Metaphysical Fiction

John William Barry has inherited the pedigree - and wealth - of two of Seattle's elite families; Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish. Nevertheless, when the two boys meet in 1972 at age 16, they're brought together by what they have in common: a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them together into Washington's remote backcountry.

In April, I woke up one morning, out of the blue, and there was a sort of voice in my head. Not exactly a voice, but sort of a telepathic thing, saying, “You will now write the Purple Fables, there will be four of them, and you will do one in each day and the title is to be Purple Fables,” and I said okay. They were sort of dictated from somebody else, someplace, I guess.

The Quantum Pilgrimage is an existentialist, abstract, and tortuous fable about the inner journey we all endeavor during our biological existence. Since that quest is as unique and unpredictable as each one of us, any interpretations drawn are filtered by your own experiences and expectations. Because, just as it happens in the quantum realm, everything that truly matters is distorted and crafted by our own unique consciousness.

Anthropologist Theodore Hansen discovers a magical plant in the Amazon rainforest that has the potential to both heal and destroy society. He steals a cutting from the indigenous guardians of the plant and clones enough of it to sell to the world, becoming one of the richest humans alive.

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.

Beloved for the lens of the strange he places on small-town life, Steven Millhauser further reveals in Voices in the Night the darkest parts of our inner selves to brilliant and dazzling effect. Here are stories of wondrously imaginative hyperrealism, stories that pose unsettling what-ifs or that find barely perceivable evils within the safe boundaries of our towns, homes, and even our bodies.

During the day, he’s a South Chicago high school janitor, slopping a mop around from nine o’clock to three o’clock, five days a week. At night, hiding out in a boarded-up factory, he attends to his damaged interstellar spacecraft, making repairs and counting the days until he can return to his homeworld of Calunoth. All he needs to do is mind his own business and avoid any messy human dramas for just a few more weeks. But it is on one of those quiet nights when he hears them outside: the MP140s. Named for a police radio code for murder, they're among the most ruthless killers.

Kimia, a successful spiritual advisor whose Iranian childhood continues to haunt her, collides with a mysterious giant bird in her mother’s California garage. She begins reliving her experience as a nine-year-old girl in war-torn Iran, including her friendship with a mystical storyteller who led her through the mythic Seven Valleys of Love.

Late one night, fate brings together DJ Aspirin and 10-year-old Alyona. After he tries to save her from imminent danger, she ends up at his apartment. But in the morning sinister doubts set in. Who is Alyona? A young con artist? A plant for a nefarious blackmailer? Or perhaps a long-lost daughter Aspirin never knew existed? Whoever this mysterious girl is, she now refuses to leave. A game of cat-and-mouse has begun. Claiming that she is a musical prodigy, Alyona insists she must play a complicated violin piece to find her brother.

An ordinary man wakes one morning to discover he’s a famous reggaetón star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man. In There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange dreamlike worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present, and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread.

When a once-promising young writer agrees to ghostwrite a famous physicist’s memoir, his livelihood is already in jeopardy: Plagued by debt, he’s grown distant from his wife—a successful AI designer—and is haunted by an overwhelming sense of dread he describes as “The Mist.” Then, things get worse: The physicist vanishes, leaving everything in limbo, including our narrator’s sanity.

It’s been a year since Yuki Hirano left home - or more precisely, was booted from it—to study forestry in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. Being a woodsman is not the future he imagined, but his name means “courage,” and Yuki hopes to live up to it. He’s adapting to his job and learning constantly. In between, he records local legends—tales pulsing with life, passion, and wondrous gods. Kamusari has other charms as well. One of them is Nao.

Die schüchterne Nathalie wünscht sich nichts sehnlicher als Ruhe. Kurzerhand bucht sie einen Meditationsworkshop in einem idyllischen Seminarhaus im Wald. Doch von Entspannung keine Spur. Während der stillen Übungen hört sie plötzlich die Stimmen der anderen, die ihr pikante Geständnisse machen. Außerdem sieht sie Dinge, die der Rest der Gruppe nicht wahrnimmt. Am Anfang glauben alle noch an eine logische Erklärung, bis in Nathalie der Gedanke aufkeimt, dass sie manipuliert wird. Wem kann sie noch trauen? Eine Jagd zwischen Realität und Wahn beginnt, aus der es scheinbar kein Entkommen gibt.

Lauren Pailing is born in the '60s, and a child of the '70s. She is 13 years old the first time she dies. Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the '80s, becomes a Londoner in the '90s. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her - while Lauren enters a brand new life, too. But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him. And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found....

The conclusion of the Amazon and Audible best-selling Halfhero series. When The Deterrent comes out of hiding and kidnaps the titans, it triggers the biggest manhunt in history. On one side, the military might of the United States and Air Commodore Fiona Bardock, Britain’s most talented investigator. On the other, three halfheroes, one human and a puddle of slime. Daniel Harbin hopes to get through this alive and track down the children he never knew existed. What no one realises is they’re about to confront the greatest danger of all.

Writing in England at the turn of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton was dubbed the "prince of paradox" for addressing serious questions with his light, whimsical style. In this classic allegory, which has captivated generations since it was first published in 1908, Chesterton tackles such profound concepts as honor, truth, and God with insightful humor and colorful enigma.

Max Pzoras is the poster child for the American dream. The child of Greek immigrants who grew up in a dangerous New York housing project, he triumphed over his upbringing and became a successful Wall Street analyst. Yet on the frigid December night that his mother dies of cancer and he's involved in a violent street scuffle, Max begins to confront the nagging questions he has about life. He begins his search for answers by impulsively traveling to India, first to the foothills of the Himalayas and then to an ashram in the drought-stricken south.

Mary and Eddie are meant for each other - but love is no guarantee, not in these suburbs. Like all children, they exist in an eternal present; time is imminent, and the adults of the street live in their assorted houses like numbers on a clock. Meanwhile, ominous rumors circulate, and the increasing agitation of the neighbors points to a future in which all will be lost. Soon a sorcerer's car will speed down Mary's street, and as past and future fold into each other, the resonant parenthesis of her girlhood will close forever. Beyond is adulthood.

Three-year-old Vangie is mute and unresponsive. She shows no interest in the people or world around her, much to the frustration of her callous foster parents. Little do they know, Vangie is otherwise occupied observing “ghosts”—an infinite number of versions of herself, in an infinite number of parallel universes. When a tornado hits their trailer and Vangie is severely injured, she makes a desperate leap into another timeline where she survives the tornado, but her foster parents do not.

Antoine, la quarantaine, est expert en assurances. Depuis longtemps, trop longtemps, il estime, indemnise la vie des autres. Une nuit, il s'intéresse à la valeur de la sienne et nous entraîne au cœur de notre humanité. Du nord de la France à la côte ouest du Mexique, "On ne voyait que le bonheur" offre aussi une plongée dans le monde de l'adolescence, pays de tous les dangers et de toutes les promesses.