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The Player (The Player Piano Mysteries #1)
by Joe CosentinoA Player Piano MysteryWhen young music teacher Andre Beaufort discovers an antique player piano in the basement of his apartment building, he is visited by the ghost of the original owner: a dapper and charismatic playboy from the Roaring Twenties, Freddy Birtwistle.Andre has never seen a ghost and Freddy has never been one, so they get off to a rocky start. But when Andre finds his neighbor murdered on his doorstep, he and Freddy join forces to narrow the pool of suspects.Soon Andre and Freddy discover that opposites attract, even if one’s alive and the other dead. Together these amateur detectives make an enticing team, and it’s a good thing too, because the first murder they solve together won’t be their last. But the real mystery isn’t just whodunit—it’s how a romance between a man and a ghost can have a happily ever after ending.The Player contains two stand-alone cozy murder mysteries, The City House and The Country House.
The Player Gods
by Kenneth TuckerHe awoke in Chicago with a name no one had ever heard and discovered that he was a private eye. And the year was 1940, but a 1940 that somehow he knew was not historical. For no one knew of Hitler and the Axis and the European war that would engulf the world. Fairies and trolls were among the city's inhabitants. Moreover, Chicago was being ravaged by a peculiar plague that caused madness and then spontaneous combustion of human beings. He himself was suspected of colluding with his wealthy client, Bianca Danielle, in the recent murder of her husband. Then he is charged with her murder, but has no recollection of his killing her. But then the clocks begin ticking backwards toward the hour of her brutal death.
The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel (Culture Ser. #2)
by Iain M. BanksThe second Culture novel from the awesome imagination of Iain M. Banks, a modern master of science fiction.The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy.Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.Praise for the Culture series:'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsThe State of the ArtExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe Algebraist
The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel (Culture)
by Iain M. BanksThe second Culture novel from the awesome imagination of Iain M. Banks, a modern master of science fiction.The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy.Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.Praise for the Culture series:'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsThe State of the ArtExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe Algebraist
The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel (Culture)
by Iain M. BanksThe Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy.Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.
The Player of Games (Culture Novel #2)
by Iain M. BanksThe Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.<P><P> Chosen for Mark Zuckerberg's "A Year of Books"
The Players of Null-A
by A. E. Van Vogt[from the back cover] Null-A Revisited Shadow of The Follower What strange being was The Follower? That question plagued Gilbert Gosseyn all during his efforts to track down this galaxy-threatening entity. Wherever Gosseyn went, the shadow of The Follower fell across the trail. Even Gosseyn's NULL-A trained double brain could not cut through that darkness....
The Playground: A Short Story
by Ray BradburyFrom the iconic science fiction author of Fahrenheit 451, a chilling dystopian short story that became a classic episode of TV&’s Ray Bradbury Theater. The Playground, first published in the hardcover edition of Bradbury&’s legendary work Fahrenheit 451, tells the story of Charles Underhill, a widower who must protect his young son, Jim, from the horrors of the playground. Passing the playground on their daily walk brings Charles back the anguish of his own childhood—a nightmare of vulnerability and suffering. He will do anything to spare his sensitive son from the same torment. Charles&’s sister, Carol, who has moved in to help raise the young boy, feels differently. The playground, she believes, is preparation for life, and Jim will be more equipped to deal with the rigor and obligation of adult existence by facing it. Paralyzed by his own fear and his sister&’s invocation of reason, Charles learns of a way that Jim can be spared the playground. But it will come at a great cost . . . perhaps more than he can pay.
The Playgrounds of Babel
by JonArno LawsonFrom the international best-selling author of Sidewalk Flowers and a world-renowned illustrator, this picture book is about the power of song, inspired by the story of the Tower of Babel. This unusual, thought-provoking story begins with an old woman telling a tale to a group of children in a playground. One of the boys can’t understand what she is saying, so another offers to translate. The old woman’s tale is inspired by the Tower of Babel story: In the days when everyone spoke the same language, the people built a tower to reach God. But God was annoyed and sent a dragon to destroy the tower, then created new languages for everyone so that they couldn’t understand each other. Fortunately, two little girls find a way to communicate through song. Told entirely through dialogue, moving back and forth between the old woman’s tale and the exchange between the two boys, this original, sometimes funny story raises questions about what divides us and what brings us together, in spite of all our differences — it is the power of song in this case, which ultimately brings hope. Piet Grobler brings a masterful visual interpretation to this layered story, rendering the old woman and children in the playground in monochromatic tones and the characters in the old woman’s tale in a naïve style with vibrant color, complete with incomprehensible languages in hand-drawn speech balloons. An author’s note explains JonArno Lawson’s inspiration for the story. Key Text Features author’s note Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.6 Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.
