It's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing . . . and many are desperate to take that freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science--where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture---the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be . . .and how it all ended. At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.



This urban occult fantasy from cyberpunk author and screenplay writer Shirley (_Black Glass_) reads like the script for a bloated summer blockbuster, loaded with action, expository dialogue and stock characters. Like other members of the Shadow Community, army ranger–turned–bounty hunter Gabriel Bleak can tap into the Hidden, an invisible metaphysical realm, and conjure magical weapons and allies. After a devastating terrorist attack on Miami, the Pentagon funds a search-and-capture initiative to neutralize the entire Shadow Community. Bleak runs from government agents and heads into battle against the mythical Moloch, which threatens to throw our world into utter chaos. Steeped in its own detailed mythology, Shirley's fast-paced romp through the occult is clever in concept but awkward in execution, with one-dimensional characters (including a painfully caricatured voodoo priestess) and telegraphed plot points that shout when they should whisper. (Aug.)
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In a secret government lab somewhere in Nevada, a young scientist cowers in darknesswaiting, listening, and calculating his chances of surviving the unspeakable carnage that has left him trapped and alone. Or almost alone. Soon after, a covert military operation "cleanses" all traces of a top-secret project gone horrifically wrong. Three years later, it begins againwhen the quiet of a warm autumn night in a sleepy California town is shattered by a streak of light across the sky, the thunder of impact, and the unleashing of something insidious. Spreading, multiplying, and transforming everything in its path, this diabolical intelligence will not be denied until the townsfolkand eventually, all living thingsare conquered. Until they are all crawling. . . . From the Trade Paperback edition.



G-R-R-I-S-L-Y...by the author of A Splendid Chaos (1988). Horrible as this is, it has redeeming values, one being its warning against addictive pleasures and too much partying. When down-at-heels screenwriter Tom Prentice identifies his ex-wife Amy in the morgue, she's 50 pounds underweight and mutilated. Then when Prentice pitches a banal cop-show to studio head Arthwright, Arthwright is oddly not dismissive of the dumb idea. As we later find out, Arthwright is a kind of astral vampire. Meanwhile, Reverend Garner, a recovering doper/alcoholic who runs a ministry in Oakland, finds that his teenage daughter Constance is missing. She's been kidnapped by Ephram Pixie, a ghoul with astral ties who turns Constance into a pleasure addict by psychic pressure on her pleasure-center brain cells. Ephram likes to have Constance enjoy sex in his presence while she murders folks in nasty ways in motel rooms. Mitch Teitelbaum, the missing young brother of Tom's roommate Jeff, turns up in a hospital after deliberately laying bare his chest muscles and slitting open his leg, among other enjoyable self-injuries, after a strange party. With echoes of The Shining, this all-continuing party takes place at the fenced-in residence of some ageless Malibu film folk and famed party-givers (including Arthwright) who have been living for decades as vampires of pleasure. Their particular pleasure is to extend their snouts like a mosquito's feeding tube and suck out just enough flesh to leave a victim emaciated but still alive. Some of the party guests are themselves in advanced decay but still actively autoerotic. The story's ghastliest effects focus on the wetbones, or victims now a skinless rubble of fresh bones--bones sometimes strapped together with thongs to make wet furniture.... The queasies'll getcha if you don't watch out! -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.