Lexicon: A Novel by Max Barry (English) Paperback Book

Description: Lexicon by Max Barry "About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell. Lexicon reads like Elmore Leonard high out of his mind on Snow Crash." —Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King"Best thing Ive read in a long time . . . a masterpiece." —Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of WoolStick and stones break bones. Words kill.They recruited Emily Ruff from the streets. They said it was because shes good with words.Theyll live to regret it.They said Wil Parke survived something he shouldnt have. But he doesnt remember.Now theyre after him and he doesnt know why.Theres a word, they say. A word that kills.And they want it back . . . FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Max Barry is the author of four previous novels, Syrup, Jennifer Government, Company, and Machine Man. He lives in Melbourne, Australia. Review A New York Times Summer Beach ReadAn Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Pick June 2013A Best of June iBookstore PickA Time Magazine "What to Read Now" PickA Huffington Post Best Book of Summer 2013A Salon "Summers Best Reads"A Hollywood Reporter "Buzzy Books for Hollywoods Reading List"A Pittsburgh Post Gazette Beach ReadA Kirkus Ten Best Novels for Summer Reading 2013"A dark, dystopic grabber in which words are treated as weapons, and the villainous types have literary figures names. Plath, Yeats, Eliot and Woolf all figure in this ambitious, linguistics-minded work of futurism." —Janet Maslin, New York Times "Imagine, if you will, a secret group of people called Poets who have the power to control others simply by speaking to them. Barry has, and the result is an extraordinarily fast, funny, cerebral thriller." —Time Magazine "Imagine blending the works of Neal Stephenson with Michael Chabon and the end result would come close to the world envisioned by Barry. The words brilliant and exemplary arent adequate enough to convey the amazing craft of Lexicon." —Associated Press "A clever blend of sci-fi and thriller, with touches of romance and humor . . . persuaded me anew that words are, indeed, the bomb." —Dallas Morning News"Its a pitch-perfect thriller, a jetpack of a plot that rocketed me from page one to page 400 in a single afternoon, and it kept me guessing right up to the end. Imagine Dan Brown written by someone a lot smarter and better at characterization and at hand-waving the places where the science shades into science fiction, and youve got something like Lexicon." —Cory Doctorow, Boingboing.net "[A] speedy, clever, dialogue-rich thriller." —Salon "A crazily inventive conspiracy thriller." —io9.com"Brazen and brilliant" —The Wichita Eagle "Mind-bending . . . an action novel that nicely exercises the brain as well as the heart rate." —Shelf Awareness "A large helping of both action and thought . . . anyone who knows 1984 will remember the fanger of allowing people to love each other—but Barry handles it with skill." —Infodad.com "An absolutely first-rate, suspenseful thriller with convincing characters who invite readers empathy and keep them turning pages until the satisfying conclusion." —Booklist (starred) "A scary and satisfying blend of thriller, dystopia, and horror." —Library Journal "An up-all-night thriller for freaks and geeks who want to see their wizards all grown up in the real world and armed to the teeth in a bloody story." —Kirkus (starred) "[An] ambitious satirical thriller… amuses as much as it shocks." —Publishers Weekly "The sort of thriller that pricks real-world anxieties about privacy and coercion while rushing on with an outlandish clockwork plot. Lexicons clockwork is excellent, too: The book succeeds largely through Barrys skill in managing his reader and his plot, suspending disbelief by intercutting a pair of storylines until they inevitably intersect. He always chooses immersion over exposition, letting his reader feel his way through the Chomskian mix of surveillance-society paranoia and linguistic geekiness." —Philadelphia City Paper "I bid you, read this book . . . Not that much of anything is certain in this blistering literary thriller. Lexicon twists and turns like a lost language, creating tension and expectations, systematically suggesting and then severing connections." —Tor.com "About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell. Lexicon reads like Elmore Leonard high out of his mind on Snow Crash." —Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King "Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An absolutely thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling characters in an eerily credible parallel society, punctuated by bouts of laugh-out-loud humor." —Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Expats "Dazzling and spectacularly inventive. A novel that jams itself sideways into your brain and stays there." —Mike Carey, author of The Devil You Know "I dont know how you could craft a better weekend read than this novel of international intrigue and weaponized Chomskian linguistics. Its the perfect mix of philosophical play and shotgun-inflected chase scenes. Like someone let Grant Morrison loose on the Bourne identity franchise." —Austin Grossman, author of Soon I Will be Invincible "Insanely good. Dark and twisted and sweet and humane all at once." —Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City and The Shining Girls "Best thing Ive read in a long, long time." —Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool Review Quote A New York Times Summer Beach Read An Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Pick June 2013 A Best of June iBookstore Pick A Time Magazine "What to Read Now" Pick A Huffington Post Best Book of Summer 2013 A Salon "Summers Best Reads" A Hollywood Reporter "Buzzy Books for Hollywoods Reading List" A Pittsburgh Post Gazette Beach Read A Kirkus Ten Best Novels for Summer Reading 2013 "A dark, dystopic grabber in which words are treated as weapons, and the villainous types have literary figures names. Plath, Yeats, Eliot and Woolf all figure in this ambitious, linguistics-minded work of futurism." -Janet Maslin, New York Times "Imagine, if you will, a secret group of people called Poets who have the power to control others simply by speaking to them. Barry has, and the result is an extraordinarily fast, funny, cerebral thriller." - Time Magazine "Imagine blending the works of Neal Stephenson with Michael Chabon and the end result would come close to the world envisioned by Barry. The words brilliant and exemplary arent adequate enough to convey the amazing craft of Lexicon ." -Associated Press "A clever blend of sci-fi and thriller, with touches of romance and humor… persuaded me anew that words are, indeed, the bomb." -Dallas Morning News "Its a pitch-perfect thriller, a jetpack of a plot that rocketed me from page one to page 400 in a single afternoon, and it kept me guessing right up to the end. Imagine Dan Brown written by someone a lot smarter and better at characterization and at hand-waving the places where the science shades into science fiction, and youve got something like Lexicon ." - Cory Doctorow, Boingboing.net "[A] speedy, clever, dialogue-rich thriller." -Salon "A crazily inventive conspiracy thriller." -io9.com "Brazen and brilliant" -The Wichita Eagle "Mind-bending... an action novel that nicely exercises the brain as well as the heart rate." - Shelf Awareness "A large helping of both action and thought… anyone who knows 1984 will remember the fanger of allowing people to love each other-but Barry handles it with skill." -Infodad.com "An absolutely first-rate, suspenseful thriller with convincing characters who invite readers empathy and keep them turning pages until the satisfying conclusion." -Booklist (starred) "A scary and satisfying blend of thriller, dystopia, and horror." - Library Journal "An up-all-night thriller for freaks and geeks who want to see their wizards all grown up in the real world and armed to the teeth in a bloody story." -Kirkus (starred) "[An] ambitious satirical thriller… amuses as much as it shocks." -Publishers Weekly "The sort of thriller that pricks real-world anxieties about privacy and coercion while rushing on with an outlandish clockwork plot. Lexicon s clockwork is excellent, too: The book succeeds largely through Barrys skill in managing his reader and his plot, suspending disbelief by intercutting a pair of storylines until they inevitably intersect. He always chooses immersion over exposition, letting his reader feel his way through the Chomskian mix of surveillance-society paranoia and linguistic geekiness." -Philadelphia City Paper "I bid you, read this book… Not that much of anything is certain in this blistering literary thriller. Lexicon twists and turns like a lost language, creating tension and expectations, systematically suggesting and then severing connections." -Tor.com "About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell. Lexicon reads like Elmore Leonard high out of his mind on Snow Crash ." - Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King " Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An absolutely thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling characters in an eerily credible parallel society, punctuated by bouts of laugh-out-loud humor." - Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Expats "Dazzling and spectacularly inventive. A novel that jams itself sideways into your brain and stays there." - Mike Carey, author of The Devil You Know "I dont know how you could craft