Outer Dark

Book Description

Outer Dark is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution.

Customer Reviews:

Dark But Entertaining.......2007-09-19

Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode island and grew up in Tennessee, but now lives in Tesuque, New Mexico. He is viewed by many as one of the more unusual and most talented of the current American writers. For example, Harold Bloom has written a number of things about McCarthy. I selected this book after reading pretty Horses. I was interested in some of his early work.

This is McCarthy's second novel published in 1970. The story is about a very poor brother and sister living in the rural south some time around 1900. The sister has a baby and the brother, Culla, does not want the baby and tells his sister it died and leaves it in the woods. The sister, Rinthy, does not believe him and sets out on a journey to find the baby. Simultaneously, Culla sets out on his own "dark" trip.

McCarthy has developed trademark prose, and some might not like it. He writes long rambling sentences to describe the natural setting and between he uses spartan narrative and dialogue.

The prose is complicated by design. I thought the prose was very effective in the middle of pretty Horses. He uses the same technique here but in a less developed way. He opens the book with just three sentences in one page, including one sentence 12 lines long. He reminds me a bit of the opening of Farewell to Arms where Hemingway tries to set the mood through the use of prose: Hemingway uses a narrative of the natural surroundings. McCarthy uses expressions such as "the sun sat blood red and elliptic" in his late book Pretty Horses" and here again we find the similar expression. Sometimes this prose seems out of place when compared to the spartan dialogue of a father and son talking over a breakfast of eggs and coffee.

Also, in later books McCarthy uses what is called polysyndeton, or the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted. It is a stylistic scheme used to slow down the tempo. As pointed out by others, polysyndeton is used extensively in the King James Version of the Bible. For example:

"And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Genesis 7:22-24

We see a bit of that here in the early work.

So, this a pretty dark novel about some poor people traveling around rural America set around 1900 or earlier. It is a short but entertaining read and gives us a picture of the young McCarthy as a writer.

Recommend: 4 or 5 stars.

Wait, that's how it ends?.......2007-07-10

I was/am very intrigued with Cormac McCarthy's writing style and prose. Right from the beginning you get a sense that he knows his craft and he knows it well. His clipped, descriptive sentences add much more color than you would think could be added to such a desolate setting. For example, "Holme swallowed the leached and tasteless wad of meat, his eyeballs tilting like a toad's with the effort." I was drawn into this book from the beginning.

At first there seemed a general theme to Outer Dark. Many abandoned buildings in a desolate and poor countryside and yet every person they met offered them food or a place to stay. The exception being Culla Holme, who invariably seemed to be chased by bad circumstances for what he did with his incestuous child. A kind of retribution was being enacted on him.

But this is where it got confusing. All of a sudden there would be a quick excerpt or scene of violence and death. You don't know why it happened or who did it, but it always happened just before or after a Culla chapter. So conclusions are drawn. We soon find out that it isn't him, that it is the villains of the novel. Culla himself runs into them several times as part of the retribution enacted for the incestuous relationship coupled with the attempted murder of his newborn son. Then the novel goes haywire and turns macabre and horror like, leaving you finishing the book not understanding anything, not understanding what the book was about. Perhaps I missed something.

I am definitely intrigued with McCarthy's style of writing and I will definitely read some of his other books. And I think I would find that this is a book more for the diehard McCarthy fans than it is for someone like myself who has never read any of his other novels. I would recommend McCarthy, but not necessarily this book.

3 stars.

Great book for McCarthy fans.......2007-06-20

"Outer Dark" is the story of a brother and sister and their child. The child is born in a desperate cabin someplace in the Appalachian Mountains. The brother, Culla Holme, takes the newborn while the mother/sister sleeps and sets the child in the night woods. The child is found by an iterant tinker. The sister/mother, Rinthy Holme, awakes. She confronts her brother, they argue, and eventually both set out separately on the road--the sister to find the child and the brother for no reason other than perhaps desperation.

Once they are on the road, the book follows a classic journey narrative. The landscape is dark and strange. The people they meet even more so. A few of the chapters are perfectly written. There is a chapter about halfway through the book where Culla meets a snake hunter. Now there is nothing particularly important in this chapter as it relates to the rest of the novel--no important aspects of character revealed, not important action or theme, it is just a beautiful handful of pages that form a perfect circle. The dialogue is brilliant. The snake hunter talks about his well, his wife, his hounds, the neighbor with whom he still carries a feud despite the fact that the neighbor has been dead nearly a decade. The chapter is a great example of Faulkner's observation, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." This is true among certain communities in the South, but I also think it belongs to a broader class and generation of people; people who frame their individual and collective lives as narratives to live, relive, and pass along. And I suspect that the reason this chapter stands out for me is that unlike other chapters that rely on strangeness and cruelty for much of their emotional tension, this small chapter is, at least by McCarthy standards, benign. There are no corpses hanging from trees, no drooling mutes or eyeless crones or murdered infants. And I believe that these moments, moments that lean on something other than the weird or cruel, are McCarthy's best. And it is unfortunate that they are often overlooked for the sheer spectacle of his violence.

