Books about Fictional from Amazon.com

Finally, Orson Scott Card's Hugo award-winning classic on the art and craft of writing science fiction and fantasy is available in paperback! Card provides invaluable advice for every science fiction and fantasy writer interested in constructing stories about people, worlds and events that stretch the boundaries of the possible...and the magical. They'll learn: * what is and isn't science fiction and fantasy, and where their story fits in the mix * how to build, populate, and dramatize a credible, inviting world readers will want to explore * how to use the MICE quotient--milieu, idea, character and event--to structure a successful story * where the markets are, how to reach them and get published There's no better source of information for writers working in these genres. This book will help them effectively produce exciting stories that are both fascinating and market-ready..
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Meet Rose and Ruby: sisters, best friends, confidantes, and conjoined twins.

Since their birth, Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as "the girls." They make friends, fall in love, have jobs, love their parents, and follow their dreams. But the Darlens are special Now nearing their 30th birthday, they are history's oldest craniopagus twins, joined at the head by a spot the size of a bread plate.

When Rose, the bookish sister, sets out to write her autobiography, it inevitably becomes the story of her short but extraordinary life with Ruby, the beautiful one. From their awkward first steps--Ruby's arm curled around Rose's neck, her foreshortened legs wrapped around Rose's hips--to the friendships they gradually build for themselves in the small town of Leaford, this is the profoundly affecting chronicle of an incomparable life journey.

As Rose and Ruby's story builds to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience--the hardship of loss and struggles for independence, and the fundamental joy of simply living a life. This is a breathtaking novel, one that no reader will soon forget, a heartrending story of love between sisters..
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Jeff Shaara dazzled readers with his bestselling novels Godsand Generals,The Last Full Measure, and Gone for Soldiers. Now the acclaimed author who illuminated the Civil War and the Mexican-American War brilliantly brings to life the American Revolution, creating a superb saga of the men who helped to forge the destiny of a nation.

In 1770, the fuse of revolution is lit by a fateful command—“Fire!”—as England’s peacekeeping mission ignites into the Boston Massacre. The senseless killing of civilians leads to a tumultuous trial in which lawyer John Adams must defend the very enemy who has assaulted and abused the laws he holds sacred.

The taut courtroom drama soon broadens into a stunning epic of war as King George III leads a reckless and corrupt government in London toward the escalating abuse of his colonies. Outraged by the increasing loss of their liberties, an extraordinary gathering of America’s most inspiring characters confronts the British presence with the ideals that will change history.

John Adams, the idealistic attorney devoted to the law, who rises to greatness by the power of his words . . . Ben Franklin, one of the most celebrated men of his time, the elderly and audacious inventor and philosopher who endures firsthand the hostile prejudice of the British government . . . Thomas Gage, the British general given the impossible task of crushing a colonial rebellion without starting an all-out war . . . George Washington, the dashing Virginian whose battle experience in the French and Indian War brings him the recognition that elevates him to command of a colonial army . . . and many other immortal names from the Founding Family of the colonial struggle—Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee— captured as never before in their full flesh-and-blood humanity.

More than a powerful portrait of the people and purpose of the revolution, Rise to Rebellion is a vivid account of history’s most pivotal events. The Boston Tea Party, the battles of Concord and Bunker Hill—all are recreated with the kind of breathtaking detail only a master like Jeff Shaara can muster. His most impressive achievement, Rise to Rebellion reveals with new immediacy how philosophers became fighters, ideas their ammunition, and how a scattered group of colonies became the United States of America..
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A video game is half-real: we play by real rules while imagining a fictional world. We win or lose the game in the real world, but we slay a dragon (for example) only in the world of the game. In this thought-provoking study, Jesper Juul examines the constantly evolving tension between rules and fiction in video games. Discussing games from Pong to The Legend of Zelda, from chess to Grand Theft Auto, he shows how video games are both a departure from and a development of traditional non-electronic games. The book combines perspectives from such fields as literary and film theory, computer science, psychology, economic game theory, and game studies, to outline a theory of what video games are, how they work with the player, how they have developed historically, and why they are fun to play.

Locating video games in a history of games that goes back to Ancient Egypt, Juul argues that there is a basic affinity between games and computers. Just as the printing press and the cinema have promoted and enabled new kinds of storytelling, computers work as enablers of games, letting us play old games in new ways and allowing for new kinds of games that would not have been possible before computers. Juul presents a classic game model, which describes the traditional construction of games and points to possible future developments. He examines how rules provide challenges, learning, and enjoyment for players, and how a game cues the player into imagining its fictional world. Juul's lively style and eclectic deployment of sources will make Half-Real of interest to media, literature, and game scholars as well as to game professionals and gamers..
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In this sexy, emotional debut, a beautiful Saxon princess must guard her heart against the formidable Viking who is the enemy of her people..
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Though Anne Carson's poetry is shot through with the myths and images of the classical world, that ancient light helps illuminate contemporary situations and concerns A classics professor at McGill University in Montreal, Carson has arrived in a surprisingly short time as one of Canada's finest poets. More than that, her exquisite, intelligent, highly original poems put her in the first rank of world poets. In The Beauty of the Husband, subtitled A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, she explores her ambiguous feelings toward a difficult but intriguing marriage. Each poem begins with a short quote from John Keats, whose idea that "beauty is truth" is the thread holding together a relationship with a man addicted to lying and philandering. A scoundrel ("He lied when it wasn't even convenient"), the husband is redeemed and forgiven almost everything because of beauty.

For Carson, the truth is "layered and elusive," hidden under the conversations of a thousand nights, nights when the lights were still on at dawn. There is a daring quality to Carson's work, a startling vision and perspective that will not be judged by normal standards. By penetrating to the core of a relationship, Carson stands convention on its head and finds "the light that pain brings." These poems bespeak the brilliance and shade of shape-shifting truth and conjure a freshness of language that shimmers. Somehow it seems fitting that the book itself, as an object to hold and behold, is also beautiful. --Mark Frutkin.
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This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back.



The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fisher--she of the green-grey eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions--is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.



Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism--not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse--until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street..
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The redoubtable Phryne Fisher is holidaying at Cave House, a Gothic mansion in the heart of Australia's Victorian mountain country. But the peaceful surroundings mask danger. Her host is receiving death threats, lethal traps are set without explanation, and the parlour maid is found strangled to death. What with the reappearance of mysterious funerary urns, a pair of young lovers, an extremely eccentric swagman, an angry outcast heir, and the luscious Lin Chung, Phryne's attention has definitely been caught. Her search for answers takes her deep into the dungeons of the house and into the limestone Buchan caves. But what will she find this time?.
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