"The first epistle of the Journey to Virginland trilogy, Catena is Dog's maiden foray into his ancestral country ..."--Jacket.

Fabbers, slabbers and fakies were dehumanizing slurs for fabricated humans. Bricks, however, was the People’s favorite. The Sentience Laws were created to protect the rights of Bricks, but the laws didn’t last long. Banished to the remote isolation of the Settlement, Paul and Raine are sentenced to live the rest of their lives in the wilderness. Escape and freedom will depend on Marcus Anderson, the man responsible for all the suffering that’s been endured since the invention of biomites—the synthetic stem cells used to fabricate halfskins and Bricks. Marcus needs them in order to find the “powers-that-be,” the man he believes is truly responsible for the world’s suffering. Their journey will take them to a tiny island in the South Atlantic, where the truth is much closer than they realize. That’s where they will discover the “powers-that-be”. And so much more. INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR WHAT GENRE DO YOU PREFER? Science fiction, dystopia, technothriller and, to some extent, young adult. I do have a series of novellas in the vampire genre. Yeah, I know. Doesn’t fit. That character, Drayton, came out of nowhere when I was at a community theatre production of Dracula. I figured that an immortal vampire would more likely become compassionate and wise as he grew older. The technothriller Halfskin is similar to vampires in that technology promises immortality and complete control of our bodies. But then what? WHY A SYNTHETIC STEM CELL? Organic life is too nilly-willy. We’re limited by our DNA. Give it to the scientists to perfect this vehicle that carries us around because it is a vehicle. If we no longer have organic bodies, if every one of our cells is replaced by something manmade all the way down to the neurons and synapses, then what are we? What if our world is just a computerized environment, ala The Matrix? Would we know the difference? Look, we’re printing organs today. I’m not, but someone is. Some genius has figured out how to push play and heart or liver or kidney comes down the chute. Halfskin takes the idea into the distant future and explores whether this leads to more happiness or just more of the same. Because more money, more problems. DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER JOB BESIDES AUTHOR? Day job, I’m a college horticulture teacher. Writing is a passion. No plans to change it. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Breathe. WHAT TALENT WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO HAVE? Omnipresent supergalactic oneness. IF WE HAD A CUSTOM THAT ALLOWED US TO EAT OUR CHILDREN, WHAT KIND OF SAUCE WOULD YOU USE? Ketchup, the miracle condiment. ARE OUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES STEALING OUR SOUL? AND IF SO, DO YOU MAKE OFFERINGS TO YOUR TOASTER? I offer white bread and the toaster gives back crunchy, brown bread. Never doubt a true miracle.

PERFECTION IS A DANGEROUS ILLUSION Where does your mind go when you fall asleep. To the Dreamland, where seven Sleepers dream the ever-changing landscape drawn by trillions of sleeping minds from the Waking World. Where form follows function, so a hovel today may be a castle or a cave tomorrow. Where the people battle nightmares with only the strength of their will and sanity. Juele is the youngest and most promising new student to enter the strange new world of the School of Light. At this legendary institution, she will learn how to master illusion, the highest form of art in the Dreamland. Her talent has excited the interest of many of the senior students, the professors, but most important of all, the Idealists. They are the elite of the Illusionists, a tightly knit group of talents who admit Juele to their mysterious circle in the Ivory Tower. Her mentor, an Idealist named Rutaro, has embarked upon a project to surround the Castle of Dreams with an image of perfection, in which Juele will play a key role. But other students who are jealous of Juele's good fortune set out to pervert Rutaro's design. What they have in mind bears no resemblance to reality. The worst part is that no one, not Rutaro, nor the King, the ministers, or even Roan, the King's Investigator, seems to notice that the government of the Dreamland is plunging into deadly chaos. Juele is faced with having to find the reality within the fantasy with the only skill she has at hanillusion. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

TOURISTS RUSH IN WHERE DREAMERS FEAR TO TREAD . . . Where does your mind go when you fall asleep? To the Dreamland, where seven Sleepers dream the ever-changing landscape drawn by the trillions of sleeping minds from the Waking World. Where form follows function, so a hovel today may be a castle or a cave tomorrow. Where the people battle nightmares with only the strength of their will and sanity. Chuck Meadows is a Visitor from the Waking World, on an astral vision quest around the Dreamland. He has come on this arduous and dangerous journey to the Dreamland in hope of discovering the reason for the deep misery of his soul. With the aid of his spirit guide, Keir, the other members of the group, and the Dreamlanders he will meet along the way, he has to solve the puzzle before it literally tears him apart. But not all Dreamlanders are eager to assist Chuck on his quest. There is an element lurking throughout the land that resents the Visitors and all they stand for. They hate the intrusion by Waking minds into their realm. They are furious that Visitors wield almost limitless influence while they have nothing. They intend to send a message back to the Waking world to leave them alone forever. The leader of the conspiracy is waiting only for the right moment to strike. He has a secret weapon that no one, Dreamlanders or Waking Worlders, can withstand. Chuck and his companions are unaware of the doom that awaits them¾but they have unseen allies as well as enemies. Chuck must learn the truth about them and about himself before it is too late. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). _Theres plenty of entertaining satire throughout . . . [with] humor and unusual setting.Ó ¾Locus _The entire premise is fun . . . reads a lot like Piers Anthonys Xanth series. Nye . . . is an author to watch.Ó ¾Kliatt