There are several things I found problematic in this novel. Firstly, there is a triad of evil men prowling the land. They are composite characters that we find in other McCarthy novels. There is the sentient evildoer, the learned man who pontificates the meaning of mankind. There is the cadre mutants, misshapen and nameless--in this case, one man is actually nameless. McCarthy never tells us where they come from or what motivates them. They are just there, a part of the landscape perhaps--a force birthed by the landscape. I don't know. I can only speculate and with very little evidence from the text. Now perhaps they are a reflection of real life, the evil we hear about on the evening news or witness through history. But so what, as I've heard time and again in workshop, life does not good fiction make. Perhaps my problem is that I do not necessarily believe in evil, but rather in motivation--in that people can be motivated to do some awful things. And good fiction is in that motivation. And it does not have to be much. I found the motivations toward evil in Blood Meridian convincing--racism, imperialism, greed, desperation, ceremony. But evil simply for evil's sake, or even as a reflection of some aspect of the human psyche, collective or individual, does not work and detracts from the overall effect of the work.

Then there is the issue of coincidence--or perhaps it is meant to be fate. Either way, the key events of the novel depend upon happenstance that felt incredible and I must say a bit contrived. The first time that Culla Holme meets the triad of evil, he is washed from a ferry on a flooded river. He stumbles into their camp to warm by the fire. And I am trying to figure out why this meeting feels so forced. I suspect that it has something to do with the needless drama of the ferry scene, a drama with no narrative significance other than to put Culla within view of the triad's fire. It would have felt more credible if no great event or drama preceded the meeting, or if some event of greater significance, an event tied inextricably to the progression of the novel, preceded their meeting. As it stands, the action packed ferry scene serves no purpose other than to position the characters.

And then it happens again. McCarthy creates an interesting, high drama scene involving a hog drive, thousands of animals driven through the mountains. One of the hog drivers is forced off a bluff by stampeding pigs. He dies and the blame is assigned to Culla. It is an interesting scene, the dialogue is sharp and the characters of the itinerant preacher and the hog drivers are vivid. They plan to hang Culla but don't have a rope. They march him back to camp for the proper hanging equipment--as one of the characters explains, it is the Christian thing to do. Culla jumps from the bluffs and into the river to escape. And guess where the next chapter finds him? Another river drama, another visit to the evildoer's camp.

A terrible act of violence beings the book to a close. It is turely awful, but it does complete the novel. And were it not for the questions raised by the unmotivated evil, and the coincidences that brought the characters together, the novel would be nearly perfect.

I can't help but wonder how McCarthy could solve the problems of the novel, though I suspect, given his other work from this period, he preferred to leave certain questions unanswered. And these things I label problems are in fact intentional. In any event, I believe an answer resides somewhere in that perfect chapter in the middle of the novel, the chapter with the snake hunter. The thing that makes this chapter work is what Charles Baxter calls rhyming action: "When narratives move in reverse--when they come dramatically or imagistically to a point that is similar to the one they already seemingly passed." I sense that is perhaps something of the intention in this work--much of it doubles back upon itself. One of the reasons the murder is so disturbing is that it had already been committed at the beginning of the work, when Culla left the newborn, naked, in the night woods. But the dramatic events, the river dramas, that bring about the final rhyming murder, ring dissonant with all that came previously. Even though they are repetitive, they stand out from the rest of the work and seem to develop in their own direction--a misplaced rhyme--until the writer pushes Culla into the river and gets him drifting in the right direction.

Compelling Read.......2007-05-13

This is a great book- almost as good as 'The Road'. I didn't want to put it down. The natual slowness doesn't hurt the urge to continue to read. If you like The Road, you will like this!

The Wasteland and the Grail King.......2007-01-03

=Outer Dark= describes a barren Wasteland and Holme is the Grail King, complete with a wounded "leg" as a symbol of his inability to love acceptably. In a Wasteland where women are not valued, children are not nurtured either, and the child ends up burned and half-blinded, in the way that its father and his culture are blind to his disregard for his sister and their child. I love the poetic prose of this writer. And the words-- where does he get those words? Cormac McCarthy is the best writer writing in America today, similar to but better than Steinbeck and Faulkner.

