Product Description
The mind of the machine, the body suspended in time, organs exchanged, thought computed, genes manipulated, DNA samples abducted by aliens: the terrain between science and speculation, fraught with the possibility of technological and perhaps even evolutionary transformations, is the territory Richard Doyle explores in Wetwares. In a manner at once sober and playful, Doyle maps potentials for human transformation by new ecologies of information in the early twenty-first century.

Wetwares ranges over recent research in artificial life, cloning, cryonics, computer science, organ transplantation, and alien abduction. Moving between actual technical practices, serious speculative technology, and science fiction, Doyle shows us emerging scientific paradigms where "life" becomes more a matter of information than of inner vitality-in short, becomes "wetwares" for DNA and computer networks. Viewing technologies of immortality-from cryonics to artificial life-as disciplines for welcoming a thoroughly other future, a future of neither capital, god, human, nor organism, the book offers tools for an evolutionary, transhuman mutation in the utterly unpredictable decades to come.

Richard Doyle is associate professor of rhetoric and science studies in the Department of English at Penn State University. He is the author of On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (1997). ... Read more

Product Description
An island people are fighting for their lives — a volcano in the Canaries has erupted — soon ash and lava will annihilate everything, unless the locals can destroy the volcano first. A desperate group set out armed with high explosives.

Three thousand miles away across the Atlantic Ocean the peaceful seaport of Goodwill, Maine, is getting ready for its annual summer festival, Founders Day. Tourists and locals alike are in carnival mood. But all is not right — freak swells strike the coast, corpses are washed from cemeteries, the whales disappear from the sea. A convoy of surfers arrive: their network tells them something big is going to happen in this town any day now, and they want part of the action.
Meanwhile the islanders have braved the ash clouds and packed their explosives into a fault line.

Today half their island will crash into the sea.

Three thousand miles of ocean will not save Goodwill from what happens next. ... Read more

Product Description
Flood is a devastating and compulsive thriller that reads like fact. The country has suffered floods on an unprecedented scale in recent years, but have we seen the worst, an inundation that threatens millions of lives? Doyle’s vision is incontestable, backed up by over twenty-five years of research. Flood is the disaster novel of today.

A storm rages over the north of Britain, a troop carrier founders in the Irish Sea, flood indicators go off the scale, the seas are mountainous and a spring tide is about to strike the East Coast. Air sea rescue and military personnel struggle to save lives all down the coast. The worse is yet to come. When the storm reaches the south the two forces of wind and tide will combine and send a huge one-in-a-thousand tidal surge up the Thames.

But surely London is safe: the Thames Barrier will save the capital from disaster as it was intended to do? The river is a titanic presence by now, higher than anyone has known it, and the surge thunders towards the Barrier. Scientists begin to talk of the possibility of overtopping. Can fifty feet high gates be overwhelmed by a wave? Then there is an explosion the size of a small Hiroshima: a supertanker is ablaze in the estuary and most of the Essex petrochemical works are going up with it. The Thames catches fire and the wall of fire and water thunders towards Britain’s capital. This is the story of what happens next, and the desperate attempts to save the capital from destruction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Brilliant update of DELUGE, and far better!
In 1976, Richard Doyle wrote a disaster novel called DELUGE, about London flooding. This was written before the Thames Barrier was built, and such a disaster was after that inconceivable. However, when you read this updated and much more realistic version, you will be left wondering whether the Barrier will be safe enough to stop a massive tidal surge. Not only that, in this story a tanker explodes, hitting oil refineries in Canvey Island , Essex, just east of London, causing a massive burning oil slick to head for the capital. The British Government's people - Home Secretary Venetia Maitland and Royal Navy troubleshooter Roland Raikes do all they can to prevent the disaster from getting worse as the burning flood tide heads at an alarming pace towards London. Richard Doyle has certainly done his research into how such a huge disaster could occur and just who it would affect. The locations featured are as authentic as you could get - the Van Ommeren oil refinery in Essex is a place I used to work next door to and brought back some memories. The descriptions of the fire and flood destroying landmarks is so well told it's unsettling at times, but this is a book you just cannot stop reading. There are no main characters, apart from, perhaps Raikes and Maitland, this story is told as-it-happens in a present tense making you feel you are there, the disaster itself is the main element focused on. There are assorted subplots of people being rescued from the London Underground, the THames Barrier and how it fails, schoolchildren escaping the Millennium Dome and shoppers trapped at Bluewater retail city - and a massive inferno at Canary Wharf tower. Overall, very frightening and hard to fault, and a book that makes compelling reading!

