Douglas Adams 0517124858 It's safe to say that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest science fiction novels ever written. Adams spoofs many core science fiction tropes: space travel, aliens, interstellar war—stripping away all sense of wonder and repainting them as commonplace, even silly.

This omnibus edition begins with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which Arthur Dent is introduced to the galaxy at large when he is rescued by an alien friend seconds before Earth's destruction. Then in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur and his new friends travel to the end of time and discover the true reason for Earth's existence. In Life, the Universe, and Everything, the gang goes on a mission to save the entire universe. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish recounts how Arthur finds true love and "God's Final Message to His Creation." Finally, Mostly Harmless is the story of Arthur's continuing search for home, in which he instead encounters his estranged daughter, who is on her own quest. There's also a bonus short story, "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe," more of a vignette than a full story, which wraps up this completist's package of the Don't Panic chronicles. As the series progresses, its wackier elements diminish, but the satire of human life and foibles is ever present. —Brooks Peck

Scott Adams 0836217586 From mountain and valley, from hill and dale, people are asking, "How can I have more Dilbert in my life?" Help is at hand with a blast from the past in Scott Adams' very first compilation of Dilbert comic strips, Always Postpone Meetings with Time-Wasting Morons.

It is tempting to compare Adams' work to that of Leonardo da Vinci. The differences are striking. Adams displays good jokes and strong character development, whereas da Vinci has been skating for years on his ability to do shading. Advantage: Adams.

And though it may seem boorish to point this out, da Vinci wrote backwards. And he's dead. Advantage: Adams.

The choice is clear. Fans looking for a book which will stand the test of time, even beyond the time you spend flipping through it in the bookstore (for which the author receives no royalties whatsoever), should buy this book. Those who are not good comparison shoppers can buy the Mona Lisa.

Scott Adams 0836217799 'Dilbert' is the most quoted, photocopied, and faxed comic strip of the nineties, with more than 30 million readers in nine countries and many more throughout cyberspace. But in case you've been living in a mayonnaise container for the past five years, Dilbert is a luckless, cubicle-dwelling engineer. His canine companion, Dogbert, plans to conquer the planet and make all the people his slaves. Together, they navigate a world filled with clueless and annoying people. 'Dilbert' is the comic for anyone who thinks they're surrounded by idiots.

Scott Adams 0836217578 Anyone who ever toiled in the office "environment" will identify with the ironclad axioms put forth by Dogbert in this collection of office wisdom. So, move over Murphy's Law, and forget about the One-Minute Manger—Dogbert is taking the business-book business by storm. Dogbert appears in the nationally syndicated comic strip Dilbert.

Scott Adams 0836228995 Casual days are more than confusing for Dilbert and office workers in the '90s. "Studies have shown that Fridays are the only safe day to dress casually," Dogbert declares. "Any other day would cause a stock plunge." Casual Day Has Gone Too Far captures the issues that confront cubicle dwellers everywhere and is sure to continue the Dilbert-mania of worker bees and managers alike.

Scott Adams 0836236688 A scrapbook traces the development of the internationally popular comic strip about life in corporate America, including the creator's thoughts about the formation of his characters' lives and a wealth of strips from the past seven years. Simultaneous."

Scott Adams 0887308813 Cartoonist Scott Adams gives us still more corporate belly laughs with a point in Dogbert's Management Secrets Revealed, the 10th book based on his wildly popular Dilbert comic strip. Taken this time directly from the word processor of world-class consultant Dogbert, it focuses on critical management responsibilities like keeping up with fads, implementing pointless reorganizations and demanding status reports. "Leadership isn't something you're born with," it declares. "It's something you learn by reading Dogbert books."

Scott Adams 0836278445 "For the armies of American office workers, Dilbert is a reminder that they are not alone."—Chicago Tribune

"Cruel and incompetent bosses, plus the pervasive stupidity of people Adams calls 'in-duh-viduals,' are favorite targets in the strip, which appears...on the Internet, in best-selling books, and on refrigerator magnets, coffee mugs, desk calendars, software, neckties, and even underwear."—Playboy magazine

Does Dilbert creator Scott Adams have a hidden camera in your office—or is he just completely in tune with the inept managers, wacky office politics, and nonsensical leadership practices that seem to run wild at your company?

Stop looking for the camera. Dilbert has become a hugely successful strip because Adams feels your pain. How? Because this former employee of a major telecommunications company has been there. He's seen the leadership firsthand. And he knows that to successfully navigate the ludicrous world of business, you can't expect common sense to prevail, you need to keep a sense of humor, and above all, you must always look before you leap.

The strip's enormous popularity stems from the fact that its millions of readers easily identify with the crazy plots and wacky characters found within the corporate environment of collections like this one, Don't Step on the Leadership. Sure, most companies don't have a bespectacled engineer with a tie permanently curled up, a cynical talking dog, and a manager with two pointy tufts of hair. But it's the outrageous things Dilbert characters do and say that leave readers knowingly nodding their heads and, of course, laughing uproariously. The antics of Dilbert's cast are based not only on Adams' own corporate experiences, but on the more than 300 e-mails he receives each day about the office dramas of his devoted fans.

Scott Adams 0836221192 This book is freedom for those who feel imprisoned in a cubicle. Called "the cartoon hero of the workplace" by the San Francisco Examiner, Dilbert is revered by technology and computer workers, engineers, white-collar types, scientists and everyone who works these days (in cubicles or not). This collection captures it all, from clueless management decrees to near revolts among the cubicly confined.

Scott Adams 0836251822 Read by 150 million fans in 39 countries, "Dilbert" concerns the exploits of a cynical engineer who tries to stay afloat in the turbulence that is corporate America in the 1990s. This latest collection of cartoons from the enormously popular strip is aimed at the insanity of the business world (Humor) .

Scott Adams 0836204158 A collection of two years' worth of comic strips and color Sunday cartoons from the syndicated series, Dilbert, stars the hapless engineer and his cynical canine companion, Dogbert. Original. 150,000 first printing.

Scott Adams 0836217403 Hot on the heels of Dogbert's Clues for the Clueless, this new Dilbert collection will be widely welcomed by fans of that attention-grabbing comic which appears in 175 newspapers nationwide. Don't miss incompetent, socially inept technohead Dilbert and his megalomaniac pet Dogbert as they try to not only survive in but rule the world.

Scott Adams 0836210263 Dilbert is the comic strip for the downsizing, techno-talking workplace of the '90s. Cartoonist Scott Adams provides an outrageously fresh and farcical take on the work-a-day world and Dilbert's own pathetic life.

Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, Peter J. Weinberger 020107981X

Bill Amend 0836221206 A collection of comic strips from the nationally syndicated cartoon follows the misadventures of the Fox family, drawn from real-life situations faced by modern kids, from baby-sitting jobs from hell to sibling rivalry on an epic scale. Original.

Bill Amend 0836217063 The latest treasury of FoxTrot cartoons follows the further follies of the Fox family, parents Andy and Roger, children Peter, Paige, and Jason, and of course, the pet iguana, as they embark on new adventures. Original. 100,000 first printing.

Bill Amend 0836236564 What makes FoxTrot such a refreshing jolt of humor? Maybe because it seems to be written by an ingenious kid who's looking for a few good ways to get into trouble. Maybe someone just like Jason Fox himself!

In fact, cartoonist Bill Amend has perfectly captured the adolescent sensibility in his cartoon strip FoxTrot. Portraying the family-oriented adventures of one wild suburban household, Amend addresses situations kids encounter—both serious and fanciful—with a deftly on-target, humorous touch.

In Come Closer, Roger, There's a Mosquito on Your Nose, the Fox family is in full comical force. The family's lead instigator, 10-year-old Jason, continues to contrive skirmishes involving his 14-year-old sister, Paige, but he also spends ample time with his computer and his pet iguana, Quincy.

Paige, the unwitting target of Jason's jokes, survives in style, heading off to the mall or plotting a major flirtation in cahoots with her friend, Nicole. Elder son, Peter, 16, has his own interests: cramming for a test, wooing his girlfriend, Denise, and helping his dad with a chore or two. Through it all, parents Roger and Andy strive to hold down the fort while dealing with their own challenges, from work to weight loss to the computer.

Bill Amend 0836218973 The Fox household is a non-stop, always funny, battleground: Kids, parents, and a pet iguana collide with each other and with the trappings of our times in ways that are at once surprising and yet familiar to us all. Readers young and old see themselves in this work, and readers young and old are fast becoming hooked.

This treasury, FoxTrot En Masse, contains all the cartoons from Black Bart Says Draw and Eight Yards, Down and Out.

Bill Amend 0740700049 Everyone can relate to having a family member with an unusual hobby or habit. The Fox clan is no different. The youngest Fox is Jason, whose best friend is an iguana named Quincy. His sister, Paige, is a shopaholic. The oldest Fox sibling is Peter, whose stomach is a bottomless pit. But perhaps the most unusual of all is level-headed mom and official family mediator, Andy, who is working through her obsession with the movie Titanic. A slave to her emotions, she is brought to tears at a mere hint of the soundtrack and attends multiple movie screenings each day. This leaves well-meaning husband, Roger, struggling to live up to her new romantic expectations. All of this is par for the course in the hilarious but hectic Fox household.What makes the Fox clan so entertaining? They're just like us-only funnier-with no sappy sentimentality. Readers can't help but recognize a little bit of themselves in this family strip with its good-hearted, if not eccentric, characters. The Foxes deal with everything from sibling rivalry to marital disagreements over golfing habits to sharing time on the computer, always making us laugh in the process. FoxTrot has amassed a colossal audience of fans of all ages who eagerly turn to this hilarious strip each day, whether in newspapers or on the Web. New fans and loyal readers alike will enjoy "I'm Flying, Jack . . . I Mean, Roger", the latest FoxTrot collection. Together, the Fox family provides a witty window on the realities of home life today.

Bill Amend 0836217411 In another zany look inside the American family by the nationally syndicated cartoonist, Mom and Dad Fox cope with the trials and tribulations of modern life, from dumping their savings into dud stocks to coping with their offspring's pet iguana. Original.

Bill Amend 0836218159 The returns are pouring in: More than 200 newspapers now carry the provocative, funny Fox Trot. This is an astounding achievement for a comic strip that has been in existence less than eighteen months. A sure-fire winner, at once real, recognizable and undeniably entertaining.

Bill Amend 0836210271 In the Fox family household, parents Roger and Andy sometimes stumble as role models; siblings Peter, Paige, and Jason sometimes stumble in growing up; and Quincy, the pet iguana, never stumbles. Original. 100,000 first printing.

Bill Amend 0836217209 The Fox family's offbeat vacation into the desert descends into chaos as the members of the family cope with an order (through the drive-in window) for two million cheeseburgers, a broken Nintendo, bikini shopping, and other perils of modern life. Original.

Bill Amend 0836217802 The harassed mom and dad characters from the zany Fox household continue their pursuit of health and happiness while raising three energetic and rivalous kids, in a new collection that introduces the family's pet iguana. Original.

Bill Amend 0740704540 A Foxtrot Collection. Whether working through the daily disorders of home, school, or office, the Fox family manages to put its special spin on the rigors of the world.

Bill Amend 0836251830 The most recent collection of Amend's cartoons about the antics of the Fox family as they deal with life in the '90s——"the funniest family this side of the Simpsons" ("Wired"). Syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate since 1988, "FoxTrot" appears in nearly 800 daily and Sunday newspapers throughout the U.S .

Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason 0812550188 When an accident in the San Francisco Bay results in the largest oil spill in history, a multinational oil company releases an untested "oil eating" microbe, unaware that it is capable of consuming all the plastic in the world. Reprint. AB. K.

Rick Barba 0744004292 Let BradyGames Be Your Partner in Crime in San Andreas!

BradyGames' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide features a step-by-step walkthrough. Mission strategies to achieve every objective and detailed maps. Coverage of new character abilities, plus a showroom of all vehicles. Game secrets and hidden packages! Signature Series guide includes bonus content, a premium foldout, and much more! BradyGames is Official and Exclusive on this title. Platform: PlayStation 2 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the latest game in the world-renowned Grand Theft Auto franchise. The game features several new elements and revolves around three cities—Los Santos (based on Los Angeles), San Fierro (based on San Francisco), and Las Venturas (based on Las Vegas). Each city is relatively the size of Vice City—making it clear what the magnitude of the game is. Some of the new elements in this game include four-person drivebys, house break-ins and robberies, character abilities such as eating and swimming and more. The visual effects have also been improved with things like real-time reflections, fully rendered interior environments, and new camera controls. The storyline, set in the early 90s, centers on Carl Johnson, a man who escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas, five years ago. Now Carl's got to go home, and on his return to the neighborhood, he is framed for homicide.

