Cracking Spines Classics

NAME: Valentine Michael Smith ANCESTRY: Human ORIGIN: Mars Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.

Named one of the Top 40 Horror Books of All Time by the Horror Writers Association, Some of Your Blood begins with a confidential folder belonging to army psychiatrist Philip Outerbridge. Inside this folder are the letters, memos and transcripts for a young soldier named George Smith, a quiet young man with a terrible past and a shocking secret. As Outerbridge conducts George's therapy, he gradually discovers the truth about George's traumatic childhood, his twisted romance with an older woman named Anna, and the unusual obsession George keeps hidden from the world. With the masterful touch that earned him the Hugo and Nebula awards, Theodore Sturgeon creates a character capable both of unsettling violence and irresistible humanity.

This two-novella collection twists together the beauty and horror underlying the seeming simplicity of small town life. Sally Ann is a bright and bubbling farm girl, still caught in the thrill of a brand-new husband and a shining future ahead. When a careless exploration leaves her trapped underground, she learns to live again in the absence of everything she once knew. Even driven by love and light, Sally Ann finds the deepest darkness within herself in When Darkness Loves Us. Beauty Is... - Old Martha Mannes has been a part of Morgan, Illinois since her birth. The whole town knows her as the dim-witted woman who was born without a nose, but Martha's mind wasn't always a blank slate. Unlocking the monster buried deep in her memories may bring back the sparkling child she once was... or it may send those around her crashing down into the nightmares of a little girl gone wrong.

While on holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray shortly after he accidentally ingests insecticide. The radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks later, Carey can no longer deny the truth: not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was and deduces, to his dismay, that his body will continue to shrink.

Eight-year-old Horty Bluett is mocked by his classmates & abused by his adoptive parents until the day his father severs three of his fingers. He runs away, taking only a gem-eyed doll he calls Junky, & joins a carnival. Finding acceptance at last, Horty never dreams that Junky is more than a toy, nor does he realize that a threat far greater than his cruel father inhabits the carnival & has been searching for Horty longer than he has been alive. This book was also published as "The Synthetic Man".

Elizabeth thought that she was a young girl like any other girl - until the day that she looked into the mirror and saw the truth. Her family wouldn't have believed it even if she had told them - which she had no intention of doing. Elizabeth had far different plans for them - and only God could help them. He didn't - and Elizabeth set out to prove how hellishly far she could go...

Thirty-something Colquitt and Walter Kennedy live in a charming, peaceful suburb of the newly bustling Atlanta. Life is made up of enjoyable work, long, lazy weekends, and the company of good neighbors. Then, to their shock, construction starts on the vacant lot next door, a wooded hillside they'd believed would always remain undeveloped. Soon, though, they come to realize that more is wrong than their diminished privacy. Surely the house can't be "haunted," yet something about it seems to destroy the goodness of every person who comes to live in it, until the entire heart of this friendly neighborhood threatens to be torn apart.

In life, not every sin goes unpunished. GHOST STORY For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past—and get away with murder.

Terror grows in Babylon, a typical sleepy Southern town with its throbbing sun and fog-shrouded swamps. Margaret Larkin has been robbed of her innocence—and her life. Her killer is rich and powerful, beyond the grasp of earthly law. Now, in the murky depths of the local river, a shifting, almost human shape slowly takes form. Night after night it will pursue the murderer. It will watch him from the trees. And in the chill waters of the river, it will claim him in the ultimate embrace. The cold moon rises, the awful squishing sounds begin...

KATIE KILLED FOR KICKS AND CASH Ever so nimble at bashing heads with her little hammer, Katie Slapes was her parents' joy and certain fortune. As the cellar filled with corpses, the family coffers filled with cash. Pretty young Philo Drax didn't have a family anymore. Katie had finished off her grandfather and her mother, and promised to put Philo out of her misery very soon now. It was a hard, cruel world for an innocent girl alone, but Philo was glad to be alive, and eager to continue so. She had prospeccts of a romantic marriage to sustain her through her trials. While Katie, poor creature, had only her cunning... and her hammer. DON'T EVER TURN YOUR BACK ON KATIE!

Melvin was definitely the biggest creep in Ellsworth High, and the other kids mercilessly taunted him for his odd looks and weird behaviours. Vicki was the only one to stand up for him but even she had to admit he'd gone too far when he dug up a body and attempted to bring it back to life with the aid of a car battery. — Years later Vicki still has nightmares about Melvin's "joke" and now that she's back in Ellsworth, she knows she'll have to see him again. Recently released from a mental institution, Melvin is acting stranger than ever. His experiments with the dead have progressed and as soon as he can get Vicki - or rather her body - where he wants her, he can realize his most chilling dream of all...

After a dozen years of practicing medicine as a family physician, Dr. Alan Bulmer discovers one day that he can cure any illness with the mere touch of his hand. Although he tries to hide his power, word inevitably leaks out, and soon Alan’s life begins to unravel. His marriage and his practice crumble. Only rich, beautiful, enigmatic Sylvia Nash stands by him. And standing with her is Ba, her Vietnamese gardener, who once witnessed a power such as Dr. Bulmer’s in his homeland, where it is called Dat-tay-vao. Ba knows too well that the Dat-tay-vao always comes with a price. And Alan has only begun to pay. [This edition includes the short story "Dat-tay-vao", prequel to "The Touch", which tells the story of the events bringing the Dat-tay-vao to the USA.

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!

The first installment of the Pulitzer Prize\-winning graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide\-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.

There are things worse than death. There are games so seductively evil, so wondrously vile, no gambler can resist. Amid the shadow-scarred rubble of World War II, Joseph Whitehead dared to challenge the dark champion of life’s ultimate game. Now a millionaire, locked in a terror-shrouded fortress of his own design, Joseph Whitehead has hell to pay. And no soul is safe from this ravaging fear, the resurrected fury, the unspeakable desire of The Damnation Game.