Title: The Loser Author: Thomas Bernhard File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction Description:Amazon.com ReviewFor music lovers, perfectionists, and estheticians, Thomas Bernhards The Loser (1983) poses an irresistible drama of failed excellence. In 1953 three friends, among whom is the famed Glenn Gould, study with Horowitz. Rarely sleeping, hardly eating, they burn intensely with the white and ruthless flame of virtuosity. Only Gould ascends. But this is no conventional narrative--neat, action-driven, or linear. It opens with the specter of death--Goulds at 51, and a suicide. Art exalts even as it destroys, when the aspirant is found wanting. Both Wertheimer, the suicide, and the narrator turn their backs on their musical careers, thus triggering their process of deterioration. What is the consequence of throwing it all away? And yet, what are the rewards of realized genius? After Gould becomes, indeed, Glenn Gould, the two friends go to visit him in Canada. He had barricaded himself in his house. For life. All our lives the three of us have shared the desire to barricade ourselves from the world. All three of us were born barricade fanatics.Bernhard fans will recognize the restrained rant, the execution of an idea carried to a logical, caustic extreme. The rant creates, of the novel, a grand philosophical speculation What is devotion to ones art? What is it to truly understand ones art and to not misuse ones gift? And, alas, The Loser can also be read as the profound consequence of perfectionism, whereby all efforts to create or execute anything of note are squashed in the critical minds ruthless self-scrutiny. The narrator works, for example, on his Glenn Gould essay for nine years, grateful, in the end, that he has published nothing. How good it is that none of these imperfect, incomplete works has ever appeared, I thought, had I published them.... [T]oday I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. The one regenerative act seems to be that of self-destruction. Destruction, indeed, becomes the flip side of perfectionist rigor. Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) was his own unique genius and in The Loser, one of his most acclaimed novels, he creates a chilling portrait of tragic compulsion, teasing and testing our assumptions human behavior. --_Hollis Giamatteo_From Publishers WeeklyThe late Austrian novelist meditates on Glenn Gould, the Canadian virtuoso pianist, in this fictive memoir of an imaginary friendship between Gould and the narrator. (June) Also forthcoming from Vintage International in June is Gathering Evidence ($14 * br 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Title: Myriad Universes 01_ Infinity's Prism Author: Christopher L. Bennett File Type: Mobi Subject:Science-Fiction:Star Trek Description:It's been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across countless alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a prism -- broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been...is what actually happened. strongA Less Perfect Unionstrong: More than a hundred years after the Terra Prime movement achieved its dream of an isolationist Earth, humanity is once again at a fork in the river of history...and the path it follows may ultimately be determined by the voice of a single individual: the sole surviving crewmember of the first Starship Enterprise.™ strongPlaces of Exilestrong: Midway through Voyager's journey across the galaxy, Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay must choose whether to brave a deadly war zone or abandon their quest for home. But an attack by Species 8472 cripples the ship, and the stranded crew must make new choices that will reshape their destinies...and that of the Delta Quadrant itself. strongSeeds of Dissentstrong: Khan victorious! Almost four centuries after conquering their world, genetically enhanced humans dominate a ruthless interstellar empire. But the warship Defiance, under its augmented commander, Princeps Julian Bashir, makes a discovery that could shake the pillars of his proud civilization: an ancient sleeper ship from Earth named the Botany Bay. About the AuthorstrongChristopher L. Bennettstrong is the author of two previous works of Titan fiction, the novel Star Trek: Titan: Orion’s Hounds and the short story Empathy in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows anthology. He has also authored such critically acclaimed novels as Star Trek: Ex Machina, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Buried Age, and Star Trek: The Next Generation: Greater Than the Sum, as well as the alternate Voyager tale Places of Exile in Myriad Universes: Infinity’s Prism. Shorter works include Star Trek: SCE #29: Aftermath and Star Trek: Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again, as well as short stories in the anniversary anthologies Constellations (original series), The Sky’s The Limit (TNG), Prophecy and Change (DS9), and Distant Shores (VGR). Beyond Star Trek, he has penned the novels X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder, and is also developing original science fiction novel concepts strongWILLIAM LEISNER istrongs the author of the acclaimed novels Star Trek: The Next Generation: Losing the Peace, and A Less Perfect Union (from the Myriad Universes collection Infinity's Prism).  He is a three-time winner of the late, lamented Star Trek: Strange New Worlds competition, as contributed tales to the official celebration of Star Trek's 40th anniversary in 2006, and TNG's 20th Anniversary in 2007.  A native of Rochester, New York, he currently lives in Minneapolis. James Swallow has written several books, including Star Trek: Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers and Seeds of Dissent (from Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism); the Sundowners quartet of ‘steampunk’ science fiction Westerns (_Ghost Town, Underworld_, Iron Dragon and Showdown); the best-selling novelization of_ The Butterfly Effect_; The Flight of the Eisenstein, Faith and Fire and Jade Dragon; the 2000AD tie-ins Eclipse, Blood Relative and Whiteout; Stargate Atlantis: Halcyon; and the Blood Angels duology Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius.In addition, Swallow’s short fiction has appeared in_ Inferno!_ and Stargate magazine, the anthologies Star Trek Voyager: Distant Shores, the Doctor Who Short Trips collections Dalek Empire and Destination Prague, Something Changed, Collected Works, What Price Victory and Silent Night. His non-fiction includes Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher and books on writing, genre television and animation; he has also written for Star Trek: Voyager, Doctor Who and Space 1889, along with several scripts for audio and videogames.