Rick Barba 0761523391 Mood-managing hints and tips
Learn to create an instant family
Covers all 10 possible career tracks
Tactics for dealing with disasters
Cheats and Easter Eggs revealed
Details on moving your Sims to the online community
Build a home from the ground up
Includes a foreword from game creator Will Wright

Dave Barry 0425178102 Dave Barry, the only newsman to win a Pulitzer for exemplary use of words like booger, will please humor and crime-fiction fans alike with this racy debut novel. The scene is Miami. In ritzy Coconut Grove, the teen son of Eliot, a newsman turned adman, sneaks up to spritz a cute girl with a Squirtmaster 9000 to win a high school game called Killer. Meanwhile, two hit men sneak up to kill the girl's abusive stepdad, Arthur. Arthur cheated his bosses at corrupt Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.

Farcical confusion ensues, witnessed by a saintly bum named Puggy, camped in a tree in Arthur's yard. Puggy works at the Jolly Jackal Bar & Grill, which has no grill and actually sells guns and bombs to an offshoot of the Crips and Bloods called the Cruds, and to Penultimate (which plans to conquer Cuba). But when dim thugs Eddie and Snake rob the Jolly Jackal and Arthur tells them it's a Russian mob front selling bombs, the proprietor snorts, "Bombs, pfft! No bombs! Is bar."

Can Snake and Eddie spirit a suitcase nuke through Miami, "where most motorists obeyed the traffic and customs of their individual countries of origin"? Can Eliot and cop Monica Rodriguez save the day? And how do the 300-pound hallucinogenic Enemy Toad, the 13-foot-long python Daphne, highway goats, and the Denture Adventure seniors' theme park fit in? Everything fits perfectly, including a few dark passages new to Barry's work. But one warning: if you read this book while drinking milk, at some point it will spurt out of your nostrils. —Tim Appelo

Tobi Beck 0966939905

Judy Blume 0440226430 Judy Blume first won legions of fans with such young adult classics as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Forever, in which she tackles the cultural hot button of teenage sexuality. In Summer Sisters, her third novel for adults, the author again explores the ramifications of love—and lust—on two friends. Initially, the differences between Caitlin Somers and Victoria Leonard (or "Vix," as Caitlin christens her) draw them together: privileged Caitlin is wild and outspoken, beautiful but emotionally fragile, while working-class Vix is shy, reserved, and plain in comparison. After Caitlin selects Vix to accompany her to her father's home in Martha's Vineyard for the summer, the two become inextricably connected as "summer sisters."

On the Vineyard, Vix and Caitlin first find love, then sex—and lots of it. Yet Blume soon moves beyond hot fun in the summer sun, tracing the romantic and familial travails of the two from pre-adolescence to adulthood. Solid Vix evolves into Victoria, an equally solid, Harvard-educated, Manhattan public-relations exec. Unpredictable Caitlin opts out of college and travels to Europe, where she has a string of short-lived affairs with a series of intriguing (in every sense of the word) foreigners. It is only after she returns to the Vineyard that Caitlin does the unthinkable, forever changing both her friendship with Vix and their lives. Blume once again proves herself a master of the female psyche, and Summer Sisters is likely to entertain both her postadolescent and more mature readers.

Tim Bogenn 0744001943 BradyGames' Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Strategy Guide provides expert strategies that show gamers the steps to climbing the ladder of crime. Complete maps serve as the best visual reference for Vice City and help gamers find everything. Tactics on all the odd jobs, extra missions, Unique Jumps, and Rampage Challenges. Comprehensive vehicle coverage giving gamers a virtual showroom of every sweet ride available. Secrets revealed including, hidden packages, tips for opening up new vehicles and locating extra power-ups. Exclusive cheats are revealed, plus a few more surprises!

This Signature Series guide features a special cover treatment, exclusive content, and a giant poster!

Jim Bouton 0020306652 As a player, former hurler Jim Bouton did nothing half-way; he threw so hard he'd lose his cap on almost every pitch. In the early '70s, he tossed off one of the funniest, most revealing, insider's takes on baseball life in Ball Four, his diary of the season he tried to pitch his way back from oblivion on the strength of a knuckler. The real curve, though, is Bouton's honesty. He carves humans out of heroes, and shines a light into the game's corners. A quarter century later, Bouton's unique baseball voice can still bring the heat.

Steven R. Boyett 0441029205

Marion Zimmer Bradley 0345350499 Even readers who don't normally enjoy Arthurian legends will love this version, a retelling from the point of view of the women behind the throne. Morgaine (more commonly known as Morgan Le Fay) and Gwenhwyfar (a Welsh spelling of Guinevere) struggle for power, using Arthur as a way to score points and promote their respective worldviews. The Mists of Avalon's Camelot politics and intrigue take place at a time when Christianity is taking over the island-nation of Britain; Christianity vs. Faery, and God vs. Goddess are dominant themes.

Young and old alike will enjoy this magical Arthurian reinvention by science fiction and fantasy veteran Marion Zimmer Bradley. —Bonnie Bouman

BradyGames 074400098X BradyGames Grand Theft Auto 3 Official Strategy Guide provides detailed strategies for the gangland missions and side missions in the game. Comprehensive walkthrough including in-depth coverage of weapons, character moves, vehicles, and bosses. Secrets and cheats revealed to uncover mysteries and multi-layered missions interspersed in the game story.

BradyGames 0744005965 BradyGames’ Saints Row Signature Series Guide includes the following: A complete walkthrough of the entire game. In-depth area maps pinpointing critical locations. Extensive item and equipment listing. Signature Series guide features bonus poster and more!

Platform: Xbox 360

Genre: Action/Adventure This product is available for sale worldwide.

Berke Breathed 0316107298 With the release of this new Bloom County book and the newly chosen Billy and the Boingers Theme Song, chosen from the most bone-shaking, kidney-curdling entries from rock bands nationwide, Springsteen and Van Halen will become as distant a memory as Michael Jackson. 300 black-and-white and 44 color comic strips.

Berke Breathed 0316107549 A retrospective of the Bloom County comic strip from 1986 until its conclusion in 1989. One of the most beloved and avidly read comic strips of all time, Bloom County not only became a part of, but helped define, the popular culture of a decade. This collection is destined to become a classic.

Berke Breathed 0316107387 Here again for the masses of adoring Bloom County fans is a collectionof the best daily and Sunday strips from the past year. Features the bonus, peel-away insert, Smell-O-Toons, the aromatic fragrance that is dabbed on more Commando pulse points than all other perfumes combined! Little, Brown.

