In the Land of Invented Languages - Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius

Efforts to make language simpler, clearer, less divisive and more truthful have backfired spectacularly, to judge by this delightful tour of linguistic hubris. Linguist Okrent explores some of the themes and shortcomings of 900 years worth of artificial languages. She surveys philosophical languages that order all knowledge into self-evident systems that turn out to be bizarrely idiosyncratic; symbol languages of supposedly crystalline pictographs that are actually bafflingly opaque...

Phantoms by Dean Koontzby Dean Koontz

An ancient, awesome force has spirited away almost the entire population of Snowfield, a small town in California. The bodies of those remaining have been bizarrely disfigured. What hope can there be for the few people still alive?