The Playgroup
by Nancy WeberSingle mother Jill Everts brings three-year-old Daisy to New York, hoping her daughter will make friends and forget about her imaginary ones. But Daisy's new reality scares Jill even more than the precocious child's fantasy world. When Daisy meets Stephanie, James, and Nick at a Central Park playground, they recognize each other although they've never met before. Some wild circuitry seems to kick in; the four kids connect so powerfully, they can move objects without touching them. They can maybe even bring back the dead. What is their mysterious link? Why is a super secret government agent convinced that Daisy is the perfect human being--and why should Jill allow him to tap into her little girl's mind? Then there's the wife of Jill's lover--how far will she go to get her hands on Daisy? Although The Playgroup is about four extraordinary kids, it's also about the dazzling potential in all three-year-olds. As every parent knows, only a gossamer wall stands between our hopes and fears for our children.
The Pleasure Principle
by Kimberly RayeWhat do women really want?Dallas ad exec Brady Weston thought he knew...until his wife left him, claiming he couldn't satisfy her sexually. Now he's come home to Cadillac, Texas, to learn the truth. His plan¿to pick up a woman, satisfy her fifty ways till Sunday and heal his bruised ego. And he doesn't have to look far to find the girl of his erotic dreams....What do men really want?Bar owner Eden Hallsy thought she knew...until sexy Brady Weston came back to town with a provocative proposition. Of course, she isn't surprised that Brady picked her to help him prove his sexual prowess. After all, she's been Cadillac's resident bad girl for years! Only, she never guesses that Brady will want more from her than just a good time....
The Pleasure Slave (Imperia #2)
by Gena ShowalterWhen Santa Fe antique dealer Julia Anderson was curiously drawn to purchase a battered jewelry box, she never expected it to contain her own personal love slave. Especially not tall, dark and sinfully handsome Tristan-a man hard to resist, and determined to fulfill her every desire.Though Tristan was a rogue of the battlefield and the boudoir, making love with Julia was like nothing he'd ever known. Yet revealing his true heart would break the centuries-old spell and separate them forever. And Tristan would do anything to go on loving Julia...even remain a slave through all eternity....
The Pleasures of a Futuroscope
by Lord DunsanyLord Dunsany, Irish master of fantasy, was the author of more than a dozen novels, hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays, and dozens of plays. In this powerful and moving novel, written in 1955, a futuroscope - a device that allows a viewer to see into the near or distant future - reveals an awful fate for humanity: a nuclear holocaust has destroyed nearly all human life on the planet. The great city of London is now merely an immense crater, filled in with water from the Thames. The pitiful remnants of humanity have been reduced to a Stone Age existence. The narrator, obsessively looking through the futuroscope, focuses upon the plight of a single family in their struggles to survive and fend off the many enemies, both animal and human, that surround them. When one of their number is kidnapped by a band of gypsies, we can only wonder at her fate in this brave new world of the distant future. Gripping, horrifying, touching, and fascinating, The Pleasures of a Futuroscope shows that Lord Dunsany retained his literary powers undiminished to the end of his life.
The Pledge (The Pledge Trilogy #2)
by Kimberly DertingIn the violent country of Ludania, the language you speak determines what class you are, and there are harsh punishments if you forget your place--looking a member of a higher class in the eye can result in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina (Charlie for short) can understand all languages, a dangerous ability she's been hiding her whole life. Her only place of release is the drug-filled underground club scene, where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. There, she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy who speaks a language she's never heard, and her secret is almost exposed. Through a series of violent upheavals, it becomes clear that Charlie herself is the key to forcing out the oppressive power structure of her kingdom....
