Emo Nemo

Mily

Sarah

Shaidrian Rios

Jimmy Beans

miCCwatreSSop

Julie Wynne - videos

Kapuster

Nicky Tallon

Harini Sen

Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here.A rich selection of background and source materials is provided in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring. Thus continues the magnificent, bestselling tale of adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its soul-stirring climax in The Return of the King.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll &amp; Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named John Gabriel Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001). Unforgettable!

Lestat. The vampire hero of Anne Rice's enthralling new novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying existence. His is a mesmerizing story --- passionate, complex, and thrilling.

Joanne Rowling, also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.

I can't remember being this violently conflicted about a book in quite some time. There are some areas where it's just so well done, with the author absolutely nailing it, and then others where I found myself grinding my teeth in frustration. I'm going to abandon my usual practice of writing short, pithy reviews and just drunkenly ramble on a few things here. (Still no spoilers, though.) That OK with y'all?Language. About two and a half chapters into this book, I found myself asking, "Why does this feel like a kids' fantasy book?" It wasn't the subject material or the plot, both of which are much more sophisticated than Harry Potter and his ilk. While I would feel perfectly comfortable having a 12-year old read this PG13-violent and utterly asexual book, I don't feel as though it's necessarily written for tweens. Finally it occurred to me: it's the language. This book is one of the most simply written books I've ever read, using only the most basic vocabulary. That isn't a bad thing, as I'd rather read something direct and simple than something flowery and overwritten, but Sanderson's language is so simple here that it's almost as if he's drawing with the Crayola 16-set when other authors have the big 64. (One notable exception: having apparently become recently enamored of the word, he uses maladroitly at least three times. Maybe he was jamming some Weezer while he wrote.) I haven't read any of his other works (yet; Mistborn #2 is on deck), but I have to assume this simplicity is by conscious choice, and it's an interesting choice at that. I'm just not sure yet how I feel about it.One language choice that I am sure how I feel about is Sanderson's decision to have his characters speak good old American English. The narration is similarly plainspoken, with a fair amount of American slang thrown in, rather than the twee, faux-Elizabethan style of a lot of fantasy authors. I like the approach. One of the most time-honored fantasy tropes is having all the characters thee and thou each other, with a few ne'er did yon stars of Yomama glimmer so resplendently, my suzerain for good measure. And I can handle that stuff, having been weaned on Tolkien and everything that came after, but I found Sanderson's decision to move away from that convention refreshing. I interpreted it as Sanderson saying, "The unspoken assumption here is that this book has been translated from whatever languages they speak on this made-up world, so why translate it to anything other than what is most understandable and comfortable for you to read? To couch this story in funky language is to insult your imagination by implying that you need that in order to realize you're reading a fantasy novel."Setting and Plot. The setting is a typical high fantasy world - feudal-style nobility and peasantry; shadowy, powerful priesthood; mysterious evil lord, etc. - with some odd, almost steampunk flourishes thrown in. There are wristwatches. Men's formal wear is described as something more like Victorian coat and tails than medieval garb. Magic in this world is fueled by elemental and alloyed metals, which are described rather exactly, using percentages. It's a unique and interesting blend.The basic plot is about as stock as it gets. If you're familiar with the