Average customer rating:

The story of a 1950s classic
Where's the beef?
The quintessential piece for any Sci-Fi/Bradbury fan.

It Came from Outer Space
Ray Bradbury
Manufacturer: Gauntlet Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1887368663

Book Description

Gauntlet Press is thrilled to announce our upcoming publication of Ray Bradbury's four screen treatments for IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.

Released in 1953, It Came From Outer Space was one of the first 3-D films made. Rumors about Bradbury's participation with the film have run rampant for years. Bradbury did not write the final screenplay -- good news, actually, as Bradbury retained their rights -- but he wrote four treatments and gets story credit. These screen treatments have NEVER been published before.

We are also pleased to announce that Donn Albright, who edited our edition of DARK CARNIVAL in 2001, is now editing IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. He has done a FANTASTIC job in pulling together the original Bradbury typed pages of the outlines and treatments, gathering more bonus material than we could have ever imagined possible, and convincing Bradbury to allow us to use never before published short stories in this book.

The Gauntlet edition of IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE is more than just a printing of the outlines and treatments which Bradbury wrote for the film. It is an in-depth study of the evolution of the film. The book is filled with:

Photos
Original ads
Marketing posters
Reviews
Letters
Never before published Bradbury short stories
Insightful essays and introductions from Bradbury Scholars Jon Eller and Bill Touponce

The book is an oversized book, 8 1/2" x 11", so as to keep intact the size of the script pages.

Customer Reviews:

The story of a 1950s classic.......2007-05-08

Released in 1953, It Came From Outer Space is notable for being one of the first 3-D movies ever made. Shot from a Harry Essex screenplay based on a story by Ray Bradbury, the movie was a classic of Cold war paranoia and anxiety. Although thought of fondly by movie buffs (Steven Spielberg is a great fan), the film has been the subject of much controversy over the years, specifically over the extent of Bradbury's contributions to the finished product.

Although Bradbury did not write the final screenplay, he did write four treatments, to which he retained the rights. These four previously unpublished treatments have now been gathered together by Donn Albright (editor of the 2001 Gauntlet edition of Bradbury's DARK CARNIVAL) in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, an interesting, beautifully packaged study of the evolution and development of the classic film.

Containing the original Bradbury typed pages of outlines and treatments which the author wrote for the film, the book also includes a wealth of bonus material, such as informative essays and introductions from Bradbury scholars Jon Eller and Bill Touponce, reviews, letters, photos, promotional material, and reviews. Of special note to Bradbury mavens is the inclusion of the never before seen short stories "A Matter of Taste," the short story that contains the seeds of the plot of the movie, and "Troll Charge," a collaboration between Bradbury and screenwriter Harry Essex.

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE is truly a wonderful book, a perfect present for you or the Bradbury aficionado in your life. Obviously a labor of love for editor Albright and publisher Barry Hoffman, it's an impressive artifact, a book anyone would be proud to own. Unfortunately, beauty is costly; as this oversized tome will set you back $125. Hopefully, a less expensive trade edition is planned for those who can't shell out that kind of dinero.

Where's the beef?.......2004-06-22

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE fans get a very short interview with Ray Bradbury, Bradbury's script and nothing else of interest. The rest is filler. Apparently NOT wanting to share the proceeds with Universal, there are only a few photos, horribly reproduced. For $125??! Bah.

The quintessential piece for any Sci-Fi/Bradbury fan........2004-05-29

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort Gauntlet Press places in the
creation of their publications. Last week I received Ray Bradbury's "It came
From Outer Space". Honestly, I'm speechless. I know, I generally always
give books a good rating BUT - frankly, this book is breathtaking. This is a
necessary include for any Sci-Fi or Bradbury collection. WOW!

Lets start from the top shall we? First, the cover is simply stunning.
While I wish the back of the cover were really the front of the cover, I
believe that the way the cover is done it
gives the book an edge. Bradbury does the front artwork, and the back has a
poster picture, which gives the title of the book. Never the less the cover
alone is incredible and made me drool.

What is in this book, you ask? Quite literally everything you ever wanted to
know about "It Came From Outer Space". A book of this style has never
before been published. Within this tome you will find exclusive material
such as the controversy behind "It Came From Outer Space", Correspondences
both to and from Ray Bradbury, Screen treatments, never
before published short stories, original ads and more. The lettered edition
of this book includes an additional section, which includes and introduction
by Jonathan Eller, a letter from Mathilde Moser to Ray Bradbury and, the
unfinished screenplay entitled "Face of the Deep".
One of the things about this book that really just touched me was when
Bradbury discusses how he met up with Spielberg after watching "Close
Encounters of the Third Kind" and found out that "It Came From Outer Space"
was the inspiration behind the Spielberg hit. Simply beautiful!

