It’s always nice to bump into promising books, but the bruises you may incur as you literally collide into the high stacks of the following new and upcoming blockbuster titles in the bookstore may not be what you had in mind. Also included here are a few potential or semi-blockbusters that’ll be in shorter stacks — just the inconspicuously right height for tripping over and landing flat on you’re face. Let's be careful out there this holiday season!And be careful to not stay up too late at night with the chill-inducing masters of horror. Then again, in Dean Koontz’s latest you’ll always have Odd Thomas to keep you company, except Koontz’s much-loved character in Brother Odd has holed up in monastery in California’s High Sierra with a killer running loose (due Nov. 28). More in the much-reviled category is the title character in Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Rising. This is essentially “Hannibal: The Early Years,” wherein we see him become the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France — and see him evolve with the help of a little extra-curricular education of a more invidious and insidious sort (Dec. 5).You never know in which literary direction the prolific and versatile Michael Crichton will go. With Next, he merges foreboding fact with frightful fiction as he extends to plausible possibilities the truth and consequences of our genetic world (Nov. 28). To allay any fears Crichton may cause, of course, we can always count on a soothingly escapist love story from Stephen King. Um, well... there is toned-down terror and a tender and transcendent side to Lisey’s Story of a coping widow. But do expect the expected supernatural element as Lisey feels strangely drawn to pursue otherworldly — and healing — clues to her husband’s disturbing past (Oct. 24). For love and romance of the more traditional variety, Daniel Steel rolls out the red carpet for H.R.H., and considers: How ya gonna keep her royal highness down in the imperial palace after she’s seen Berkeley? A restless Princess Christianna, despite her father’s stern wishes, takes her American education and awakened social consciousness to the far ends of a suffering world, determined to make a difference. And in the process, of course and incidentally, find true love (Oct. 31).
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
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