Star Wars films, the Harry Potter or Percy Jackson books, Eragon, the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy, Dune, Ender's Game, or any one of about a million other works, please play Mad Libs with me:Dear [kid with weird name], I know you are only a [farmer / orphan / urchin / child of a minor noble], and this will be hard for you to accept, but you [have Great Powers / are the Chosen One / insert name of funky power here]. You are the only one who can [save the world / save the universe / defeat the Empire / restore order to the Force / kill the Big Boss]. Luckily, even though you just learned your destiny fifteen minutes ago, you will make up for lost time by quickly becoming better than anyone in the history of ever at [Quidditch / dragon riding / sandworm riding / Allomancy]. Any questions?Needless to say, the book's plot could have been a ticket to Hack City, but it really isn't. Vin's growth and development are handled well.Exposition. This is a fantasy book for the video game generation. By that, I mean that the book follows the general path of a first person RPG:1) Introduction to the world and the main characters2) A few early levels whose only apparent purpose is to teach the player how to use the buttons3) Quests of increasing difficulty, with progressive reveals of the Big Plot4) Fight with the Main Boss, including the inevitable twist5) Denouement and teaser for the next installment.Not that that's a bad thing! But I was really surprised at the way Allomancy (the main "magic" in this world) was laid out. In the two towering fantasy/sci-fi works of the 20th century, The Lord of the Rings and Dune, the supernatural elements of the story operated behind a sort of curtain or screen. The One Ring in LotR and the spice Melange in Dune both held great, mysterious powers, but the specific effects and extent of those powers were seen only in fits and flashes, and never understood completely by the characters or the reader. In contrast, fairly early in this book, Kelsier takes Vin on a practice run where he explains how her powers work and what their advantages and limitations are, using plain language and real-world physics, and lets her fly and mess around and just generally exult in her magic. It left me, the reader, as well as Vin the character, feeling that even if we didn't understand this magic perfectly right now, we might at some point in the future, which was a very different feel.OK, after enough rambling about things I feel ambivalently about, let's wrap up with one big win and one big fail:WIN: Brandon Sanderson can write the hell out of an action scene. (And since the final quarter of this book is pretty much all action, playing directly into Sanderson's strengths, it kicks all kinds of ass.) The fights in this book are gut-wrenching without being overly gory, and the chases and sneaks are heart-stopping as well. Perfect combination of pace and detail. Amazing. Possibly the best I've ever read from an author in this genre, and if he's able to do that so effortlessly, so early in his career, it gives me hope that he can fix...FAIL: ...the dialogue. In spite of being favorably disposed due to the use of informal American English, I eventually found the dialogue here really clunky. Everyone is too wordy. Everyone says one sentence too many. Over and over again, I found myself going, "Real people don't talk like this" and especially, "Real people who are supposed to be close friends don't talk anything like this to each other." Seriously, think of how you talk to your best friends in private, then compare it to this book. In addition, there was always that odd feeling of unneeded exposition, as if the characters were talking half to each other and half to the reader. It was unfortunate, especially in contrast to how slick and fast-moving and just plain awesome a lot of the other writing was.All in all, this was a fun, kinetic read...with a few holes in it. It builds, it explodes, and the ending is really good. If half-stars were allowed, this would have been a 3 1/2. Good stuff.Also, here are my (spoiler-free, suitable as previews) reviews of the second and third books in the series, if you enjoyed this one!