In my opinion, this book is a powerful and personal journey through the
highlights of Bradbury. You can feel the emotions that Bradbury must have
experienced in his emergent period, and it just empowers your soul. This
book shows you a boy with a love for a genre and the fortitude to embark
upon his dream, making it his life.

I strongly urge you purchase this book if you have any ounce of sense in
you. This is most definitely the quintessential piece for any Sci-Fi/Bradbury fan.
5 Stars without a doubt!

Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space

Average customer rating:

Politics, personalities, and science of the dark world
Geology & Biology Intwined
Damn interesting, heavy on the human drama
Nanobacteria, A New Form of Life and Its Pathology in Humans
Space science can still be an adventure - here's your guide.

Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space
Michael Ray Taylor
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms (Imax)

ASIN: 0684841916

Amazon.com

The microbes that caver Michael Ray Taylor calls "dark life" are found deep in the earth, in boiling oceanic vents, Antarctic ice, and lots of other places far from the reach of the sun's energy. These "extremophiles" are energy opportunists, subsisting on chemicals, radioactivity, or the faint light of molten rock. The study of these organisms is quite new, and scientists are learning that examining them may provide hints about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Dark Life is a first-person tour of the places Taylor has looked for archaebacteria and other strange microorganisms--Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, the hot springs of Viterbo in central Italy, NASA laboratories, and the halls of academia. Taylor met with passionate scientists searching for answers about how things can live deep in the earth and if they can survive in the unimaginable cold of outer space while hitchhiking on meteors. Dark Life chronicles the triumphs and disappointments of this new field of science with engaging and personal stories.

The steady but frustrating progress of science is never more apparent than in the passages relating to the rise and fall of ALH84001. The potato-sized meteorite from Mars (and the scientists who analyzed it) enjoyed brief but frenzied attention when it was announced that microscopic forms in the rock may have indicated the presence of nanobacteria. But if you're expecting resolution to this question in Dark Life, be warned: to Taylor, it's the journey that's most exciting. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

In a narrative that combines cutting-edge science with intense physical adventure, Dark Life tells the fascinating story of the quest to find life far underground and deep in space.

Able to thrive without sunlight or oxygen, dark life is a mass of subterranean bacteria that would likely tip the scale if weighed against all other living matter combined. Journalist Michael Ray Taylor takes us from Antarctic lakes to Hawaiian volcanoes to the satellites of Jupiter in search of these mysterious underground creatures that are redefining our understanding of evolution.

Taylor serves as a field assistant on several key scientific expeditions. He descends deep into New Mexico's tortuous Lechuguilla Cave and focuses powerful NASA microscopes on never-before-seen life-forms. He accompanies a young NASA intern who unknowingly kicks off a raging international scientific debate when she uncovers traces of dark life in a rock extracted from nearly two miles below Washington State -- traces that appear identical to the "micro-fossils" found in a Martian meteorite. He meets another scientist who has staked his reputation on using dark life to generate a cure for breast cancer. Throughout his adventures, Taylor gains unique insight into a growing controversy about the very definition of life itself -- an issue that scientists had long ago considered settled. Whether he is exploring the structures of a mysterious cell or reconnoitering tropical caves, Michael Ray Taylor is an adventurer for the new millennium.

Customer Reviews:

Politics, personalities, and science of the dark world .......2004-12-18

_Dark Life_ by Michael Ray Taylor was a very interesting book. The author began it writing as a science journalist - having written a previous book on cave exploration as well has having articles published in such magazines as _Audubon_ - but over the course of the two and a half years he worked on this book went from becoming an observer to an active participant, a point he himself made several times in amazement and wonder. Originally he had set out to chronicle what was known about "dark life," microorganisms that dwell far underground or in the deep sea, organisms that derive their nourishment from sources independent of sunlight. These organisms, which have been found in such varied places as salt domes, Antarctic ice cores, and in highly acidic caves, have continually challenged notions of what life can tolerate, organisms so common that they may outnumber surface organisms (indeed Taylor rejected the commonly used term "extremophile" as he believes the term implies that these organisms are a "rare curiosity"). Taylor wrote of the history of the search for these microbes, the personalities involved, and where current research was in the field (as well as possible applications of this research).

