Böcker av Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Winner of the 1989 Nebula Award Award for Best Novel of 1988. "A brutal and beautiful book" that follows the surreal, fantastical journey of a Vietnam War nurse (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).A literary departure for acclaimed fantasy author Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War draws on her personal experience as an army nurse in Da Nang to create a classic novel of the Vietnam War, enriched with a magical, mystical twist.Lt. Kitty McCulley, a young and inexperienced nurse tossed into a stressful and chaotic situation, is having a difficult time reconciling her duty to help and heal with the indifference and overt racism of some of her colleagues, and with the horrendously damaged soldiers and Vietnamese civilians she encounters during her service at the China Beach medical facilities. She is unexpectedly helped by the mysterious and inexplicable properties of an amulet, given to her by one of her patients, an elderly, dying Vietnamese holy man, which allows her to see other people's "auras" and to understand more about them as a result. This eventually leads to a strange, almost surrealistic journey through the jungle, accompanied by a one-legged boy and a battle-seasoned but crazed soldier-as McCulley struggles to find herself and a way to survive through the madness and destruction.

What is War? Nobody can really say."Everybody was in a different War. Nobody's War is quite the same as anyone else's."These words were from a Vietnam Veteran counselor.Truer words have never been spoken, so in this book we don't try to answer the question.Instead we bring you thoughtful stories not only of War, but the people affected, and the aftermath.In this book you'll find stories of alternative Wars as imagined by 26 authors of speculative fiction. Perhaps some of them will provide some insight into why we keep repeating what simply seems like a really bad idea.

Queen Verity is queen only because her mother has said she has to be. She agrees because, after all, somebody has to liberate the dragons who have long toiled in the boiler room bowels of the city. Now that they are free, nobody has any idea what to do with them or how to feed them.Everyone is used to dragons being docile cogs in the machinery of industry, tamed into tranquility by food treated with a hypnotic tranquilizer, now largely destroyed, leaving a lot of huge hungry beasts roving the capital city of Queenston. Verity needs to act fast, before the dragons remember what dragons once did to feed themselves.The crown has scarcely mussed her hair before her political enemies have her shanghaied and sold to an outward bound vessel, leaving the kingdom to the random mercies of her erstwhile assistant, Malady Hyde.

The Tour Bus of Doom rolls into a small coastal town, spewing zombies to rampage down the main street. To the beat of eerie drum music, they loot, kidnap, and zombie-fy innocent citizens. Spam the cat, self-appointed feline defender of the town, watches in horror from the rooftops. When the zombies abduct Spam''s jeweler friend and take over the nursing home, Spam is certain they are also responsible for the disappearance of his next-door neighbor Mr. Barker, partner of retired police dog, Officer Bubba. Then Marigold, Spam''s half sister, reports that her human family, who went missing while on a mission of mercy to earthquake ravaged Haiti, has finally returned home, just long enough to take their valuables. And They. Don''t. Even. Recognize. Her.All of that is dire enough, but then the zombies go too far and take over the bodies of the owner and server at Spam''s favorite fish''n''chips place. Searching for help from his vampire friend Maddog, Spam meets a new cat in town, the sinuous Havana Brown Erzullie, who arrived with the zombies. Aided (sort of) by her, Renfrew the raccoon, the urban deer cat taxi service, Rocky the vampcat, and his half-siblings Marigold and Mat, the heroic feline must investigate, before the zombie apocalyps-o destroys not only his town, but his home and his beloved Darcy.Just when he thinks he may have the situation well in paw, the zombie hunters from Seattle arrive, responding to a bounty on the heads of the zombies. What they don''t realize is that they have the wrong brand of zombies, the un-plagued un-dead, who could revive as long as they keep their heads.

In these stories, a parade of fascinating felines tell tales of their lives. Guinevere''s cat, Gray Jane, tells what really happened at Camelot from her cat''s eye view atop the queen''s canopy bed. An Egyptologist''s cat, Shuttle, wards off a vengeful mummy by doing a favor for Bastet, the cat goddess. A Scottish cat, Tinkler Tam, stalks body snatchers through a gothic Edinburgh. Mu Mao the Magnificent, a bodhisattva cat who is the last tomcat in the world, searches for a mate in one story while in three others he assists his fellow felines during the transition to their next incarnations. A murdered cat named Mustard returns to avenge himself on his killer and protect his former household. The old soldier hero of a fairy tale discovers the secret of the 12 dancing princesses with the help of his trusty cat companion, Captain Shadow. These are the stories mother cats tell their kittens to provide them with role models, inspiring them to hold their heads and tails high.

A PURRANORMAL MYSTERY Spam and the other cats at website designer Darcy Dupres'' house are frantic with worry. Darcy walked out the door two (missed) wet meals ago and didn''t return or send anyone else to look after her beloved furry friends. The other cats think she has abandoned them, but her office cat and (unbeknownst to her) protégé, Spam, suspects darker forces are at work.Darcy''s last project was helping a suspicious character who called himself Marcel deMontreal with a dating website for vampires and the women who dig them. Darcy thought Marcel was playing and besides, he paid her a lot of kitty litter to design the site.But before she can finish, the self-proclaimed vampire announces that he is coming to visit, and Darcy disappears. That and the-duh-black billowy figure with the white face and red eyes peering through the window seem like a dead giveaway to Spam.U