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.And yet . . .As in all wars, life goes on. The Weasley twins expand their business. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate - and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, through Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complete story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort - and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help . . . and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence. In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them—for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.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 book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal--including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

Published in 1850, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is one of the best known and most memorable short stories ever written. Since there are dozens of commentaries and reviews here and elsewhere on the internet, in the spirit of freshness, I will take a particular focus: obsession with an eye or eyes and compare Poe’s tale with a few others. In The Painter of Eyes by Jean Richepin, we encounter an obscure artist who sells his soul to the Devil in order to paint at least one masterpiece. There is a bit of writing attached to the corner of his great painting that reads: “The Devil has informed me as to the secret of painting eyes. That secret consists of decanting the life from the models one wishes to represent and fixing that life on the canvas. In doing that, one slowly kills the people whose portrait one paints. It is sufficient for me to know that I have made this masterpiece. I commend my soul to the prayers, in case the Evil One does not leave me the time.” The writing ends abruptly since death strikes the artist in mid-sentence - his masterpiece is a self-portrait.In The Gaze another story by Jean Richepin, the narrator peers through the window of a cell at a madman holding his arms spread, head uplifted, transfixed by a point on a wall near the ceiling. The doctor-alienist relates to the narrator how this inmate is obsessed with the gaze of eyes from an artist's portrait. "For there was something in that gaze, believe me, that could trouble not only the already-enfeebled brain of a man afflicted with general paralysis, but even a sound and solid mind." Turns out, the narrator discovers the doctor is also driven mad by these eyes. So much so, the doctor took a scissors to the painting. We read: “In front of me, a fragment of a painting, cut out of a canvas with scissors, showed me a pair of eyes: the eyes of the portrait that the alienist said that he had lacerated, the eyes darting that famous gaze – in which, indeed, the very soul of gold was alive.”The Enigmatic Eye by Moacyr Scliar is a most imaginative tale of a wealthy old man who becomes infatuated with a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman in the town’s museum. And what makes this portrait so infatuating? Why, of course – the gaze of the right eye, which is truly enigmatic. The old man has his close friend steal the portrait from the museum so he can put it in his attic and sit in front of the painting, pondering the enigmatic gaze round the clock. The servants think the old man mad but he could care less – he has exactly what he wants – the portrait with its enigmatic eye right in his very own attic. Unfortunately, something unexpected happens. Due to the attic’s heat and light, the painting begins to fade and then, over time, vanishes. The old man concludes there is only one thing for him to do – he buys some brushes and oils and begins re-painting the portrait, starting with the enigmatic eye. Turning now to Poe’s tale, the narrator insists he should not be taken for a madman; rather, he is dreadfully nervous causing his senses, especially his sense of hearing, to be heightened and sharpened. He goes on to convey how once the idea of killing the old man of the house entered his brain, he was haunted by the idea day and night. And why would he want to kill this old man, a man who never wronged him? We read, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” What is it about a human eye, painted or real, when seen by someone who is mentally unstable? Perhaps part of the answer is given by contemporary Argentine author, Ernesto Sabato, when he says that hell is being the object of the gaze of another. Every one of Poe’s sentence is sheer perfection, building tension and suspense. For example, we read how the narrator, lantern in hand, secretly peers in at the sleeping old man at midnight. But then, one night, a noise wakes the old man and he sits bolt upright in bed. And what does the narrator do? We read, “I resolved to open a little – a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it – you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily – until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open – wide, wide open – and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness – all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow of my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.”Anybody familiar with the story knows the narrator’s actions and emotions escalate from this point. What I find particularly fascinating is how the narrator’s obsession and fixation with the eye, once there is no more eye to fixate upon, quickly shifts into a heightened sense of feeling and, of course, heightened hearing. What a tale; what an author – a masterpiece of suspense and horror.*The quotes from the two tales by Jean Richepin are taken from The Crazy Corner a collection of stories translated by Brian Stableford and published by Black Coat Press.

In these first five stories about Poe's detective Auguste Dupin, he establishes many of the traditions or motifs we know from classic detective fiction. The eccentric but brilliant detective who solves the mystery merely by analysing the facts from his armchair, the mystery of how a murder was committed in a closed room, laying a false trail with false clues or "red herrings" for the reader to follow are just three of his original tropes, which are now so familiar that they are almost cliches. On its publication, the first story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, written in 1841, was highly praised for its inventiveness and new style of storytelling. A murder was committed on the fourth floor, the windows were closed from the inside, the chimney was too narrow for even a cat to get through, so how did the murderer escape? Such a clever conundrum had never before been presented to readers, implicitly inviting them to solve the mystery. Interestingly, Poe also establishes the convention of the "bumbling policeman", who is outwitted by Dupin, in this story. However Poe is sometimes criticised for the "twist" ending, which nobody could reasonably be expected to imagine. The ending of this story is a metaphor for brains against brawn. Perhaps Poe preferred to sacrifice the burgeoning rationality and method of analysis by his character Dupin, in order to make this metaphor more explicit, to make the reader aware that the intellect will always win over violence. The second story The Mystery of Marie Roget is a lesser story about Dupin. It is subtitled as its sequel, but is a bit of a disappointment after the brilliant conception of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."Poe described his third story, The Purloined Letter, written in 1844, as "perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination". In other words he was deliberately inventing a detective who used his powers of reasoning, who made conscious deliberate inferences in order to arrive at valid and rational conclusions. Dupin also recognises the importance of reading and the written word as evidence. By such descriptions in the narrative, the reader can follow Dupin's thoughts and reasoning and reach the conclusion for themselves. The answers to the mysteries are all there, but only a clever person can see them. The Gold Bug  is yet another fascinating departure - an extremely readable story about the Secret Service involving the use of cyphers.In the fifth story Thou Art the Man red herrings abound, and the guilty party is perhaps the most least likely suspect. This is yet another literary device which is well used and popular in contemporary mystery fiction.It is worth remembering that the word "detective" did not exist at the time when Poe wrote The Murders in the Rue Morgue. He established the prototype of Dupin even before Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It is easy to criticise a work in retrospect, but these early stories paved the way for a genre which is one of the most popular even today.

