At the age of 49, after a lifetime of insomnia and midnight peril, William Cowling believes the hour has come for him to sieze control. So, he begins to dig a hole in his backyard--a shelter against impending doom--much to the chagrin of his family. Ultimately, he finds he must make a choice: safety or sanity; love or fidelity to the truth. Darkly comic, poignant, and provocative, this visionary novel by the author of In the Lake of the Woods captures the essence of what it's like to be a conscious human being in the nuclear age Pub: 6,000.Amazon.com ReviewIn 1969, 22-year-old Tim O'Brien was drafted and eventually sent to Vietnam. In a memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone and two works of fiction--Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried--he revisited the war, crafting gut-wrenching tales of terror, death, and futility among the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia. In The Nuclear Age the author explores the road not taken: his hero, William Cowling, avoided the draft and spent the 1960s, instead, in a welter of antiwar radicalism. But soon one begins to wonder how different life in the underground, with its strange mix of idealistic visionaries and glory-seeking psychotics, really is from the battlefields of Vietnam. Enlisted in the ranks of an antiwar paramilitary organization in Florida, William remarks to his radical girlfriend Sarah that the group is "like a death squad. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, they're all gunslingers. Completely scrambled. But it's lethal. I know that much, it'll kill somebody." Nevertheless, he sticks it out in a noncombatant capacity and resurfaces several years later at the end of the war as a profitable trader in uranium. Success hasn't dulled William Cowling's survival instinct, however; at the novel's start in 1995, the now-middle-aged businessman is busy digging a bomb shelter in his back yard. Nuclear war has been a particular obsession of his since those childhood drills back in the mid-1950s during which he was expected to crawl under his desk at school and cover his head against fallout. Forty years later, he still isn't taking any chances. His daughter thinks he's crazy, his wife is on the verge of leaving him, but still he digs--and as he digs he reviews the events in his life that have led up to this moment. The Nuclear Age is especially strong when it focuses on William's childhood and the complex web of relationships that exist within families. Less successful is O'Brien's portrayal of his character's obsession with nuclear war; though we are meant to see William as the only truly sane man in an insane world, all too often he comes across as genuinely cracked. Despite the book's weaknesses, it has many strengths, not least among them being Tim O'Brien's fierce intelligence, black wit, and eloquent prose. --Alix WilberFrom Library JournalBrilliant nuclear detonations and rising silver Titans have plagued William's dreams since his childhood during the Cuban missile crisis, when he fashioned a fallout shelter from the family ping-pong table. Thirty years later his fear has mushroomed into blinding paranoia, and when his wife announces she is leaving, he laces a hole in the backyard with dynamite, places her in it, and prepares to blow her up. Understand, however, that he is a good pacifist. The impending murder is really the Bomb's fault. ``If you're sane, you see the Bomb's madness. If you see madness, you freak.'' Such is O'Brien's ceaseless harangue in The Nuclear Age , an awkward polemic sure to disappoint readers of Going After Cacciato . Sadly, The Nuclear Age is not in that league, with orchestrated excitement here replaced by a didactic monotone. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University ParkCopyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fost Longstrider's mission seemed ordinary. He'd been hired to deliver a jug to a wizard on the far side of the forest. Unfortunately the jug contained a sex-starved genie, the wizard was dead by foul means, and Fost was probably the next to die. Then the genie was stolen and spirited away to the City in the Sky. It was up to Fost to steal it back from two beautiful sisters. They were fighting to become queen and, using dark powers, one had called forth a demon. Now Fost's foray was suddenly a terrible war

A history of the politics, economics, and culture of ancient Mesopotamia, from prehistoric times to the dawn of the Christian era, surveying the shared civilization of Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires

Maureen, a young Black girl torn between the remarkable powers of her mother and the harsh realities of life, comes of age, in a powerful, evocative tale set in a migrant labor camp in the bayous of the Florida Everglades. Reissue.