For more than 50 years John Waters has been staging a coup against the good taste of the American public. From the ultimate gross-out in Pink Flamingos to the amazing general-audience rating of his biggest hit Hairspray, Waters has been subverting viewers' expectations with comedies that stretch past the boundaries of even today's jaded audiences. A provocateur of bad taste in a glorious way, Waters started out as an outsider with a camera and a small circle of fellow delinquents. In tearing down icons of the silver screen, Waters would create his own that are used still by others in movies and television. And that's only part of the tale. John Waters FAQ looks at how a nice boy from the right side of the tracks would end up becoming a demon of society and the influences that drove his ambition in moviemaking. Also featured are biographical information of the Dreamlanders -- the actors and crew members who would join Waters on his adventures in filmland over the years, including Waters's best-remembered find Divine. Beyond chapters dedicated to the making of each of his films -- from Hag in a Black Leather Jacket to his most recent A Dirty Shame -- there are those covering his career as a writer and artist. Also reviewed are his acting career in other people's television shows and movies over the years, Water's interest in music, and projects that never were to be. John Waters FAQ covers it all in the career of a man who started out with a dream of becoming an underground filmmaker and became so much more.

Graham Hutchins fell in love with trains at an early age. As a youngster growing up in the railway town of Te Kuiti, he would gaze on the steaming monsters as they thundered through the King Country. Before long, train travel became more than a pastime, more than a fascination: he was hooked. As he recounts in this book, he was just ten years old when he undertook a journey alone on the night train to Auckland. From then on he travelled as much as he could, and later as a young man searched out the smaller forgotten lines to experience what they had to offer. Stop the Train! I want to get on describes his experiences travelling throughout New Zealand on regular passenger trains, railcars, goods trains and work trains. The routes he traverses include the Central Otago line, the Gisborne Railcar, the Southerner to Invercargill, a mixed train through rural Taranaki, a workers’ train from Greymouth on the Rewanui Incline, the Endeavour to Hawke’s Bay, the Silver Fern Railcar and more. Many services have now been axed, but he vividly recalls their delights, from the scenery outside to the often primitive conditions inside and the people he encounters along the way. He also tells many engaging tales about the history of the lines and what makes each so distinctive. Sometimes alone, on other occasions with his wife Jenny or his mate Russell, he conveys the unique experience and sheer pleasure of rail travel in every corner of New Zealand, from the 1950s to the present day. ‘Some people take to the bottle, others go shopping. I jump on a train, if I can find one, and wait for the swish and sway to take me away. Away from the down times. For me the diversion comes as much from the rhythm as the passing landscapes from the train window.’ Graham Hutchins remembers the incredibly varied journeys he has taken by train throughout New Zealand. They have given him a lifetime of pleasure. Night trains and The Northerner The Midland Line: Christchurch to the West Coast The Gisborne Railcar The Central Otago Line: Alexandra to Dunedin The Picton–Christchurch Railcar The Silver Star: Auckland to Wellington Greymouth to Rewanui and back By mixed train on the Stratford to Okahukura Line Hamilton to Mount Maunganui The Silver Fern Railcar on the Main Trunk Line The Endeavour: Wellington to Napier The Southerner: Christchurch to Invercargill The Northern Explorer

From the fertile mind of Brian Lumley: Weird heroes and weirder worlds! Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes! Vampires. Elder Gods. Nightmares. Mysterious elixirs. Wines capable of transporting the drinker-literally-to another world. Fossils that dream of rending flesh between their teeth. These wonders, and many more, spring from the fertile imagination of Brian Lumley. Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes! collects eight long tales of four of Lumley's most popular creations; Titus Crow, David Hero and his companion, Eldin the Wanderer; and the original Necroscope himself, Harry Keogh, who is featured in three completely new stories, one of them a short novel. The other stories in this collection have previously only been published in the United Kingdom. Titus Crow: Psychic detective, master magician, destroyer of the ancient Cthulian gods. In "Inception," we see the infant Titus at the moment his destiny falls upon him. In "Lord of the Worms," a simple secretarial job lands Crow on a sacrificial altar. And in "Name and Number," Henri Laurent de Marigny details a battle between Titus Crow and malevolent, occult winds that can rip living flesh from bone. David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer: once men of the waking world, now agents for King Kuranes of the Dreamlands. Sips of "The Weird Wines of Naxas Niss" send the pair on a tumultuous journey from a buxom beauty's bed to the depths of a wizard's dungeon. Then, seeking his missing friend, David Hero boards an ill-fated airship that is home to "The Stealer of Dreams." Harry Keogh, Necroscope: vampire killer without peer, capable of conversing with the dead. A sudden windfall brings Harry to Las Vegas, where he meets "Dead Eddy," a gambler who can't resist the temptation of one last big win-from beyond the grave! In "Dinosaur Dreams," Harry's interest in fossils leads him to uncover the truth behind the death of a young amateur paleontologist . . . and to discover that it's not just dead people he can call on in a crisis.... Harry's undying love for his mother leads him down a dangerous path in the brief "Resurrection." Four of Lumley's greatest heroes. Three of his most popular worlds. Tales to chill and to delight. Open the book and be swept away. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.