Lestat is back, saviour and demon, presiding over a gothic story of family greed and hatred through generations, a terrifying drama of blood lust and betrayal, possession and matricide. Blackwood Farm with its grand Southern mansion, set among dark cypress swamps in Louisiana, harbours terrible blood-stained secrets and family ghosts. Heir to them all is Quinn Blackwood, young, rash and beautiful, himself a 'bloodhunter' whom Lestat takes under his wing. But Quinn is in thrall not only to the past and his own appetites but, even more dangerously, to a companion spirit, a 'goblin' succubus who could destroy him and others. Only the unearthly power of Lestat combined with the earthly powers of the Mayfair clan could hope to save Quinn from himself and his ghosts, or to rescue the doomed girl Quinn loves from her own mortality. Shocking, savage and richly erotic, this novel with the deceptively gentle title bring us Anne Rice at her most powerfully disturbing. Here are vampires and witches, men and women, demons and a doppelganger, caught up in a maelstrom of death and destruction, blood and fire, cruelty and fate.

Why?Many years from now, historians will look back on this story and wonder why it was so important. And believe me, my friends, important it was. Today, most thrillers and police procedurals gets measured against it.For this review, I will refer to TSOTL as the story, because I'm going to talk about the book, movie, facts, fiction and some of my own opinions.TSOTL was the second Dr. Hannibal Lector story. It was also the second movie adaptation - wait just a damn moment, you might be saying to me, Red Dragon was the first book but it was made after the TSOTL movie was so successful...Correct.However, there was an attempt at a screen adaptation of Red Dragon a few years before TSOTL, called MANHUNTER. It was directed by Michael Mann. To the best of my knowledge, it was a flop at the box office.There are a few things TSOTL had going for it that counted in its favor. By all means, Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer - if you've read any of the books you will know this. But most movie freaks and geeks will agree with me that the story is probably one of the best adaptations from book to screen ever.Then you look at the cast - Jody Foster managed to play a vulnerable yet strong female (IMPORTANT) lead. You know she is intelligent, yet she knows that she has no chance against the superior intellect of Dr. Hannibal Lector. In comes Anthony Hopkins, whose portrayal of the psychopathic genius is so convincing, it catapults him to one of the biggest super villains of all time, yet he is so charming that the audience can't help but like him.And, of course, Buffalo Bill is played by Ted Levine, who is utterly convincing, even if you've seen him as the cop in MONK.With a strong cast and story, this movie became an unlikely contender at the Academy Awards. And they won a few!Right, lets take a step back, to the research phase of this story.Thomas Harris, in the early 80's, were doing research and was fortunate enough to get involved with criminal profiling, which at that time had been an unproven and highly speculative science. It was during the time when they were on the trail of one Ted Bundy. If you know a bit about this famous serial killer, you will probably know that he used to fake injuries by wearing a cast and asking victims for their help -  Do you remember how Buffalo Bill got that girl in the back of the van? And while Bundy was incarcerated on death row, he was willing to help the police do a profile on another serial killer of the time, The Green River Killer. I believe Bundy told them not to remove a body when they discover it, because the killer will go back to his treasure - something that was later confirmed to have happened.  Remember that agent Sterling asked Dr. Lector for his help? And then there was the killer Ed Gein, many decades before, who robbed graves and ultimately killed people to make himself a female skin, which was apparently hard to sow without tearing.  Need I explain this one? The fact of the matter is, while some things may have seemed preposterous to us in the early eighties, like they could only happen in the movies, there were some truly messed up people out there who were doing some truly messed up things - wow, it's been a while since I've kept a sentence PG like that...I will accept your applause humbly.Also, there was and, unfortunately, still are some stereo types about women in the FBI. Harris took the opportunity to make a statement, maybe very subtly, but still very important, about power vs. emotion. At no time does this story feel like a Hollywood blockbuster, where the star is cocky and always has a way out of a sticky situation, where it's all guns and fire and explosions, etc. No, this story was meant to cut close to home, to show the possibilities, for we are all vulnerable in this world. Agent Clarice is scared, she fears for her life, she doesn't know if she will survive, but she fights the big, bad (Goliath) killer. And she wins.This story is also important from a psychological point of view. Whatever your feelings about profiling may be, they have discovered so much and found impossible connections through their research, and we will never know how many lives it has saved. It's a kind of Paying-it-forward thing: By doing what they do, they prevent things that may have been inevitable in a different world.I once saw something (I can't remember exactly where) about some research they were doing on inmates. They took brain scans of a number of them, and noted that those who were certified as psychopathic, had an underdeveloped area in a certain part of their brains. If I can remember correctly, it had something to do with the mother producing too much serotonin during pregnancy, or some such scientific thing.How is this helpful, you may ask?Well, this is my personal opinion, so if it offends you, stop reading:Casey Anthony...Is she a psychopath who got away with murder?Yes, when I look at the facts of the case, and the things her attorney's did to get her free, I'm sickened to think the jurors couldn't believe a mother would do that to her child. Nobody LIKES to believe it, but I wish I could have seen a brain scan of her compared to those other psychopaths. I wish there was a psychologist who could have explained it to them.But enough about that.This book is, was and always will be important, because it brought certain realities home to the world we find ourselves in.If you haven't read it - but managed to get through this long review - what's the matter with you?But I am not trying to convince anybody of my point of view, so feel free to disagree.

