Reviver Trilogy

A fascinating analysis of the first famous American to erase the boundary between real history and entertainment. Canada, and Europe. Crowds cheered as cowboys and Indians, and Annie Oakley, galloped past on spirited horses, sharpshooters exploded glass balls tossed high in the air, and cavalry troops arrived just in time to save a stagecoach from Indian attack. Vivid posters on billboards everywhere made William Cody, the show's originator and star, a world-renowned figure. Joy S. Kasson's important new book traces Cody's rise from scout to international celebrity, and shows how his image was shaped. Publicity stressed his show's "authenticity" yet audiences thrilled to its melodrama; fact and fiction converged in a performance that instantly became part of the American tradition. But how, precisely, did that come about? How, for example, did Cody use his audience's memories of the Civil War and the Indian wars? He boasted that his show included participants in the recent conflicts it presented theatrically, yet he also claimed it evoked "memories" of America's bygone greatness. Kasson's shrewd, engaging study-richly illustrated-in exploring the disappearing boundary between entertainment and public events in American culture, shows us just how we came to imagine our memories.

CSI meets The Sixth Sense in this compelling horror/thriller that has already been optioned by the producers of The Dark Knight Returns! JONAH MILLER, REVIVER. Able to wake the recently dead for testimony that is accepted in courts worldwide, the use of revivers has long been a routine part of police investigation. But now those who consider it blasphemy are in resurgence - well-funded and gaining ground, they threaten the work of Jonah and his colleagues in the Forensic Revival Service. Jonah is still recovering from the injuries received after unearthing the existence of a creature bent on terrible destruction, a creature defeated at the cost of many lives. Then the discovery of a bizarrely mutilated corpse makes Jonah suspect that the victory was not as complete as it seemed, and that not all the evil was destroyed. For in the darkness, shadows are waiting. And they are hungry . . .