The multiple-award-winning science fiction master returns to the universe that is his greatest triumph--the world of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion --with a novel even more magnificent than its predecessors. Dan Simmons's Hyperion was an immediate sensation on its first publication in 1989. This staggering multifaceted tale of the far future heralded the conquest of the science fiction field by a man who had already won the World Fantasy Award for his first novel (Song of Kali) and had also published one of the most well-received horror novels in the field, Carrion Comfort. Hyperion went on to win the Hugo Award as Best Novel, and it and its companion volume, The Fall of Hyperion, took their rightful places in the science fiction pantheon of new classics. Now, six years later, Simmons returns to this richly imagined world of technological achievement, excitement, wonder and fear. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror--an instant candidate for the field's highest honors. From the Paperback edition.

Private dick Herald Childe is sent a snuff movie of his partner being hideously murdered. His pursuit of the killers leads him into a waking nightmare of sexual brutality and supernatural bestiality, as he becomes with sex-starved she-ghosts, snake-women, a filthy human sow, and a woman who gives birth to a limbless, ectoplasmic simulacrum of satanic child-killer Gilles de Rais. In IMAGE OF THE BEAST and its sequel, BLOWN--both published in this volume-science fiction great Philip Jose Farmer conjures up a universe populated by creatures from the darkest recesses of the human imagination. Philip Jose Farmer is the best-selling author of the Riverworld series, and winner of several Hugo awards for innovations in science fiction.

It’s 2088, and having testified in a gangland murder trial, nowhere on Earth is safe for Louise. Witness Protection has organized a new identity and a marriage contract for her on the mining colony of Esther, one of the moons circling Jupiter. The man who meets her there is not the groom she expected. Adam Elliot is neither sweet nor sincere, and he looks like he was hosed off a barroom floor. But soon a memorial service reveals Adam’s soft underbelly. Throw some stellar sex into the mix and the two decide that maybe marriage to each other might not be so bad after all. But an assassin is already at work. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues on the planet’s frozen surface. Louise is determined to live long enough to draw the maniac away from the husband she might just have fallen for. A Romantica® futuristic erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

Alone on the battlefield. Surrounded by death. Cornered by enemies. And ready to die. Drizzt Do’Urden has become the Hunter, the bane of the orc hordes still ravaging the North. Cut off, alone, convinced that everything he ever valued has been destroyed, all that’s left is to kill, and kill, and kill, until there are no enemies left. But there are a lot of enemies, and even the Hunter is just one lone drow.

In The Two Swords, Obould's horde has pressed the Companions to the very gates of Mithral Hall, where Bruenor and his clan launch a desperate, last-ditch effort to push the orcs back. A desperate rescue attempt succeeds, with Drizzt and Innovindil rescuing the latter's pegasus, which Obould had captured and chained as a trophy, and Drizzt is unexpectedly reunited with the Companions that he long thought dead. The only major plot line to be tied up in this novel is the question of what Drizzt will do about his relationship with Catti-brie. Other than that, The Two Swords resolves a few minor plot threads. Drizzt and the surface elf Innovindil bring their quest for the captured pegasus to a conclusion. A few more characters meet their demise in this novel.

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a dampener on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle. Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

Matthew's parents are worried. At eleven, he's much too old to have an imaginary friend, yet they find him talking to and arguing with a presence that even he admits is not physically there. This presence - Chocky - causes Matthew to ask difficult questions and say startling things: he speaks of complex mathematics and mocks human progress. Then, when Matthew does something incredible, it seems there is more than the imaginary about Chocky. Which is when others become interested and ask questions of their own: who is Chocky? And what could it want with an eleven-year-old boy?

For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the 23rd century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren't supposed to.

An online dating service may have pronounced Felicity "unmatchable" but she's determined-and destined-to find her perfect mate. All it takes is a mystical deck of Tarot cards and suddenly she's in 17th-century Scotland, smitten by a warrior who must make a daring choice: send Felicity back to her own time, or endanger both their lives.

The final diagnosis. A look at the workings of a modern day hospital through the lens of the pathologists department.

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About A Martian Odyssey by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum "A Martian Odyssey" is a science fiction story by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum. Plot Summary: Early in the 21st century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing, the four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship's American chemist, sets out south in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis' rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions. Rather than sit and wait for rescue, Jarvis decides to walk back north to the Ares. Just after crossing into the Mare Chronium, Jarvis comes across a tentacled Martian creature attacking a large birdlike creature. He notices that the birdlike Martian is carrying a bag around its neck, and recognizing it as an intelligent being, saves it from the tentacled monstrosity. The rescued creature refers to itself as Tweel. Tweel accompanies Jarvis on his trip back to the Ares, in the course of which it manages to pick up some English, although Jarvis is unable to make any sense of Tweel's language. At first, Tweel travels in tremendous, city-block-long leaps that end with its long beak buried in the ground, but upon seeing Jarvis trudge along, walks beside him.

Owen and Bethany try to find their way back to each other after the fictional and nonfictional worlds are torn apart in this fifth and final book in the New York Times bestselling series, Story Thieves—which was called a “fast-paced, action-packed tale” by School Library Journal—from the author of the Half Upon a Time trilogy. Bethany and Owen have failed. The villain they have come to know as Nobody has ripped asunder the fictional and nonfictional worlds, destroying their connection. Bethany has been split in two, with her fictional and nonfictional selves living in the separate realms. But weirdly, no one seems to mind. Owen—and every other nonfictional person—have lost their imaginations, so they can’t picture their lives any differently. Then Owen gets trapped in a dark, dystopian reality five years in the future, where nothing is needed more desperately than the power to imagine. Fictional Bethany is thrilled to be training with her father as his new sidekick, Twilight Girl—until she realizes that the fictional reality will fade away completely without the nonfictional world to hold it together. In this final installment of the genre-bending Story Thieves series, Owen and Bethany will be forced to risk everything to defeat Nobody and save multiple realities.

In this hyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive novel, Japan’s most popular (and controversial) fiction writer hurtles into the consciousness of the West. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World draws readers into a narrative particle accelerator in which a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind. From the Trade Paperback edition.