Acrisius could not see it, but there was a thin opening in the rock in front of the Priestess, and something like white smoke was coming out of it. It was the message Apollo was sending her. The Priestess listened to the smoke as it moved past her, and she waited until it left before she spoke. "The only child you and your wife will have is the one you have now. You will not have a son, but your daughter will. You must be careful of this child because one day he will kill you." "My daughter´s son? But why? How can I stop this from happening?"
Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11524.33 | Fiction literature | 25 October 2010
3
Firestorm
For Kerry Murphy, the inferno is never far away. The flames of that long-ago night still burn in her nightmares: the heat, the choking smoke, the helplessness. She can never run fast enough...
From the opening scene in a London 'pea-souper', the descriptive powers of this writer suck you into the strange and captivating thriller. Set in post-WWII London, each of the characters is wonderfully and mesmorisingly described, with effective cameos, such as the first meeting between the police inspector Luke and the old Canon Avril.
Blood and Smoke is a collection of three stories (two never before published) with a common thread of smoking binding them together. The first story, "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," is a story of addiction and withdrawal, as a man tries to quit smoking on the same day that his wife leaves him. In "1408," a writer who chronicles "haunted" places visits a supposedly haunted hotel room, unable to imagine that there are some things more frightening than ghosts. The last story, "In the Deathroom," follows an American journalist who is being interrogated in a South American prison, where a cigarette may be his last request or his salvation.
There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years.
Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people.
