The Moon Pool

Novel set in the Beaufort Sea about offshore drilling operations there.

"The Moon Pool" is a fantasy novel written by Abraham Merritt. First published in 1919, the novel is a classic work of early 20th-century speculative fiction that combines elements of fantasy, adventure, and cosmic horror.

North Dakota is like nowhere Colleen has ever seen. Vast plains of silver snow, studded with shimmering black pools, lit by flares of orange light. This is the landscape that swallowed her son. Across town, another mother also searches for her missing boy. He too disappeared from the oilfields where he worked. And no-one seems to care that he is gone. These two women must work together to find their sons. But what they discover might destroy them both...

Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive. So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musée d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis." As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."

Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series from Steven Erikson. The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze. However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand... Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A group of adventurers search for their friends, who were lost while exploring the otherworldly secrets of a monument discovered on a chain of island ruins.

A groundbreaking fantasy novel, The Wood Beyond the World tells the story of a young man, Golden Walter, who finds himself in a strange and frightening world after being abandoned by his wife and lost at sea. The novel takes the form of Walter’s quest for the visionary Maid that he sees at the beginning of his journey, and takes him from his failed marriage through temptation to emotional fulfillment. Set in Morris’s imaginative recreation of a medieval world, the novel is full of vivid imagery and surprising emotional realism. This edition collates for the first time the three early texts of the work. The introduction discusses the place of the book among Morris’s other prose romances, the events of his life, and his activities as a visual artist and a socialist. The appendices provide excerpts from Morris’s translation of Beowulf, other medieval texts read by Morris, and writings by his contemporaries on politics and aesthetics.