The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse

A hilarious comic fantasy from the bestselling cult creator of the Brentford Triangle Trilogy Once upon a time Jack set out to find his fortune in the big city. But the big city is Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town, and it has grown considerably since the good old days and isn't all that jolly any more. And there is a serial killer loose on the streets. The old, rich nursery rhyme characters are being slaughtered one by one and the Toy City police are getting nowhere in their investigations. Meanwhile, Private Eye Bill Winkie has gone missing, leaving behind his sidekick Eddie Bear to take care of things. Eddie may be a battered teddy with an identity crisis, but someone's got to stop the killer. When he teams up with Jack, the two are ready for the challenge. Not to mention the heavy drinking, bad behaviour, car chases, gratuitous sex and violence, toy fetishism and all-round grossness along the way. It's going to be an epic adventure!

Somewhere over the rainbow and just off the Yellow Brick Road stands Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And things are not going well for the city's inhabitants. There have been outbreaks of STC - Spontaneous Toy Combustion - and there are strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Preachers of Toy City's many religions are predicting that the End Times are approaching and that a Toy City Apocalypse will soon come to pass. But can this possibly be true, or is there a simple explanation - an alien invasion, for instance. With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, it is the time for a hero to step forward and attempt to save the day. Well, two heroes actually, Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye and his loyal sidekick, Jack: our courageous twosome are about to face their biggest challenge yet, to save not only toykind, but the world of mankind too. Which should keep them out of the pub for a while.

Chandler Gray, a sailor and software developer has created Saga, an Artificial Intelligence assistant which emulates the powers of fiction’s greatest detectives. Saga lives in the cloud, and travels in a phone. The exciting action of the Swiftsure Yacht race launches an adventure which ranges from the urban landscape of Vancouver to the wild islands of Alaska. Gina Lee, a glamorous billionaire, and owner of the yacht Chan is on board, disappears during the race, but the crew doesn't find out intil the following day. Saga volunteers Chan to help in the search, falsely stating that he is a Private Detective. The result is a series of exciting events, involving a wildly varied cast of characters, an antique seaplane and an old Land Rover. An Amazon review stated: "I give the book a 5 out of 5 stars, for original plot, a divertingly fun and flowing read (it was well written), with many surprising twists thrown in along the way, right up to the end. I would love to see this produced into a movie, and it lends itself quite easily into a series production building further on it’s already well developed characters. A natural draw for any sailor, flyer, lover of adventure, and equally suited for the computer geek, as the author incorporates the maritime aspects so they are easily understandable by the layman." -Chuck F.

Handbook of fantasy fiction for teachers, librarians, parents and guardians and children themselves in which to find many titles of fantasy fiction that they like, or may be tempted, to read. Includes groups such as classic fantasy, comic fantasy, Arthurian, dark fantasy, animals and dragons.

Stylistics in Use is composed of a series of studies about various trends in stylistics. More specifically, its seven chapters analyse, from various perspectives, literary aspects on the Internet, on television and in literary works. In order to accomplish this, a number of different approaches are adopted, such as corpus-driven analysis, translation studies, phraseology, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistic approaches, among others. The book will serve, first and foremost, to bring stylistic analyses closer together, thus demonstrating the potential of stylistics as a research area that can benefit from other disciplines, and proving its effectiveness in examining literary aspects in literary texts as well as in other mediums. In this regard, the book will be of interest to a wide academic readership, including not only stylisticians, but also those involved in corpus analysis, translation studies, phraseology, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics.

Thomas Friesen has three goals in life: get a job, make friends, and find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three. All is not peaceable within the stacks, however, as discontent steadily rises, aimed squarely at talk show host Munroe Purvis, whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America. But the bookworms have a plan?plots are being hatched and the destruction of Munroe is all but assured. As Thomas finds himself swept along in the malstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it's cracked up to be.

Based on years of ground-breaking research, this book supplies a look at the unique relationship between each text and the individual reader that results in a satisfying, pleasurable, and even life-changing reading experience. Following up on her critically acclaimed Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community, Catherine Sheldrick Ross takes a new look at pleasure reading through 30 thought-provoking essays based on themes arranged from A to Z. In short lively chapters, she discusses topics ranging from "Alexia," "Bad Reading," and "Changing Lives" to "Romance Fiction," "Self-help," "Titles," "Vampires," and "Year of Reading." Drawing on her own research as well as other published sources, Ross comments on the significance of each theme, provides examples of the phenomenon, and develops the topic chronologically, through further examples, or through reversals. The essays are unified by an underlying theory of reading that views readers as sense-makers, actively engaged in reading themselves into the text and reading the texts back into their own lives. It gives educators and librarians insights into their roles with readers and offers a message about the importance of pleasure reading. A short list of resources for further reading is supplied with each topic.

The finest exponents of horror fiction writing today, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Graham Joyce, Paul McCauley, Stephen Gallagher, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Basil Cooper, Glen Hirshberg, Jay Russell, feature in the world's premier annual horror anthology series, another bumper showcase devoted exclusively to excellence in macabre fiction. To accompany the very best in short stories and novellas is the year's most comprehensive horror overview and contacts listing as well as a fascinating necrology.