Somewhere along the way he became part of the story, as he became the friend and later colleague of several of the researchers he covered. While not a trained scientist per se, at least not in the field of microbiology, he assisted in and even proposed a number of experiments in the search for controversial nanobacteria (microbes with a size of less than 0.2 micrometers, once thought to be too small to be an independent functioning organism or at least too small for a prokaryotic organism, including known bacteria and archaea; not a virus) in a variety of environments, mostly notably Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. By the end of the book he was regularly exchanging email with researchers, providing samples for them, and even had co-authored a few presentations at various seminars.

Much of the book is focused on personalities - understandable given Taylor's increasing personal involvement in the story himself - though mainly in the context of research on the topic at hand. The main characters (if you will) in the book were Larry Mallory (a scientist who had devoted his career to harvesting and culturing cave microbes in a promising search for a cure for cancer, particularly from microbes from the fascinating Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, an interesting place described in great detail in the book), Bob Folk (a colorful scientist who discovered nanobacteria and their presence in a number of substances and had been in the lead in efforts to prove that microorganisms are vital in the formation of travertine in caves and hot springs as well as in some cases at least entire caves and cave systems), and Anne Taunton (an undergraduate student who as part of a NASA internship became embroiled in the efforts to determine whether or not the famed Martian meteorite ALH 84001 contained fossils of extraterrestrial nanobacteria). Others are followed to lesser degrees, among them Finnish nanobacteria expert E. Olavi Kajander, who had done pioneer work showing that nanobacteria may be the possible agents of many maladies such as kidney stones, Alzheimer's, and Mad Cow Disease that involve mineral precipitation in the body. In large measure these and other personalities faced considerable skepticism, criticism, and worse in their studies, as scientists found it hard to accept (in different instances) what was thought of as "impossibly" small bacteria, biological origins for various types of minerals and mineral formations, and the presence of microfossils in ALH 84001. Mallory had to leave his university because he was essentially denied tenure, the administration not believing his study of cave microorganisms important, Folk faced considerable criticism for suggesting that such substances as travertine owed their origins to bacteria, and Taunton (and the team she worked with) had a very difficult time with several scientists - including even her own undergraduate academic advisor - over efforts to demonstrate that the ALH 84001 microfossils were evidence of Martian life or even life of any kind. Although Taylor did a good job of showing the fact there was sometimes intense and even rather personal criticism in science, I don't know if he always showed why people had such a hard time accepting bold new theories. In particular some of the opposition to ALH 84001 fossils was quite heated.

Though much of the focus was on personalities, politics, and the process of research the microbes were much discussed as well, many with bizarre biologies. Some cold-loving organisms were termed "psychrophiles," capable of growth below freezing, at -5 degrees Celsius, organisms that exhibit slower metabolisms at temperatures above freezing and death at anything approaching human body temperature (organisms that for years - like many other examples of dark life - proved difficult to study and culture in the lab). Some organisms found in apparently solid rock two miles deep, existing only on hydrogen and water, have unbelievably slow metabolisms, appearing to divide cells no more than once per century. Though many caves and indeed individual pools in caves produced unique microorganisms there were also astonishing similarities; the closest relatives to some sulfur-oxidizing thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria from a cave in Kentucky were found to be a sulfur-oxidizing, symbiotic bacterium from a deep sea polychaeta worm, a relationship that has not yet been explained.

At least as far as this reader is concerned Taylor made his case that nanobacteria exist, that they are key in the formation of some minerals and many caves, and I am very open to the idea that ALH 84001 may indeed contain Martian microfossils. I enjoyed reading about the discussions scientists had about whether or not subsurface Antarctic lakes such as Lake Vostok and Jovian moon of Europa might have dark life and hope that both can be analyzed in the not too distant future.

Geology & Biology Intwined.......2001-05-21

For starters I will never look at my mineral collection quite the same again. Dark Life has shown that nanobacteria (only recently confirmed)is the absolute frontier of a new world. Minerals and "life" coexist and the nanobacteria "feed" upon the chemical compositions of minerals. The scientific world will be turned on its' head in the near future as a whole new science emerges. This book is easy to understand for those of us who aren't scientits but who are interested. As one who also has Multiple Sclerosis the possible connection with nanobacteria and mineral plaques in the brain was astounding as I read it.

Damn interesting, heavy on the human drama.......2001-01-21

I read this book after buying on a discout shelf in some clearance book seller. It was a pleasant surprise. It, as I wrote in the title, a little heavy on human drama and soap operatic themes. The science behind it is absolutely interesting and has spurred me to read further on the topic of nanobacteria. This is a great starting out book, but not a great book for those reading for the science of it.

