Vastralaya

Josh Brannock

Connor Harris

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

vanessa

Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the 'spice' melange, the most important and valuable substance in the cosmos. The story explores the complex, multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion as the forces of the empire confront each other for control of Arrakis.Published in 1965, it won the Hugo Award in 1966 and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. Dune is frequently cited as the world's best-selling sf novel.

Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction, by Joseph Conrad, is part of the Barnes &amp; Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes &amp; Noble Classics: * New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars * Biographies of the authors * Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events * Footnotes and endnotes * Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work * Comments by other famous authors * Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations * Bibliographies for further reading * Indices &amp; Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes &amp; Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.One of the most haunting stories ever written, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness follows Marlow, a riverboat captain, on a voyage into the African Congo at the height of European colonialism. Astounded by the brutal depravity he witnesses, Marlow becomes obsessed with meeting Kurtz, a famously idealistic and able man stationed farther along the river. What he finally discovers, however, is a horror beyond imagining. Heart of Darkness is widely regarded as a masterpiece for its vivid study of human nature and the greed and ruthlessness of imperialism. This collection also includes three of Conrad’s finest short stories: “Youth,” the author’s largely autobiographical tale of a young man’s ill-fated sea voyage, in which Marlow makes his first appearance, “The Secret Sharer,” and “Amy Forster.” Features a map of the Congo Free State.A. Michael Matin is a professor in the English Department of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He has published articles on various twentieth-century British and postcolonial writers.

* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* The Restaurant at the End of the Universe* Life, the Universe and Everything* So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish* Mostly HarmlessSuppose a good friend calmly told you over a round of drinks that the world was about to end? And suppose your friend went on to confess that he wasn't from around here at all, but rather from a small planet near Betelgeuse? And what if the world really did come to an end, but instead of being blown away, you found yourself hitching a ride on a spaceship with your buddy as a travelling companion?It happens to Arthur Dent.An ordinary guy from a small town in England, Arthur is one lucky sonofagun: his alien friend, Ford Prefect, is in fact a roving researcher for the universally bestselling Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ... and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

Literary critics can moan all they want about Stephen King's "penny dreadful" oeuvre, but his mastery at the craft of storytelling is indisputable. King writes his novels like a seduction, the story unfolding delicately and deliberately. As any Stephen King fan knows, his coy expository chapters often take up the first hundred pages or more. In Cell, however, the reader is brutally dragged into the main action--unspeakable, senseless violence--within the first seven pages. Cell is by far King's most brutal, transgressive work to date.Many have compared Cell to his earlier epic, The Stand. On the surface, the novels are quite similar: an apocolyptic event threatens the very existence of the human race as a band of survivors struggle to come to terms with the carnage and avert further catastrophe. Cell, however, is the far more mature novel of the pair. The Stand was, in many ways, a novel by an idealistic youth, whereas Cell is filled with the trenchant and world-weary observations of an adult. The subtext is laden with so much chillingly apt futurist rhetoric that it is as though the author had Marshall McLuhan whispering plot devices and metaphors into his ear as he labored over his typewriter. King manages to explore several of the major sociocultural conflicts of our time, most persuasively the end of the era of individualism and the rise of collectivism, here symptomatic of heavy reliance on technology. Whereas many dystopian novels are almost comically blunt when expounding upon the dangers of collectivism, King's horrific plot and action give his metaphors a sort of subtlety that renders his subtext much more graceful and easier to stomach than the work of Ayn Rand.As the epigraphs indicate, it is also a meditation on the intrinsic violence of the human race. King clearly feels as though the world is out of control and wants to find out why. His preferred genre, horror, is an excellent one with which to consider the depravaties of modern life. The Stand was a novel that, if not upbeat, was at least optimistic--a reflection of the times in which it was written. There was also violence, but it had its own biblical logic, if violence can ever be called logical. In Cell, the violence is senseless, oppressive, and omnipresent. There seems to be little promise for a better world... at least not one inhabited by human beings.Many reviewers took issue with the unresolved ending. Considering the subtext of the novel, however, the reader will find that the ending's abruptness actually informs the sense that Cell, besides being an excellent horror yarn, is a meticulously painted portrait of the horrors of global culture. The many crises of our time are still developing and mutating. The end is not yet, it seems, in sight.

