First-class entertainment (The Sunday Times) from a classic SF author. En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist.

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters--or Freaks--who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight--guided by Fade's long-ago memories--in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs. Ann Aguirre's thrilling young adult novel is the story of two young people in an apocalyptic world--facing dangers, and feelings, unlike any they've ever known.

Eldyn and her venal ex-lover Marion are taken through a gateway to another world, another dimension – ruled by the evil, but oh so seductive Krasno Syn. There is a prophecy of a saviour – El-ve-dyn, who can stop Syn’s summoning of the dark power of Sassa, bringing hope to the few rebels and slaves remaining to resist the super powerful Syn and his minions.A Gender Switch Adventure.Everything was good. I was senior and I was dating the guy I'd been crazy about for, well, forever basically. Things were right on track and going just the way I wanted them too. We'd go off to college and get degrees and killer careers and get married and have 2.5 children and live out a suburban fairy tale.One night changed all that...along with everything I ever thought I knew.I know they say you can't go home again. I'm not really sure who 'they' are, but they're wrong. Like, wrong to the power of infinity. The thing of it is though, I thought I was home. As it turns out, I was also wrong to the power of infinity. I mean, imagine my surprise when an overly dramatic moment results in me falling through the worm hole, or a black hole, or a bunny hole...well, suffice it to say I fell into some kind of hole and ended up somewhere I never expected. I mean a wholly different place, and not metaphorically. Literally, another place. This would all be really awesome except that some...things...are after me. And there is this guy. Okay, there are two guys and I'm not sure which way is up anymore. One is perfect for me, everything you'd want in a guy.So why is it that I feel like someone is pulling me by a rope toward the other one?Only one thing is for sure. Everything I was ever certain of just went up in smoke.

Hugh Howey was a boat captain living aboard a seventy-four-foot yacht in the shadow of the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001. Imprisoned and put on display in a glass-domed zoo on the planet Tralfamadore, adult film actress Montana Wildhack is left alone with her thoughts and her occasional lover Billy Pilgrim. Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five, Howey uses this short story to weave his own personal Dresden experience with Wildhack’s private hell. In Peace in Amber, he examines the struggle to determine what to control, when to surrender, and how to discern those things we cannot change.

Steven Erikson has carved a name for himself among the pantheon of great fantasy writers. But his masterful storytelling and prose style go beyond the awe-inspiring Malazan world. In The Devil Delivered and Other Tales, Erikson tells three different, but captivating stories: "The Devil Delivered" tells a story set within the near future, where the land owned by the great Lakota Nation blisters beneath an ozone hole the size of the Great Plains. As the natural world falls victim to its wrath, and scientists scramble to understand it, a lone anthropologist wanders the deadlands, recording observations that threaten to bring the entire world to its knees. "Revolvo" takes place in an alternate Earth where evolution took an interesting turn and the arts scene is ruled by technocrats who thrive in a secret, nepotistic society of granting agencies, bursaries, and peer-review boards, all designed to permit self-proclaimed artists to survive without an audience. "Fishin' with Grandma Matchie" is told in the voice a nine-year-old boy, writing the story of his summer vacation. What starts as a typical recount of a trip to see Grandma quickly becomes a stunning fantastical journey into imagination and perception in the wild world that Grandma Matchie inhabits.

Betrayer (Foreigner, Book 12) The twelfth novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences… In the wake of civil war, Bren Cameron, the brilliant human diplomat of the alien atevi civilization, has left the capital and sought refuge at his country estate, Najida. But now he is trapped inside Najida—which has been surrounded by enemies—with Ilisidi, the powerful grandmother of his ally, Tabini-aiji, atevi leader of the Western Association. But Ilisidi, the wily and dangerous aiji-dowager, is not inclined to be passive, and in a brazen maneuver sends Bren into enemy territory, to the palace of Machigi, the leader of the rebels. Bren's mission is to negotiate with Machigi—a young atevi lord who has never actually seen a human—and somehow persuade him to cease his hostile actions against the West. Bren knows that the autocratic Machigi rules a fractious clan, and that his hospitality is not guaranteed. Bren's genius for negotiation enable him to make a daring trade offer to Machigi—one that seems to interest the young warlord. But Machigi is suspicious of Ilisidi's motives, and, to Bren's utter shock, evokes an ancient law that jeopardizes Bren's life. Can Bren stay alive and not alienate Ilisidi or Tabini, while also representing the interests of their enemy? The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Betrayer is the 12th Foreigner novel, and the 3rd book in the fourth subtrilogy.

