Disaffected computer wizard "Mr. Slippery" (True Name Roger Pollack) is an early adopter of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology called the Other Plane. He and the other wizards form a cabal to keep their true identities — their True Names — secret to avoid prosecution by their "Great Adversary" — the government of the United States. The lines that define us are not ...(展开全部)

Once in a great while a science fiction story is so visionary, yet so close to impending scientific developments that it becomes not only an accurate predictor, but itself the locus for new discoveries and development. True Names by Vernor Vinge, first published in 1981, is such a work. Here is a feast of articles by computer scientists and journalists on the cutting edge of th...(展开全部)

Set against the backdrop of a lush and exotic Greece, The Names is considered the book which began to drive "sharply upward the size of his readership" ("Los Angeles Times Book Review"). Among the cast of DeLillo's bizarre yet fully realized characters in The Names are Kathryn, the narrator's estranged wife; their son, the six-year-old novelist; Owen, the scientist; and the neu...(展开全部)

Risk analyst James Axton lives in Athens and works across Greece and the Middle East, part of a community of American ex-pats that includes his estranged wife and child. Their peripatetic existence is interrupted when a horrific, unexplained murder on the island of Kouros becomes the catalyst for Axton becoming embroiled in a dizzying conspiracy of ritualistic violence, cultism...(展开全部)

Set against the backdrop of a lush and exotic Greece, The Names is considered the book which began to drive "sharply upward the size of his readership" ("Los Angeles Times Book Review"). Among the cast of DeLillo's bizarre yet fully realized characters in The Names are Kathryn, the narrator's estranged wife; their son, the six-year-old novelist; Owen, the scientist; and the neu...(展开全部)

Risk analyst James Axton lives in Athens and works across Greece and the Middle East, part of a community of American ex-pats that includes his estranged wife and child. Their peripatetic existence is interrupted when a horrific, unexplained murder on the island of Kouros becomes the catalyst for Axton becoming embroiled in a dizzying conspiracy of ritualistic violence, cultism...(展开全部)

Why do authors use pseudonyms and pen-names, or ingeniously hide names in their work with acrostics and anagrams? How has the range of permissible given names changed and how is this reflected in literature? Why do some characters remain mysteriously nameless? In this rich and learned book, Alastair Fowler explores the use of names in literature of all periods - primarily Engli...(展开全部)

'They cut her hair before they dragged her to the place of sacrifice. Her mouth was gagged to stop her cursing her father, her cowardly, two-tongued father. Nonetheless, they heard her muffled screams.' On the day of his daughter's wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice. His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glori...(展开全部)

A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago Senhor José is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one – of an apparently ordinary woman – will transform his life. Breaking away from his ...(展开全部)