The Plentiful Darkness
by Heather KassnerIn Heather Kassner's spine-chilling fantasy novel, reminiscent of Serafina and the Black Cloak, an orphaned girl chases a thieving boy into a magician’s land of starless, moonless gloom where other children have gone missing before her."Gleams with an eerie magic, its characters burning bright and fierce. A visual treat of a tale." —Stefan Bachmann, international bestselling author of Cinders and SparrowsIn order to survive on her own, twelve-year-old Rooney de Barra collects precious moonlight, which she draws from the evening sky with her (very rare and most magical) lunar mirror. All the while she tries to avoid the rival roughhouse boys, and yet another, more terrifying danger: the dreaded thing that's been disappearing children in the night. When Trick Aidan, the worst of the roughhouse boys, steals her lunar mirror, Rooney will do whatever it takes to get it back. Even if it means leaping into a pool of darkness after it swallows Trick and her mirror. Or braving the Plentiful Darkness, a bewitching world devoid of sky and stars. Or begrudgingly teaming up with Trick to confront the magician and unravel the magic that has trapped Warybone’s children.
The Plenty Principle
by Colin GreenlandFollowing the 'Plenty' trilogy, this book contains a collection of the adventures of Tabitha Jute and her motley crew. Xtasca the Cherub and Saskia are just two of the popular characters featured.This collection is not only focused on Jute and her companions - also included are a wealth of Greenland's other works, including an Elric story. His variety and skill shine through, as he tackles SF, fantasy, horror and more mainstream genres.
The Plenty Principle
by Colin GreenlandFollowing the 'Plenty' trilogy, this book contains a collection of the adventures of Tabitha Jute and her motley crew. Xtasca the Cherub and Saskia are just two of the popular characters featured. This collection is not only focused on Jute and her companions - also included are a wealth of Greenland's other works, including an Elric story. His variety and skill shine through, as he tackles SF, fantasy, horror and more mainstream genres.
The Plot Against Earth
by Robert SilverbergNEVER FOLLOW A FALLING STAR!The humanoid worlds of the galaxy were alarmed! Somehow, somewhere the mind-destroying hypnojewels were being trafficked in. An uneasy Earth, newcomer to the ranks of the civilized planets, sent Lloyd Catton to the Interworld Crime Commission on Morilar to investigate. Although the Commission had made little progress until then, after his arrival things started to happen fast.For it didn't take Catton long to realize that the hypnojewels were but the thin edge of a murderous wedge that was calculated to shove the Earth back again into the helpless isolation of a world returned to savagery.
The Plotters
by Alexander BladeHe came from a far planet to find some of the Earth's secrets. But Marko found other things, too--like his love for beautiful Beth.
The Plutonium Blonde (Nuclear Bombshell #1)
by Lawrence Ganem John ZakourA private detective searches for a plutonium-powered android in this “surprisingly clever” sci-fi noir that “spoofs the genre and everything else in sight” (Science Fiction Chronicle).Zachary Nixon Johnson is the last private eye on earth—and in the pop culture-crazed world of 2057, that makes him a bit of a celebrity. It also makes him a magnet for trouble. But when the famous BB Starr, a former exotic dancer who is now the CEO of the world’s largest corporation, hires him to find her illegal, plutonium-powered, psychotic android clone, Zach knows that his life is about to get even weirder.Once Zach starts investigating, his life is suddenly filled with unwanted publicity and unexplained assassination attempts. Not only is this case more trouble than it’s worth, but the mystery of the missing android is deeper than he thought. Together with his beautiful, kick-boxing surgeon girlfriend Electra, his genius inventor tech expert Randy, and his holographic, sentient super-computer sidekick HARV, Zach must find a way to unravel the mystery, find the missing android, and quite possibly save all humanity from total destruction.
The Pnume (Gateway Essentials #208)
by Jack VanceThe Pnume were an ancient race of the planet Tschai, living underground in a vast network of caverns with their human slave-species, the Pnumekin: The Pnume were the historians of Tschai, collecting its past with ruthless and scholarly dedication. Surface-dwellers never saw the Pnume - if they were lucky. Adam Reith was not so fortunate. The Pnume had heard rumors of a strange man, claiming to have come from the planet Earth, and they wanted him for Foreverness, the museum of Tschai life. Adam Reith was about to become an alien exhibit.
