Tuesday, September 30, 2014

"Thirteen Specimens," by Jeffrey Thomas

This collection of writings from sci-fi/horror author Jeffrey Thomas is an eclectic assortment of short stories, poems, and musings. See below for a sample and reader reviews!

Thirteen Specimens, by Jeffrey Thomas
Price: $0.99
238 pages, with a 4.2-star rating from 4 reviews

"If you want to get acquainted with Jeffrey Thomas and his worlds that he created, this collection is the best place to start. The meat of the collection is the novellas and they are the most satisfying. Close Enough is a disturbing tale of a photographer who must take photos of the disturbing scenes he's seeing. The Mask Play is an interesting tale set in Korea, where masks and murder follow an American who is temporally situated here waiting for his vista. It has a nice twist at the end. Monsters is from his Punktown setting, and an interesting take on a doctor with morals which apply to something as disgusting as the patient he's working on. The Burning House is from his Hades setting and is a pretty cool story about an angel that won't give up on his son who is condemned to Hades. Recommended!" -- Amazon reviewer

THIRTEEN SPECIMENS is a collection of bizarre and disturbing short stories, poems, and odd bits and pieces found preserved in dusty jars of formaldehyde in a sealed-off attic room in the condemned museum of the mind of author Jeffrey Thomas.

Included are the novellas "The Mask Play of Hahoe Byeolsin Exorcism" and "Door 7," as well as a trio of powerful stories that -- for the first time in one collection -- visit the three fictional universes that Thomas is best known for. "Close Enough" takes place in the alternate Earth of the novel "Boneland." A sadistic, otherworldly force feeds off the nightmarish images of the Vietnam War, as captured by a conscience-stricken photojournalist. "Monsters" is set in the futuristic metropolis of Punktown. A compassionate surgeon is determined to restore a grotesque alien female, purposely disfigured by the males of her clan, even if he himself incurs their wrath in the process. And "The Burning House" takes readers to the netherworld of "Letters From Hades." Two men -- one of them an angel, the other damned -- join forces in an attempt to rescue the child they both love from an army of torturing demons.

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Meet the Author

I am the author of such science fiction/horror novels as DEADSTOCK (finalist for the John W. Campbell Award), BLUE WAR, HEALTH AGENT, MONSTROCITY (finalist for the Bram Stoker Award), LETTERS FROM HADES, THE FALL OF HADES, BONELAND and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM DEALERS. My short story collections include PUNKTOWN, VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN, PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY (coauthored with Scott Thomas), NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS, UNHOLY DIMENSIONS, VOICES FROM HADES, AAAIIIEEE!!! and THIRTEEN SPECIMENS. Stories of mine have been reprinted in THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR and THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES. Though I consider Vietnam my second home, I am a resident of ye olde Massachusetts. Visit my blog at www.JeffreyEThomas.com.

More from this Author


Kindle Daily Deals (September 30, 2014): a thriller, romance, a memoir, Kurt Vonnegut and a youth novel.



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Charlie Monk is the ultimate superhero. He has no conscience. He has no fear. But he also has no memory. Dr Susan Flemyng has found a way to give memory back. In a world where even virtual reality is controlled, that is the most dangerous knowledge of all. Can she trust those she works for, or should she take the greatest risk and trust Charlie?

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Imagine, by Jill Barnett.

After years imprisoned on Devil's Island for a murder he never committed, escaped convict Hank Wyatt knows how to survive and believes his luck has finally changed. But when he stows away on board a ship destined to sink, his luck turns bad. He doesn't know if he can last an hour when he is marooned on a deserted island with a beautiful, know-it-all blonde attorney and three orphaned children. Suddenly looking out for number one doesn't seem to be enough.

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352 pages, with a 3.8-star rating from 43 reviews






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Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941, by William L. Shirer.

A radio broadcaster and journalist for Edward R. Murrow at CBS, William Shirer was new to the world of broadcast journalism when he began keeping a diary while in Europe during the 1930s. It was in 1940, still a virtual unknown, that Shirer wondered whether his reminiscences of the collapse of the world around Nazi Germany could be of any interest or value as a book.

