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Touch the Screen
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Essays, Art Work X-Ray
by Francois
Nars (Photographer), Andre Leon Talley. World Literature Xeno Phon - Opera Omnia Expedito Cyri. Editor: E. C. Marchant Bestsellers Peter Straub - Mr. X If you enjoy H.P. Lovecraft's and Ray Bradbury's stories, you'll love this contemporary tale of dark family secrets, ancient evil, and spooky old towns. Mr. Straub will have you turning pages and missing sleep. A densely-packed multi-layered plot, with literary jokes. "MR. X marks Straub's triumphant return to the tale of the paranormal and supernatural ... There are several scenes of utter, ghastly, hide-your-eyes horror; when Peter Straub turns on all his jets, no one in the scream factory can equal him. The plot is challenging, the characters are intriguing in their complexity, and the language is a delight." (Stephen King) Ned Dunstan, a computer programmer whose 35th birthday is fast approaching, returns
home to Edgerton, Illinois, as his mother, Valerie "Star" Dunstan, lies dying.
Before Star (a jazz singer) dies, she tells Ned the name of his father and another name,
Robert (Ned's twin). Robert is "Mr. X", a shadow, a doppelganger, who has
mastered the Dunstan family trick of self-teleportation. Unfortunately, a psychopath who
believes H. P. Lovecraft's horror stories are not fiction. Ned finds himself caught up in
a web of murder and other crimes, not only in the present but also in the past. He is
accused of crimes he couldn't possibly have committed; the dream that has troubled him
since childhood of his shadow pursuing and threatening himedges ever closer to reality;
and reunions with his Illinois relatives turn up evidence that he may have been the son of
Edward Rinehart, a mad writer of supernatural fiction himself descended from a family
cursed for its dalliance in slave-trading and witchcraft. Ned's old aunts, whose
remarkable gifts include telekinesis, frustrate his search for knowledge, partly to
protect their own secrets and also to shield him from the mysterious and omnipresent force
that seems to dodge his every step. Ned is aided in his efforts to discover the mysteries
of his birth by his twin Robert, and also by a lovely young woman, Laurie Hatch... |
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franc'O'brain
& Transputer Qasar. 1999-2000. |