Tuesday, August 29, 2006

eBook Today : The Medici Dagger


The Medici Dagger
By: West, Cameron
Published By: Simon & Schuster Inc
1491: Leonardo looked upon his invention, understood its powers, and knew he must hide it from the men of his age. Thus, a profound treasure was lost for five centuries. Now the race to find it begins.
Hurtling across the Atlantic, a plane goes down - taking with it a page from the journals of Leonardo da Vinci.

In Georgetown, the home of museum curator Rollo Barnett burns to the ground. Only his young son, Reb, escapes alive.

Are the tragedies connected? Are they merely accidents or acts of murder? Twenty years later, Hollywood stuntman Reb Barnett, an educated, art-loving, high-risk-addicted daredevil on the run from his nightmares, refuses to believe so. Until a phone call rips him from his world of cinematic illusion, and sends him to Italy on a desperate quest where danger and violence are chillingly real.

Reb seeks da Vinci's Circles of Truth, a coded fifteenth-century map that reveals the hiding place of the Medici Dagger, a weapon made of an alloy so light and indestructible it is worth a fortune to today's arms manufacturers. To Reb, it is worth even more - it is his only link to finding the truth about his father's death, and to laying bare the dark demons of his own heart. But finding the Circles of Truth is only the first step. Breaking their complex code means matching wits with Leonardo himself. And staying alive means keeping one jump ahead of a shadowy adversary: the killer who haunts Reb's dreams.

From the brilliant Tuscan landscape to the lush California coast, The Medici Dagger sweeps readers into an intriguing intellectual puzzle that delivers shattering suspense and fiery romance with the velocity of a 9mm bullet. Cameron West generates the roller-coaster thrills of the great classic adventure stories - with the adrenaline rush of walking on a knife's edge between excitement and terror.

eBook Today : 1984


1984
By: Orwell, George
Published By: RosettaBooks
Perhaps no other novel in this century has had a greater impact upon the way we think and talk about our world than George Orwell´s classic, 1984. "Big Brother", "doublespeak", and "the thought police" have become part of our everyday lexicon, and the term "Orwellian" has become a familiar adjective for any situation - real or imagined-where conformity is compulsory and where someone always seems to be watching.
Orwell´s novel also has the distinction of being, along with Aldous Huxley´s Brave New World, Yevgeny Zamyatin´s We, Anthony Burgess´s A Clockwork Orange and his own Animal Farm, one of the most important works of anti-utopic fiction produced in this century. These novels, which began to flourish after World War I, imagine a nightmarish society where all that is ugly and perverse about human nature has prevailed, and people are powerless to resist an insidious, coercive order.

In 1984 the insidious order is known as "Big Brother", a personification of the regime that both demands and ensures absolute loyalty and obedience from all of its citizens. One of these citizens is a man named Winston Smith, the protagonist of the novel and a worker in the state´s Ministry of Truth. Through following Winston, we see the myriad methods Big Brother employs to keep the populace servile and under its heavy thumb. Winston´s work at the Ministry is to help rewrite history so that Big Brother´s pronouncements, in retrospect, always appear to be infallible. Just as sinister is the propagation of "Newspeak", an abridged version of English whose eventual adoption, the party members hope, will limit anyone´s ability to think or talk in a way that opposes Big Brother. Perhaps the most often-discussed component to Big Brother´s control is the use of the telescreens, television-like gadgets installed in every home that act as surveillance devices and keep track of who is obeying and who is not. Winston, skeptical of Big Brother, but unsure of who or what to trust, tries to find ways of resisting the state´s coercive power, and asserting his individuality. But Big Brother is watching.

Although 1984 is almost universally hailed as a landmark in twentieth century fiction, critics have been divided as to how we are to read it. Some see it, as Orwell himself described it, as a dire warning about the future. Others view it as a polemic criticizing Stalin´s regime, the government that Big Brother most resembles and that Orwell saw as a monstrous perversion of Marxist ideals. Still others consider it a satire of contemporary England, a deliberately exaggerated version of the propaganda, conformity and denial of history that can exist even in a liberal, democratic state. These interpretations are by no means mutually exclusive, of course, and it is a testament to Orwell´s genius that his work continues to speak in different ways to students of history, politics, philosophy, and literature alike.

eBook Today : Boba Fett: A Practical Man


Boba Fett: A Practical Man
By: Traviss, Karen
Published By: Random House Publishing Group
Star Wars: Boba Fett: A Practical Man by Karen Traviss brings the reader back to the very beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. This original novella is the latest Star Wars eBook publication, from Del Rey Books and will be available at eBook retailers on August 15, 2006. It also includes an exclusive excerpt from the eagerly anticipated STAR WARS: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: BLOODLINES (on—sale 8/29/06) and an interview with the author.

On the surface, it seems like just another routine contract for Boba Fett and his Mandalorian commandos, but the mystery client who hires them to start a small war is more dangerous than any of them can possibly imagine. When the Yuuzhan Vong invasion force sweeps into the galaxy, the Mandalorians find they’re on the wrong side–fighting for an alien culture that will bring about the end of their own.

Now Fett has to choose between his honor and the survival of his people. Since he’s a practical man, he’s determined help the resistance beat the Yuuzhan Vong–even if it means working with a Jedi agent. Trouble is, no one trusts a man with Fett’s reputation. So convincing the New Republic that they’re fighting on the same side is a tall order. Denounced as traitors, Fett’s Mandalorians need to stay one step ahead of their Yuuzhan Vong paymasters–and the Republic who sees them as collaborators with the most destructive enemy the galaxy has ever faced. . . .