Nanobacteria, A New Form of Life and Its Pathology in Humans.......2000-10-16

Nanobacteria have been researched by many prominent scientists worldwide. This book looks at the findings of scientists with respect to Nanobacteria and the science of Geology. Nanobacteria, specifically Nanobacterium Sanguineum, have been studied by scientists and medical researchers as they pertain to causing human disease or Pathology as well. Nanobacterium Sanguineum is a Nanobacteria that is approximately 10,000 times smaller than regular bacteria. It replicates from 1000 to 10,000 times slower than regular bacteria as well. It grows in the human system in blood, and has been found by various medical researchers and scientists to cause many human problems. Some of the various diseases that it has either been implicated to be involved with or to cause are: Calcification in atherosclerotic plaque, kidney stones, calcification in the lenses of eyes that ultimately causes "cataracts", soft tissue calcification in scleroderma, calcification in tumors, calcification in arthritis or osteoarthritis and other pathological disease states in humans. These Nanobacteria colonize and secrete a "biofilm" over themselves that causes them to be covered by a calcium "shell". These Nanobacteria are implicated to be the cause of all calcification in the human system that you were not born with, that you subsequently develop as you age. These Nanobacteria are also implicated in causing some forms of cancer and "apoptosis" or cell death. Scientists are now working on ways to eradicate Nanobacterium Sanguineum with prescription medications. Please keep your eyes open for further research regarding Nanobacteria. Try surfing on the web for "nanobacteria". Sincerely, Gary S. Mezo, President of the Academy of Medical NanoScience, Tel:813-264-2241.

Space science can still be an adventure - here's your guide........1999-12-02

This book documents journeys of discovery and transformation at several levels. It documents a journalist's personal journey from observer to active participant. It also serves as a chronicle of the journeys being taken by scientists all over (and underneath) the Earth and across our solar system to obtain an understanding of life's amazing ability to exist and thrive in the most improbable places.

The author starts out as a spelunking (cave exploring) science journalist and ends up as an active participant in the science he had originally set out to cover. In so doing he has provided an interesting mix of observer and participant perspectives. Being a seasoned cave explorer, the author is at home and adept at describing the techniques and hazards of natural laboratories such as Lechuguilla Cave located in New Mexico.

Astrobiologists have found caves to be excellent laboratories for the extreme environments that may be found on other worlds such as Mars. Moreover, the amazing adaptations Earth life has made to these environments also serve as indicators of what is possible in terms of life's ability to adapt - and may be indicative of what we might find underneath Mars. Getting around in these caves is not your run of the mill field trip. Sulfurous and caustic fumes, anoxic conditions, temperature extremes, risk of injury, and a myriad of other hazards all combine to make these explorations something that only skilled individuals should undertake. In so doing, the rewards to the risk takers are obvious - and are thoroughly documented by the author.

There is much more to this book than crawling around stinky caves with excited astrobiologists. There is tedious work back at the lab, and the inevitable politics that accompanies academic life and government-sponsored research. Given that the discoveries being made about life in extreme environments are brushing aside long held views about biology, the politics can get rather nasty at times. The author provides a cogent description of what happens when the politics and dogma of science collide with new data and ideas. As you read this book you can almost hear the old paradigms crumbling as life's very definitions get an overhaul.

In describing some of the research done at NASA on the ALH84001 Martian meteorite, Taylor provides a classic description of paradigm crumbling - and the threat it can represent to the status quo. The events described surround the work of a student involved in a career-making discovery (possible fossils within a piece of Mars) and an advisor who disputes the findings and seeks to thwart her education at every turn.

While not nearly as dramatic, the author describes many other situations wherein old accepted notions about what life is and where it can be found are challenged. As you travel around - and under - the world with Taylor, you learn about life at abyssal ocean depths, within rocks miles under the Earth's surface, in the cold dry Antarctic, within volcanic deposits, and within highly radioactive environments. Such are the abodes of Earth's so-called "extremophiles".

If astrobiologists have learned anything in the past decade or so, it is that Earth life is capable of existing everywhere that it can theoretically exist. Since some of these "extreme environments" may well pass for "normal" elsewhere in the solar system, the chances of finding life elsewhere start to become quite probable. It is that exciting prospect which is woven by the author throughout the fabric of this book.

The author has gone to great physical extremes to write this book - and it shows. If you want a status report on how astrobiologists are using the Earth as a laboratory for what life may be possible on other worlds, this is it. Moreover, if you are looking for proof that science can still be a bona fide adventure in this Internet-shrunken world, then this book offers that as well.