The historians can’t seem to settle whether to call this one "The Third Space War" (or the fourth), or whether "The First Interstellar War" fits it better. We just call it “The Bug War." Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols," or "police actions." However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war...In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.

Once upon a time, in the haunted city of Derry, four boys stood together and did a brave thing. Certainly a good thing, perhaps even a great thing. Something that changed them in ways they could never begin to understand.Twenty-five years later, the boys are now men with separate lives and separate troubles. But the ties endure. Each hunting season the foursome reunite in the woods of Maine. This year, a stranger stumbles into their camp, disoriented, mumbling something about lights in the sky. His incoherent ravings prove to be disturbingly prescient. Before long, these men will be plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world. Their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past - and in the Dreamcatcher.Stephen King's first full-length novel since Bag of Bones is, more than anything, a story of how men remember, and how they find their courage. Not since The Stand has King crafted a story of such astonishing range—and never before has he contended so frankly with the heart of darkness.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen.

Cujo slept.He lay on the verge of grass by the porch, his mangled snout on his fore-paws. His dreams were confused, lunatic things. It was dusk, and the sky was dark with wheeling, red-eyed bats. He leaped at them again and again, and each time he leaped he brought one down, teeth clamped on a leathery, twitching wing. But the bats kept biting his tender face with their sharp little rat-teeth. That was where the pain came from. That was where all the hurt came from. But he would kill them all. He would--Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the beloved family pet of the Joe Cambers of Castle Rock, Maine, and the best friend ten-year-old Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo pursues a rabbit into a bolt-hole--a cave inhabited by some very sick bats. What happens to Cujo, and to those unlucky enough to be near him, makes for the most heart-squeezing novel Stephen King has yet written.Vic Trenton, New York adman obsessed by the struggle to hand on to his one big account, his restive and not entirely faithful wife, Donna, and their four-year-old son, Tad, moved to Castle Rock seeking the peace of rural Maine. But life in this small town--evoked as vividly as a Winesburg or a Spoon River--is not what it seems. As Tad tries bravely to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage suddenly on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight, and that the fateful currents of their lives will eddy closer and faster to the horrifying vortex that is Cujo.Stephen King has never written a book in which readers will turn the pages with such a combination of anticipation and dire apprehension. Doing so, they will experience an absolute master at work.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth. It is a tale of a culture whose family structures are based on the presence of two men for every woman, leading to novel forms of marriage and family. It is the story of the disparate people, a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic who become the movement's leaders, and of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to the revolt's inner circle, who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