(A story about clones, dinosaurs and the Concept of Benjamin Franklin).The Salmon Corporation owns the future, and they're in the habit of issuing impossible demands. Jacob White is told to bring certain historical figures back to life; success is expected. Which is a shame, because White can't do it.So begins the most elabourate bluff in history... and White's rewards will be blood and death.Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon is the novella-length preview to The Voyage of the Minotaur, The Dark and Forbidding Land, The Drache Girl, and the other books which make up the Senta and the Steel Dragon series. Set two years before the events in The Voyage of the Minotaur, Brechalon tells the story of the Kingdom of Greater Brechalon in a world that is not quite like our own Victorian Age. The Dechantagne siblings; Iolanthe, Augie, and Terrence plan an expedition to a distant land, hoping the colony they build will restore their family to the position of wealth and power it once had. Meanwhile the powerful sorceress Zurfina rots in an anti-magic prison, guilty of not serving the interests of the kingdom, and the orphan girl Senta Bly lives her life without the knowledge that she will one day grow up to be the sorceress’s apprentice. Senta and the Steel Dragon is a tale of adventure in a world of rifles and steam power, where magic and dragons have not been forgotten.

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones – but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation – claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra…

After failing to catch up with her daughter Jelena so many times, Alisa's optimism is battered, but her determination has never waned. She, Leonidas, and their eclectic crew are hunting down a Starseer research station in the heart of the Kir Asteroid belt—Jelena's supposed location. Alisa vows that she will find her daughter if she has to search a million asteroids to do so. But Jelena and her close friend, Prince Thorian, have attracted the interest of many factions, and the Star Nomad isn’t the only ship on the hunt…

On the floating city of Internment, you can be anything you dream, unless you approach the edge. Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close can lead to madness, like her older brother Len, a Jumper. She takes solace in her best friend Pen, and in Basil, the boy she’s engaged to marry. When she investigates the first murder in a generation, she meets Judas. The suspect was betrothed to the victim, but Morgan believes he is innocent. Nothing can prepare Morgan for the secrets she will find – or whom she will lose.

** *Death Stalks Them All...* ** Kere is the second most infamous member of the shadow organization known as Sentella. An explosive engineer who strikes terror into the hearts of the League, the bounty on his head is truly staggering. No one knows his true identity. The daughter of a traitor, Zarya Starska grew up hard on the back streets of hell- her family hunted to the brink of extinction. But Zarya dreams of a different life and a different world. A world where the harsh hand of the Caronese emperor doesn’t destroy his subjects. As a Resistance leader, her goal is to topple the government that needlessly ruined the lives of her family and comrades-in-arms. In this deadly quest, the only person she can trust is a mysterious man known only as Kere. ** *By The Light Of Day...* ** Kere has a dark secret and a brutal past. As he aids the Resistance, he’s actually working to bring down his own family- the Cruels- so named for the viciousness in their blood that runs so deep, no other name would do. Born and bred from one of the oldest and noblest families in the United Systems, Kere’s real name is Darling Cruel. And the one thing he wants most is to see his uncle, who stole the crown by murdering his father, pay for his crimes. ** *If You Tell A Lie Long Enough, It Becomes The Truth...* ** In order to protect his mother from execution, Darling’s entire life has been built on a lie that he dare not breathe a contrary word about. His hands tied by his uncle’s cruelty. No one has ever seen the real him. No one except Zarya. She’s the only person he’s ever fully trusted with the truth. But when she betrays him by allowing a weapon he designed solely for her to be used against him, all bets are off. ** *The Hero Is Now The Monster...* ** Betrayed to the deepest level, Darling becomes an enemy even worse than his uncle. His goal is not only to reign, but to kill every Resistance member he can find. He won’t rest until all of them are dead and that includes Zarya. ** *The Twisted Hand Of Fate...* ** Zarya is the only hope to reach the heart of the man her people once considered their ally. A man who hates her with a fury so great that she knows it’s just a matter of time before he kills her. But if she can find the part of him that once trusted her, the part of him that once loved her, she might be able to save not only her own life, but those of her people. It’s an impossible mission. Too bad she doesn’t play the odds.

People commonly view evolution as a process of competition between individuals—known as “survival of the fittest”—with the individual representing the “unit of selection.” Richard Dawkins offers a controversial reinterpretation of that idea in The Extended Phenotype, now being reissued to coincide with the publication of the second edition of his highly-acclaimed The Selfish Gene. He proposes that we look at evolution as a battle between genes instead of between whole organisms. We can then view changes in phenotypes—the end products of genes, like eye color or leaf shape, which are usually considered to increase the fitness of an individual—as serving the evolutionary interests of genes. Dawkins makes a convincing case that considering one’s body, personality, and environment as a field of combat in a kind of “arms race” between genes fighting to express themselves on a strand of DNA can clarify and extend the idea of survival of the fittest. This influential and controversial book illuminates the complex world of genetics in an engaging, lively manner.

The exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.

Twelve-year-old Kyle is preparing another mischievous prank on the middle-school football field one night when a plasma shower falls to Earth. The plasma gives Kyle superpowers, like a supercharged brain and the power to fly! Unfortunately, along with the plasma came an alien, Mighty Mike, disguised as a teenage boy. Mighty Mike dethrones Kyle as the most popular kid at school, and soon becomes the neighborhood superhero, fighting crime and rescuing animals. How can Kyle prove Mighty Mike is a fake? He'll do whatever it takes even if it means becoming an antihero .an archvillain! This first book in the popular Archvillain series will leave readers wanting more comic-inspired humor and excitement.