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Raven

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Everything posted by Raven

  1. The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.
  2. As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld has only one possible saviour. Unfortunately, this happens to be the singularly inept and cowardly wizard called Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world... THE FUNNIEST AND MOST UNORTHODOX FANTASY IN THIS OR ANY OTHER GALAXY
  3. Had a play around with this feature this afternoon and over half of the books I tried to add needed additional information (the publisher was the main one, along with the cover image). Also, people will need to check the text that is being auto-entered, as the descriptions are often padded out with reviews that run together, and some of the details were entered in the wrong field (I had the name of the book series come up in the publisher field, for example).
  4. A wonderful, classic le Carre now reissued in a stunning new package.
  5. FOR TEAGAN FROST, SH*T JUST GOT REAL. Teagan Frost is having a hard time keeping it together. Sure, she's got telekinetic powers - a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she's normal for once. But then a body turns up at the site of her last job - murdered in a way that only someone like Teagan could have pulled off. She's got 24 hours to clear her name - and it's not just her life at stake. If she can't unravel the conspiracy in time, her hometown of Los Angeles will be in the crosshairs of an underground battle that's on the brink of exploding . . . Full of imagination, wit and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane adventure from an irreverent new voice will blow your tiny mind.
  6. Henry Chinaski is a lowlife loser with a hand-to-mouth existence. His menial post office day job supports a life of beer, one-night stands and racetracks. Lurid, uncompromising and hilarious, Post Office is a landmark in American literature.
  7. Henry Chinaski, an outcast, a loner and a hopeless drunk, drifts around America from one dead-end job to another, from one woman to another and from one bottle to the next. Uncompromising, gritty, hilarious and confessional in turn, his downward spiral is peppered with black humour. "Factotum" follows Charles Bukowski's bestselling "Post Office", his highly autobiographical first novel.
  8. From Jen Williams, author of highly-acclaimed fantasy debut THE COPPER PROMISE, comes a brand-new epic fantasy adventure in THE IRON GHOST. Beware the dawning of a new mage... Wydrin of Crosshaven, Sir Sebastian and Lord Aaron Frith are experienced in the perils of stirring up the old gods. They are also familiar with defeating them, and the heroes of Baneswatch are now enjoying the perks of being very much in demand for their services. When a job comes up in the distant city of Skaldshollow, it looks like easy coin - retrieve a stolen item, admire the views, get paid. But in a place twisted and haunted by ancient magic, with the most infamous mage of them all, Joah Demonsworn, making a reappearance, our heroes soon find themselves threatened by enemies on all sides, old and new. And in the frozen mountains, the stones are walking...
  9. There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel - about magic and mages and monsters and gods. Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she's spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there's no money to be made in chasing rumours. But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man's name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel's darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure ... if they're lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it's over. These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.
  10. The story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana.
  11. In his latest collection of screeds, scrawls, hastily spluttered articles and scarcely literate ravings, Charlie Brooker proves there is almost nothing in this universe, big or small, that can't reduce a human being to a state of bewildered hatred. It WON'T help you lose weight, feel smarter, sleep soundly or stop doing that thing where you accidentally bite the inside of your own mouth occasionally while chewing. It WILL provide you with literally hours of distraction and merriment. But then so would a funny face drawn on a cork...
  12. Enjoying his assignment with the xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose.
  13. The High Window is a classic novel by the master of hard-boiled crime Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA gets cops' noses out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up in jail - or worse, in a box in the ground . . .
  14. Stalking the tawdry neon wilderness of forties and fifties Los Angeles, Raymond Chandler's hard-drinking, wise-cracking Phillip Marlowe is one of the world's most famous fictional detectives. Playback finds Marlowe mixing business with pleasure - getting paid to follow a mysterious and lovely red-head named Eleanor King.
  15. A lot of churches are set up as charities, so you can find their accounts online if you take a look. I took a look at one my brother used to work for a few years back and their main source of income - by far - comes from donations (which I believe includes legacies). I'm sure there are those who do [try to make money out of their congregations], but I don't believe we tend to get a lot of this in the UK.
  16. Tithing is 10% of a person's income, so by definition it would go up as income increases. Also, there are a lot of churches that have closed or merged; my brother is a vicar of three parishes, where in years gone by he would have had sole responsibility for one. I can't imagine them trying to make a profit out of funerals*, but I suspect weddings have an element of 'Ker-ching!' about them. *Unless it is classed as an investment in the afterlife...
  17. I believe tithing is the main income for most churches (that may depend on the denomination, though, not sure). If you have a lot of members handing 10% of their income to your cause, its going to pay for a lot of shiny.
  18. It's one step up from chanting "Imhotep, Imhotep..." but has a similar net effect.
  19. In answer to your spoiler...
  20. I know where the "delete post" button is, if that helps.
  21. The first seven books in Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St. Mary's series are all 99p on the Kindle today. Can't recommend them myself, but I know a lot of people on here like them!
  22. Try logging out and back in again - that can sometimes kick changes into life.
  23. Pretty sure I've seen the hardback in Waterstones (though not recently). Paperback's out in October.
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