Product Description
Here are masterpieces by a New York Times bestselling author, a past and present master of the short forms in fantasy, science fiction, and horror. This collection includes original unpublished stories, "The Elephants of Posnan" and "Feed the Baby of Love;" classics like "Unaccompanied Sonata" and "Fat Farm;" as well as the original short versions of "The Lost Boys" and "Ender's Game" -- rated, in its longer version, one of the best-loved books of all time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Stories From Orson Scott Card
Listening to this work by Orson Scott Card is wonderful... you get a great Card tale several times a day.The stories are short, great, to the point, and excellently read.It was interesting to hear the short version of "Ender's Game" from its originally printed form.There were some other favorites that I had picked up in there, like "The Porcelain Salamander," which is a fascinating story I had read in another collection of his.

I found these stories interesting.Sure, there was one or two I didn't care for all that much (or, possibly, didn't understand) but on the whole I'm glad I picked this series up.But this does seem to span several different genres, not just science fiction which is Orson Scott Card's main forte.

I would highly recommend this to anybody who loves a good audio book.And, remember in life's battles: "The Enemy Gate is Down!!"

Card is incredible!
I don't know what it is about Orson Scott Card -- Before I ever read him, I only knew that he was a science fiction writer--a genre that isn't a favorite of mine.However, my opinion now is that Card ranks as one of the absolute best and most skillful authors alive today.He has an amazing ability to get inside the person or circumstance he is writing about and make it into something that anyone could understand and be profoundly moved by.

In addition, he comes up with some of the most fascinating ideas for a story.The title piece, 'The Elephants of Posnan', is one example.Although there is no doubt that Card wasn't suggesting that the premise of this story is truth, it still left me mulling the entire piece over and over again.He makes such a moving and brilliant case for something entirely bizarre, and insightfully comments on the nature of man in the process.'The Elephants of Posnan' was positively spellbinding, beginning to end.

I love this collection.Orson Scott Card is a true master of his craft.

A master storyteller at work.
In this collection not only are you exposed to Orson Scott's Card's mastery of fiction, but you gain some insight into his creative process as well, thanks to the author's commentary on certain pieces.
The various storys are a joy to listen to and range from science fiction to fantasy, from psychological thriller to love story.
Whether you're a die hard Ender Series fan, a general fan of Card's, or a first time listener to the whole audiobook genre, there's something here you'll cherish. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Title: History of Corbridge and Its Antiquities; With a Concise History of Dilston Halldescription of the Various Places of Note and Interest in the Neighbourhood; Original Publisher: Newcastle-on-Tyne, J. Beall; Publication date: 1881; ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Horizontalintensitatsvariometer. This Book Is In German. ... Read more

Product Description
From Jon L. Breen -- multiple winner of the Edgar, Anthony and Macavity Awards -- comes this collection of best new stories from new talents, and from perennial favorites like Dorothy Cannell, Loren D. Estleman, Edward D. Hoch, Joan Hess and Carolyn Wheat. Best Mysteries 2001, selected for its quality and variety, support the belief of many aficionados that the ideal vehicle for fictional crime is the short story. Moods range from grimly noir to lightly humorous, locales from contemporary London to territorial Arizona, contributors from world-famous novelists to talented newcomers. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
One of the men in this novel is an ancient Spanish alchemist, searching for the philopher's stone, looking for the secrets of the old gods. The other is Pat Garrett, still haunted by the friend he killed, Billy the Kid. Together they journey through time and history searching for answers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Not a casual read
Absolutely gorgeous imagery, but any sense of storytelling gets mired in the dense prose. Sentences are long and complex, and by the time you get to the end of them, you forget anything specific happening. All you're left with are images, and though they're beautiful, it's not enough to engage me into any kind of profound reading experience.

Words can be magic even if alchemy fails
I am not one of those who are deep into the story of Billy the Kidd and Pat Garrett, his executioner. But even so, I can tell that this book offers a truly new and powerful vision of Garrett's life.

Estleman is really immersed in the Old West, its nature and essence, from its early days in the late nineteenth century, all saloons and brass cuspidors, to the early twentieth with its Eastern businessmen, snorting automobiles and rumors of manned flight. Within this, he traces the parallel arc of Garrett's life, intertwined with the lives of so many others of that time, with a true sense of time's passing, and deep compassion for "the long man" and his holding to his inner core through many hard times and betrayals.

Garrett always corrects those who mention Billy Bonney as an "enemy." No, the word is "friend." He is tormented all his life by dreams of The Kid, sometimes so real he must rise in a sweat and check the place he is staying to be sure it was a dream.

Those dreams are what tie him into a truly original aspect of this book: the extended metaphor drawn from the once-famous practice of Alchemy. The narrator is an enigmatic Spanish- or Mexican- American figure, who has lived, he claims, through three centuries and traces his ancestry back to famed alembicists of the past. The Garrett saga is set out in three serial parts named Lead, Iron, and Gold, corresponding to three ascending levels of "nobility" in alchemical lore. ("Lead" is a great heading for the early period dominated by the bullet!) Yet paradoxically, at the end the alchemist deserts his craft to indicate that it is all a myth, that "gold" - that is, the absolute truth about Garrett's ending - is likely forever unknowable, just as the transmutation of base metal into gold is impossible.