Apparently a classic of the sci-fi cannon, I'd never heard of this book until it came up on a book club here. It took me a long time to read only because of lack of time, and a rather annoying trait the author has that I'll go into later.This is one of those books that tells us more about the period it was written in than anything else, so it's important to note that it was first published in 1961 and later again in 1968 - when moon fever was running high and people seemed to have high expectations for human achievement. Events are set in an undisclosed future but the older characters seem to remember the first moon landing, so I wouldn't be surprised if Heinlein was thinking of it being set around about now. With a mix of very daggy technology like "stereo tanks" (TVs) and large, clumsy listening devices, alongside hover crafts and spaceships to Mars, the scope of the setting is hampered by a 50s' imagination. Stranger in a Strange Land is about Michael "Mike" Smith, the "Man from Mars", offspring of two of scientists on board the original mission to Mars, who was raised by Martians. He is more Martian than human, especially in his thinking and outlook and philosophy, when he is brought back to Earth. Heir to a shitload of money care of his parents' heritage, it's unsurprising that the bigshots on Earth are wanting to keep him locked up tight. A nurse at the hospital where he is first kept, Jill, offers him a glass of water and in that one action becomes a "water brother" - the highest accolade for Mike. She rescues him from the politicians with the help of her journalist friend Ben and takes him to the home of a grumpy, reclusive man, Dr Jubal Harshaw, who lives with three young women who serve as secretaries - Anne, Miriam and Dorcas - and two men who take care of the property - Duke and Larry. Mike's particular talents slowly reveal: he can vanish things, including people, if he recognises there is a "wrongness" in them; he can withdraw from his own body and shut down his body so there is no heartbeat; he can teleport and think telepathically; he can absorb books in minutes and regulate his own body, making it muscular and mature at will; and so on. All of this can be done with understanding of the Martian language, which Jill starts to learn. He's completely ignorant of human ways, of human concepts - things like jealousy, possessiveness etc. are all alien to him. He doesn't understand religions and he has never laughed.After months on the road with just Jill, learning and "grokking", he finally knows why humans laugh and how to do it himself, and gets the human condition. It leads him to start his own "church", though it's more of a way of life open to people of all religious denominations, with free love and open mindedness, and abilities gained through mastery of the Martian language. With Mike set up as a new Messiah, a prophet, there's only one logical conclusion for this story.As a story, Stranger in a Strange Land is enjoyable and original. Yet, as a story, it's also bogged down with sermons, with Heinlein's opinions, and a very out-of-date mentality. It reads very 60s and 70s, though it was written before then. Not as far-sighted as it would like to be! It's especially noticeable in the relations between men and women, which have that faintly liberated tinge that's all really lip service, and a great deal of sexist language. Which is ironic, really, considering Mike's free love cult. There's also an affectionate insult for a Muslim character who's nicknamed "Stinky" that I couldn't help but be offended by.It does make it hard to read, though, when you come across lines like this, as spoken by Jill very matter-of-factly: "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault." (p304) While today the statistics are more like "nine of ten times, a woman's rapist is someone she knows", the idea that it's "partly her fault" is still considered true by way too many people. To hear this come out of Jill's mouth makes it especially awful.Another example is Jubal saying: "Pipe down, Anne. Close your mouth, Dorcas. This is not a time when women have the vote." (p382) Granted, they ignored him and did what they wanted anyway, but there're a lot of these flippant, dismissive remarks all through the book. Product of its times, sure: just not at all futuristic.Then we come to the proselytizing, which the book is rife with. Today, reading this book, the opinions shared are very "yes, so?" - old hat, in other words. Though it is fun to read the rants, the set-up is cringe-worthy. Jubal is the main lecturer, and the characters around him serve as props. There are a great many "Huh?"s from educated and knowledgeable people so that Jubal can share his abundant wisdom. One "huh?" is okay, but when each long paragraph of Jubal is responded to with a "huh?" it gets a bit silly. Frankly, it's bad writing. It reminded me somewhat of The Da Vinci Code, which also uses characters to expound the author's theories on religion etc. at great length. While these things did at times make it harder to read the book, essentially the book is easy to read and often quite fun too. Jubal's sermons (and when Jubal isn't around, other characters fill the role, like Ben and Sam) can be a bit heavy-handed and obvious but a lot of it I agree with, so it wasn't rubbing me up the wrong way. Mike is a challenging character to write, because in order to write a naive, ignorant character to this extent, you need to be incredibly self-aware. Heinlein has fairly good success here, and Mike's growth, maturation, development and resolutions fit the character and work. He has charisma and is definitely intriguing; yet because he lacks the human flaws, he's also somewhat unapproachable and alien: a good balance to achieve.

Welcome to Derry, Maine ...It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real ...They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

The seventh and final installment of Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the world more than 20 years ago; now he draws its suspenseful story to a close, snapping together the last pieces of his action puzzle and drawing Roland Deschain ever closer to his ultimate goal.Alternate cover edition for ISBN-10: 1416524525; ISBN-13: 9781416524526

