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The Haunting of L.: A Novel
Howard Norman Manufacturer: Picador ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0312421664 |
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The Haunting of L., Howard Norman's exploration of depravity and the influence of remorse, overcomes an underdeveloped plot with a consistently eerie sense of suspense. Following the tragic death of his mother, Peter Duvett leaves his Halifax home and travels to Churchill, Manitoba, where he has accepted a job as an assistant to a photographer he has never met. The photographer, Vienna Linn, works for a local Jesuit, for whom he takes pictures of recently baptized townspeople. Duvett soon meets Linn's "exquisite" new bride, Kala Murie, a devoted student of spirit photography, a phenomenon in which the images of the deceased appear in photographs alongside family and friends. Things turn especially bizarre when Murie fills Duvett in on the truth about her husband before seducing him on her wedding night: Linn is working for a deranged English spiritualist, Radin Heur, who pays him to arrange and photograph train wrecks. As his affair with Murie intensifies, Duvett chooses to remain with the pair, a witness to Linn's murderous attempts to appease Heur and the consuming guilt that follows.Duvett states that a good book, in his opinion, makes him "feel some nervousness, excitement, agitation, even fear about what happened next." By this standard, The Haunting of L. is indeed a worthwhile novel; a classically styled mystery and the sort of strange-but-true tale Duvett favors. Norman (author of The Bird Artist) captures stark snapshots of setting and character, eliciting anticipation by focusing on the essentials and leaving detail in the shadows. The Haunting of L. ends up as an effective ghost story, creating alluring tension in its obscurity, making for an intriguing, if underexposed, portrait. --Ross Doll
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A chilling fable of moral blindness and artistic ambition set on the margins of the civilized world.Customer Reviews:
EXCELLENT PAGE TURNER.......2003-05-02
Spitit photos and adultery.......2003-04-07
read all in the troligy!.......2003-03-31
Norman's strength is his ability to create quirky characters we don't think we know in real life but want to know, if only to make our own lives more intriguing and tangible than they are without these characters. These same characters in another author's hands would be too unbelievable, but Norman conveys them with such depth and assurrance that we cannot undo their seams. His characters taunt us, entice us to want to know the possibly odd and dangerous motivations that are potentially forming in all of us.
Don't be put off by the setting--it's no contemporary United States in Norman's novels. Don't stop reading in the early pages, when you might not know exactly what's going on or why you're starting to care about characters you know you shouldn't like as people. Read The Haunting of L., maybe read The Museum Guard, but definitely also read The Bird Artist, Norman's most inviting work.
Like cold fog creeping under your coat collar.......2003-01-15
Photographer's assistant Peter Duvett leaves Halifax to take a job in the remote north of Manitoba. The settlement is accessible only by plane and so small that it is hard to imagine that there would be enough customers to support any business, let alone one which would require a photographer's assistant. When Peter checks in at the hotel, there is a woman giving a lecture on spirit photographs-the "uninvited guests" whose shadowy forms have mysteriously appeared in photo backgrounds. Why is this woman giving a lecture on such an arcane subject in a settlement so tiny that there are only three people in the audience? She is Kala Murie, fiancée of Vienna Linn, Peter's new employer. It is their wedding day, an event to which Peter is not invited and from which Kala comes to Peter's bed. With the bride as his lover and his boss as his enemy, Peter starts work. Vienna Linn, he learns, takes photos of Catholic converts for the town priest, but his real business is creating fatal accidents and taking pictures of the resulting mayhem for a wealthy British client. Train wrecks are a favorite, but planes, streetcars, and automobile accidents are acceptable as long as people die.
Yet watching photographic evidence of murder appear in the developing pan does not send Peter running from this strange couple. His passivity and attraction to Kala keep him in their orbit even when he knows too much.
The behavior of all three main characters is so strange that you cannot imagine how the story will end. Apparently, neither did Howard Norman. The climax is disappointing and there is now way this story could be resolved that simply. It negates the atmosphere that has been so carefully built up.
'haunted' by a disappointing climax.......2002-08-17
These three people all seem to have their own selfish motivations and desires in mind when tromping on each others' emotions. While I didn't come away hating any one in particular, I didn't feel they deserved any compassion either. They lived to pursue their heart's desires no matter the outcome. Maybe that is justly the moral of this story: reap what you sow.