a better weekend read than this novel of international intrigue and weaponized Chomskian linguistics. Its the perfect mix of philosophical play and shotgun-inflected chase scenes. Like someone let Grant Morrison loose on the Bourne identity franchise." - Austin Grossman, author of Soon I Will be Invincible "Insanely good. Dark and twisted and sweet and humane all at once." -Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City and The Shining Girls "Best thing Ive read in a long, long time." - Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool Excerpt from Book A Time Top 10 Fiction Book of 2013 An NPR Best Book of 2013 A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013 A Goodreads Best Book of 2013 An iTunes Best Science Fiction Book of 2013 An IndieNext Great Reads Pick July 2013 A New York Times Summer Beach Read An Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Pick June 2013 A Best of June iBookstore Pick A Time "What to Read Now" Pick A Vogue Best Summer Mystery Read A Huffington Post Best Book of Summer 2013 A Salon Summers Best Read A Hollywood Reporter Buzzy Books for Hollywoods Reading List Selection A Pittsburgh Post Gazette Beach Read A Kirkus Reviews Ten Best Novels for Summer Reading 2013 Every story written is marks upon a page The same marks, repeated, only differently arranged [I] Now when Ra, the greatest of the gods, was created, his father had given him a secret name, so awful that no man dared to seek for it, and so pregnant with power that all the other gods desired to know and possess it too. --F. H. BROOKSBANK, The Story of Ra and Isis [ONE] "Hes coming around." "Their eyes always do that." The world was blurry. There was a pressure in his right eye. He said, Urk . "Fuck!" "Get the--" "Its too late, forget it. Take it out." "Its not too late. Hold him." A shape grew in his vision. He smelled alcohol and stale urine. "Wil? Can you hear me?" He reached for his face, to brush away whatever was pressing there. "Get his--" Fingers closed around his wrist. "Wil, its important that you not touch your face." "Why is he conscious?" "I dont know." "You fucked something up." "I didnt. Give me that." A rustling. He said, Hnnn. Hnnnn. "Stop moving." He felt breath in his ear, hot and intimate. "There is a needle in your eyeball. Do not move." He did not move. Something trilled, something electronic. "Ah, shit, shit." "What?" "Theyre here." "Already?" "Two of them, it says. We have to go." "Im already in." "You cant do it while hes conscious. Youll fry his brain." "I probably wont." He said, "Pubbaleeese doo nut kill mee." An unsnapping of clasps. "Im doing it." "You cant do it while hes conscious, and were out of time, and he probably isnt even the guy." "If youre not helping, move out of the way." Wil said, "I . . . need . . . to . . . sneeze." "Sneezing would be a bad move at this point, Wil." Weight descended on his chest. His vision darkened. His eyeball moved slightly. "This may hurt." A snick . A low electronic whine. A rail spike drove into his brain. He screamed. "Youre toasting him." "Youre okay, Wil. Youre okay." "Hes . . . aw, hes bleeding from his eye." "Wil, I need you to answer a few questions. Its important that you answer truthfully. Do you understand?" No no no-- "First question. Would you describe yourself as more of a dog person or cat person?" What-- "Come on, Wil. Dog or cat?" "I cant read this. This is why we dont do it when theyre conscious." "Answer the question. The pain stops when you answer the questions." Dog! he screamed. Dog please dog! "Was that dog?" "Yeah. He tried to say dog." "Good. Very good. One down. Whats your favorite color?" Something chimed. "Fuck! Oh, fuck me!" "What?" "Wolfs here!" "That cant be right." "It says it right fucking here!" "Show me." Blue! he screamed into silence. "He responded. You see?" "Yes, I saw! Who cares? We have to leave. We have to leave. " "Wil, I want you to think of a number between one and a hundred." "Oh, Jesus." "Any number you like. Go on." I dont know-- "Concentrate, Wil." "Wolf is coming and youre dicking around with a live probe on the wrong guy. Think about what youre doing." Four I choose four-- "Four." "I saw it." "Thats good, Wil. Only two questions left. Do you love your family?" Yes no what kind of a-- "Hes all over the place." I dont have--I guess yes I mean yes everybody loves-- "Wait, wait. Okay. I see it. Christ, thats weird." "One more question. Why did you do it?" What--I dont-- "Simple question, Wil. Whyd you do it?" Do what do what what what-- "Borderline. As in, borderline on about eight different segments. Id be guessing." I dont know what you mean I didnt do anything I swear Ive never done anything to anyone except except I once knew a girl-- "There." "Yeah. Yeah, okay." A hand closed over his mouth. The pressure in