A NAMELESS STRANGER rides into the corrupt and explosive gold rush town of Lahood, California. His arrival coincides with the prayer of a young girl who is hoping for a miracle to end the sudden and random violence in the community. Fifteen-year-old Megan quietly recites from the Bible: "And I looked, and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." A story of confrontation in a lawless time, the nameless stranger becomes a catalyst for hope and retribution. A struggle between ruthless corporation gunmen and innocent independent miners takes on new meaning with the appearance of an enigmatic horseman. Clint Eastwood is the Pale Rider.

Orphaned eleven-year-old Izzy is shipped off to San Francisco, to stay with an uncle and his wife who plan to send her to boarding school. Izzy's memory about her past is dim. Why did her father hate her uncle so much? How did her mother die? And what happened to the little dog, Gus, she had once loved? Izzy is determined to find the answers. Children's/Young Adult Fiction by Marilyn Sachs; originally published by Doubleday (Young Readers)

The inevitable Long Night of Interstellar barbarism is approaching, and Dominic, who devoted his life to keeping the galactic peace decides that others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets. Enter Diana—illegitmate—but the true daughter of Dominic.

The centuries-long winter of the Great Year on Helliconia is upon us, and the Oligarch is taking harsh measures to ensure the survival of the people of the bleak Northern continent of Sibornal. Behind the battle with which the novel opens lies an act of unparalleled treachery. But the plague is coming on the wings of winter and the Oligarch’s will is set against it—and against the phagors, humanity’s ancient enemies, who carry the plague with them.

Millennia ago the Five Galaxies decreed the planet Jijo off limits. But in the last thousand years six races have begun resettling Jijo, embracing a pre-industrial life to hide their existence from the Galactics. Overcoming their differences, the Six have built a society based on mutual tolerance for one another and respect for the planet they live on. But that has all changed with an event the Six have feared for hundreds of years: the arrival of an outside ship. David Brin has returned to his popular Uplift universe in this, the first book of a new trilogy.

It carries on the tale of Princess Moriana's quest to battle the evil that has claimed her city, and in carrying on a difficult plot (which could so easily have been written badly) Vardeman and Milan have successfully wrapped up the adventures of Moriana and Fost along with the style and flair of the first book. The characterisations are excellently done, even down to the annoyingly unearthly Erimenes ( who else could write a book about a man in a jug! )

Could a cordon bleu chef be a junk-food addict? The more Blake Cocharan learned about Summer Lyndon, dessert chef extraordinaire, the more intrigued he became-and the more determined he was to hire her. Blake wanted the Best, and Summer looked extremely good to him. Her superb credentials were icing on the cake.Summer was accustomed to traveling around the world, creating the perfect ending to perfect meals. But Blake had a unique appeal. Summer found herself responding to the challenge, both professionally...and personally.... For the first time, Summer was planning a meal from start to finish—and creating a perfect ending all her own.

His old friend Helena Gort calls on Carolus Deene to come to Cat’s Cradle, a seaside guest house and find out about two deaths judged respectively “natural causes” and “suicide.” There is no doubt in Helena’s mind that something sinister has happened and something very unpleasant is brewing. She is right.

Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign, February to June 1813 Major Richard Sharpe awaits the opening shots of the army's new campaign with grim expectancy. Victory depends on the increasingly fragile alliance between Britain and Spain — an alliance that must be maintained at any cost. But Sharpe's enemy, Pierre Ducos, seizes a chance to both destroy the alliance and take a personal revenge on Sharpe. And when the lovely spy, La Marquesa, takes a hand in the game, Sharpe finds himself caught in a web of deadly intrigue and becomes a fugitive, hunted by enemy and ally alike…

It is hungry It is thirsty It lives next door to Charley Brewster Charley has seen the coffin and the bodies drained of blood. He knows he will be the vampire’s next victim. But no one will believe him: not the police, not his girlfriend Amy, not even the school weirdo, Evil Ed. Charley’s last chance is to enlist the help of Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer, star of a hundred horror movies and host of TV’s Fright Night. Nobody thinks he’s telling the truth—until Evil Ed becomes a vampire and Amy is dragged into his next-door neighbour’s evil, foul-smelling house of death!