Some of the critics' reviews I have read cite THE HAUNTING OF L as the third in Norman's trilogy that is preceded by THE BIRD ARTIST and THE MUSEUM GUARD. Though it might have been the author's intention to do just that, THE HAUNTING OF L is sadly a badly played "note" in what is otherwise a beautifully-written trio of stories.
If you're new to his work, you'll likely find the book readable. However, if you're familiar with the author's style, you'll more likely find this work lacking in resonance.
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Warhost of Vastmark (Ships of Merior/Janny Wurts, Vol 2)
Janny Wurts Manufacturer: Eos ProductGroup: Book Binding: Mass Market Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0061056677 |
Book Description
The Mistwraith's curse of vengeance has locked two princes into an ever deeper pattern of enmity. Since the deception and betrayal which ended Ships of Merior, their struggle has widened to encompass the fates of the world.Lysaer, Prince of Light--committed to serving justice, deeply bitter over the total destruction of his fleet, he lacks the means to transport his vast warhost, but swears he will still capture Arithon, defenseless in his shipyard at the seaside village of Merior...
Arithon, Master of Shadow--set back since the fire which has damaged the vessels he built to escape into freedom, he has no choice but to attempt the impossible: to so one ship launched before Lysaer's warhost can corner him, or to raise up a counterforce and meet on a field at a ruinous cost in bloodshed.
Customer Reviews:
Frustrating...but good........2007-04-06
Stunning, addictive.......2006-05-12
a good 2nd half.......2001-07-30
More Tightly Focused Than Previous Two Books.......2000-07-28
Wurt's strengths are evocative characterizations, complex and multi-layered plotlines and magical realms, and, when not engaged in over-embellishment, vivid and energetic descriptive detail. Unfortunately it is true that the tale at times gets bogged down or muddied by a profuse use of language, and this becomes variously a strength as well as the series' greatest detriment. Nonetheless, I believe there is far more of value going on here than should be dismissed simply because of a difficulty with language.
Perhaps it is because I have become inured to Wurt's tendency to overwork her prose, but it seemed as if in this book she had lightened the flourish of her pen. In any event, for those that have become engaged in the world of Athera, there is much that takes place in this volume, and in a more compressed fashion than in the previous two books. A major revelation occurs, and several of the main characters face trials that will permanently alter their lives. The events build to tension that should keep you reading, and the suspense is handled deftly, keeping the imaginary nerves taut. In many ways I feel this is the best book yet of the series. Highly recommended if you can work past the densely worded use of narrative.
It keeps getting better.......2000-06-15
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Warhost of Vastmark (Ships of Merior/Janny Wurts, Vol 2)
Janny Wurts Manufacturer: Eos ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: B000OF0I76 |
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Warhost of Vastmark
Janny Wurts Manufacturer: Voyager ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: B000O8Q9LM |
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The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds
Debra Doyle , and James D. Macdonald Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction ProductGroup: Book Binding: Mass Market Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0812571924 |
Amazon.com
If you like science fiction fantasy on the scale of The Phantom Menace, discover the Mageworlds series by Doyle and MacDonald. The Stars Asunder is Book 6, but readers can start here; it's set 500 years before the others (next is The Gathering Flame, then The Price of the Stars, Starpilot's Grave, By Honor Betray'd, and The Long Hunt). It's grand space opera--interstellar war, swashbuckling heroes, an embattled queen, and mystics on both sides using supernatural power--but in this installment the authors focus on the Mageworlds, enemies of the protagonists in the previous books. For series fans, The Stars Asunder adds a new dimension to the conflict between the Republic and the Mageworlds.The Mageworlds are separated from the rest of the galaxy by a huge, interstellar gap. Arekhon sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen ('Rekhe), son of a noble trading family, joins Garrod syn-Aigal and his Demaizen Circle of Mages. Their goal: to reunite the galaxy, blazing a trail through the Void of hyperspace and setting a beacon to guide Mageworld ships. Discontent at home and tragic errors when they meet the technologically advanced but warlike people on the other side combine to set the scene for many years of conflict. 'Rekhe inherits Garrod's position and his mission, to reweave the pattern uniting the worlds.