Shirer's Berlin Diary, which is considered the first full record of what was happening in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, first appeared in 1941. The book was an instant success. But how did Shirer get such a valuable firsthand account? He had anonymous sources willing to speak with him, provided their identity remained protected and disguised so as to avoid retaliation from the Gestapo. Shirer recorded his and others' eyewitness views to the horror that Hitler was inflicting on his people in his effort to conquer Europe. Shirer continued his job as a foreign correspondent and radio reporter for CBS until Nazi press censors made it virtually impossible for him to do his job with any real accuracy. He left Europe, taking with him the invaluable, unforgettable (and horrific) contents of his Berlin Diary.

Berlin Diary brings the reader as close as any reporter has ever been to Hitler and the rise of the Third Reich. Shirer's honest, lucid and passionate reporting of the brutality with which Hitler came to power and the immediate reactions of those who witnessed these events is for all time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Shirer (1904-1993) was originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and was the first journalist hired by Edward R. Murrow for what would become a team of journalists for CBS radio. Shirer distinguished himself and quickly became known for his broadcasts from Berlin during the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II. Shirer was the first of "Edward R. Murrow's Boys" - broadcast journalists - who provided news coverage during World War II and afterward. It was Shirer who broadcast the first uncensored eyewitness account of the annexation of Austria. Shirer is best known for his books The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which won the National Book Award and Berlin Diary.

627 pages, with a 4.6-star rating from 353 reviews






Here's today's Daily Science Fiction/Fantasy Deal, available for $1.99!

The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut.

The Sirens of Titan (1959) is Vonnegut's second novel and was on the Hugo ballot with Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers but lost in what Harlan Ellison has called a monumental injustice. Sirens of Titan is a picaresque novel which almost defies being synposized; it is an interplanetary Candide (lacking perhaps Voltaire's utter bitterness), the book follows lead character Malachi Constant, a feckless but kind-hearted millionaire as he moves through the solar system on his quest for the meaning of all existence.

Constant is aided by another tycoon, Winston Rumfoord, who with the help of aliens has actually discovered the fundamental meaning of life (the retrieval of an alien artifact with an inscribed message of greetings). With the assistance of Salo, an alien root and overseeing the alien race, the Tralmafadorians (who also feature in Slaughterhouse-Five), Constant attempts to find some cosmic sense and order in the face of universal malevolence. Together Constant and Rumfoord deal with the metaphysics of "chrono-synclastic infundibula", they deal with the interference of the Tralmafadorians; the novel is pervaded by a goofy, episodic charm which barely shields the readers (or the characters) from the sense of a large and indifferent universe.

All of Vonnegut's themes and obsessions (which are further developed and/or recycled in later work) are evident here in this novel which is more hopeful than most of Vonnegut's canon. It is suggested that ultimately Constant learns that only it is impossible to learn, and that fate (and the Tralmafodorians) are impenetrable, unavoidable circumstance.

On the basis of this novel, Vonnegut was wholly claimed by the science fiction community (as witnessed by the Hugo nomination), but Vonnegut did not likewise wish to claim the community for himself and the feelings were not reciprocal. He felt from the outset that being identified as a science fiction writer could only limit his audience and trivialize his themes. His recurring character, the hack science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout (who also features in Slaughterhouse-Five), represented to Vonnegut the worst case scenario of the writer he did not wish to become.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is one of the most beloved American writers of the twentieth century. Vonnegut's audience increased steadily since his first five pieces in the 1950s and grew from there. His 1968 novel Slaughterhouse-Five has become a canonic war novel with Joseph Heller's Catch-22 to form the truest and darkest of what came from World War II.

Vonnegut began his career as a science fiction writer, and his early novels - Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan - were categorized as such even as they appealed to an audience far beyond the reach of the category. In the 1960s, Vonnegut became closely associated with the Baby Boomer generation, a writer on that side, so to speak.

Now that Vonnegut's work has been studied as a large body of work, it has been more deeply understood and unified. There is a consistency to his satirical insight, humor and anger which makes his work so synergistic. It seems clear that the more of Vonnegut's work you read, the more it resonates and the more you wish to read. Scholars believe that Vonnegut's reputation (like Mark Twain's) will grow steadily through the decades as his work continues to increase in relevance and new connections are formed, new insights made.

338 pages, with a 4.2-star rating from 471 reviews






Here's today's Daily Youth Deal, available for $1.99!

