The newest opus from the Master of Far Fetched Fiction features magic, mayhem, mechanical marvels, messianic madness, and the music hall  Colonel Katterfelto has returned to London, having departed America under something of a cloud—of smoke, issuing from his Spiritual Laboratory, which the townsfolk of Wormcast, Arizona, marched upon with their flaming torches. This catastrophic conflagration caused considerable concern to the pious colonel, who had been engaged in the creation of "Heaven's last and best gift to Mankind," The Mechanical Messiah—he was, after all, being guided in this Great Work by holy angels, communicating to him through his monkey butler, Darwin. It is 1897, the British Empire encompasses Mars, and an uneasy peace exists between the peoples of Venus, Jupiter, and Earth. In London the marvels of the modern age to be experienced include The Electric Alhambra Music Hall, where crowds thrill to The Earl Grey Whistle Test—a musical extravaganza featuring such top turns as Hayward's Acrobatic Kiwis, The Travelling Formbys, and the newly-arrived Colonel Katterfelto's Clockwork Minstrels. But all is far from well in old Whitechapel, where a monster is once more abroad in the night-time streets, committing hideous acts of murder. Can this be the return of Jack the Ripper, or has something altogether unearthly and Hellishly evil materialized? Famed consulting detective Cameron Bell is already on the case, but it may take nothing less than the New Messiah Himself to save London, The Empire, and all of the solar system from the impending apocalypse!

The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) By Marshall Pinckney Wilder

When a strange old man slowly shuffles in front of a suburban house, the quiet neighborhood is turned upside down. A short story by Scott Semegran.Nankichi Niimi is undoubtedly one of Japan's most highly regarded writers of fantasy fiction. Book 3 of Tales from a Japanese Dreamland is an introduction to Niimi's writing through one of his most famous children's stories. Mama fox only wants the best for her little one, so when the cold winter arrives and her precious boy needs some mittens, then she knows what she must do. The only problem is that she is afraid and her legs won't take her any further. So her son must go on his own. The highlight of this delightful children's story is the beautiful description of the foxes' journey through the snow covered woods during the middle of the night.Buying Mittens is also available in Books 2 & 5 of the series Tales from a Japanese Dreamland.Nankichi Niimi was born Shohachi Watanabe in what is now Handa City, Aichi Prefecture, on July 30, 1913, with the year 2013 marking 100 years since his birth. It was recently estimated that over 60 million people have read Gon the Fox which he penned at just 17 years of age. Although Niimi went on to write a large number of poems and short stories, such as Buying Mittens, Grandpa's Lamp and When the Thieves Came to Hananoki Village before his death from tuberculosis at age 29, Gon the Fox is undoubtedly the most famous and well-loved of all his works, and perhaps the most famous Japanese children's story of all time. About Little J BooksHi, my name is Paul and I started Little J Books because I personally wanted to be able to read more of these kinds of Japanese stories in English, especially in ebook form. By putting these stories into an ebook format they will be available for anyone to access anywhere in the world, forever. If you know of any other Japanese stories like these that it is hard to get your hands on (because they are sold out or just too expensive), please let me know.

George and Martha were married; they had been married three years to the very day, when George finally admitted that he had had enough... Yet another free eBook from The Crazymad Writer. He is mad, I tell you, stark, raving MAD.Don’t get me wrong, George loved his wife, he loved her dearly, in fact he adored the ground she walked on. However, there was a problem; Martha, George’s beloved wife, SNORED. For three long years George struggled to overcome his weakness, the fact that he was an incredibly light sleeper. Every night, after the happy couple had retired and kissed the other goodnight, George lay in bed awake, waiting, listening, fearing, wondering when the nightly performance would begin. Sometimes it started straight away, the very moment his wife’s sweet head touched her pillow. Other times it began much later, well into the wee small hours, after George, having tired of waiting for it to begin, had drifted off to sleep. However, the one thing that each night had in common was the undeniable fact that his wife – Martha – snored with as much force and ferocity as a Storm Trooper invading Poland.

Meet Oli; often bemused, always charming, Oli has had the legacy of a great civilisation bestowed upon him. Now Oli and his group of friends must combat their own ineptitude and propensity towards larking about, to save the earth from certain destruction.Oli soon discovers that an invincibility ring and the most powerful ship in the galaxy, can really boost a guy’s confidence.During a trip to the pyramids, Oli, a party-loving sixteen-year-old drummer from London, mysteriously disappears into the heart of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. He finds himself inside a space ship, deposited there 12,000 years ago by a now-extinct race of beings called the Annenians. The ship was intended to be their legacy, handed down to the human race when they had achieved a suitable level of understanding concerning the universe and life in general. The ship’s artificially intelligent computer, Robbie, was getting a little bored of waiting. Oli travels to Annenia, where he meets a civilisation of highly evolved parrots. He must gather equipment to stop an asteroid, set to collide with Earth if the humans haven’t come up to scratch. The asteroid presents no problem but unfortunately, Oli is followed back to Earth by the war-mongering, but slightly oafish Throgloids, who are hell-bent on capturing the ship and destroying Earth. Oli discovers that an invincibility ring and the most powerful ship in the galaxy can really boost a guy’s confidence. He meets his friends in London for a night of partying, leaving the little ship parked in the river Thames. But the tide goes out and the ship is captured by the hapless UFO hunter, Doctor Branith. Oli and his friends must battle their own ineptitude and propensity towards larking about, to retrieve the ship from the unfortunate doctor, defeat the Throgloids and still find sufficient time to indulge in their favourite pastime; namely partying.