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

The book is always better than the film, but I'd never read 2001 before. What I didn't know, until reading the foreword, is that this novel was literally written in tandem with the film, with Clarke and Kubrick feeding each other ideas. At some points, however, filming overtook writing, or vice versa, and the two stories, though similar, split along two different paths. After reading the book, the film becomes little more than a very well crafted container: It's pretty and neat to look at it, but open it up, and it's empty. There is none of Clarke's vision of how a being we'd call God would communicate with us across unfathomable time spans, or teach us, or lead us into higher consciousness. Stripped away by Kubrick is the sense that this being truly wants us to be in its image, and that the whole breadcrumb trail of monoliths was designed to do just that. And completely erased is the notion that David Bowman, as Star Child, is now one with the Universe, in some Zen-like way, and also much more like something we'd called a god.Don't get me wrong, 2001 is still one of my favorite films, but to get the full meaning and understand the full weight of why 2001 has been called "the perfect science fiction story," you must read the book. Clarke marries science, mysticism, theory, and fantasy in ways like no other. Unfortunately, Kubrick stripped away the mysticism and theory and left us what is, in comparison to the book, only a glimmer at something bigger.Kubrick touched the monolith, but Clarke went inside.

"Nurse, this patient’s chart is very confusing.”“Which patient, Doctor?”“Uh..Mr. Kemper. He’s the one in the vegetative state.”“Oh, that’s a very sad and odd case.”“According to the patient history, he was admitted a few weeks ago with cerebrospinal fluid leaking from his nose and ears, but it seemed like he should recover. But yesterday he was brought in again, barely conscious and then he lapsed into a coma. The really odd thing is that I see no signs of injury or disease.”“That’s right, Doctor. It was a book that did this to Mr. Kemper.”“A book? How is that possible?”“From what we can figure out, the first incident occured after he read Hyperion by a writer named Dan Simmons. I guess it’s one of those sci-fi books and apparently the story is quite elaborate. Anyhow, Mr. Kemper had read Simmons before and knew he likes to put a lot of big ideas in his books. But this time, apparently Simmons broke into his house and managed to directly implant much of the book directly into Mr. Kemper’s brain via some kind of crude funnel device.”“I find that highly unlikely, Nurse.”“Most of us did, Doctor. But Mr. Kemper kept insisting that Simmons had some kind of grudge against him. He even had a note he said Simmons had left that said something like ‘Don’t you ever learn? If you keep reading my books, I’ll end you someday.’”“Assuming that I believed this story, I guess that Kemper’s current state tells us that he didn’t heed the warning?”“Apparently not, Doctor. His wife said she found him having convulsions and leaking brain matter out his nose and ears again. A copy of the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion was on the floor nearby.”“I can’t believe that reading a silly sci-fi book could turn an healthy man into a turnip, Nurse.”“Well, when they brought Kemper in, he was semiconscious and muttering. Someone wrote it down. Let see, he kept repeating words and phrases like: Shrike, Time Tombs, the Core, God, uh…no, two gods actually, farcasters, Ousters, religion, pope, death wand, space battles, interplanetary trees, old Earth, AI, mega sphere, data sphere, The Canterbury Tales, poetry, John Keats, Tree of Thorns, and Lord of Pain.”“Jesus! What does all that mean?”“Someone looked it up on the web and all of that is actually in the book.”“That poor bastard. No wonder his gray matter is fried. No one could absorb all that without permanent damage.”“Yes, I’d think that book should have some kind of warning sticker or something on it.”“One thing I still don’t understand, Nurse. If Kemper knew that this book would probably do this to him, why did he still read it?”“I guess he had told several people that Hyperion was just so good that he had to know how it ended, even if it killed him.”***************************************I think the word ‘epic’ was invented to describe this book.What Simmons began in Hyperion finishes here with a story so sprawling and massive that it defies description. In the far future, humanity has spread to the stars, and maintains a web of worlds via ‘farcasters’. (Think Stargates.) On the planet Hyperion, mysterious tombs have been moving backwards in time and are guarded by the deadly Shrike.Seven people were sent to Hyperion on a ‘pilgrimage’ that was almost certainly a suicide mission, but the Ousters, a segment of humanity evolving differently after centuries spent in deep space, are about to invade. The artificial intelligences of the Core that humanity depends on for predictions of future events and management of the farcaster system can’t tell what’s coming with an unknown like the Shrike and Hyperion in play.Battles rage across space and time and the virtual reality of the data sphere as varying interests with competing agendas maneuver and betray each other as the pilgrims on Hyperion struggle to survive and finally uncover the secrets of the Shrike. But the real reasons behind the war and it’s ultimate goal are bigger and more sinister than anyone involved can imagine.I can’t say enough good things about the story told in these first two Hyperion books. This is sci-fi at it’s best with a massive story crammed with big unique ideas and believable characters you care about. Any one of the pieces could have made a helluva book, but it takes a talent like Simmons to pull all of it together into one coherent story.

