All Sergeant Evrial Yara wanted was to protect the young emperor from those plotting to kill him. Joining forces with a group of notorious outlaws wasn’t part of the plan, especially not when one of them is determined to charm her out of her uniform at every turn. Working with the criminals might have been worth it if their efforts had saved the emperor, but it seems he’s not the rightful heir to the throne.... Evrial may have thrown away her career for nothing. To make matters worse, fate isn’t going to give her time to calmly decide what to do next. While she’s traveling back to the capital with Amaranthe Lokdon and the rest of the outlaws, Evrial uncovers artifacts that have been smuggled aboard their steamboat. They’re deadly enough to threaten the entire city, perhaps the entire empire. Oh, and they could kill everybody on board the boat too. These scenarios just weren’t discussed in the Enforcer Academy. This 56,000-word novella takes place between Books 5 and 6 in the Emperor’s Edge series.

The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg Asimov wrote the short story "The Ugly Little Boy" in 1958. But in the novel of the same name, also known as Child of Time, there is much more to the story of the little Neanderthal boy plucked out of time and transferred to the 21st century. Now, Robert Silverberg--in this second collaboration with Asimov--has made this sf classic into an engrossing novel-length tale.

William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date . . .The Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Enter Gibson's unique world--lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting--where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace.  Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell.  Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer.  Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known.  And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

"My new favorite book of all time." —Bill Gates "A terrific book...[Pinker] recounts the progress across a broad array of metrics, from health to wars, the environment to happiness, equal rights to quality of life." —The New York TimesThe follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows...

This novel is a stand-alone story which takes two extraordinary characters and follows them as they, independently, begin to unravel some of the greatest mysteries of our universe. Their missions are dangerous, and they are all venturing into the unknown ... and if they can uncover the secret to faster-than-light travel then new worlds will be at our fingertips.

A masterwork by Philip K. Dick, this is the final, expanded version of the novellla The Unteleported Man, which Dick worked on shortly before his death. In Lies, Inc., fans of the science fiction legend will immediately recognize his hallmark themes of life in a security state, conspiracy, and the blurring of reality and illusion. This publication marks its first complete appearance in the United States. In this wry, paranoid vision of the future, overpopulation has turned cities into cramed industrial anthills. For those sick of this dystopian reality, one corporation, Trails of Hoffman, Inc., promises an alternative: Take a teleport to Whale's Mouth, a colonized planet billed as the supreme paradise. The only catch is that you can never comeback. When a neurotic man named Rachmael ben Applebaum discovers that the promotional films of happy crowds cheering their newfound existence on Whale's Mouth are faked, he decides to pilot a scapeship on the eighteen-year journey there to see if anyone wants to return. From the Trade Paperback edition.

A Tragic Disappearance After a harrowing otherworldly confrontation on the shores of Exmouth, Massachusetts, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is missing, presumed dead. A Shocking Return Sick with grief, Pendergast's ward, Constance, retreats to her chambers beneath the family mansion at 891 Riverside Drive - only to be taken captive by a shadowy figure from the past. An International Manhunt Proctor, Pendergast's longtime bodyguard, springs to action, chasing Constance's kidnapper through cities, across oceans, and into wastelands unknown. But in a World of Black and White, Nothing Is as It Seems And by the time Proctor discovers the truth, a terrifying engine has stirred - and it may already be too late....

The Pirates of Zan is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster, originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1959 as "The Pirates of Ersatz". It was nominated for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Novel. It first appeared in book form in 1959 as one component of an Ace Double, bound with Leinster's The Mutant Weapon; This edition was reissued in 1971. A German translation was issued in hardcover in 1962, an Italian translation appeared in 1968, and the Dutch translation was published in 1972

Crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer has long been one of the most popular characters in Known Space. Now, for the first time ever, Larry Niven brings together all the Beowulf Shaeffer stories--including a brand-new one--in one long tale of exploration and adventure! PLUS--an all-new framing story that pulls together all of Beowulf Shaeffer's adventures and allows Shaeffer and his family to make a clean start at life once and for all! Contents: 1 • Ghost • [Known Space] • novelette by Larry Niven 8 • Neutron Star • [Known Space] • (1966) • novelette by Larry Niven 32 • At the Core • [Known Space] • (1966) • novelette by Larry Niven 57 • Flatlander • [Known Space] • (1967) • novelette by Larry Niven 107 • Grendel • [Known Space] • (1968) • shortstory by Larry Niven 160 • The Borderland of Sol • [Known Space] • (1975) • novelette by Larry Niven 213 • Procrustes • [Known Space] • (1993) • novella by Larry Niven

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

They are the last generation, the innocent victims of an accidental war, living out their last days, making do with what they have, hoping for a miracle. As the deadly rain moves ever closer, the world as we know it winds toward an inevitable end…

A warrior with a talent that could get him killed A girl transported to a new existence with no warning When the two of them trade lives, it places them in mortal peril. Not to mention really screwing up their love lives! Will they ever be able to get back in their rightful bodies? Or have they been forever…Switched? What happens when you wake up in someone else’s body? And what if that someone happens to be a huge, hot, Alien warrior? Frankie is about to find out…the hard way. Kerov knows his people used to have the ability to Switch bodies with their bonded mates, but he has no idea who the girl in his head is. And the fact that she’s controlling his body goes beyond awkward…it could be lethal if anyone finds out. On his home planet of Tarsia, Switching is a crime punishable by death. But there are worse things than dying as he finds out when he gets stuck in Frankie’s body as well. What is a Brazilian bikini wax anyway? And why does he have to remove his pants to get one? Will Frankie and Kerov ever get back to their own bodies? And what do the steamy dreams they’ve been sharing have to do with their destinies? You’ll have to read Switched, Brides of the Kindred 17, to find out.

Scholastic's next multi-platform mega-event begins here! History is broken, and three kids must travel back in time to set it right! When best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste stumble upon the secret of time travel -- a hand-held device known as the Infinity Ring -- they're swept up in a centuries-long secret war for the fate of mankind. Recruited by the Hystorians, a secret society that dates back to Aristotle, the kids learn that history has gone disastrously off course.Now it's up to Dak, Sera, and teenage Hystorian-in-training Riq to travel back in time to fix the Great Breaks . . . and to save Dak's missing parents while they're at it. First stop: Spain, 1492, where a sailor named Christopher Columbus is about to be thrown overboard in a deadly mutiny!

"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race. In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal

Fifteen-year-old Morwenna lives in Wales with her twin sister and a mother who spins dark magic for ill. One day, Mori and her mother fight a powerful, magical battle that kills her sister and leaves Mori crippled. Devastated, Mori flees to her long-lost father in England. Adrift, outcast at boarding school, Mori retreats into the worlds she knows best: her magic and her books. She works a spell to meet kindred souls and continues to devour every fantasy and science fiction novel she can lay her hands on. But danger lurks... She knows her mother is looking for her and that when she finds her, there will be no escape.