When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you - an ambitious, though ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker - are convinced you're facing the Weekend From Hell. You don't know the half of it! This is, after all, a Tom Robbins novel. Obviously, before the market reopens on Monday, you're going to have to scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but there's no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a born-again monkey, or the intrusion in your life of a tattooed stranger intent on blowing your mind and most of your fuses. Over these fateful three days, you are jerked from one trial and one revelation to another; forced to confront things ranging from mysterious African rituals to legendary amphibians, from tarot-card bombshells to street violence, from your own sexuality to outer space. The weekend isn't from Hell, it's from Sirius the Dog Star. And by the time it's over, the glide path of your destiny has been knocked widely askew. You may or may not be a better person, you may or may not have found love, the world may or may not be a different place, yet cosmic connections have been established that cannot be broken. And as an indication of lust how strange it has all become, you - prosaic, materialistic, irritable you - are left with a complete understanding of the surprisingly serious phrase "half asleep in frog pajamas." According to the Los Angeles Times, "Trying to describe a Tom Robbins novel by summarizing its plot is like pointing to a snowflake and asking someone to grasp the concept of downhill skiing." Robbins's eagerly awaited sixth novel is no exception, but the foregoing provides acursory peek at the narrative drift of a daring, entertaining, and illuminating reading experience. In Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, the author explores new terrain. As always, however, his prose is funny, wise, provocative, erotic, lyrical - and a little on the wild side. Longtime Rob

Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster. Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott. Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself. The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . . Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does? All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.

Written one-a-day in July 2013, these thirty-one more very short stories feature a wide (and often surprising) cast of characters: a drunken angel, a baby-themed supervillain, a man who spontaneously turns into two mildly annoyed horses. This book is for everyone who's ever wondered: "Just what would happen if Hydrogen quit its day job to become a country music star...?"It's the end of the world as we know it, and the Eclective feels fine.The Shifting Sands by Tara West: When a jealous goddess threatens to destroy all of humanity, a young woman and her family must overcome impossible odds to survive.Light by Emma Jameson: In the zombie apocalypse, the hope for humanity's survival is pinned on Daniel. Unfortunately, Daniel is an android. And humanity may be past all hope...Alien Butt Plugs by PJ Jones: The aliens are coming! And Jeb's first line of defense may be worse than the anal probe he fears.Seeds by M. Edward McNally: For Meats and his fellow Guns, life was simple. Keep your respirator clear, your weapon ready, and an eye on your neighbors. Until one day Meats found some seeds, and everything got complicated.Cleavers by Heather Marie Adkins: Creatures such as the Cleavers should never exist. But in Tora's world, they're real, and death is more likely than survival.The Last Christmas by Alan Nayes: On the verge of the Apocalypse, a young couple wish to spend one last Christmas together.Combustion by RG Porter: Kate wakes to find her world scorched and survivors in short supply. She needs to unravel the cause before time runs out.

John and Kim, a married couple that has learned that it is nearly impossible for them to conceive a child together, devise a strange way to remedy the situation, only to find that they may have gone too far.Libby the Loser. That's what everyone used to call me behind my back. I wasn't popular, I wasn't strong, I wasn't brave.All that changed after a chance encounter in a Canberra nightclub. Afterward, I began to dream; dream I was something else. A powerful creature of muscles and claws, something powerful and confident and everything I wasn't.I dreamed I was in love with a man I'd barely met.The dream world is a beautiful, wondrous place, but there's a shadow in my dreams. An eclipse, broken with a gunshot. Then I wake up.Now my dreams are coming true. My body is changing for real. I'm shedding Libby the Loser like an old skin. I'm growing into something else.But there are others. Others like me, and they don't get along. People are disappearing. People are dying.The shadow is falling over the real world, too, and everything has changed.Part I of the Rakshasa serial.-----"Rakshasa" is a Paranormal Romance serial with a hint of spice! Each episode is approximately 10,000 words. The episode schedule is as follows:Book OneRakshasa - 31st of October, 2012 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Aurora - 7th of November, 2012 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Tigerheart - 21st of November, 2012 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Shadowfall - 28th of December, 2012 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Eternity - 20th of January, 2013 (Now available!)Book TwoRakshasa: Moonlight - 20th of February, 2013 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Conflagration - 30th of May, 2013 (Now available!)Rakshasa: Divergence - 20th of June, 2013 (Coming soon!)