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.

Super Meat Boy is a tough as nails platformer where you play as an animated cube of meat who's trying to save his girlfriend (who happens to be made of bandages...

the United States, China, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Armed...

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle / construction game. The millions of Goo Balls that live in the beautiful World of Goo don't know that they are in a game...

Human Revolution you play Adam Jensen, a security specialist, handpicked to oversee the defense of one of America's most experimental biotechnology...

The original Half-Life 2 - The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds h...

The Mass Effect trilogy is a science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life forms and mysterious uncharted planets. In this d...

The next chapter in the Elder Scrolls saga arrives from the Bethesda Game Studios. Skyrim reimagines the open-world fantasy epic, bringing to life a complete vi...

Terraria offers players a chance to be an action gamer, master builder, a collector, and even an explorer....

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map. TF2 delivers new gametypes, a signature art style pow...

From the legendary game developers at id Software, comes an explosive journey into the nightmare world of DOOM&trade;. Embark on a harrowing mission to rid of M...

[Metacritic's 2004 PC Game of the Year] By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiven...

Episode Two is the second in a trilogy of new games created by Valve that extends the award-winning and best-selling Half-Life adventure. As Dr. Go...

Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. Unlike regular games there aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play. You spawn obje...

[Xbox Live Arcade] Braid is a puzzle-platformer, drawn in a painterly style, where the player manipulates the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. From a...

Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the...

It’s a co-op survival horror game. Up to 6 players in online co-op mode, or just you, on your own, playing the Solo mode. The aim - cleanse each area of zombi...

Dead Rising 2 takes the franchise to a new level of zombie-killing fun with tens of thousands of zombies, the all new gambling paradise of Fortune City to explo...

In the bold and often-bloody Dead Space gamers step into a third-person sci-fi survival horror experience that delivers psychological thrills and gruesome actio...

Obsessed with the idea of overcoming the obstacle of death and determined to vindicate himself by backing up his theory, the ambitious medical student, Herbert West, arrives in New England, after the horrific incident at the Institute of Medicine in Switzerland. Before long, Herbert will pick up where he left off--at first, experimenting with dead feline tissue, and then, with fresh human cadavers--talking his sceptic roommate, Dan Cain, into joining his audacious project. Inevitably, as the two young scientists burrow deeper and deeper into uncharted territories, the campus will start brimming with West's reanimated corpses, catching the eye of his arch-nemesis, Dr Hill, who yearns to take credit for this astounding discovery. The dead will rise again, even with a bit of help; however, can the young re-animator harness the power of his phosphorescent green reagent?

After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

It's the last day of school at a high school in a small town in Texas in 1976. The upperclassmen are hazing the incoming freshmen, and everyone is trying to get stoned, drunk, or laid, even the football players that signed a pledge not to.

Zack and Miri are two lifelong platonic friends who make an adult film to pay the rent of their apartment. With their friend Delaney, the couple set out for auditionees for their porn film, but in the process of filming, they realize they feel more for each other than they had before.

Frank Darrbo is a hapless fry cook. When his wife Sarah falls off the wagon and dumps him for Jacques, a drug dealer, Frank tries to get her back by reporting her kidnapped, grabbing her from Jacques' car, and wailing for her to return. After watching Christian TV and having a vision, he becomes a superhero to fight evil. He sews a costume, finds a weapon (a pipe wrench) and looks for crimes to stop. He has problems: his wrench inflicts real injury, so the cops want him for being a vigilante, his sense of boundaries is flawed, and Jacques' gang has guns. Libby, a clerk at a comic book store, becomes his sidekick, and it's time to go save Sarah. What chance do they have?