Berke Breathed 0316107255

Berke Breathed 0316107018 the Sunday spinoff of ""Bloom County,"" introduces uninitiated readers to such new Breathed creations as Rosebud the Basselope and Milquetoast the cross-dressing cockroach. 150,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.

Berkeley Breathed 0316103098 This first big "bible" of Bloom County includes the wonderful Opus "hairy fishnuts/Hare Krishnas" strip, the first Bill-the-Cat appearance, and more comics from the earlier collections: Loose Tails, 'Toons for Our Times and Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things. If you hurt yourself laughing (like when you read about Bill freebasing Friskies), don't blame me; I warned you.

Rita Mae Brown 055327886X Bawdy and moving, the ultimate word-of-mouth bestseller, Rubyfruit Jungle is about growing up a lesbian in America—and living happily ever after.

Jan Harold Brunvand 0393303217 Professor Jan Harold Brunvand expands his examination of the phenomenon of urban legends, those improbable, believable stories that always happen to a "friend of a friend."

William S. Burroughs 0140043519 One of the creative visionaries of the Beat movement recites the calculus by which heroin redefines the addict's world. Burroughs' quasi-autobiographical narrative makes for a raw, fragmented, and disturbing account of hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings, strange sexual encounters, and quests to ease the hunger for the needle. Read in the incantational tones fo Burroughs himself, this is the legendary account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art. 2 cassettes.

William S. Burroughs 0802132952 "He was," as Salon's Gary Kamyia notes, "20th-century drug culture's Poe, its Artaud, its Baudelaire. He was the prophet of the literature of pure experience, a phenomenologist of dread.... Burroughs had the scary genius to turn the junk wasteland into a parallel universe, one as thoroughly and obsessively rendered as Blake's."

Why has this homosexual ex-junkie, whose claim to fame rests entirely on one book—the hallucinogenic ravings of a heroin addict—so seized the collective imagination? Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch in a Tangier, Morocco, hotel room between 1954 and 1957. Allen Ginsberg and his beatnik cronies burst onto the scene, rescued the manuscript from the food-encrusted floor, and introduced some order to the pages. It was published in Paris in 1959 by the notorious Olympia Press and in the U.S. in 1962; the landmark obscenity trial that ensued served to end literary censorship in America.

Burroughs's literary experiment—the much-touted "cut-up" technique—mirrored the workings of a junkie's brain. But it was junk coupled with vision: Burroughs makes teeming amalgam of allegory, sci-fi, and non-linear narration, all wrapped in a blend of humor—slapstick, Swiftian, slang-infested humor. What is Naked Lunch about? People turn into blobs amidst the sort of evil that R. Crumb, in the decades to come, would inimitably flesh out with his dark and creepy cartoon images. Perhaps the most easily grasped part of Naked Lunch is its America-bashing, replete with slang and vitriol. Read it and see for yourself.

Stephen Bury 0553572407 A biochip in presidential candidate William Cozzano's brain hardwires him to a computerized polling system that channels the mood of the electorate directly into his brain. Neal Stephenson fans should note (if they don't already know) that Stephen Bury is his pen name.

Pat Cadigan 0312876564 In Artificial Reality, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden—or so they say. Run a con game in AR, and the law does not prosecute; have sex with a virtual child persona, and the police do not interfere. But infringe on a powerful corporation's copyright and the law rushes in. And so Detective Lieutenant Doré Konstantin unhappily finds herself appointed Chief Officer of the TechnoCrime AR Division. Virtual crimes are almost impossible to solve, her two-person staff is usually assigned elsewhere, and she spends so much of her life pursuing software pirates in AR that her sanity may be in danger. Things can't get any worse.

Then she is assigned to track a cyberstalker known as "Dervish," whose virtual persona is capable of manipulating AR in unprecedented ways. Konstantin reluctantly acknowledges Dervish's victim may be right: Dervish may have done the impossible. He may have traded places with an Artificial Intelligence, letting the AI take possession of his body as his mind escapes into the cyberverse of Artificial Reality, which he can manipulate as no software, even AI, ever could—impossible manipulations that include deleting all the exits from AR, and perhaps even killing the trapped investigator, Doré Konstantin.

Dervish Is Digital is the witty, sharp-edged, hardboiled sequel to the equally exciting and stylish SF mystery Tea from an Empty Cup. —Cynthia Ward

Pat Cadigan 1568581858 In Synners, the line between technology and humanity is hopelessly slim. A constant stream of new technology spawns crime before it hits the streets; the human mind and the external landscape have fused to the point where any encounter with "reality" is incidental.

Pat Cadigan 0812541979 Two-time Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for Best Novel, Pat Cadigan is the Queen of Cyberpunk for the brilliance of her ideas, the genius of her near-future extrapolations, and the beauty of her writing. No one else has explored and illuminated the mind-machine interface with the keen and relentless intelligence she demonstrates in her novels Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, and the long-awaited Tea from an Empty Cup. Her fourth novel is a perceptive, fascinating, witty SF mystery of artificial reality, whose paradoxical name perfectly defines its nature: an immaterial world of pure sensation, where, by legal mandate, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden.

The hazards of Artificial Reality are spilling into the real world—people vanish and solitary gamers are found slain in sealed AR booths. The young woman Yuki, child of a Japan destroyed before her birth, enters AR as the new assistant to the mysterious celebrity Joy Flower, but with her own agenda: to find Tom Iguchi, her missing beloved, who never was her lover but had been one of Joy's Boyz. The hard-boiled homicide detective Dore Konstantin stalks the virtual streets of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty seeking a serial killer who may have murdered eight gamers from inside AR itself. But how do you find missing or hidden persons in a world where nothing is as it seems? The two plot lines subtly converge as fact and fantasy, murderer and victim, as well as understanding and identity invert in a virtual universe where the dangers are real and ever-present, and you can be anything or anyone but yourself. —Cynthia Ward

Thomas Cahill 0385495560 From the bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, a fascinating look at how medieval thinkers created the origins of modern intellectual movements.

After the long period of decline known as the Dark Ages, medieval Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today, from the entry of women into professions that had long been closed to them to the early investigations into alchemy that would form the basis of experimental science. On visits to the great cities of Europe-monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto-acclaimed historian Thomas Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world.

Christine Cain 0761516425 Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete—Prima—Prima's Unauthorized Game Secrets provides key strategies for fighting every terrifying monster! Learn secrets for gathering information from the locals as you advance toward the explosive confrontation with the Magic Emperor himself! Detailed maps will guide you through every dungeon, forest, river, cavern, and lake. Every secret item, spell, and weapon is revealed so you can kick some lunar butt!

