The Paradise Engine

While working to restore an historic theatre in a seedy part of the city, a graduate student named Anthea searches to find her best friend, lost to the rhetoric of an itinerant street mystic. Almost a century earlier, Liam, a tenth-rate tenor, visits the same theatre while eking out a career on the dying Vaudeville circuits of the day. In both eras, an apocalyptic strain of mysticism threatens their existence: Anthea contends with a nascent New Age movement in the heart of the city while Liam encounters a radical theosophical commune along the coast of British Columbia, who appear to be building ... something. The Paradise Engine unfolds across a colourful backdrop of labour organizers, immaculately-attired cultists, ambitious socialites, basement offices and coffee shops. Its cast of characters and historical setting recalls Robertson Davies' Fifth Business or Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, while its approach to memory and community is reminiscent of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

It was more than 150 years ago that Uncle Billy" Leonard took refuge from the hellish heat in the shade beneath a Ponderosa pine, breathing in relief to his companions: "Boys, this has got to be Paradise!" Or so the story goes. Yet it is no fiction that the settlement grew to be more than just a stop on the way from Oroville or Chico to the gold country. Although Paradise was surrounded by mines, it had little gold itself. Disappointed miners made a living cutting timber, working at one of the sawmills, or hacking out homesteads in the foothill forests. Diamond Match Company built a railroad to its sawmill, locating the depot a mile west of town in what was sometimes called "New Paradise." For generations before houses began to replace its orchards, Paradise was an apple-growing center, home to harvest festivals that are echoed in today's annual Johnny Appleseed Days."

General Motors. Chevron. OPEC. Wall Street. Big names. Big business. A bulwark of opposition standing in the way of Casey Raymond, a wealthy entrepreneur risking his life to market gasless, hydrogen-powered cars. {line space} Drugs. Violence. Homelessness. Race hatred. Powerful prejudices. Powerful social forces imprisoning Samuel Towers, a black teenager from inner city Los Angeles who skirts the law to escape his past, to finance his dream of filmmaking by working for a nameless company who pays cash for killing, for the ultimate assassination of a white man who dares to challenge the oil-based economy of our world. {line space} Rarely does an action-adventure novel transcend the genre and offer a new vision for living. Spanning twenty years and three presidential administrations, The Paradise Vendor is a panoramic epic examining the costs of empowerment, the price of intimacy, and the simple affirmation of the value of oneself

Steve Elliott and Danny Ortega, two unlucky men incarcerated in a South Texas prison, plan to escape and start life anew. Getting out was the easy part; after that, the hapless pair face obstacles they didn't envision while sitting in their cells. After enlisting the help of Danny's younger brother Ray, they head for Mexico, where they hope to make their way to California undetected by U. S. authorities. The moment they cross the border, their real troubles begin. Kidnapped by a gang of thugs, they are briefly held captive with an attractive woman and three shadowy Mexican 'businessmen" who deftly engineer a daring escape for the entire group. After evading imprisonment for the second time in as many days, the duo finds they are now in bigger trouble. It appears their newfound traveling companions are not what they purported to be. To complicate matters, Steve falls for the woman.who has her own mysterious agenda. As their true identities and purpose unfold, Steve and Danny are caught up in a horrendous terrorism plot. Forced by circumstances-and guns-to go along with the invaders, it finally comes down to making the right choice-something that has always proven difficult for Steve and Danny.

A QUESTION, WE ALL MUST THINK ABOUT: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE WORLD WE KNOW WHERE WATER IS SCARCE AND PUT UNDER CONTROL BY A POWERFUL REGIME? From an unknown future, where the water resources are controlled by the Civil Imperial Regime. The water bodies and rainforests which survived from the industrial wastes and exploitation are heavily guarded. If there is any kind ofunauthorised entry and consumption, the common people will be shot, imprisoned or forced into labour camps. But, there are rebels in the world who are fighting against the Imperial Regime. The surviving tribes rejected the Imperial Rule. The Rebels and the tribes have formed an alliance to topple the ruling regime. The rebels are fighting to restore the world, so that the world is free from further exploitation of natural resources and uniting the world together to restore balance in nature and humanity.

‘Deserves to be an instant classic. I haven’t loved a book this much in a long time . . . What Strange Paradise . . . reads as a parable for our times . . . Such beautiful writing . . . This is an extraordinary book.’ – New York Times From the widely acclaimed author of American War, Omar El Akkad, a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic and profoundly moving novel that brings the global refugee crisis down to the level of a child’s eyes. More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too-many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. And only one had made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials, but of Vänna: a teenage girl, native to the island, who lives inside her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vänna and Amir are complete strangers and don’t speak a common language, Vänna determines to do whatever it takes to save him. In alternating chapters, we learn the story of Amir’s life and of how he came to be on the ship; and we follow the duo as they make their way towards a vision of safety. But as the novel unfurls, we begin to understand that this is not merely the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise is the story of our collective moment in this time: of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair – and of the way each of those things can blind us to reality, or guide us to a better one.

The most celebrated science fiction short story editor of our time, multi-award-winning editor and Locus Magazine critic Jonathan Strahan presents the definitive collection of best short science fiction of 2020. With short works from some of the most lauded science fiction authors, as well as rising stars, this science fiction collection displays the top talent and cutting-edge cultural moments that affect our lives, dreams, and stories. These brilliant authors examine the way we live now, our hopes, and struggles, all through the lens of the future. An assemblage of future classics, this star-studded anthology is a must-read for anyone who enjoys the vast and exciting world of science fiction.