Fact or Fiction


Book Description

New York City, 1936: It's a rare evening at home for Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp writer by day and the masked vigilante only known as the Silencer by night. But even though crime never rests, next month's Silencer novel doesn't write itself. And besides, Richard enjoys the chance to spend some time with his fiancée Constance Allen. Pulp fiction thrives on exaggeration and non-stop action. And as always, the question is how much of the Silencer's adventures are fact and how much is fiction? This is a short story of 2700 words or approx. 10 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.




The Spiked Death


Book Description

All Constance Allen wanted was to dance with her fiancé at the annual charity ball for police widows and orphans. But when your fiancé is Richard Blakemore, the man hiding behind the steel mask of the mysterious vigilante only known as the Silencer, even such simple wishes are often thwarted. And so Constance finds herself stood up at the ball, while Richard is out hunting Baron Tormento, a villain who terrorizes the city and blackmails powerful men – by torturing young girls to death. At first, it's just another case for the Silencer, albeit a particularly grisly one. But it quickly gets personal, when Richard's friend police captain Justin O'Grady is kidnapped. And soon Constance finds herself facing Baron Tormento's spikes of death… This is a novelette of 14700 words or approx. 45 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.




Lifted


Book Description

Before skyscrapers forever transformed the landscape of the modern metropolis, the conveyance that made them possible had to be created. Invented in New York in the 1850s, the elevator became an urban fact of life on both sides of the Atlantic by the early twentieth century. While it may at first glance seem a modest innovation, it had wide-ranging effects, from fundamentally restructuring building design to reinforcing social class hierarchies by moving luxury apartments to upper levels, previously the domain of the lower classes. The cramped elevator cabin itself served as a reflection of life in modern growing cities, as a space of simultaneous intimacy and anonymity, constantly in motion.a a In this elegant and fascinating book, Andreas Bernard explores how the appearance of this new element changed notions of verticality and urban space. Transforming such landmarks as the Waldorf-Astoria and Ritz Tower in New York, he traces how the elevator quickly took hold in large American cities while gaining much slower acceptance in European cities like Paris and Berlin. Combining technological and architectural history with the literary and cinematic, Bernard opens up new ways of looking at the elevator--as a secular confessional when stalled between floors or as a recurring space in which couples fall in love. Rising upwards through modernity, aLifted atakes the reader on a compelling ride through the history of the elevator.a a Andreas Bernard ais editor ofa Sddeutsche Zeitung, GermanyOCOs largest daily newspaper. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Sciences from the Bauhaus University Weimar, and teaches cultural studies in Berlin and Lucerne, Switzerland."




The Thing from the Dread Swamp


Book Description

While travelling through the Dread Swamp, Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friends, Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, Meldom’s sweetheart Lysha and the sorceress Sharenna come across an overturned wagon and the terrified merchant Polyxo who babbles that a monster has taken his daughter Cerissa. Because they are heroes – and because Polyxo has offered them a sizeable reward – the quartet of adventurers offers to rescue Cerissa from the thing that lives in the Dread Swamp. This is a short story of 5300 words or 19 print pages in the Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.




The Milk Truck Gang


Book Description

Upstate New York, 1937: When the delivery vans of the Daisy Chain Dairy Company are targeted and robbed by a criminal gang and a driver is shot, Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer decides to get involved. So he stakes out the dairy company in the early hours of the morning to apprehend the criminals, only to find himself embroiled in a lethal fight on the bed of a speeding milk truck… This is a short story of 3700 words or approx. 15 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.




The Heavy Hand of the Editor


Book Description

New York City, 1938: Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp writer by day and the masked vigilante only known as the Silencer by night, has faced many a horror in his day. But few of them can match the terror of the blank page. Especially since Donald A. Stuart, the upstart young editor of an upstart young magazine called Stunning Science Stories, has already rejected Richard's story "The Icy Cold of Space" four times. Stuart demands changes that Richard does not want to make. Worse, he also holds Richard's story hostage. Unless Stuart permanently rejects the story, Richard cannot sell it elsewhere. There are a lot of shady practices in the pulp business, but Stuart's actions are beyond the pale even for the wild west of publishing. And so the Silencer decides to pay Stuart a visit to put the fear of God into an editor who believes himself to be one. This is a novelette of 10800 words or approx. 38 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone. Any resemblances to editors, writers and magazines living, dead or undead are entirely not coincidental.







A Series of Unfortunate Events #6: The Ersatz Elevator


Book Description

NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES In their most daring misadventure, the Baudelaire orphans are adopted by very, very rich people, whose penthouse apartment is located mysteriously close to the place where all their misfortune began. Even though their new home in the city is fancy, and the children are clever and charming, I'm sorry to say that still, the unlucky orphans will encounter more disaster and woe. In fact, in this sixth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the children will experience a darkened staircase, a red herring, an auction, parsley soda, some friends in a dire situation, a secret passageway, and pinstripe suits. Both literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted, A Series of Unfortunate Events offers an exquisitely dark comedy in the tradition of Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl. Lemon Snicket's uproariously unhappy books continue to win readers, despite all his warnings.




Quiet Post


Book Description

From the author of POLLY! and TREK TO MADWORLD comes a truly bizarre comedy of outlandish proportions. The Quasiverse: A land that’s a combination of Oz, Wonderland, Discworld, and general surreality, where anything can happen and often does; a land of snow globe mines and french fries plantations; a land where bossy birds can have teeth and locks can be very particular about how you stick a key in them; a land where you never know what color the sky will be when you wake up in the morning and where murder victims can be only randomly dead. Martia Rosenthal is escaping from a bad love affair, and enlists for a diplomatic assignment in the Quasiverse. With the combination of her wealth and the position of sub-legate, she’s assured it will be a quiet post. But she reckons without the vagaries of this bizarre world, where the unusual nature of her friends, as well as her enemies, threatens to end her sanity, if not her very life. Quiet Post is an absurdist comedy with surprises around every turn and smiles never far from your lips.




Ninja High School Omnibus #5


Book Description

The 5th collected volume in the Ninja High School series!