Jim Caple 0452285984 In The Devil Wears Pinstripes, Jim Caple, ESPN.com’s “designated Yankee hater,” takes on the rabid fans of baseball’s twenty-six-time World Champions, and offers a decidedly different slant on the New York Yankees—the losers of thirteen World Series.

Caple delivers his send-up of the evil empire with scathing irony, laying waste to all things Yankees. A creative and unauthorized timeline pokes fun at the organization’s trades, its legendary vanity, and its near-lethal stadium food. He skewers the owners, coaches and players—from the target of all targets George Steinbrenner to the pinstriped icons in the House That Ruth Built. Heroes and lesser mortals appear in all their tarnished glory, whether they’re participating in a World Series shutout, in drunken brawls at strip joints, or engaging in the notorious wife-swapping incident of the 1970s.

Die-hard Yankee haters and the fans of all other baseball teams are sure to appreciate this hilariously provocative diatribe.

LEWIS CARROLL 0681287608

John Case 0345422317 You'll probably guess what's behind the murders of mothers and their very young sons long before investigator Joe Lassiter does, but that shouldn't spoil your enjoyment of this exciting and thoughtful new thriller that mixes science and faith in with its action. Lassiter's own sister and beloved nephew are among the victims, who were all patients at an Italian fertility clinic run by a doctor with some unusual ideas about DNA. Why this catches the attention of a dangerous religious order, and whether Lassiter can save one surviving woman and child from their wrath, should take up a good part of your night.

David Cassady 1566867142 The Final Fantasy VII official strategy guide is by David Cassady. The book contains 223 fully colored pages.A complete detailed walkthrough for the entire game. Ultimate weapons, extreme limit breaks, complete monster bestiary, character bios, boss strategies, materia combinations, master all bonus games, and find all hidden areas.Beat both American monsters in the desert and under water. Find hidden characters Yuffie and Vincent. Train and raise a gold chocobo and get the knights of the round materia and much more.

David Cassady 1566867142 The Final Fantasy VII official strategy guide is by David Cassady. The book contains 223 fully colored pages.A complete detailed walkthrough for the entire game. Ultimate weapons, extreme limit breaks, complete monster bestiary, character bios, boss strategies, materia combinations, master all bonus games, and find all hidden areas.Beat both American monsters in the desert and under water. Find hidden characters Yuffie and Vincent. Train and raise a gold chocobo and get the knights of the round materia and much more.

David Cassady 1566868246 Watch TV at all, ever? Then you've probably seen the commercials for Parasite Eve. This epic PlayStation title looks more like a movie than a video game and seems certain to become another instant classic from SquareSoft. BradyGames's guide to the game can help you make your way through the complex story and gameplay of Parasite Eve. The book opens with a quick tutorial for new players, covering such topics as exploration, inventory management, and weapon capabilities. Complete walkthroughs are provided for each level, along with screen shots and maps to illustrate key points. A full bestiary is included to provide info on each of the game's many creatures. Also, at the back of the book you'll find a guide to the game's spectacular cinematic sequences, as well as the lyrics to the game's final song (hey, we're sure someone wants to know). —Michael Ryan

Kaare Christian, Susan Richter 0471586846 Contains over 50 percent new and expanded material and guides readers through every aspect of UNIX—from basic commands to shell programming to systems administration. Provides readers with useful quick summary sections that explain the important differences between UNIX versions. Includes special chapters on networking, security and Window systems.

Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik 0425171396 Read by Kerry Shale
Three Cassettes, 4 hours

In the year 2010, computers are the new superpower.  Those who control them control the world.  To enforce the New Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency with the FBI: the Net Force.

Instructions on how to make a bomb...a list of every U.S. spy in the Euro-Asian theater...Someone with access to classified information is posting it on the Internet-and it's costing lives.  Net Force Commander Alex Michaels is in the hot seat.  Now, before a hostile Senate committee, he must justify the very existence of the Net Force.

Meanwhile, a virus is unleashed that throws the federal financial systems into chaos.  And the Net Force operatives must hunt the wily hacker through the twists and turns of cyberspace-down a path that leads them dangerously close to home...

Arthur C. Clarke 0345413989 "[Clarke] remains a master at describing the wonders of the material universe in sentences that combine a respect for scientific accuracy with an often startling lyricism."

*The New York Times Book Review

Fifty years after meeting the spirit of Dave Bowman aboard the abandoned Discovery and witnessing the fiery transformation of Jupiter into Earths second sun, 103-year-old Dr. Heywood Floyd boards the luxury spaceship Universe for the historic first landing on the surface of Halley's Comet.

At the same time, the Galaxy expedition sets out to probe the evolutionary upheaval on Jupiter's former moon Europa haunted by the fate of a doomed Chinese mission and by the ominous message from space: "All these worlds are yours *except Europa. Attempt no landings there. "

As the stranded Galaxy awaits rescue on the dangerous and forbidden surface of Europa and Universe races to her aid, the omniscient force that is Dave Bowman watches *and waits to reveal the extraordinary secrets of the monoliths, of the masters he now serves, and of mankind's ultimate role in the course of cosmic history . . .

"[Clarke] is, after all, the poet laureate of the Space Age. He is at his best making the reader feel . . . that it is those dreams that finally come true that are the best dreams of all."

*Los Angeles Times

Arthur C. Clarke 0345315227 It began four million years ago when a gleaming black monolith cast its shadow on the stark African savanna *an inexplicable apparition that ignited the spark of human consciousness, transforming ape into man.

It continued at the dawn of the 21st century when an identical black monolith was excavated on the moon *propelling Dave Bowman and his deputy Frank Poole on a mission to Jupiter that ended in the mutiny of the supercomputer HAL.

Only Dave Bowman would survive to encounter a third, and far more massive monolith on Jupiter's moon Europa *and be forever transformed into the star child.

It is the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And now, the odyssey enters its perilous ultimate stage. In 3001, the human race, incredibly, has survived, yet lives in baffled fear of the trio of monoliths that dominate the solar system—until a ray of light beams forth from a totally unexpected source. The body of Frank Poole, believed dead for a thousand years, is recovered from the frozen reaches of the galaxy, restored to conscious life, and readied to resume the voyage that HAL abruptly terminated a thousand years back. He knows he cannot proceed until he reestablishes contact with Dave Bowman. But first he must fathom the terrifying truth of what Bowman *and HAL *have become inside the monolith.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke brings the greatest and most successful science fiction series of all time to its magnificent, stunningly unforeseen conclusion. As we hurtle toward the new millennium in real time, Clarke brilliantly, daringly leaps one thousand years into the future to reveal a truth we are only now capable of comprehending. An epic masterpiece at once dazzlingly imaginative and grounded in scientific actuality, 3001 is a story that only Arthur C. Clarke could tell.

Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick 0451452739 When an enigmatic monolith is found buried on the moon, scientists are amazed to discover that it's at least 3 million years old. Even more amazing, after it's unearthed the artifact releases a powerful signal aimed at Saturn. What sort of alarm has been triggered? To find out, a manned spacecraft, the Discovery, is sent to investigate. Its crew is highly trained—the best—and they are assisted by a self-aware computer, the ultra-capable HAL 9000. But HAL's programming has been patterned after the human mind a little too well. He is capable of guilt, neurosis, even murder, and he controls every single one of Discovery's components. The crew must overthrow this digital psychotic if they hope to make their rendezvous with the entities that are responsible not just for the monolith, but maybe even for human civilization.

Clarke wrote this novel while Stanley Kubrick created the film, the two collaborating on both projects. The novel is much more detailed and intimate, and definitely easier to comprehend. Even though history has disproved its "predictions," it's still loaded with exciting and awe-inspiring science fiction. —Brooks Peck

James Clavell 0440184622 Dirk Straun, a pirate, smuggler, and ruthless individual, finds glory beyond his dreams as the Tai-Pan, or supreme leader, of Hong Kong. Reissue.

Glen Cook 0312861052 Murgen, the battle-scarred standard-bearer of the Black Company, chronicles the exploits of the Company during the siege of Stormgard, a fortress of the evil Shadowlanders, as the mercenaries risk their lives—and their souls—to claim victory.

Douglas Coupland 1582341656 Canadian author Douglas Coupland's seventh novel could be subtitled When Bad Things Happen to Bad People. As the estranged members of the Drummond family straggle into Florida for youngest sister Sarah's impending space shuttle launch, we only begin to glimpse the true meaning of the word dysfunctional. The family, plagued by terminal disease, financial disaster, felonious activity, infidelity, and violence, is forced—by a series of ever more fantastic occurrences—to attempt to deal with each other. That would be an easier task if they didn't loathe one another with a ferocity usually reserved for war criminals. It's not quite Jerry Springer-style tabloid TV set in Disney's Haunted Mansion, but the family members do muster the strength to insult, assault, and infect one another with abandon. With the exception of the family matriarch, Janet, they are unappealing and selfish, but without Machiavellian brilliance. Instead, they're inclined toward out-and-out stupidity, blinded by self-interest rather than enlightened by it. As they bumble through misadventure after misadventure, there seems to be no reason to cheer for them. Even Sarah, the family's shining star, has her dark side.

True to Coupland's style, the book reads lightning fast. The author punctuates his narrative with clipped dialogue and punchy exchanges that advance the palpable sense of unease and tension running throughout. And amidst the acrimony, Coupland throws a genuine caper into the plot, involving Prince William's farewell letter to his mother, Princess Diana. Add to that the oppressive heat and the postmodern, pop culture junkyard of Coupland's Florida setting, and the entire book brews and builds like a roiling tropical storm. —S. Duda

Douglas Coupland 1582345236 Liz Dunn isn't morbid, she's just a lonely woman with a very pragmatic outlook on life. Overweight, underemployed, and living in a nondescript condo with nothing but chocolate pudding in the fridge, she has pretty much given up on anything interesting ever happening to her. Everything changes when she gets an unexpected phone call from a Vancouver hospital and a stranger takes on a very intimate place in her life. From here the plot of Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby skyrockets into a very bizarre world, rife with reverse sing-alongs and apocalyptic visions of frantic farmers. The style and plot paths are very identifiably Coupland—slightly mystical, off-kilter, and very, very smart. Ultimately a novel about the burden of loneliness, Eleanor Rigby takes its characters through strange and sometimes nearly unimaginable predicaments.

Fans of Douglas Coupland's later novels, particularly Hey Nostradamus! and Miss Wyoming, are bound to like Eleanor Rigby. Like many of his novels, the journey is strange and unexpected but you come out at the other end with a snapshot of a sardonic and bizarre but ever-so-slightly hopeful place. —Victoria Griffith

Douglas Coupland 031205436X Generation X is Douglas Coupland's acclaimed salute to the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s—a generation known vaguely up to then as "twentysomething."

Andy, Claire, and Dag, each in their twenties, have quit "pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause" in their respective hometowns and cut themselves adrift on the California desert. In search of the drastic changes that will lend meaning to their lives, they've mired themselves in the detritus of American cultural memory. Refugees from history, the three develop an ascetic regime of story-telling, boozing, and working McJobs——"low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future jobs in the service industry." They create modern fables of love and death among the cosmetic surgery parlors and cocktail bars of Palm Springs, disturbingly funny tales of nuclear waste, historical overdosing, and mall culture.

A dark snapshot of the trio's highly fortressed inner world quickly emerges—landscapes peopled with dead TV shows, "Elvis moments," and semi-disposable Swedish furniture. And from these landscapes, deeper portraits emerge, those of fanatically independent individuals, pathologically ambivalent about the future and brimming with unsatisfied longings for permanence, for love, and for their own home. Andy, Dag, and Claire are underemployed, overeducated, intensely private, and unpredictable. Like the group they mirror, they have nowhere to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie.

Douglas Coupland 0060987324 In this latest novel from the poet laureate of Gen X—who is himself now a dangerously mature 36—boy does indeed meet girl. The year is 1979, and the lovers get right down to business in a very Couplandian bit of plein air intercourse: "Karen and I deflowered each other atop Grouse Mountain, among the cedars beside a ski slope, atop crystal snow shards beneath penlight stars. It was a December night so cold and clear that the air felt like the air of the Moon—lung-burning; mentholated and pure; hint of ozone, zinc, ski wax, and Karen's strawberry shampoo." Are we in for an archetypal '80s romance, played out against a pop-cultural backdrop? Nope. Only hours after losing her virginity, Karen loses consciousness as well—for almost two decades. The narrator and his circle soldier on, making the slow progression from debauched Vancouver youths to semiresponsible adults. Several end up working on a television series that bears a suspicious resemblance to The X-Files (surely a self-referential wink on the author's part). And then ... Karen wakes up. Her astonishment—which suggests a 20th-century, substance-abusing Rip Van Winkle—dominates the second half of the novel, and gives Coupland free reign to muse about time, identity, and the meaning (if any) of the impending millennium. Alas, he also slaps a concluding apocalypse onto the novel. As sleeping sickness overwhelms the populace, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a universal yawn—which doesn't, fortunately, outweigh the sweetness, oddity, and ironic smarts of everything that has preceded it.