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Didn't Live Up

I never wanted it to end!! Fabulous!

An all-star cast of my generation! I swooned over Rod Taylor and Robert Culp!

WONDERFUL cast, beautifully performed, an EXCITING thrilling journey you won't forget!

"Hard Rock Lovers".....Beautifully done!!

Hard Rock Lovers
Paul Kyriazi
Manufacturer: Ronin Audio Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 0971618321

Product Description

Computer programmer Alan Bartlet takes his new girlfriend to Las Vegas. There he meets Medusa, a backup singer for the now dead rock star Shane. She hints that Shane might be alive. In flashback, we see the rise and fall of Shane. Alan pursues Medusa and descends into a world of mystery, lust and murder to find out: Is Shane Alive?

Customer Reviews:

Didn't Live Up.......2007-07-03

I absolutely love "The James Bond Lifestyle Seminar," but this audiobook fell short. The plot was decent, but nothing better than you'd expect based on the synopsis. The main character is supposed to be 33 years old, yet his voice sounds like an old man. He sounds very unsure of himself. Also, a lot more could have been done with the sound effects. They did not immerse me in the scenes, as another reviewer claimed.

I never wanted it to end!! Fabulous!.......2007-01-16

Mr Kyriazi's production of Hard Rock Lovers was just fantastic! I was on the edge of my seat on a daily basis! I put the audio book on my iPod and listened while I jogged. I gotta say it motivated me to get out there and I am so sad it is over! I cannot wait for his next Audio production!

The story is fantastic, gripping and sexy. I absolutely loved it!

Bravo!!!!

An all-star cast of my generation! I swooned over Rod Taylor and Robert Culp!.......2006-05-22

Wow! My sister pointed me to this audio book and I couldn't believe my ears. I just relaxed on my bed to listen and was absolutely delighted with the movie-quality of the sound effects. Not only is this a masterful, well-written plot, it's also a quality production. The best I've heard.

And those stars that the magnificent author/director Paul Kyriazi lined up for this special version of his book!!! Well, all I can say is that I remember swooning each time I saw any of them on the big screen. (I hope my hubby doesn't read this.) But when I saw Rod Taylor--who narrates this story, with such a come-hither voice--starring in The Birds with that gorgeous Tippi Hedren, I almost fainted. Yes, he was that much of a hunk ... and still is, according to my sister!

Incidentally, people used to say I looked like Tippi. Ah-hhh, memories ... But getting back to this audio book, I loved it to pieces.

Keep up the excellent work, Mr. K. You're terrific, and almost as handsome as the great Rod! Ciao, baby ...

WONDERFUL cast, beautifully performed, an EXCITING thrilling journey you won't forget!.......2006-03-15

From the moment Hard Rock Lovers comes on ... it takes you by the hand and mind, and immediately draws you into this intriquing story, narrated by the imcomparable Rod Taylor, of revenge, love, lust, cold reality and spiritual enlightenment.

Robert Culp kept me laughing with his perfect low-life agent performance, always the best! James Darren was the perfect rock star, mean, talented but sad, his performance was # 1. Ishtar Uhvana was great as Medusa, she added the sweetness to keep some reality in the rock world and her ending dialoque brought tears to my eyes. Loved Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris was brilliant as the evil Reynaldo, and Nefta Perry as Connie played the perfect Rosie Perez.

The ending gives you hope and leaves you with happy feelings. You will want to play it again and again; it only gets better each time you listen.

Paul Kyriazi is my hero. I am his BIGGEST fan.

Thank you Paul for the fun and exciting adventure!

"Hard Rock Lovers".....Beautifully done!!.......2006-03-14

The "Hard Rock Lovers" audio book was not at all what I expected, but what a wonderful surprise! It's a twisted, tangled web of events played out by a handful of multi-leveled, intertwined characters. The story is well written, beautifully told and convincingly enacted centering on the heights of a successful rock star and the terrible costs that are paid when that success is abused. People and events are manipulated by all the characters to satisfy their own needs and agenda.

"Good" and "evil" are blurred. "Life" and "death" are blurred. Relationships are blurred, but the irony of fate is boldly presented and it's made abundantly clear that our "next" existence offers another chance to hopefully do better. The inevitability of change, the subtle and sometimes dramatic interrelationships between cause and effect as well as the ever-present, ever-looming scales of divine and poetic justice are persistent threads. A beautiful blending of drama and melodrama are used to develop both the story and the characters. The audio presentation is top-notch entertainment, particularly when you consider that all acting is accomplished solely through vocal artistry. The actors do a fantastic job of inviting the listener into their world and moving you effortlessly through the story.