The Poe Estate
by Polly ShulmanThis is a mind-bending, rousing adventure celebrating classic ghost and horror stories, by the author of The Grimm Legacy and The Wells Bequest. Sukie's been lonely since the death of her big sister, Kitty--but Kitty's ghost is still with her. At first that was comforting, but now Kitty's terrifying anyone who gets too close. Things get even weirder when Sukie moves into her family's ancestral home, and an older, less familiar ghost challenges her to find a treasure. Her classmate Cole is also experiencing apparitions. Fortunately, an antique broom's at hand to fly Sukie and Cole to the New-York Circulating Material Repository's spooky Poe Annex. As they search for clues and untangle ancient secrets, they discover their histories intertwine and are as full of stories of love, revenge, and pirate hijinks as some of the most famous fiction.
The Poet King (The Harp and Ring Sequence #3)
by Ilana C. MyerProphecies unfold, legends turn real, and a war of mythical proportions endangers the realm in Ilana C. Myer’s epic fantasy The Poet King, the follow-up to her critically-acclaimed Fire Dance, continuing The Harp and Ring Sequence.After a surprising upheaval, the nation of Tamryllin has a new ruler: Elissan Diar, who proclaims himself the first Poet King. Not all in court is happy with this regime change, as Rianna secretly schemes against him while she investigates a mysterious weapon he hides in the bowels of the palace.Meanwhile, a civil war rages in a distant land, and former Court Poet Lin Amaristoth gathers allies old and new to return to Tamryllin in time to stop the coronation. For the Poet King’s ascension is connected with a darker, more sinister prophecy which threatens to unleash a battle out of legend unless Lin and her friends can stop it. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Poet's Funeral (Guy Mallon Mysteries #1)
by John M Daniel"Daniel's sharp, sardonic wit and insider's view of book industry foibles are sure to make this bibliomystery a hit."—Publishers Weekly STARRED reviewAt the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association Convention, everything goes wrong. Julia Child's cooking demonstration in the Random House aisle blows up and catches fire. A top New York editor catches a pie in the face. Invitations to the most exclusive publisher's party are stolen and all the wrong people show up. Worse, Heidi Yamada, the world-famous poet, is found dead, spread over the late Elvis Presley's king-sized bed. It's all caught on film by a busy photographer from Publishers Weekly, a woman soon kidnapped. When the Las Vegas Police shrug their shoulders, Guy Mallon, Heidi's first publisher (and a discarded lover) wonders what to do.Poor Guy. He's a bookman from Santa Barbara who, despite Ross Macdonald and Sue Grafton, never felt inspired to be a sleuth, but he feels he owes it to Heidi. Besides, catching her killer may be his only chance to leave Las Vegas alive....The Poet's Funeral is a romp rich with poetry, publishing, book collecting, and literary gossip. Its cast ranges from smalltime players to the famous Rock Bottom Remaiders. It's a story of ego, love, art, and murder during four hot days at the 1990 ABA.
The Point
by John DixonWhat if you had a power you had to hide from everyone—until now? In this bold sci-fi action thriller, a secret training program at West Point is turning misfits into a new generation of heroes.Welcome to The Point, future leaders of the Posthuman Age. New Cadets, society is not ready for you. The oldest, fiercest fear is ignorance. The general population would burn you at the metaphorical stake. Here, you will train alongside other posthumans. You will learn to control and maximize your powers and to use them for the greater good. You will discover camaraderie and purpose. You will become a part of something bigger than yourselves: the Long Gray Line. Scarlett Winter has always been an outsider, and not only because she’s a hardcore daredevil and born troublemaker—she has been hiding superhuman powers she doesn’t yet understand. Now she’s been recruited by a secret West Point unit for cadets with extraordinary abilities. Scarlett and her fellow students are learning to hone their skills, from telekinetic combat to running recon missions through strangers’ dreamscapes. At The Point, Scarlett discovers that she may be the most powerful cadet of all. With the power to control pure energy, she’s a human nuclear bomb—and she’s not sure she can control her powers much longer. Even in this army of outsiders, Scarlett feels like a misfit all over again, but when a threat that endangers her fellow students arises from the school’s dark past, duty calls and Scarlett must make a choice between being herself and becoming something even greater: a hero.