Oakley Hall

The arrival in San Francisco of three beautiful young suffragists could be linked to the murder of Reverend Divine, a famed advocate of spiritualism, the female vote, and temperance, and Ambrose Bierce and Tom Redmond join forces to investigate.

"In 1989, Oakley Hall published The Art and Craft of Novel Writing, a classic text that Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Stone called "simply the best book in print to examine the strategies and necessities involved in the making of a novel."" "In How Fiction Works, Hall has expanded and deepened his instruction, adding exercises and new examples as well as advice on all forms of fiction, including short stories, short-short stories and novels. He covers every fictive technique, from plot and characterization to word choice, voice and style." "The key to Hall's teaching method is his brilliant use of examples. Throughout the book, he emphasizes the importance of reading and evaluating fiction with an eye toward craft. To this end, he offers more than one hundred excerpts from literature, illustrating through analysis and advice how fiction works."--Jacket.

Journalist Ambrose Bierce searchs 1890s San Francisco for a missing Hawaiian princess as a fight is looming over who will be King Kalakaua's successor.

When the Morton Street Slasher leaves the corpses of his victims on the tangled gaslit streets near San Francisco's Union Square, he marks each body with a playing card. Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, the city's famed newspaperman, immediately blames the rash of murders on his sworn enemies, the Southern Pacific Railway magnates. Bierce and his young protege at the Hornet, Tom Redmond, set out to solve the case, uncovering conspiracy and corruption at every turn.

The Grand Canyon country of the 1880s is the setting of Oakley Hall's compelling new novel. As the plot unfolds, the West of the late nineteenth century is displayed in all its vastness and complexity. Hall carries us from the wild, perilous depths of the Canyon to the drawing rooms of San Francisco, from the desolate Mormon settlements and Indian camps of the Southwest to the haciendas of Old California. And he reveals once again his consummate power as a storyteller as he brings to life the fierce conflicts of the day - between rapacious mining and railroad barons eager to exploit the riches of the West and those who would preserve its beauty pristine; between Mormons and Gentiles; between land-hungry whites and beleaguered Indians; between men and the women they would love, and use. And the fiercest conflict of all - between man and nature.

The adventures of a tenderhearted lush who talks to horses, a red-headed stinkpot brat, a dwarf with a traveling pharmacy, a world-weary grizzly named Duke, an army of dark, violent riders, and perhaps even the Devil himself-- all are part of the magic of The Coming of the Kid. In this salty and irresistible fable, Oakley Hall pays homage to the legends of the Old West, serving them up with subversive good humor. This is the story of how the marvelous and long-awaited Kid, preceded by a host of phonies, is finally summoned to rescue the Territory from Big Mac, the outlaw king, and his corrupt followers. A gathering of unforgettable characters is heard from ; each tells his share of the tale, and each vivid new voice puts a new and uncanny angle on things. There is Henry "Holdfast" Plummer, the dark and puritanical marshal and whorehouse bounce; J.D. Dockerty, who falls off a horse with the glorious Milady-- with the golden Florrie as a consequence; the gentle Lieutenant Grace, who runs out of luck and is struck as blind as Oedipus; and there is the marvelous Kid-- found as a babe (some say) floating down the river in a coffin. With the abundant humor and skeptical affection that characterize the work of Mark Twain, Hall delivers a wonderfully gritty frontier landscape of dusty mesas and rockstrewn peaks, fabulous lost mines and Victorian castles. It's landscape peopled with sad, drunken cavalry and crazy Kimanches, shadowy madams and virginal schoolmarms, Chinese cooks and Frenchmen named Frenchie, and the ghosts of some wonderful characters that fans of the classic Warlock and The Bad Lands will recognize. A bawdy, magical and thoroughly engaging novel from the author of The Downhill Racers and The Children of the Sun -- Book jacket.

On the planet Warlock, Riss Lantee is trained in the secrets of the Wyvern and is the one man who can solve the mystery of a gem of unknown power.

The story of a successful used-car dealer who through selfishness has his world collapse around him.