A Little ConDor Told Me

This enormous volume is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of fantastic literature of the nineteenth century. From detective fiction to historical novels, from well-known authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, to Russian newspaper serials and Chinese martial arts novels, this book is a truly exhaustive look at every aspect of fantastic literature in the days of Queen Victoria.

Readers of science fiction and fantasy will be surprised to find here the roots of genres thought to be strictly contemporary, and students of literature will be amazed at the breadth and scope of writings produced in the Victoriana era. This is an invaluable reference, and truly one-of-a-kind.

Introduction by Michael Moorcock

Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan – the creators of the wildly popular blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of romance novels and tackle the hard issues and questions:

• The heroine’s irresistible Magic Hoo Hoo and the hero’s untamable Wang of Mighty Lovin’
• Sexual trends. Simultaneous orgasms. Hymens. And is anal really the new oral?
• Romance novel cover requirements: man titty, camel toe, flowers, long hair, animals, and the O-face
• Are romance novels really candy-coated porn or vehicles by which we understand our sexual and gender politics?

With insider advice for writing romances, fun games to discover your inner Viking warrior, and interviews with famous romance authors, Beyond Heaving Bosoms shows that while some romance novels are silly–maybe even tawdry–they can also be intelligent, savvy, feminist, and fabulous, just like their readers!

An anthology. The stories take place in a fictional world where all of the characters and events from pulp/adventure literature, and in particular French adventure literature, actually exist in the same universe. The concept is inspired by science fiction writer Philip Jos? Farmer’s works centering around the Wold Newton family, where the author turns all early fiction characters into relatives via a family taking a coach ride that passes near a meteor fall.

An original anthology series of elegant romantic fantasy in the spirit of classic period swashbucklers. Brimming with romantic courtly intrigue and dangerous liaisons, with cloak and dagger and perfumed handkerchiefs, the language of the fan and stolen glances, with the manners of Jane Austen and the sparkling rapier wit of Oscar Wilde. Here are fantastic stories of adventure, derring-do, love, and glamorous yet subtle magic, by such stellar authors as Tanith Lee, Catherine Asaro, Diana L. Paxson, Madeleine E. Robins, Robin Wayne Bailey, Dave Smeds, Mary Rosenblum, Chaz Brenchley, and Sherwood Smith.

Pham Nuwen is living in anonymity among the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet. In high orbit above the planet Arachna, they wait for the awakening of its dormant population, the Spiders, who have burrowed deep into the planet, awaiting the relighting of the On/Off star their planet orbits. For when light returns, Arachna will at long last explode into a Golden Age of technology and commerce.

But the slumbering Spiders’ vulnerability has attracted another lurking presence – the Emergents, a band of traders whose plans for Arachna are more sinister than anything the Qeng Ho could envision. Reluctant to share their spoils with the Qeng Ho, the Emergents unleash an attack unlike any seen in the Qeng Ho’s millennia-long history of exploration, reducing their fleet to serfdom…and then to something far worse. As Pham’s underground resistance cell struggles against its torturers in space, a wondrously gifted clan of Spiders on the planet below fights another battle – to advance their technology quickly enough to defeat their terrestrial foes, and to somehow overcome the invisible enemy lurking above.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson take on the daunting task of rebuilding Western philosophy in alignment with three fundamental lessons from cognitive science: the mind is inherently embodied; thought is mostly unconscious; and abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. Ike Clanton.

You think you know the story. You don’t.

Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 is the site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, where veins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of power that belongs to anyone who knows how to claim and defend it.

Above the ground, power is also about allegiances. A magician can drain his friends’ strength to strengthen himself, and can place them between him and danger. The one with the most friends stands to win the territory.

When a failed stage holdup results in two dead, Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery. The truth could destroy Earp’s plans for wealth and glory, and he’ll do anything to bury it. Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the same turf as Earp. Each courts Jesse as an ally, and tries to isolate him by endangering his friends, as they struggle for magical dominance of the territory.

Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter Elizabeth is in trouble, she just doesn’t know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco’s most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused and a little bit worried.

Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha’s good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter. Mayland and Martha become close in a short period of time and he promises to help her find Elizabeth, making small inroads in the mystery before Martha herself disappears. Now Mayland is struck by the realization, too late, that he is in love with Martha, and now he fears for her life. Determined to find her, he sets his prodigious philosopher’s mind to work on the problem, embarking on a potentially dangerous adventure.

A close study of the President’s use of the telegraph. Invented less than two decades before he entered office, the telegraph came into its own during the Civil War. First it was an instrument of military command and control; then Lincoln seized upon it as a means to take the reins of his generals and lead the war effort. In a jewel?box of historical writing, Wheeler captures Lincoln as he encountered this tool and adapted his folksy rhetorical style to the telegraph creating an intimate bond with his generals, especially Ulysses S. Grant.

While entomologists love to announce that there are more species of insects than all other animals combined, few parasitologists choose to trump that by reminding us that “parasites may outnumber free-living species four to one.” That figure is based on the multicellular chauvinism of the 19th century, which excludes bacteria and fungi from consideration (athlete’s foot, anyone?), but Zimmer looks at the E. coli in our guts as well as the worms, flukes, mites, and other critters that earn a healthy living at our expense–and the expense of our domesticated plants and animals.

Everyone loves a mystery, and mystery-lovers are fascinated by Sherlock Holmes and forensic science. The Science of Sherlock Holmes is an objective, comprehensive, and entertaining exploration of Sherlock Holmes’s contributions to forensic science. As described in Wiley’s Winter 2006 catalog – “From autopsies to zoology: how Holmes eliminated the impossible” – this book uses the legendary adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a jumping-off point to discuss the growth of forensic science during the 19th and early 20th century. The book explores the emergence of science from superstition, how forensic autopsies evolved from anatomical dissection, and the huge advances in blood chemistry and poison detection during the Victorian era.

Delving into the early use of fingerprints, photography and trace evidence, it demonstrates how fact followed fiction in developing techniques of crime scene investigation. The Science of Sherlock Holmes presents sardonic new insights into landmark criminal cases that influenced the forensic world, including the 1849 Parkman/Webster dismemberment at Harvard Medical College, the slaughter of Jessie M’pherson in 1862 Scotland and the sanguinary cases of Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper. The book includes rare period illustrations.

Since fossils have presumably existed for millions of years, why don’t we see much paleontological thought from ancient writers? Classics scholar Adrienne Mayor suggests that we can, in fact, learn much about the Greek and Roman attitudes toward fossils if we turn to a surprising source of data and theory: their myths. In The First Fossil Hunters, she explores likely connections between the rich fossil beds around the Mediterranean and tales of griffins and giants originating in the classical world.

For centuries, women diagnosed with “hysteria”–a “disease paradigm,” in Rachel P. Maines’s felicitous phrase, thought to result from a lack of sexual intercourse or gratification–were treated by massaging their genitals in order to induce “paroxysm.” Male physicians, however, considered the practice drudgery, and sought various ways of avoiding the task, often foisting it off on midwives or, starting in the late 19th century, employing mechanical devices. Eventually, these devices became available for purchase and home use; one such “portable vibrator” is advertised in the 1918 Sears, Roebuck catalog as an “aid that every woman appreciates.”

Always out to satisfy their inordinate appetites, lying, cheating, and stealing, tricksters are a great bother to have around, but paradoxically they are also indispensable culture heroes. Here Lewis Hyde’s ambitious and captivating study brings to life the playful and disruptive side of the human imagination as it is embodied in the trickster mythology.

As a 20-year-long plot for revenge comes to fruition, the sons of the ruler of the Thousand Suns are murdered, and he is taken prisoner. But the usurper’s vengeance is incomplete. For one son was missing at the ceremony where the fatal blow was struck. And now the hope of the Thousand Suns rests in his hands.