Protagonist Alex DeLarge is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britain. As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programmed to detest violence. If he goes through the program, his sentence will be reduced and he will be back on the streets sooner than expected. But Alex's ordeals are far from over once he hits the streets of Britain..

Blondie, The Good (Clint Eastwood), is a professional gunslinger who is out trying to earn a few dollars. Angel Eyes, The Bad (Lee Van Cleef), is a hitman who always commits to a task and sees it through--as long as he's paid to do so. And Tuco, The Ugly (Eli Wallach), is a wanted outlaw trying to take care of his own hide. Tuco and Blondie share a partnership making money off of Tuco's bounty, but when Blondie unties the partnership, Tuco tries to hunt down Blondie. When Blondie and Tuco come across a horse carriage loaded with dead bodies, they soon learn from the only survivor, Bill Carson (Antonio Casale), that he and a few other men have buried a stash of gold in a cemetery. Unfortunately, Carson dies and Tuco only finds out the name of the cemetery, while Blondie finds out the name on the grave. Now the two must keep each other alive in order to find the gold. Angel Eyes (who had been looking for Bill Carson) discovers that Tuco and Blondie met with Carson and knows they know where the gold is; now he needs them to lead him to it. Now The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly must all battle it out to get their hands on $200,000.00 worth of gold.

With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose...literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End. The fact that this town exists as a figment of Cane's twisted imagination is only the beginning of Trent's problems.

1994 American horror film by John Carpenter

Voldemort's (Ralph Fiennes') power is growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) decide to finish Dumbledore's (Sir Michael Gambon's) work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for the trio and the rest of the Wizarding World, so everything they do must go as planned.

2010 British-American fantasy film directed by David Yates

Teenager Sarah is forced by her father and her stepmother to babysit her baby brother Toby while they are outside home. Toby does not stop crying and Sarah wishes that her stepbrother be taken by the Goblin King Jareth. Out of the blue, Toby stops crying and when Sarah looks for him in the cradle, she learns that her wish was granted and the Goblin King Jareth has taken him to his castle in the Goblin City in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah repents and asks Jareth to give Toby back; but the Goblin King tells her that she has to rescue her brother before midnight. Soon Sarah teams up with some allies. Will they rescue Toby in time?

In New Zealand's peaceful town of Wellington, Lionel Cosgrove--an oppressed bachelor who is still living with his despotic mother, Vera--has finally found his soulmate: the kind grocery store clerk, Paquita. However, before long, things will take a turn for the worse in Lionel's already messed-up world, when Skull Island's vicious Sumatran Rat-Monkey bites Vera after a visit to the local zoo. Now that Vera's got the "bite", the virulent infection is rapidly turning her into a puss-squirting flesh-eating living dead, and the volatile situation is bound to get out of hand, as an ever-growing collection of dead bodies and other stimulant-enhanced zombie misfits start to cram Lionel's basement. Poor Lionel--whether you like it or not--you need to man up and clean up the mess; moreover, summon up the courage to confront your decomposing mummy, and the family's ugly secret. Nevertheless, has Lionel what it takes to save the day, and get the girl?

En route to visit their grandfather's grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch-hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home... where they're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills...

Forty-year-old Andy, an electronics store shipping clerk, is a stereotypical geek, who plays video games and takes care of his collectible action figures. He has no real friends and spends most of his time away from work by himself. Despite having an interest in the opposite sex philosophically as witnessed by his constant and uncontrollable morning erections, he is still a virgin. He never planned not to have sex, but it became more and more difficult to have that first experience as he got older, to the point where, to him, it became a reality for his life. When his work colleagues find out, some mock and ridicule him, while a small group comprised of Dave, Jay and Cal take it upon themselves to help him get laid, despite each of three having their own relationship issue making them perhaps not the best people to provide advice or assistance. Andy also gets some unexpected suggestions from some standing on the sidelines of his life. Beyond that advice, Andy has to be the one to take the ultimate step to reality, he not only having no practical experience, but also no theoretical experience in that he doesn't even watch or have interest in porn or masturbate. Some of the advice he receives centers on the actual woman who should be his first time. Regardless of that advice, he decides that the woman he truly wants is Trish, a specialty retailer with a somewhat useless bricks and mortar outlet across the street from the electronics store. As Andy pursues then eventually falls for Trish, he has to decide how much of his true self he will divulge to her.