Not your usual disaster novel
First of Richard Doyle's books I've read. Its cover caught my eye in passing with the London Eye and a wall of fire behind it. I left this novel with a sense of disquiet and a massively improved sense of understanding as to exactly what a flood could do to London. Admittedly it is fiction, but it possessed enough convincing technical `fact' as to the impending reality to leave me with that lingering sour taste in the mouth.
The main driver behind `Flood' is the fact that there is no focus on a particular character. This limits the assumed pathos that tends to come with any disaster novel and, curiously, means the results of the flood become the main character. All of which made it extremely interesting.
I find that what tends to happen in this thriller sub-genre is that we follow defined characters as they both react to and deal with the aftermath of the given disaster.
That is limited here.
There are key people we can point to, like the Home Secretary, Venetia, the Barrier chief engineer, Angus, Bluewater's management team headed by Murdoch. There is also Sophie de Salis and her interaction with Harriet and the children Miranda and Chrissie, the head mistress, Pam and Jen-0's master, Ted, to name a few. Yet, we get snapshots of them spaced far apart so any development of a relationship between reader and character is not overly encouraged.
The premise of `Flood' is of a storm that develops over Canada, moves across the Atlantic, rounds Scotland and plunges down the North Sea. It creates a `surge' that coincides with High Tide up the Thames to the point that the relevant authorities realise too late it will top the Thames Barrier and flood substantial parts of London. The disaster is compounded by the fact that a laden supertanker gets out of control and several important gas and oil works explode ensuing millions of tonnes of oils and flammable chemicals ride the surge up the river. Add major gas explosions caused by the inferno to this and we end up with the worst case scenario - fire and flood.
So, geography becomes our main character as the story follows the flood up the Thames in a wave of destruction as we see it envelop Canvey Island, Docklands, Bluewater, the Underground, Dartford Bridge, the Dome and many more landmarks. The sheer scale of the devastation is hard to grasp and Doyle floods the novel with facts and science in a Clancy-esque manner.You end the novel with a better knowledge of Thames tidal flow, flood geography and disaster prevention methods than when you commenced. What is interesting is that the novel simply ends with the limits of the destruction. Several loose ends abound and we are presented with Britain's capital city in ruins and no indication of the actions in the aftermath other than an almost footnote about hope of light in a world gone dark.
So, not similar to other disaster novels I have read either in characterisation or presentation or plot. However, it ensures the reader keeps turning the pages in a fascinated horror of what unfolds and leaves that sense of disquiet at the end. ... Read more

Product Description
Victorian artist Richard Doyle (1824-1883) is famous for his charming illustrations of elves, fairies, and gnomes. For this coloring book, Marty Noble has skillfully adapted 29 of the English's artist's most delightful watercolors created for his book with Andrew Lang, The Princess Nobody--A Tale of Fairyland. Now colorists and fairyland devotees can apply their own hues to enchanting scenes of fairies and elves at play, a mini-sized prince wooing a petite princess, mischievous sprites vexing a butterfly, and much more.
Captions accompany each illustration. Dover Original. 29 black-and-white illustrations. Captions. 4 full-color illustrations on covers.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Adult Coloring Book
Product arrived on time and in good condition.I would purchase again in the future.

Too much cruelty to animals
The drawings are intricate and well done, but an awful lot of them show the fairies mistreating animals. Hitting a snail and pulling its antenna, as well as the tails of birds and the legs of insects, taking eggs from a mother bird, etc., with captions like "A Fairy Boy Teasing a Bird." My kids were disturbed and upset. Not appropriate for kids if you want to teach them that teasing and hurting animals is wrong.