his eyeball intensified, became a sucking. They were pulling out his eyeball. No: It was the needle, withdrawing. He shrieked, possibly. Then the pain was gone. Hands pulled him upward. He couldnt see. He wept for his poor abused eyeball. But it was still there. It was there. Blurry shapes loomed in fog. "What," Wil said. " Coarg medicity nighten comense ," said the taller shape. "Hop on one foot." Wil squinted, confused. "Huh," said the shorter shape. "Maybe it is him." * * * They filled a sink with water and pushed his face into it. He surfaced, gasping. "Dont soak his clothes," said the tall man. He was in a restroom. An airport. He had come off the 3:05 P.M. from Chicago, where the aisle seat had been occupied by a large man in a Hawaiian shirt Wil couldnt bear to wake. At first, the restroom had appeared closed for cleaning, but the janitor had removed the sign and Wil had jagged toward it gratefully. He had reached the urinal, unzipped, experienced relief. The door had opened. A tall man in a beige coat had come in. There were half a dozen free urinals, Wil at one end, but the man chose the one beside him. Moments passed and the tall man did not pee. Wil, emptying at high velocity, felt a twinge of compassion. He had been there. The door had opened again. A second man entered and locked the door. Wil had put himself back in his pants. He had looked at the man beside him, thinking--this was funny, in retrospect--that whatever was happening here, whatever specific danger was implied by a man entering a public restroom and fucking locking it, at least Wil and the tall man were in it together. At least it was two against one. Then he had realized Shy Bladder Guys eyes were calm and deep and kind of beautiful, actually, but the key point being calm as in unsurprised , and Shy Bladder Guy had seized his head and propelled him into the wall. Then the pain, and questions. "Have to get this blood out of his hair," said the short man. He attacked Wils face with paper towels. "His eye looks terrible." "If they get close enough to see his eyes, we have bigger problems." The tall man was wiping his hands with a small white cloth, giving attention to each finger. He was thin and dark-skinned and Wil was no longer finding his eyes quite so beautiful. He was getting more of a cold, soulless kind of vibe. Like those eyes could watch terrible things and not look away. "So, Wil, you with us? You can walk and talk?" "Fuck," he said, "orrffff." It didnt come out like he meant. His head felt loose. "Good," said the tall man. "So heres the deal. We need to get out of this airport in minimum time with minimum fuss. I want your cooperation with that. If I fail to receive it, Im going to make things bad for you. Not because I have anything against you, particularly, but I need you motivated. Do you understand?" "Im not . . ." He searched for the word. Rich? Kidnappable? "Anybody. Im a carpenter. I make decks. Balconies. Gazebos." "Yes, thats why were here, your inimitable work with gazebos. You can forget the act. We know who you are. And they know who you are, and theyre here , so lets get the fuck out while we can." He took a moment to choose his words, because he had the feeling he would get only one more shot at this. "My name is Wil Parke. Im a carpenter. I have a girlfriend and shes waiting out front to pick me up. I dont know who you think I am, or why you stuck a . . . a thing in my eye, but Im nobody. I promise you Im nobody." The short man had been packing equipment into a brown satchel, and now he slung it around one shoulder and peered into Wils face. He had thinning hair and anxious brows. Wil might have pegged him for an accountant, ordinarily. "I tell you what," Wil said. "Ill go into a stall and close the door. Twenty minutes. Ill wait twenty minutes. Itll be like we never met." The short man glanced at the tall man. "Im not the guy," Wil said. "I am not the guy." "The problem with that little plan, Wil," said the tall man, "is that if you stay here, in twenty minutes youll be dead. If you go to your girlfriend, who Im sorry to say you can no longer trust, youll also be dead. If you do anything other than come with us now, quickly and cooperatively, again, Im afraid, dead. It may not seem like it, but we are the onl Details ISBN0143125427 Short Title LEXICON Language English ISBN-10 0143125427 ISBN-13 9780143125426 Media Book Format Paperback Author Max Barry DEWEY FIC Residence AT Birth 1973 Year 2014 Publication Date 2014-04-01 Subtitle A Novel Place of Publication New York, NY Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2014-04-01 NZ Release Date 2014-04-01 US Release Date 2014-04-01 UK Release Date 2014-04-01 Pages 416 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:78671202;

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