Sinister Regard: 8 books

Perry Slaughter’s work has been called “dismayingly sexist” and “what you might get if Philip K. Dick and Chuck Palahniuk raised a special-needs baby.” His characters, grappling as they do with issues of manhood and violence, are not what one would generally regard as romantics, and yet...

Though a major chess and computer nerd, Sam Pauling has nonetheless managed to score a date with Kate Fitzhugh, the most beautiful girl at school. The budding romance is barely off the ground, however, before Sam finds himself caught up against his will with the local party crowd and their decadent...

With the computer called ARTHUR, Cliff Peabody has made a major breakthrough in artificial intelligence. It should be the most triumphant event of his professional career—but why, then, is the federal government invading his laboratories? Why is half the country suffering an inexplicable power...

America as we know it is no more. Forty years ago, a military experiment in nanotechnology ran amok, wiping out most of North America and rendering it an uninhabitable plain of silvery goo. To set one foot in that silent tide is to suffer immediate disassembly into one’s constituent molecules....

For a decade and a half, old Bert Dram has crisscrossed the world in his capacity as propmaster for Jacques Paine’s famous traveling theater troupe. He has seen sights to gladden the heart and to chill the blood, entertained paupers and princes, encountered magic both bright and dark. But never...

Finalist for the 2015 Association for Mormon Letters Award “This just may be my favorite true-life amazing-but-true tale—never has threatening an aircraft been funnier or more thought-provoking.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Homeland “I devoured the more than...

When high-tech partycrashers swarm his exclusive soirée high above the floodways of New York City, billionaire inventor Pell Franziskaner can't be sure whether it's a garden-variety annoyance or a prelude to murder. His own. Environment, economics, and augmented reality collide in this tale...

Elder Rigby is a young Mormon from Utah serving a mission in northern Idaho, though to him it's more like serving a prison sentence. He and his partner, Elder Crews, do their best to fill their days with meaningful work, but there are only so many doorbells in a small town like Bonners Ferry. Then,...