground breaking werewolf novels to be published exclusively on the Kindle, Ash Piper continues his descent into a horrifying web of intrigue, suspense and merciless action in a labyrinthine tale stretching across Europe and the Russian Federation. From the back streets of Rostov, Moscow and St Petersburg to the deserts of Iraq, to the cities of Amsterdam, Düsseldorf and Paris, the Ardennes Forest, Germany’s Rhineland and deep into the Vatican itself, Ash Piper fights against a sinister plot by Neo Nazi terrorists who are hell bent on bringing Europe into civil war and incinerating the very heart of the Roman Catholic religion. The countdown to anarchy has begun and for NATO’s new breed of covert assassin, not only must he face a shocking world of violence, pain and torture, he must also confront his own horrifying past and a truly terrifying future. For Ash Piper and the wolf inside him…are not alone. PREPARE FOR COMBAT! THE HUNT…CONTINUES!