Into That Forest, by Louis Nowra.

Two girls survive a terrible flood in the Tasmanian bush and are rescued by a pair of Tasmanian tigers who raise them in the wild. Their story of survival is remarkable, as they adapt to the life of the tiger, learning to hunt and to communicate without the use of human language. When they are discovered and returned to civilization, neither can adapt to being fully human after their extraordinary experience. Totally believable, their story will both shock and captivate readers as it explores the animal instincts that lie beneath our civilized veneer.
Into that Forest

160 pages, with a 4.2-star rating from 148 reviews








Happy Reading!

Betsy

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From USA Today Bestselling Author Nancy Warren comes the first in an exciting new series of sexy, humorous romances about a family named Chance.
196 pages, with a 4.7-star rating from 70 reviews.

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The Seventeenth Floor, by Dmytro Bondarenko. (Still 0.99?)

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**New, edited version 12/17/2012**

A story about a young Ukrainian man who was very fond of his wife but secretly dreamed of other women. A friend of his advised him to visit a local brothel...
170 pages, with a 4.4-star rating from 11 reviews.

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Sweet Christmas Kisses: Fourteen Sweet Christmas Romances, by Donna Fasano. (Still 0.99?)

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Almost Perfect Christmas by Donna Fasano, USA Today bestselling author. Aaron wants to give his daughter a perfect Christmas and elicits Christy's help to do it. When they're talked into a make-believe wedding, can a real one be far behind?

Mistletoe in Maine (Holiday Brides Book #3) by Ginny Baird, Award-winning and National bestselling author. A single mom takes her kids on vacation in Maine and meets a handsome innkeeper, a young widower with a teenage son. A winter wonderland love story about faith and new beginnings.

The Army Doctor's Christmas Baby (Army Doctor's Baby Series) by Helen Scott Taylor, Award-winning and National bestselling author. An army surgeon with twins falls for the nanny, but will her secret destroy their happiness?

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The Christmas Promise by Melinda Curtis, USA Today Recommended Read, Award-winning and National bestselling author. When a chocolate heiress bumps into a wounded warrior during Christmas, chaos ensues thanks in part to three fairy godmothers...er, a trio of meddlesome nuns.

Merry Christmas, Darling by Denise Devine, Award-winning author. A desperate bachelor enlists his neighbor to pose as his wife to appease his dying mother and unexpectedly finds love under the mistletoe.

Some Christmas Magic by Raine English, Award-winning and National bestselling author. She's been dumped... He wants to win her back... A last-ditch effort to save her Christmas might result in her most romantic holiday ever.

Christmas in White Oak by Aileen Fish, National bestselling author. Forced to face his past, a young widower tries to grant the Christmas wish of his first love.

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A Scottish Christmas by Roxanne Rustand, Award-winning author of over thirty novels.
When Lucy Davis receives a mysterious letter inviting her to the Scottish Highlands to receive an inheritance, she expects to deal with it quickly--until she discovers it's a historic B&B with a handsome, mysterious resident who might just be the man of her dreams.

Small Town Christmas by Magdalena Scott, National bestselling author. Past loves, a family in mourning, a little boy with a big heart. Christmas in Serendipity, Indiana is full of surprises!

By Christmas (Covington Falls Chronicles, Book 4) by Kristin Wallace, Award-winning and National bestselling author. She was a jilted bride. He's her ex-fiancé's brother. She's trying to save Christmas. He's disrupting her peace on earth. Together they find a holiday happy ending.


4.7-star rating from 18 reviews.
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Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller, by Bobby Adair. (Still free?)

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Ebola, Terrorism, and Hope

In 1989 the Ebola virus mutated to into an airborne strain that infected humans for the first time on American soil in Reston, Virginia. Through belated containment efforts and luck, nobody died.

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In this thriller, terrorists stumble across this new, fully lethal strain and while the world fearfully watches the growing epidemic in West Africa as Sierra Leone goes into country-wide lockdown, only a few Americans are aware of Ebola K and the danger it poses—to be the deadliest pandemic in the history of mankind.

Can they do anything to protect themselves from this killer disease? Can they stop the terrorists?

205 pages, with a 4.7-star rating from 181 reviews.

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