<|endoftext|> was the worst: a high, thin screaming, muffled because her mouth was now on the inside of her body, but still she screamed.��
The Stolen, by Bishop O��Connell
This debut novel contains a whole menagerie of Fey beasties that go bump in the night. O��Connell is always meticulously faithful to the Irish mythological roots he draws from, down to the proper Gaelic names. The most frightening creatures in this novel are not the hell hounds who hunt down the hero and heroine, but the Oiche, the dark Fey, who are terrifying in part because they resemble children. The cognitive dissonance of seeing murder and sexual violence perpetrated by characters who are the height and build of a ten-year-old is haunting, and grounds us firmly in the ancient Celtic fairy tradition that these beings are hardly child��s play.
Hatchling, from Lips Touch Three Times, by Laini Taylor
All three of the novellas in this omnibus collection play upon some aspect of the supernatural, but the final story, Hatchling, is by far the creepiest. Changeling stories always imply a question: why would the fairies want to take a human child? The answer in Hatchling is both relatable and chilling. For the immortal Fey, nothing is more fascinating than someone young—so they keep human children as pets. These are kids who are petted and groomed but never loved, which makes the story more disturbing than if they were tortured. While ostensibly YA, Taylor��s book might be too much for some young readers, particularly the scene where the fey Queen and King forcibly ��breed�� their now grown human captives to create the next generation of pets. Taylor��s Fey have the power to take possession of any human who looks at them: ��They can use your eyes as windows and climb inside you, shoving their dark animus into your soul and filling it, like brutal fingers thrust into a child��s glove.�� Taylor��s prose lingers in the mind because of the contrast of luminously beautiful language used to describe the ugliest of things. It��s the perfect metaphor for fairies.
Unveiled is available now.<|endoftext|>HONG KONG (Reuters) - China is producing far more carbon dioxide than previous estimates and this will frustrate global aims to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gases, a group of U.S. economists said.
A man rides his bicycle across a pedestrian bridge as cars travel on the road below in Beijing January 2, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray
China is the world��s second-largest emitter of CO2 and some studies suggest it might already have overtaken the United States last year. The report could add to calls for China to sign up to binding cuts, something it has refused to do.
Writing in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego said China��s CO2 emissions will grow at least 11 percent annually between 2004 and 2010.
Previous estimates, including those used by the U.N.��s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions during the same period.
The release of the article comes as energy and environment ministers from the world��s 20 major greenhouse gas emitting nations prepare to meet in Japan from Friday to discuss climate change, clean energy and sustainable development.
The G20, ranging from top polluters the United States and China to Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, emit about 80 percent of mankind��s greenhouse gases.
Pressure is growing on these nations to hammer out a pact to halt and reverse growing emissions of CO2, the main gas blamed for global warming.
In the journal report, the U.S. researchers said that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in China over levels in 2000.
They said that figure from China alone would overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol during the pact��s 2008-2012 first commitment phase.
China is not obliged under Kyoto to cut greenhouse gas emissions during 2008-12. But it joined nearly 190 nations in Bali in December in agreeing to launch two years of U.N.-led talks to create a global emissions-fighting pact to replace Kyoto from 2013.
The authors used pollution data from 30 provinces and China��s official waste gas emissions data to get a more detailed picture of CO2 emissions up to 2004.
��It had been expected that the efficiency of China��s power generation would continue to improve as per-capita income increased, slowing down the rate of CO2 emissions growth,