Dean Koontz's unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, "Velocity" would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life. Bill Wiles is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. \
  "If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours."\
It seems like a sick joke, and Bill's friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it's Bill's fault: he didn't convince the police to get involved. Now he's got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum...and two new lives hanging in the balance. Suddenly Bill's average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication--until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath's innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: "The choice is yours."

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  Creepy fun reading!\
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  LAUGHING WHILE CREEPING OUT!\
This is a great novel, only that curiously when I bought this book, I bought also, another novel by Dean Koontz titled "Life Expectancy" (you can see my review of that book here: Life Expectancy . I comment this, since I found both novels quite similar.Not exactly the general story and developing but the mood of the storyline.I totally adored Life Expectancy and I jumped right after that book to read this one and I was like "Mmh, I'm feeling like deja vú".But don't get me wrong, the stories are totally different but I think that since before of these two books, I hadn't read a Dean Koontz book with such many humor elements, usually you find characters quite likable and some amusing moments where you smile, but so far, my Koont experience was strictly of creepy horror, not creepy fun.And I don't tell this as something bad, since I think that's kinda expected to do standard horror, but crafting stories with clear horror intention, but with such rich funny sense, it's quite cool.Even recently, you find a lot of this in movies and TV series, but at least me, back in 2007, it wasn't something so usual.But I totally embrace it.So, initially, I thought that Life Expectancy was like unique on that angle, but right after I read that one, I found here, in Ticktock, another horror book with rich humor elements.\
  THOSE WONDERFUL WOMEN\
Another thing that I found quite similar is the female companion character of the main protagonist.On both books, the main protagonist finds a spectacular female character with great personality.So, while I loved both characters in each novel, it didn't help to my "deja vú" feeling.I know that Dean Koontz re-use a lot of elements, like smart dogs, protagonists who like to read and/or are writers, over-detailed towns, etc... and I love his work for all that. As I say, "Tick Tock" is a wonderful horror story with a great humorous ambiance, quite entertaining and a really page-turner. In fact I read it quite quickly. So, I still recommend it a lot. Just try to read this book, Ticktock and Life Expectancy with some time in between of each of them.Quite advisable, if you read something else, of a different genre, in between.I'm sure that you'll enjoy both books!!!Have creepy fun!!!

