James Thorne Smith, Jr. was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and ghosts. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.
Barchester Towers is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Warden and followed by Doctor Thorne. Among other things it satirises the antipathy in the Church of England between High Church and Evangelical adherents. Trollope began writing this book in 1855. He wrote constantly and made himself a writing-desk so he could continue writing while travelling by train. "Pray know that when a man begins writing a book he never gives over", he wrote in a letter during this period. "The evil with which he is beset is as inveterate as drinking – as exciting as gambling".
Kim James Newman is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternative history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award and the BSFA award.
Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based upon a concept created by Edward Packard and originally published by Constance Cappel's and R. A. Montgomery's Vermont Crossroads Press as the "Adventures of You" series, starting with Packard's Sugarcane Island in 1976.
Replay value is the potential of a video game or other media products for continued play value after its first completion. Factors that can influence perceived replay value include the game's extra characters, secrets and alternate endings. The replay value of a game may also be based entirely on the individual's tastes. A player might enjoy repeating a game because of the music, graphics, gameplay or because of product loyalty. Dynamic environments, challenging AI, a wide variety of ways to accomplish tasks, and a rich array of assets could result in a high replay value.
A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not follow paragraphs in a linear or ordered fashion. Gamebooks are sometimes called choose your own adventure books or CYOA after the influential Choose Your Own Adventure series originally published by US company Bantam Books. Gamebooks influenced hypertext fiction.
Miha Mazzini is a Slovenian writer, screenwriter and film director with thirty published books, translated in ten languages. He has a PhD in anthropology from the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis and has MA in Creative Writing for Film and Television at the University of Sheffield. He is a voting member of the European Film Academy.
Love in the Time of Cholera is a novel written in Spanish by Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez and published in 1985. Edith Grossman's English translation was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1988.
The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson that was first published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1948. The story describes a fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as "the lottery", which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though it is not revealed until the end what actually happens to the person selected by the random lottery: the selected member of the community is stoned to death by the other townspeople.
The City of Ember is a post-apocalyptic novel by Jeanne DuPrau that was published in 2003. The story is about Ember, a post-apocalyptic underground city threatened by aging infrastructure and corruption. The young protagonists, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, follow clues left behind by the original builders of the City of Ember, to safety in the outside world.
The Batman Adventures: Mad Love is a one-shot comic book written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. It won the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue and the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story in 1994. It was later adapted as an episode of the animated series The New Batman Adventures, and incorporated in the video games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham Origins. In 2018, Titan Books released a novelization of Mad Love written by Dini and Pat Cadigan, which expanded upon the original comic book.
A Wild Sheep Chase is the third novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in Japan in 1982, it was translated into English in 1989. It is an independent sequel to Pinball, 1973, and the third book in the so-called "Trilogy of the Rat". It won the 1982 Noma Literary Newcomer's Prize.
Catherine "Cat" Bauer is the award-winning author of contemporary novels featuring the young protagonist, Harley Columba, and is known for her unique and honest voice. Publishers Weekly said, "Bauer creates a witty and resilient narrator in...Harley Columba... Readers will be rooting for this sympathetic heroine." In the Thomson Gale biography, the authors noted that: "Readers and reviewers often found the strength of Bauer's novel in the authentic voice of its heroine, Harley. Patricia Morrow, for example, in Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA), remarked that 'Harley's voice is true to the experience of many young people,' and that 'Although the outcomes are not unexpected, they do not follow any formulas.'"
Dr. Breen's Practice is a novel, one of the earlier works by American author and literary critic William Dean Howells. Houghton Mifflin originally published the novel in 1881 in both Boston and New York. Howells wrote in the realist style, creating a faithful representation of the commonplace, and in this case describing everyday mannerisms that embody the daily lives of middle-class people.
Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive is a five-issue crossover comic book series produced in partnership by IDW Comics and Boom! Studios and released between December 2014 and April 2015. The series was written by brothers Scott and David Tipton, with artwork by Rachael Stott, her debut work. The Primate Directive combine elements and characters from the original Star Trek series and the original Planet of the Apes film series. It features Captain James T. Kirk seeking to prevent the Klingons from installing a puppet gorilla government on the planet, which requires them working with various Apes characters such as George Taylor, Cornelius and Zira.
Catwoman: Soulstealer is a 2018 young adult coming of age novel by Sarah J. Maas. It is the third novel in the DC Icons series, following Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo and Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu. The DC Icons novels retell the stories of renowned DC heroes in their adolescence before they become a superhero. Catwoman: Soulstealer features numerous DC characters including: Batwing, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and The Joker.
Before Mars is a 2018 science fiction novel by British writer Emma Newman. It was first published in the United States as a paperback original in April 2018 by Ace Books, and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz. An audiobook was published in April 2018 in the United States by Tantor Audio, and in the United Kingdom by Orion Publishing.
Batman: Death in the Family is a 2020 American adult animated interactive superhero film that explores alternate outcomes of the 1988 comics storyline "A Death in the Family", in which Jason Todd, the second character to bear the mantle of Batman's sidekick Robin, was murdered by the Joker. Produced, written, and directed by Brandon Vietti, the voice cast includes Bruce Greenwood, Vincent Martella, and John DiMaggio. It is a spiritual successor to Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), and was released on Blu-ray on October 13, 2020.
Atlas Alone is a 2019 science fiction novel by British writer Emma Newman. It was first published in the United States as a paperback original in April 2019 by Ace Books, and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz. An audio edition of the book was published in April 2019 in the United States by Tantor Audio, and in the United Kingdom by Orion Publishing.
The Crow Garden is a historical fantasy and horror novel by English writer Alison Littlewood. It was first published in the United Kingdom in October 2017 by Jo Fletcher Books. Set in Victorian England, the book is about an alienist who becomes infatuated with an enigmatic patient of his at a lunatic asylum in Yorkshire.