Along the way, we are treated to wonderfully close descriptions of places, character, and events. Estleman has a fine hand for words and makes us share the sights, sounds and smells of the West, never sliding over into pretentiousness. Here's Garrett's wife making their home out of a longabandoned adobe ranch house, which "...had become a shelter for every variety of Southwestern wildlife; with a broom she drove out the porcupines and badgers, tied her hair up in a kerchief and climbed into the rafters to poke the little brown bats free of their inverted perches, then swept out the cobwebs and dried dung and scoured the floors and whitewashed the walls. She hung Indian rugs, blacked the stove and embroidered new sheets for the master bedroom and the guest room where John Chisum stayed when he came to visit on his way back from decorating the cottonwoods in old Mexico with rustlers from north of the border." (However, virtue is not always rewarded: for a spell later in Garrett's life he spends more time with a sex-hungry ex-pro than with his hard-working but sexually unresponsive wife.)

If I had to summarize the overall tone of the story, I think I might say "melancholy" or "elegaic." There's no getting away from the fact that Pat Garrett's life was more troubled than happy. But the excellence of the writing ensures the reader's pleasure nevertheless: towards the very end Garrett and a treacherous companion pass a decayed boomtown "inhabited now by prospectors motivated more by habit than hope, prostitutes too old and fat to move on, and the odd armadillo..."

Read it and enjoy. Ignore the few odd misspellings, though it is surprising that a writer so steeped in the Old West could list another as "Zane Gray" - even I know it's "Grey" and have read a few.

Is it Fact?Is itLegend?Is it Fiction?

This is probably the most unusual book on The Old West that I've ever come across.To say that I enjoyed it immensely would be an understatement.Although the stories about Sheriff Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid have been told and retold by so many that at this stage it is almost impossible to sort the truth from the legend. In this book,the author introduces come very imaginative fiction to create a whole new approach to the story. You may not resolve much of the things that have been written; but that is beside the point, and not the reason for me thinking so much of this book. The author gets one right inside the inner thoughts and personalities of all the characters he covers.I found the book filled with historical facts, but it reads like a work of fiction.There are scenes after scenes that are so well described,that can only be described as masterfully imagined and written.I find it hard to think of any other western that has so many ,well written lines as this.The scene created with Garrett's meeting with President Teddy Roosevelt in the railway car will be unforgettable to me. The introduction of the alchemist is a brilliant idea and makes the whole story totally different fom anything else I've ever come across in a western.Then there is the continually reoccurring encounters Pat has with Billy Bonney in his dreams.
In this unusually crafted saga,Estleman takes us along with Pat Garrett and follow him from his earliest days until his death in 1909,basically all throughout the period generally known as the Old West.At times, the historical information is detailed like a history book,but totally without the drudgery we are used to.At other times the book gets fanciful and you can let your imagination carry you along with the thoughts and visions Eatleman is a master at creating.
Estleman ha also done an excellent job of tying in events in The Old West with other historical events in the country.Range wars,cattle ranches and drives,saloon and frontier life and and all its hardships,joys and dreams.He folds into it, politics,both locally and federally;and even carries us through the development and impact of various types of ranching and livestock,the introduction of irrigation ,the introduction of electricity and even the automobile. All this is accomplished in only 250 pages and is so well written,it is impossible to put down once started.
If there was ever a book that looks like it would be a great movie;this has got to be it.
I often like to quote a few of my favorite lines from a book;but this one has so many,I am completely at loss to choose a few from so many. All I can suggest is that you read it and find them yourself;the book is loaded with them.
This is the first of Estleman's books I've read;but won't be the last.

Journey of the Dead Given Life by Loren D. Estleman
I have never heard of this author before I picked up the book in a local thrift store.What I can't believe is that I've never heard of this author after I finished reading the book.I can't wait to go out and find more of his books!

This book is essentially a fictitional account of the real life of Sheriff Pat Garrett--infamous for killing Billy the Kid.It has a secondary character who narrates and intersperses personal observations throughout the story, which adds an interesting dimension to the story.I'm not totally sure why he's there at all, but it does add a little 'drive' throughout the book--I wanted to keep reading to see what this narrator character was going to divulge next.

Estleman is deliciously ingenious with mental images.His passages read so brilliantly with his descriptions and metaphors that you can't help but instantly develop an image in your head as you watch your own internal moving picture.Simple phrases such as "...the clatter of a heavy wagon built of elm delivering a load of rocks smelling of moist earth..." jolts your own memory to relive personal images that almost match this scene and let you fall into the arms of the storyteller.

Ths story itself takes place over several decades and highlights supposed 'facts' of the life of Pat Garrett, but seems to fill in details while skipping them alltogether.You don't feel anything missing at the end of the story.

If you haven't read this book, or any book by Loren D. Estleman, I highly advice you to try him out -- even if it isn't this particular book.While I haven't read his other books yet, if his methodology and story-telling skills are equal to this slim volume, I can't wait to read the rest!

Journey of the Dead
Having read and disliked Master Executioner, but seeing all the rave reviews Estleman gets, I thought I'd try another of his books.

This book is better than Master Executioner by far. The essential difference is the use of language -- nearly poetic here, plodding in the other book. Journey of the Dead is the combined story of Pat Garrett, the man who shot Billy the Kid, and of an old Spanish alchemist who lives as a hermit in the desert.

Estleman does a good, understated job of showing how Garrett is haunted by Billy's death throughout his life. The effect would have been stronger had their friendship been more extensively described. Still, the changing Billy the Kid legend provides an interesting way for Estleman to show changes in Garrett's life and in the West.

I found the plot to move a little slowly, probably because it concerns the life of a real person, more or less accurately reported as far as I know. Garrett tried many careers and had rather little success in any, according to Estleman, until he was finally murdered. This imposes a sort of flat quality on the plot. There are no big moments of drama, aside from Billy's death, and even that comes across as understated. Toward the end of the book, I got a trifle bored and wished for more tension and drama in the narrative. ... Read more