Lestat is back with a vengeance and in thrall to Rowan Mayfair. Both demon and angel, he is drawn to kill but tempted by goodness as he moves among the pantheon of Anne Rice's unforgettable characters. Julien Mayfair, his tormentor; Rowan, witch and neurosurgeon, who attracts spirits to herself, casts spells on others and finds herself dangerously drawn to Lestat; Patsy, country and western singer, who was killed by Quinn Blackwood and dumped in a swamp; Ash Templeton, a 5,000 year old Taltos whose genes live on in the Mayfairs. Now, Lestat fights to save Patsy's ghost from the dark realms of the Earthbound, to uncover the mystery of the Taltos and to decide the fate of Rowan Mayfair. Both of Anne Rice's irresistible realms - the worlds of Blackwood Farm and the Mayfair Witches - collide as Lestat struggles between his lust for blood and the quest for life, between gratification and redemption.

"The Pit .. " is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It centres around the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. You are sure to find it especially effective at inspiring fear in readers due to its heavy focus on the senses, thus emphasizing reality. It is different from many other Poe stories which are aided by the supernatural. It's considered one of his best.Librarian's note: this entry relates to the story "The Pit and the Pendulum." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere on Goodreads.

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened "The Tooth Fairy." Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation: Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

A rich strategy game that is both intuitive and challenging, both innovative and polished....

New Super Mario Bros. 2 is a traditional side-scrolling adventure game featuring Mario, Luigi and loads of other favorite characters from the popular Mario seri...

Set in mysterious Ancient Egypt, Assassin’s Creed Origins is a new beginning. Experience a new way to fight while exploring the Great Pyramids and hidden tomb...

Experience this epic adventure on your own or together with your friends, guild mates, and thousands of alliance members. Explore dangerous caves and dungeons,...

The Lost Chapters is fully optimized for the Windows platform complete with expanded content, greater customization, new quests and enhanced graphics. Yo...

Guild Wars: Eye of the North is an expansion pack to the Action role-playing game Guild Wars by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCSOFT. It was released worldwide on August 31, 2007. Unlike other games in the Guild Wars sequence, Eye of the North requires players to own one of the earlier three campaigns. It features no tutorial content and is intended for characters that have reached level 10 or higher.
Eye of the North does not feature new professions, but has 18 new "multilevel" dungeons, 150 new skills (50 of them restricted to PvE), 40 new armor sets, and 10 new heroes, in addition to the new items, weapons, and titles added as usual in every Guild Wars campaign. It is in part intended to act as a bridge from Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2 and introduces the new races of the Norn (dwellers on the icy slopes of the Shiverpeak Mountains to the north) and Asura (inhabitants of the southern part of the Maguuma Jungle), both of which would later become playable in the sequel.

Guild Wars Factionsis an action RPG released in 2006 by ArenaNet, the second in theGuild Warsseries. Factions introduces the continent of Cantha where two warring factions, the Luxons and the Kurzicks, are locked in a global persistent war. Players are able to join in this conflict, assisting their chosen faction in claiming towns on the game map.Factions has a new PvE campaign, two new professions in addition to the original six, new skills and armor for existing professions, new gameplay modes for both PvE and PvP, and gameplay modifications in response to criticism of the earlier Prophecies campaign. Factions can be bought as a stand-alone game or can be added to an existing Prophecies account to produce a merged account with several benefits. Most of the PvP content from Prophecies is available to Factions-only accounts.

Guild Wars takes the best elements of today's massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates the tedium of...

Guild Wars Nightfall is a fantasy action role-playing game and the third stand-alone campaign in the Guild Wars series developed by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCSOFT corporation. Nightfall was released worldwide on October 27, 2006 after, having been in development alongside Guild Wars Factions since November 2005.Nightfall takes place in the continent of Elona in the Guild Wars universe. It follows the player's character as they join the Order of the Sunspears and uncover the desire of Warmarshal Varesh to return a long forgotten god to the world through an event called Nightfall. The players, assisted by their hero allies, fight through civil war, ignorant Vabbi princes and Varesh's demon allies as they attempt to prevent the coming of Nightfall.

Guild Wars 2 draws from the game mechanics that made the original Guild Wars one of the most popular online games and adds a fully persistent world. Like its pr...