I really enjoyed listening to this audio book. It is wonderful from start to finish and my congratulations go out to all involved. It's a winner on all levels.

Ballad of the Outer Dark and Other Poems

Average customer rating:

Ballad of the Outer Dark and Other Poems
Vernon Watkins
Manufacturer: Enitharmon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0905289153

Children of the Outer Dark: The Poetry of Christopher Dewdney (LP)

Average customer rating:

Children of the Outer Dark: The Poetry of Christopher Dewdney (LP)
Christopher Dewdney
Manufacturer: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

A four-time Governor General's-award nominee for both poetry and non-fiction, Christopher Dewdney is celebrated internationally as a writer and a visionary and is best known for his particular imagining of place and memory. Beginning with Paleozoic fossil formations in southwestern Ontario and moving through eons of natural history to cityscapes and the digital present, Dewdney's poetics encapsulate often surreal experiences from radical and epiphenomenal perspectives. His writing vibrates in a standing wave between science and art, reason and myth—embedding geology, neurophysiology, linguistics, and post-digital technology within a play of transitory viewpoints. Children of the Outer Dark provides a geological survey of Dewdney's poetic strata. The poems selected, along with their order of presentation, serve a critical function to mine diverse layers of development in Dewdney's career. This collection will reward all those who seek inspiration and will provide teachers, students, and other writers with a short natural history of one of Canadas essential poetic minds.

Commodore John Grimes Set: Beyond the Galactic Rim/ The Ship From Outside; The Road to the Rim/The Hard Way Up; The Inheritors/Gateway to Never; The Dark Dimensions/The Rim Gods; Into the Alternate Universe/Contraband From Outer Space; Book 5 (no room)

Average customer rating:

Commodore John Grimes Set: Beyond the Galactic Rim/ The Ship From Outside; The Road to the Rim/The Hard Way Up; The Inheritors/Gateway to Never; The Dark Dimensions/The Rim Gods; Into the Alternate Universe/Contraband From Outer Space; Book 5 (no room)
A Bertram/ Chandler, A Bertram Chandler
Manufacturer: Ace Double
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000KK8JWQ

Average customer rating:

Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space

Manufacturer: Scribner's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 096579685X

Product Description

Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space

Average customer rating:

Stan is the Man
Great Book
Another Winning Novel From Stan Timmons

Dark Matters (The Outer Limits)
Stan Timmons
Manufacturer: I Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Movie Tie-Ins | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0743474856

Book Description

Dropped out of hyperspace by a mysterious chunk of dark matter, pilot Paul Stein must save the transport vessel by facing his past and ultimately trusting his own decisions. He comes up against a crew of dangerous misfits who have a plan not only to destroy the transport, but to wreak havoc on a world-wide basis.The Outer Limits was originally aired in the 1960s, and, like The Twilight Zone, became a fan and rating favorite for years, with stories that were more science fiction-oriented than The Twilight Zone, stories that were thought-provoking, emotional, additive and memorable.

Customer Reviews:

Stan is the Man.......2004-02-29

Having followed Stan's varied career from the incredibaly funny Titmouse stories in Amazing Science Fiction in the seventies - to his comic book work in the 80's and 90's. Stan is one of those guys like Bill Willingham - a very diverse career, and whose prose fiction deserves more attention.

A GREAT fun read. Check it out.

Great Book.......2003-10-19

I'm a big fan of Outer Limts, so when I saw this book I had to get it. I've never read anything by Stan Timmons before, but I was really impressed with his writing. So much so, I went out and got every book I could find that he had authored or co-authored. I have to say that he is one of the best writers I have seen in some time. I'll be keeping my eye out for more of his work inthe future, and running to the bookstore to be first in line to buy it.

Another Winning Novel From Stan Timmons.......2003-10-15

As a fan of Stan Timmon's for quite some time, I was once again thrilled to the tips of my toes to see him release another great novel. He has a way of making his characters so relatable and real, no matter the circumstances or setting. They say and do things that the average Joe or Joan would, and you find yourself drawn into the story before the end of the first page. Before then end of the book you feel as though you ARE the character. "Always Darkest" is no exception. Even if you aren't a fan of sci-fi, you'll love this book, I guarantee it. You would be missing out on an absolute page turner if you were to pass this one up, so add it to your cart and enjoy.

Average customer rating:

Glow In The Dark Outer Space
Nicholas Harris
Manufacturer: Millbrook Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0761314946

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