Someone-or some thing-has kidnapped the dreaded Demon Earth. If he isn't found, the very fabric of our world will unravel, removing the Earth's gravitational field, and, incidentally, that of the magical land of Xanth as well! To combat this dastardly deed, six bold adventurers must locate the mysterious object known as the Swell Foop, and wield it in a deadly cosmic contest against an awesome enemy. The twenty-fifth exhilarating episode in Piers Anthony's fabulous saga of Xanth, Swell Foop blends laughter and romance, wonder and danger, in one of the most intricate and intriguing tales in the history of the series. Swell Foop, the twenty-fifth volume in Piers Anthony's bestselling Xanth fantasy adventures, is one of the most intricate and intriguing tales in the history of the series.

Two young friends are united by a crappy old car, dead-end summer jobs, and the endless desire to escape from tedium into the big wide world. One breaks free and gets the girl; the other gets an empty garage and a valuable lesson. Short story: humor, coming of age, around 8200 words.Akia de Wolfe was quickly becoming known as one of Boston's finest. After closing the Silent Ripper case, a promotion soon followed. For the first time since running away from home a decade ago, her life was perfect, until a ghost from her past, a mistake that she had fought to forget, calls. Coming home to Haven wasn't something she ever wanted to do again, but her father needed her. A serial killer was loose on the small island her family called home, and trying to pin the gruesome murders on him. Facing her demons won't be easy, but in order to clear her father's name and catch a killer she must.

A man obsessed with Scotland, a Shamanic Detective and a monk displaced through time must all try to stop a madman from taking over the world. Chasing from London to Africa, Texas to Canada, can our heroes stop him in time to prevent a global financial meltdown? Stock market thugs, Kenyan car races, hallucinogenic trips, the SAS, and a talking moose all pull together to spin an amazing tale!One man's obsession with scotland. One shamanic detective. one twelfth century monk catapulted through time to present day England.A devil, a megalomaniac maths lecturer and the world on the brink of economic collapse. It sounds a convoluted tale, but it all fits together - honest.And what's more, while it doesn't actually explain how time travel is possible, it does at least prove that it does exist. Irrefutably.That is, of course, if you believe the word of a man whose business card contains no contact details, who smokes mushrooms through a pipe and who talks to mooses.And what has any of this got to do with Scotland?

Rafe Khatchadorian, the hero of the bestselling Middle School series, is ready for a fun summer at camp—until he finds out it’s a summer school camp! Luckily, Rafe easily makes friends with his troublemaking cabin mates and bunkmate, a boy nicknamed Booger-Eater, who puts up with endless teasing from the other kids. Rafe soon realizes there’s more to a person than a nickname, though. This third book in the massively popular Middle School series is an unforgettable summer of hijinks, new friends, and surprises, all told with the hilarity and honesty readers have come to expect from blockbuster author James Patterson.

"The Rosie Project" was an international publishing phenomenon, with more than a million copies sold in over forty countries around the world. Now Graeme Simsion returns with the highly anticipated sequel, "The Rosie Effect." Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she''s pregnant. In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don''s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most. "The Rosie Effect" is the charming and hilarious romantic-comedy of the year. Graeme Simsion was born in Auckland and is a Melbourne-based writer of short stories, plays, screenplays and two non-fiction books. "The Rosie Project" began life as a screenplay, winning the Australian Writers Guild/Inscription Award for Best Romantic Comedy before being adapted into a novel. It went on to win the 2012 Victorian Premier''s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript and has since been sold around the world to over forty countries. Sony Pictures have optioned the film rights with Graeme contracted to write the script. It won the 2014 ABIA for Best General Fiction Book and overall Book of the Year. Praise for "The Rosie Project": ''Funny and heartwarming, a gem of a book.'' Marian Keyes ''Don Tillman helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and the bonus is this: he keeps us laughing like hell. I''d love to have a beer with the humane and hilarious Graeme Simsion.'' Matthew Quick, "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Silver Linings Playbook" ''"The Rosie Project" is 1930s screwball comedy updated for 2013. Hepburn and Grant in "Bringing Up Baby," or Rosalind Russell and Grant in "His Girl Friday" have the exact same pitch, intelligence, wit and farce with a love story at the centre of it all. Madcap indeed, but like those films "The Rosie Project" underscored with writing meticulously judged...Extremely loud and incredibly long applause.'' "Age/SMH/Canberra Times/Brisbane Times" ''What an endearing, funny book...a quirky love story about belonging with poignant undertones on the need for us all to be more tolerant of those with differences. A must read for 2013.'' "Courier Mail/Daily Telegraph" ''The charm of this story is Simsion''s affectionate depiction of his strange, flawed, infuriating, logical and always amusing protagonist.'' "Weekend Australian"

“The more I think about myself, the more—I say it in all modesty—the subject seems to grow.” So begins The Eliza Stories, and although the book takes Eliza’s name, her husband is revealed to be the true comic hero, as he displays a self-importance that far outstrips his modest station in Edwardian suburbia. Eliza uncomplainingly smoothes over arguments and watches from the sidelines as her other half tries to scramble up the social ladder. From insulting the domestic staff to ill-advisedly lending money to social superiors, our narrator is by turns patronizing and authoritarian. And just when you think you can’t stand anymore, their son Ernest brings a new and sinister twist to the tale. Written and set in the early 1900s, this is a comic gem.