I have had a fascination with alternative realities since reading the stories of Michael Moorcock in my early teens. I spent years studying shamanism and occult practices so when I finally got my act together and started writing it was a given that a sizable amount of that would creep into my work. I also have a bizarre sense of humour and I like to inflict that on my readers where possible by creating unusual scenarios or interactions for my characters to get caught up in. I try to inject some science and historical fact into what I write although most should be taken with a large pinch of salt…
The life and adventures of The Monkey – recently reincarnated Vietnam Airborne Ranger, incarnate Monkey God, drinker of Jack Daniels, smoker of cigars, bringer of entropy, lover of chaos.
Conspiracy, magic, booze, guns, sexy partially dead girls, the Illuminati, bad TV, alternative history, international travel... What more could you want?
This is the book that, more than any other, ignited my passion for alternative realities, what dwells within and what happens if those realities spill out. That was 45 years ago, and I still love all the Elric stories, but this one I feel captures the essence of who Elric is and the sacrifices he is doomed to make to bring back balance to the universe. Dark and moody, and featuring one of the all-time greatest sword and sorcery heroes in a complex, and collapsing universe, aided, and abetted by his companion Moonglum, and alternately empowered and betrayed by the rune sword Stormbringer.
Feared by enemies and friends alike, Elric of Melnibone walks a lonely path among the worlds of the multiverse. The destroyer of his own cruel and ancient race, as well as its final ruler, Elric is the bearer of a destiny as dark and cursed as the vampiric sword he carries - the sentient black blade known as Stormbringer.
Containing the novel which perhaps did the most to propel Elric to the forefront of the fantasy genre, along with associated short stories and other material, this volume is a vital part of any fantasy reader's library. With an introduction by…
Well, this book totally changed my view on the world and how reality is perceived! Whether you choose to believe that Castaneda met and was initiated by a Yaqui sorcerer, or whether you believe it is just a very convincing piece of writing by a college student studying anthropology is up to you. What shouldn’t be ignored are the underlying psychological truths and messages that make this a powerful story about seeing the world in which we live through new eyes. This book started my interest in shamanism and led to nearly 25 years of study and practice that has definitely influenced my life and writing.
A crazy, and strangely, very British science fiction adventure. Our hapless hero, Arthur Dent becomes the last human being after the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Wonderfully surreal and inventive, this book showed me that the genre doesn’t have to take itself seriously all the time. When the main character goes off on an intergalactic adventure armed only with a towel you just know things are going to be a bit different!
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
If you are going to get all nerdy and interested in alternative universes, parallel realities, etc. then you might as well look at the science behind it all. In no way am I saying that I fully understand superstring theory, but after reading this book I possibly understand it a little better than I did! Written in a non-mathematical way for the complete layman by a physicist who knows his stuff. This book demonstrates that some things are stranger than fiction, and that just maybe there are other versions of you out there who are reading this right now…
Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away layers of mystery to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter-from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas-is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of energy. The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.
I have a bit of a thing for ancient Greek myths so it was a no-brainer that I would read this retelling of the story of Circe. Written with an achingly poetic beauty that captures a different side of a character who is usually portrayed as a witch and the doom of men. This book leads you through the associated hero tales and finds those heroes wanting and fallible, and always viewed through the immortal eyes of Circe, fated to live out her life alone on her island. Her existence is a parallel and alternative universe to that of mankind that surrounds her and shows that the pride and ego of men, and the vanity and immortality of the gods are no road to happiness.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens…
I’m a professional historian and life-long lover of early American history. My fascination with the American Revolution began during the bicentennial in 1976, when my family traveled across the country for celebrations in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. That history, though, seemed disconnected to the place I grew up—Arkansas—so when I went to graduate school in history, I researched in French and Spanish archives to learn about their eighteenth-century interactions with Arkansas’s Native nations, the Osages and Quapaws. Now I teach early American history and Native American history at UNC-Chapel Hill and have written several books on how Native American, European, and African people interacted across North America.
A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today
Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.
A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread…
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