Two lovable hillbillies are headed to their "fixer-upper" vacation cabin to drink some beer, do some fishin', and have a good time. But when they run into a group of preppy college kids who assume from their looks that they must be in-bred, chainsaw-wielding killers, Tucker & Dale's vacation takes a bloody and hilarious turn for the worse.

Dante Hicks is not having a good day. He clerks in a small convenience store and is told to come into work on his day off. Dante thinks life is a series of down endings and this day proves to be no different. He reads in the newspaper that his ex-girlfriend Caitlin is getting married. His present girlfriend reveals to have somewhat more experience with sex that he thought. His principal concerns are the hockey game he has that afternoon and the wake for a friend who died. His buddy Randal Graves works as a clerk in the video store next door and he hates his job as much as Dante hates his.

Everything seems to be going great for the Fantastic Four. Reed and Sue are finally getting married, and things couldn't seem better. However, when the mysterious Silver Surfer crashes things, they learn that they will have to deal with an old foe, and the powerful planet eating Galactus.

Bilbo Baggins is swept into a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever ... Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities ... A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Set within a year after the events of Batman Begins (2005), Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new District Attorney Harvey Dent successfully begin to round up the criminals that plague Gotham City, until a mysterious and sadistic criminal mastermind known only as "The Joker" appears in Gotham, creating a new wave of chaos. Batman's struggle against The Joker becomes deeply personal, forcing him to "confront everything he believes" and improve his technology to stop him. A love triangle develops between Bruce Wayne, Dent, and Rachel Dawes.

2008 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan

American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer

The FBI teams up with a formerly-institutionalized scientist - who was performing experiments on the fringe of real science - and his son to investigate weird crimes that are seemingly part of a larger pattern, and may be connected with a global company called Massive Dynamic.

American science fiction television series

"In every generation there is a chosen one... she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer." Buffy Summers knows this tale by heart, and no matter how hard she tries to be just a "normal girl", she can not escape from her destiny... Thankfully, she is not alone in her quest to save the world, as she has the help of her friends, the hilarious (and surprisingly quite effective) evil-fighting team called "The Scooby Gang". Together, Buffy & co. will slay their demons, survive one apocalypse after another, attend high school and college... and above all, understand that growing up can truly be Hell sometimes... literally.

1997 American supernatural drama TV series

The offbeat adventures of Courage, a cowardly dog who must overcome his own fears to heroically defend his unknowing farmer owners from all kinds of dangers, paranormal events and menaces that appear around their land.

American horror animated television series

A former lawyer attends a community college when it is discovered he faked his Bachelor's degree. In an attempt to get with a student in his Spanish class, he forms a Spanish study group. To his surprise, more people attend the study group and the group of misfits form an unlikely community.

American comedy television series created by Dan Harmon

Space Ghost in his 40s is no longer a superhero, and now he even goes by his real name Tad Ghostal. However, to remain in the spot-light he has started his own late-night talk show filmed in outer space. With his cohost and former villain Zorak, and his director Moltar they interview celebrities on Earth through their video-phone.