Douglas Coupland 1582343586 Considering some of his past subjects—slackers, dot-commers, Hollywood producers—a Columbine-like high school massacre seems like unusual territory for the usually glib Douglas Coupland. Anyone who has read Generation X or Miss Wyoming knows that dryly hip humor, not tragedy, is the Vancouver author's strong suit. But give Coupland credit for twisting his material in strange, unexpected shapes. Coupland begins his seventh novel by transposing the Columbine incident to North Vancouver circa 1988. Narrated by one of the murdered victims, the first part of Hey Nostradamus! is affecting and emotional enough to almost make you forget you're reading a book by the same writer who so accurately characterized a generation in his first book, yet was unable to delineate a convincing character. As Cheryl Anway tells her story, the facts of the Delbrook Senior Secondary student's life—particularly her secret marriage to classmate Jason—provide a very human dimension to the bloody denouement that will change hundreds of lives forever. Rather than moving on to explore the conditions that led to the killings, though, Coupland shifts focus to nearly a dozen years after the event: first to Jason, still shattered by the death of his teenage bride, then to Jason's new girlfriend Heather, and finally to Reg, Jason's narrow-minded, religious father.

Hey Nostradamus! is a very odd book. It's among Coupland's most serious efforts, yet his intent is not entirely clear. Certainly there is no attempt at psychological insight into the killers' motives, and the most developed relationships—those between Jason and Cheryl, and Jason and Reg—seem to have little to do with each other. Nevertheless, it is a Douglas Coupland book, which means imaginatively strange plot developments—as when a psychic, claiming messages from the beyond, tries to extort money from Heather—that compel the reader to see the story to its end. And clever turns of phrase, as usual, are never in short supply, but in Cheryl's section the fate we (and she) know awaits her gives them an added weight: "Math class was x's and y's and I felt trapped inside a repeating dream, staring at these two evil little letters who tormented me with their constant need to balance and be equal with each other," says the deceased narrator. "They should just get married and form a new letter together and put an end to all the nonsense. And then they should have kids." —Shawn Conner, Amazon.ca

Douglas Coupland 1596911042 Already dubbed Microserfs 2.0 by some pundits—a winking allusion to Douglas Coupland's previous novel Microserfs, which similarly chronicled pop-culture-damaged twentysomething misfits flailing, foundering, and occasionally succeeding in the high-tech sector—JPod is, like all of Coupland's novels, a byproduct of its era and yet strangely detached from it. Only this time with a bold and very crafty narrative device: Douglas Coupland, novelist, is a character in Douglas Coupland's novel. Which, when you think about it, makes sense since the type of people Coupland depicts are precisely the type of people who consume Coupland novels. As the once-great comedian Dennis Miller might holler, "Stop him before he sub-references again!" Readers familiar with Coupland's oeuvre know what to expect with the characterizations here. They also know that Coupland on a roll is both savagely observant and laugh-out-loud funny: "Bree was showing someone photos of her recent holiday visiting Korean animation sweathshops. She was bummed because she couldn't get into North Korea: too much legal juju. [She said] 'I just wanted to know what it's like to be in a society with no technology except for three dial telephones and a TV camera they won from Fidel Castro in a game of rock paper scissors.'" Much of the book is like that, built on granular and meandering exchanges between characters about . . . stuff. While JPod's flow is hobbled by some preposterous twists and character traits and by random words, phrases, and numbers splattered gratuitously across successive pages in oversized typeface, it's hard to imagine Coupland fans walking away disappointed. —Kim Hughes

Douglas Coupland 0671874349 Offering spiritual guidelines for a modern generation that has broken away from organized religion, a collection of inspirational stories seeks to reintroduce God as a supportive figure in a fast-paced society. Reprint. Tour.

Douglas Coupland 0060987049 Microserfs is not about Microsoft—it—it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.

" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil."

Douglas Coupland 0375407340 The eponymous heroine of Miss Wyoming is one Susan Colgate, a teen beauty queen and low-rent soap actress. Dragooned into show business by her demonically pushy, hillbilly mother, Susan has hit rock bottom by the time Douglas Coupland's seventh book begins. But when she finds herself the sole survivor of an airplane crash, this "low-grade onboard celebrity" takes the opportunity to start all over again:She felt like a ghost. She tried to find her bodily remains there in the wreckage and was unable to do so.... Then she was lost in a crowd of local onlookers and trucks, parping sirens and ambulances. She picked her way out of the melee and found a newly paved suburban road that she followed away from the wreck into the folds of a housing development. She had survived, and now she needed sanctuary and silence. She's not, of course, the only Hollywood burnout who'd like to vanish into thin air. Her opposite number, a producer of big-budget, no-brainer action flicks named John Johnson, stages a similar disappearing act. After a near-death experience, in the course of which he is treated to a vision of Susan's face, he roams the western badlands. And even after his return to L.A., Johnson is determined to unravel the mystery of this woman's fate.

Throughout, Coupland displays his usual gift for capturing the absurdities of modern existence. The distinctive minutiae of our age—junk mail and fast food, sitcoms and Singapore slings, and the "shop fronts bigger and brighter and more powerful than they needed to be"—come to vivid, funny life in this author's hands. And while Susan and John occupy center stage, Coupland is just as generous with his peripheral characters. A scriptwriter and his supernaturally intelligent girlfriend, a recluse who spends his evening generating Internet rumours—all manage to be blessed and cursed, numbed by their pointless existences but full of humanity when put to the test. Picture Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut collaborating on a Tinseltown version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you come halfway to grasping Coupland's brand of thoughtful, supremely funny storytelling. —Matthew Baylis

Douglas Coupland 0060987219 A collection of essays by Douglas Coupland, whose first novel Generation X received critical acclaim. In his mid-30s, Coupland writes about what it means to grow up and the realization that he is not young anymore. Essays include observations on parents his age at Grateful Dead concerts who seem intent on preserving a youthful reckless and carefree lifestyle at the expense of their children, to the "gristled leather bachelors" and "straw-permed sex androids from Planet 1971," to mourning his own sense of youthfulness as he revisits old haunts in his native Vancouver.

