Unleashing The Strange

Novelist and scholar Damien Broderick offers an exhilarating report on the state of science fiction at the start of the millennium. In the 21st century, we see a new wave rising in SF: it's complex, transreal, slipstreamy, post-postmodern. It unleashes the strange!

In 1963, Betty Friedan unleashed a storm of controversy with her bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique. Hundreds of women wrote to her to say that the book had transformed, even saved, their lives. Nearly half a century later, many women still recall where they were when they first read it. In A Strange Stirring, historian Stephanie Coontz examines the dawn of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution had barely begun, newspapers advertised for "perky, attractive gal typists," but married women were told to stay home, and husbands controlled almost every aspect of family life. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.

Who knew accidentally setting fire to a tree would end up being the precursor to a series of what I would call 'unexplainable events.'Well it did. Within the blink of an eye my life went from ordinary to extraordinary. Turns out Hell really does exist, and two of Lucifer's most loyal warriors--Azazel and Balthazar--just happen to be in my hometown.Like you'd expect, the brothers hate each other, constantly bickering and fighting. But after witnessing one of their epic duels, something changed inside me, as if watching their rage consume them triggered my own.Now I can't control it. The anger. The hate. The burning need to unleash my rage on those who have done me wrong. And the deeper I delve into the supernatural world, the more I start to feel like I have this undeniable link to the underworld. Even though Azazel and Balthazar vowed to keep the darkness from consuming me, I'm afraid not even the Princes of Hell will be able to stop it.

Three extraordinary supernatural heroes join forces with Ghost Rider to capture Lucifer himself and return him to Hell, in this staggering Super Hero adventure from Marvel: Untold Johnny Blaze, aka the Ghost Rider, has accidentally released Lucifer from Hell, and that’s a serious problem. While hunting the 666 fragments of Lucifer’s soul now loose on Earth, Johnny enlists the aid of witches Jennifer Kale, Satana Hellstrom and Topaz to track down a sliver of the demon which is possessing the body of Jennifer’s cousin, Magda. Lucifer is looking for the Tome of Zhered-Na, aiming to release the demon within its pages and unleash hell upon the world. But the witches are the Tome’s protectors, and they aren’t going down without a fight. Now the witches must work together, trust the Ghost Rider, and put their personal demons aside to stop the King of Hell in his tracks.

Unleash Possible is a how-to guide for high-growth marketing in complex selling environments. Author Samantha Stone, the revenue catalyst, shows you how to initiate growth, and how to partner with sales to get the right results.

Lemony Snicket meets Oscar Wilde meets Edgar Allan Poe in this exciting and scary middle-grade novel inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray -- a family curse is unleashed! Bryony Gray is becoming famous as a painter in London art circles. But life isn't so grand. Her uncle keeps her locked in the attic, forcing her to paint for his rich clients . . . and now her paintings are taking on a life of their own, and customers are going missing under mysterious circumstances. When her newest painting escapes the canvas and rampages through the streets of London, Bryony digs into her family history, discovering some rather scandalous secrets her uncle has been keeping, including a deadly curse she's inherited from her missing father. Bryony has accidentally unleashed the Gray family curse, and it's spreading fast. With a little help from the strange-but-beautiful girl next door and her paranoid brother, Bryony sets out to break the curse, dodging bloodthirsty paintings, angry mobs and her wicked uncle along the way.

The story of how the First Amendment became an obstacle to campaign finance regulation--a history that began much earlier than most imagine. Americans across party lines believe that public policy is rigged in favor of those who wield big money in elections. Yet, legislators are restricted in addressing these concerns by a series of Supreme Court decisions finding that campaign finance regulations violate the First Amendment. Big Money Unleashed argues that our current impasse is the result of a long-term process involving many players. Naturally, the justices played critical roles--but so did the attorneys who hatched the theories necessary to support the legal doctrine, the legal advocacy groups that advanced those arguments, the wealthy patrons who financed these efforts, and the networks through which they coordinated strategy and held the Court accountable. Drawing from interviews, public records, and archival materials, Big Money Unleashed chronicles how these players borrowed a litigation strategy pioneered by the NAACP to dismantle racial segregation and used it to advance a very different type of cause.

In the terrifying sequel to The Haunted, Hendricks discovers that even though Steele House is gone, the hauntings in Drearfield are far from over -- and it's up to her to stop them. After everything that went down at Steele House, Hendricks just wants her life to return to normal. Prom is coming up and the school is in full preparation mode. Hendricks tries to pitch in, to mimic her best friend Portia's enthusiasm, but the events of the last few months still haunt her. Steele House. Raven. Eddie. Hendricks believes Eddie is still out there. She just has to find a way to reach him. Together with her friends, she forms a circle of seven and attempts to summon his spirit. Suddenly things start happening again. Flickering lights in the school library. Mysterious girls roaming the halls. The same song playing on a loop wherever she goes. It all culminates in a violent attack and Hendricks realizes what they summoned may not be Eddie at all. The one thing she does know is that Steele House was only the beginning. And whatever they've unleashed is more dangerous than anything they've ever seen before.