Five decades have passed since the events of Fable II, and Albion has matured into an industrial revolution, but the fate of the kingdom is at peril. In Fable I...

Mists of Pandaria is the latest expansion set for WoW, set on the new continent of Pandaria. Unlock The Mysteries of Pandaria. You've stoppe...

Several years have passed since the Burning Legion's defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With r...

In Cataclysm, players witness the face of Azeroth being altered forever, as the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing awakens from his subterranean slumber and erup...

Icewind Dale IIis a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment, released on August 27, 2002. Like its 2000 predecessorIcewind Dale, the game is set in theForgotten Realmsfantasy setting in the Icewind Dale region. The player assumes control of a group of mercenaries in a war between the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale and a coalition of persecuted races and religions.The game is designed as an action-oriented alternative to other Infinity Engine games, with less emphasis on exploration and story. It uses a real-time adaptation of theDungeons & Dragons(D&D) Third Edition ruleset. The Infinity Engine was modified to comply with the Third Edition, but the team was forced to remove certain rules because of the engine's outdated nature. It was the final game to be developed using the Infinity Engine.

Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Turbine for Microsoft Windows and OS X. The game was originally marketed as Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, then renamed Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited upon switching to a hybrid free to play model, and was finally rebranded Dungeons & Dragons Online, with the introduction of Forgotten Realms-related content. Turbine developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), based loosely on the D&D 3.5 rule set. The game is set on the unexplored continent of Xen'drik within the Eberron campaign setting, and in the Kingdom of Cormyr within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

Shivering Isles features more than 30 hours of new gameplay and allows you to explore an entirely new plane of Oblivion – the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric...

Icewind Dale is a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and originally published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows in 2000 and by MacPlay for the Macintosh in 2002. The game takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting and the region of Icewind Dale, and uses the 2nd edition ruleset. The story follows a different set of events than those of R. A. Salvatore's The Icewind Dale Trilogy novels: in the game, an adventuring party becomes enlisted as a caravan guard while in Icewind Dale, in the wake of strange events, and eventually discover a plot that threatens the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale and beyond.

An epic continuation of the story that began in "Baldur's Gate," this RPG is set along the southern portion of the Sword Coast, a detailed and rich area of the...

Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with consequences.

A criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.

1975 drama film based on the novel by Ken Kesey

A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.

1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes

The adventures of high school and junior high students on the last day of school in May 1976.

When two kids find and play a magical board game, they release a man trapped in it for decades - and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game.

Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of de

The lives of guards on Death Row are affected by one of their charges: a black man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift.

1999 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont

A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which began when five criminals met at a seemingly random police lineup.

1995 German-American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Bryan Singer

Sketches include Dave starring in his own video game. Plus, Dave introduces 'The Playa Haters' Club', and Dave's take on Japanese monster movies with 'Blackzilla!'.

During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan, a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them,

2009 science fiction film directed by Howard McCain

In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.

1971 dystopian crime film directed by Stanley Kubrick

A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession.

2015 American supernatural horror film by Robert Eggers

A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.

2015 film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.

After John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician, accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.

An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

2015 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott

Léon: The Professional (French: Léon), titled Leon in the United Kingdom (and originally titled The Professional in the United States), is a 1994 English-language French action-thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson. It stars Jean Reno and Gary Oldman, and features the film debut of Natalie Portman. The plot centers on Léon (Reno), a professional hitman who reluctantly takes in twelve-year-old Mathilda Lando (Portman) after her family is murdered by corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration agent Norman Stansfield (Oldman). Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the hitman's trade.Léon is an Italian hitman (or "cleaner", as he refers to himself) in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City working for a mafioso named "Old Tony". One day, Léon meets Mathilda Lando, a lonely twelve-year-old who lives with her dysfunctional family in an apartment down the hall from Léon, and has stopped attending class at her school for troubled girls. Mathilda's abusive father attracts the ire of corrupt DEA agents, who have been paying him to stash cocaine in his apartment. After they discover that he has been stealing the cocaine, DEA agents storm the building, led by their boss, the sharply dressed drug-addict Norman Stansfield. During the raid, Stansfield murders Mathilda's family while she is out shopping for groceries. When she returns, Mathilda realizes what has happened just in time to continue down the hall to Léon's apartment; he hesitantly gives her shelter.