A scrawny, 11-year-old chicken named Chicken reluctantly watches out for his beefy "little" sister, a 7-year-old cow named Cow. The unconventional offspring of two human parents, the two young animals navigate their way through suburbia, encountering problems not only at school, but with the devilish schemes of the Red Guy, a crimson-colored antagonist of many guises whose singular intent is to make the siblings' lives miserable. If the character design and offbeat humor of "Cow and Chicken" cause viewers to recall "

It's been 40 years since the 12 colonies of mankind have heard from their progeny, the Cylons -- robotic creatures who rose up and declared war on their masters, then disappeared. In a sudden, devastating strike, the Cylons return and lay waste to the colonies, aided by human-looking Cylon variants and an unwitting fifth columnist. The attack forces Commander William Adama to call into action his museum-piece warship, the Battlestar Galactica, and soon its company of hotshot fighter pilots is blasting away at the invaders. But their best efforts can't prevent the colonies' obliteration. Fleeing the Cylon genocide, the Galactica leads a rag-tag fleet of survivors on a lonely quest to find humanity's fabled 13th colony -- a planet known as Earth.

The previously unknown purpose of the "Ninth Chevron" is revealed, and ends up taking a team to an Ancient ship "Destiny", a ship built millions of years ago by the Ancients, used to investigate a mystery as old as time itself. This team, led by Dr. Nicolas Rush and Colonel Everett Young, is trapped on the ship, unable to change its programmed mission. The team encounters new races, new technology and new enemies as the runaway ship travels to the far ends of the Universe.

Canadian-American military science fiction TV series

Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in an Indiana Parks and Recreation Department, hopes to beautify her town (and boost her own career) by helping local nurse Ann Perkins turn an abandoned construction site into a community park. However, what should be a fairly simple project is stymied at every turn by oafish bureaucrats, selfish neighbors, governmental red tape, and a myriad of other challenges. Leslie's colleague Tom Haverford, who delights in exploiting his position for personal gain, is as likely to undermine her efforts as to help her, while her boss, Ron Swanson, is adamantly opposed to government in any form, even though he's a bureaucrat.

A shadowy organization uses mind-wiped humans known technically as "actives" and colloquially as "dolls" who are imprinted with false memories and specialized skills for various tasks on behalf of paying clients. When they are not on assignments, they live in an underground "Dollhouse", a facility that protects and provides for their needs, including food, exercise and sleeping pods little bigger than coffins. One of the dolls, a young woman called Echo by her handlers, is slowly becoming aware of herself and what is going on. Meanwhile, at least two different people on the outside are trying to bring down the Dollhouse, one by finding Echo and the other by using her.

The select members of the NASA Astronaut Corps train at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Millions of readers the world over have been held spellbound by this valiant tale vividly told. Now, enter Terry Goodkind's world, the world of The Sword of Truth. In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, Richard Cypher discovers a mysterious woman in his forest sanctuary named Kahlan Amnell. She has come seeking help...and much, much more. Richard's world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence. In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword-to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed...or that their time has run out. This is the beginning. One story. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.

The adventures of Noel and his friends Smooth, Andy Warhol, and Dolly.

A comedy sketch show featuring David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Captain Jack Harkness, the former Time Agent and con man from the 51st century last seen traveling with the Doctor, ventures to early 21st century Cardiff. There, he becomes a member of Torchwood Institute, a renegade criminal investigation group founded by Queen Victoria to battle hostile extraterrestrial and supernatural threats.

British television series and spin-off from Doctor Who

Following the death of a witness in a court case, Dr. Lee Rosen leads a team of "Alphas", (advanced human beings) who have number of special skills that makes them a formidable team. As Rosen mentors them and teaches the team to harness their considerable skills, they begin to realize that there are powerful forces behind the courthouse murder, including one of their own.

an American science fiction dramatic television series

A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost live in a flat in Bristol. Where's the punchline right? Wrong. It's so much more complex than that and once you sit down and give it a chance, you'll see it was a great decision. This is one of the best shows to grace the airways. Everyone needs to give this a go. You won't regret it.

British supernatural drama television series

Tru Davies, a medical grad student in Boston whose grant is suddenly pulled out from under her, takes a job at a local morgue. There, she discovers that she has the power to "re-live" the previous day over again to help the people who wrongly ended up dead. She uses this gift not only to save lives, but to help her trouble-plagued family - her older sister Meredith, a lawyer and drug addict in denial; and her younger, irresponsible, slacker, gambling brother Harrison.

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