So settle back with a cool drink and some stylish, escapist fun in a galaxy far, far away. --Nona Vero
Book Description
The star systems of the Mageworlds are linked by magic. Only when trained Mages have found a Way to a new world can the great colonizing and trading ships follow. But beyond the furthest worlds is a great gap, beyond which, hint the legends, lie vast, rich human worlds long lost to the Mages' trade.Now the most powerful Mage-circle ever is determined to walk to those worlds, to reunite humanity's sundered branches and make a fortune in the process. And young Arekhon sus-Khalgath, scion of the most powerful of the clans of starship builders, has left his inheritance to join them.But immense forces are arrayed against them. Blood will be spilled, and dynasties thrown down, before the worlds of mankind are again united. For the first time in living memory, the Mages will go to war--with themselves.Customer Reviews:
What Came Before.......2003-01-01
Les Mediocres...Like A Treadmill -- Ending Up Nowhere.......2002-05-29
Boring.......2002-05-26
A fascinating SF series.......2002-01-26
The story shows a certain politeness in piracy and interstellar business dealings, rather like a good ole boy's club that offers a wink and a nod to ripping each other off. It appears to be a rite of passage or gamemanship mutually agreed upon to enhance the wealth and power of the reining star lords. The pirates take turns boarding one another's vessel to steal their cargo which is all executed with good humor and jovial camraderie. (after all the insurance carrier will have to pony up for the losses). These acts of piracy are then followed by a blow out party onboard the ship undergoing piracy. For this reader, the analogies to current day politics is quite inescapably clear.
This is the first book that I have read in this space opera series and I am looking forward to the follow up book "A Working of Stars" which promises more of the magic and machinations of this fascinating Mageworld.
Interestig filling in of the backplot.......2000-09-20
I would, however, read these books in the order they were written and not in their story-based chronological order.
The story, while trying not to, seems to depend upon one's previous knowledge of the Mageworlds universe to really be interesting.
I can hardly wait for the sequel to this book!
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The Stars Asunder
Debra Doyle Manufacturer: Book Club ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: B000UQXM0E |
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The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds
James D. And Doyle, Debra MacDonald Manufacturer: New York: Tor, ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: B000OV8K5M |
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STARS ASUNDER (MAGEWORLDS)
DOYLE / MACDONALD Manufacturer: Tor Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: B000N71GYE |
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The Stars Asunder.
Debra & Macdonald, James D. Doyle Manufacturer: A Tom Doherty Associates Book ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: B000NXK6OE |
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Relentless Love: God's Faithfulness In The Face of Human Failure
Lisa Harper Manufacturer: Howard Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1582292507 |
Book Description
Harper paints a portrait of God's faithfulness and mercy and His unflinching desire to save every person in spite of continual human failings. With thought-provoking questions at the end of every chapter, this book is great for Bible study and discussion groups.
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Eco-Eating: A Guide to Balanced Eating for Health & Vitality
Sapoty Brook Manufacturer: Lothian Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
Accessories: ASIN: 0850917360 |
Customer Reviews:
Eco-Eating A Guide to Balanced Eating for Health & Vitality.......2000-10-03
Excellent Book.......1999-01-17
It also contains loads of inspiring information to anyone interested in increasing the amount of raw food in their diet.
The chart initially is a bit confusing. Makes you think though and explains why meat is so unbalancing and fruit is the ideal food for humans at the centre of the chart.
If you want excellent health buy this book and just do it.
Love Chlorophil
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Roycroft Decorative Accessories in Copper and Leather: The 1919 Catalog
Elbert Hubbard Manufacturer: Dover Publications ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0486421120 |
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Fun With Recycling: 50 Great Things for Kids to Make from Junk (Fun With)
Marion Elliot Manufacturer: Southwater ProductGroup: Book Binding: Spiral-bound Similar Items:
ASIN: 1842154087 |
Book Description
Children will revel in the exciting and colorful activities in this series.
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Asid Professional Practice Manual
Manufacturer: Whitney Library of Design ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 082300371X |
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Corner & Border Designs 1900 (Pepin Press Design Books)
Pepin Van Roojen Manufacturer: Knickerbocker Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: 9054960124 |
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Touched by the Light: True Stories about Angels, an Open Heart Nurse and Subtle Energy Therapies
Karen Herper Murphy Manufacturer: Spiritual Awareness Productions ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: 0966365925 |
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