The plot follows H, a cold and mysterious character working at a cash truck company responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week.

In 2018, a mysterious new weapon in the war against the machines, half-human and half-machine, comes to John Connor on the eve of a resistance attack on Skynet. But whose side is he on, and can he be trusted?

2009 US science fiction action film directed by McG

An alien orphan is sent from his dying planet to Earth, where he grows up to become his adoptive home's first and greatest superhero.

1978 superhero film directed by Richard Donner

English singer-songwriter, bassist of The Beatles

English recording artist; rock and blues singer (1944-2014)

American recording artist, singer-songwriter, musician, author, artist and Nobel Laureate in 2016

English singer and songwriter, founding member of The Beatles (1940–1980)

An F.B.I. agent is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist and his son in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.

American science fiction television series

Follows some players in the 80s technological revolution that lead to information society.

A famous "psychic" outs himself as a fake, and starts working as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation so he can find "Red John", the madman who killed his wife and daughter.

American crime television series (2008-2015)

The series follows an epidemic that breaks out in Atlanta, leaving the large city quarantined and those stuck on the inside fighting for their lives.

The cases of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's Washington, D.C. Major Case Response Team, led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

American military drama/police procedural fictional television series

The night manager of a Cairo hotel is recruited to infiltrate an arms dealer's inner circle.

BBC miniseries about an undercover hotel manager bringing down a kingpin

A sci-fi anthology series with stand-alone episodes based on the works of Philip K. Dick.

science fiction television anthology series based on the works of Philip K. Dick

The Big Bang Theory is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS on September 24, 2007, and concluded on May 16, 2019, having broadcast 279 episodes over 12 seasons.The show originally centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), both physicists at Caltech, who share an apartment; Penny (Kaley Cuoco), a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon's similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and coworkers, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). Over time, supporting characters were promoted to starring roles, including neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), and comic book store owner Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman).

A spy recently disavowed by the U.S. government uses his special ops training to help others in trouble.

Lucifer Morningstar has decided he's had enough of being the dutiful servant in Hell and decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand humanity. He settles in Los Angeles - the City of Angels.

A police investigation, the saga of a grieving family, and a Seattle mayoral campaign all interlock after the body of 17-year-old Rosie Larsen is found in the trunk of a submerged car.

After a bad break-up, Jess, an offbeat young woman, moves into an apartment loft with three single men. Although they find her behavior very unusual, the men support her - most of the time.

Convicted of a decade old crime of transporting drug money to an ex-girlfriend, normally law-abiding Piper Chapman is sentenced to a year and a half behind bars to face the reality of how life-changing prison can really be.

Working for the F.B.I., a mathematician uses equations to help solve various crimes.

American crime drama television series (2005–2010)

Adventure Time is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (John DiMaggio)—a dog with the magical power to change size and shape at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch), the Ice King (Tom Kenny), Marceline (Olivia Olson), BMO (Niki Yang), and others. The series is based on a 2007 short film that aired on Nicktoons. After the short became a viral hit on the Internet, Nickelodeon's executives passed on its option before Cartoon Network commissioned a full-length series from Fred Seibert and Ward, which was previewed on March 11, 2010. The same year, the series premiered on Cartoon Network on April 5, and ended its eight-year run on September 3, 2018.

Ray Donovan, a professional "fixer" for the rich and famous in Los Angeles, can make anyone's problems disappear except those created by his own family.

U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is reassigned from Miami to his childhood home in the poor, rural coal mining towns of eastern Kentucky.

A medical resident finds that being a zombie has its perks, which she uses to assist the police.

2015 American supernatural crime drama television series

A young Clark Kent struggles to find his place in the world as he learns to harness his alien powers for good and deals with the typical troubles of teenage life in Smallville, Kansas.

A Secret Service agent goes to Wayward Pines, Idaho, in search of two federal agents who have gone missing in the bucolic town. He soon learns that he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.

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