Great Dover Coloring Book
Doyle's fairies have a childlike quality that doesn't entirely appeal to me. They are often like little children playing dress-up. The drawings are very well produced and easy to color. Highly recommend it.

Having so much Fun.
This is so much fun.Very nice detail. It is a great way to relax.

Ok, but fairies more naughty than I was looking for.
Not what I was looking for. Mischievious sprites is an understatement, they are not acting very nice to their fellow creatures throughout the pages. I won't be giving it to my daughter after all. ... Read more

Product Description
Poetry to delight anyone who still believes in magic.

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."
--J. M. Barrie, Scottish, 1860-1937, from Peter Pan

The art of Englishman Richard Doyle offers lush glimpses into the world of the wee folk. Doyle's fairies troop through meadows, twirl in the moonlight, and enlist birds and bugs in games and mischief. His whimsical illustrations, chosen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, are paired with poems by William Shakespeare, John Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Stevie Smith, and Langston Hughes, among others.

Fairy sweethearts among the roses illustrate Wilder's "The Fairies in the Sunshine," elf babies in a snail race match Robert Graves's "I'd Love to Be a Fairy's Child," and a fairy queen carried by butterflies reimagines Shakespeare's popular "Queen Mab" soliloquy. A magical treasury that will enchant readers of all ages.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Lovely Art, Lovely Poetry
The fairy art in this is unique and exquisite. Each image goes very well with the sweetly written poetry along side it. Wonderful to read to a child or yourself to lift you spirits!

A SUPERB PAIRING OF ART AND POETRY
British artist Richard Doyle (1824-1883), the son of a portrait painter and caricaturist, may be best remembered by some as the creator of the cover design for Punch, which was used for over a century. He also illustrated a number of children's books and created beguiling paintings of fairies, the wee folk.It is the latter that is used to illustrate this lovely keepsake volume.

Doyle's paintings are imaginative and incandescent, luminous illustrations of fairies astride snails, perched on a beetle or relaxing on a verdant hillock.Each illustration perfectly accompanies a poem, such as a tiny one sipping from a cowslip's bell in Shakespeare's "Ariel's Song" or fairies engaged in a tug-of-war with a grasshopper in "An Explanation of the Grasshopper" by Vachel Lindsay.

Other poets represented include John Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, and Langton Hughes.

The pairing of art and poetry is superb, thoughtfully conceived and executed.This slim volume deserves a place in everyone's library.

- Gail Cooke ... Read more

Product Description
Charming illustrations enhance the narrative of a much-loved classic that tells the story of Prince Comical and his search for thediminutive princess without a name. Elves, fairies, dwarfs and other denizens of fairyland will prove irresistible to anyone enchanted by the fantasy world of sprites and other little people.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book For Little Ones
My daughter loves all things fairy and asks for this to be read over and over.This is a charming story.It has sweet drawings and a couple of morals within the story.The pictures add so much to the text and I love the extra illustrations at the end as well as the poem at the beginning.Makes a great birthday present for all your little fairy lovers.A Tale of Fairyland (the Princess Nobody): With 61 Full-Color Illustrations ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Edinburgh W. BlackwoodPublication date: 1892Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This important refernce book has been completed from much unpublished material including letters Doyle wrote to famous friends like Dickens, Thackeray, and Rossetti.It also contains the first complete lists of Doyle's illustrations for books and magazines and a list of his paintings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What if . . .
. . . London flooded? This exciting disaster novel, written in 1976 before the Thames Barrier was built, explores what could happen! Floodco-ordinator Derek Thompson tries to warn the authorities and the publicafter hearing reports of freak tides and storms in the North Sea, but dothey listen? Yes, you've guessed it, the authorities dally over evacuationplans. And to top it all, the US President is due to pay London a visit andThompson's wife becomes trapped in the Underground as the floods strike incataclysmic fashion. A barge strikes a hospital, a power station explodesand industrial areas burn out of control threatening people trapped inhigh-rise housing. Who will live and who will die? A shame this was notmade into a movie! Although us UK readers no longer have to fear such adisaster taking place because of the barrier, this novel is still worthreading for excitement and spectacle value. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1898.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more