Douglas Coupland 0671755064 Chronicles six months in the life of Tyler Johnson, an ambitious, conservative twenty year old who was raised in a hippie commune. By the author of Generation X. Reprint. PW.

Kathy Cronkite 0385314264 "I was ashamed.  It was a confession of weakness.  For years, depression meant the crazy house.  As I look back at it, [my shame] just seems damned foolishness, which is one reason I talk about it now."
—Mike Wallace

"Toward the end I couldn't get up. I just physically couldn't."
—Kitty Dukakis

They have made the impossible climb into the spotlight and attained their brightest dreams.  But for Mike Wallace, Kitty Dukakis, William Styron, Joan Rivers, and countless other people struggling against the debilitating effects of depression, life's most challenging battle is waged not in the public eye, but in the darkest recesses of the mind.  In her brilliant new work, Kathy Cronkite gives voice to dozens of celebrated professionals who have endured—and conquered—the hopelessness of chronic depression.  Most of all, this courageous book brings a ray of hope to the 24 million Americans who live in the shadows of this misunderstood disease, yet bravely seek a path toward the light.  You will learn:

What to do when the sadness won't go away.
Why women are most vulnerable to unipolar disorder.
How substance abuse can mask the symptoms of depression.
The latest therapeutic options for children who are affected by their own—or a parent's—illness.
Which effective new treatments can lift the burden of depression—for up to 90 percent of people who suffer from it!

Nell B. Dale, Chip Weems, Mark R. Headington 0763710636 This book provides an accessible introduction to C++ and object-oriented programming for beginning students. The first half of the text gives students a solid foundation in top-down programming techniques, including control structures, problem-solving, algorithmic design, and the importance of testing and debugging. Building upon this foundation, the second half clearly explains Abstract Data Types, the C++ class, encapsulation, information hiding, and object-oriented software development. The straightforward, disciplined programming style is highly appropriate for introductory-level students. Free of intricate language features, it promotes good programming habits. In addition, clear examples, complete Case Studies, and numerous figures support the material. A laboratory manual for C++ is also available.

Johnny Damon, Peter Golenbock 030723763X Dear Baseball Fan:

I know what you’re thinking: Couldn’t he have come up with a better title? My mother agrees with you, but unfortunately Genius just doesn’t have the same ring.

Let’s get something straight right away. I may be an idiot, but I’ve tried to do more in this book than just revisit the Red Sox’s Miracle Season. I want to give you a sense of what it’s like to grow up with baseball dreams, to spend long years climbing the ladder, and then over the course of three years to see the building blocks of those dreams fall into place.

In this book, you’ll be reading about the son of an Army staff sergeant—a thrill-seeking Orlando kid who at age thirteen was gifted with a man’s body, including rare speed and reflexes. It was some straight talk from my brother that kept me from abandoning that talent, which led to my eventually catching on with the Kansas City Royals and later the Oakland A’s.

Starting in 2002 with the Red Sox, I got to see what can happen when a determined front office decides to roll the dice and acquire players who, like me, leave the thinking out of it—who trust their instincts and play team baseball.

Forget what you’ve read about the posse of long-haired rebels who eventually made up the 2004 Red Sox. I’ll give you the straight dope, including who’s got the biggest mouth (hint: his first name is Kevin); what Pedro Martinez was doing all those times when you couldn’t find him on the bench; what game David Ortiz should never play; and why I sometimes question Curt Schilling’s sanity. Memo to Curt: the statue of you is being erected.

What’s it like being responsible for the hopes of millions? In the fall of 2004 my teammates and I got to find out. What I’ve tried to do in these pages is bring you inside, show you the black humor that erupted when it seemed we could do nothing right, and the immense joy that followed when 25 guys took turns picking each other up, and by sheer force of will reached baseball’s summit.

Red Sox Nation (both natives and new arrivals), this one’s for you.

From Idiot by Johnny Damon…

On what it takes to make the majors… “It’s never about your talent. Everybody in the minor leagues has talent. If you’re planning on building a career in baseball on just talent alone, you’ve got no chance. Most important, you need will. You’ve got to work harder than the next guy, and you have to want it more than the next guy. Guys who make it do so with their heart and mind.”

On Nomar…“It was virtually impossible for Nomar to go out in public. If he went, he needed a private room or he had to be shielded by the other players so the public wouldn’t get to him. Nomar had to deal with his superstar status every day. If one fan wanted an autograph, there’d be a hundred behind him. Nomar spent much of his time in his room getting food delivered. It was the only way he could get to eat.”

On “The Curse”…“When you got down toward the end of the season, that’s all you heard about…‘Do you believe in the curse?’ ‘Is the curse overtaking the team?’…Since Dan Shaughnessy is the guy who invented this curse nonsense in the first place, I find it kind of odd that he keeps talking about it. He’s a bright guy. I can’t believe he actually believes it. I guess the Curse of the Bambino has a better ring to it than the Curse of Dan Shaughnessy.”

On getting support from the fans during the ALCS slump…“I went out into the field, expecting to hear it from the Fenway Fans. But we have some really great fans there in center field. ‘Johnny, we’re all right,’ they said. ‘Just get the job done next time.’ ‘Come on, let’s go, John. The game’s not over. Make something happen.’…I didn’t hear one nasty comment…I was pumped. They were rooting us on.”

On valuing the game…“I think back to that day Damian Jackson and I collided in Oakland. Before that…I said I was going to retire if I won a World Series. But now, having had that experience and almost having the game taken away from me, when I think about it, I cry, because I don’t ever want to leave this game. I know the day will come and I won’t be ready. This game is so precious and meaningful to me.”

Kiana Davenport 0452274583 An epic saga of seven generations of one family encompasses the tumultuous history of Hawai'i as a Hawaiian woman gathers her four granddaughters together in an erotic tale of villains and dreamers, queens and revolutionaries, lepers and healers. Reprint. PW.

Don Davis B0006QDTCE They smelled the foul odors. They heard the power saw buzzing in the dead of night but neighbors never imagined the horrors happening right next door.

The hot sultry night of July 22, 1991 was one the tenants of the Oxford Apartments would never forget. A panic stcricken young man—a pair of handcuffs still dangling from his wrists—ran out of Apartment 213 and told police an incredible tale of terror.

Shaking with fear, he led officers back to his captor's lair, where they made the gruesome discovery. Inside were the body parts of at least fifteen men—including torsos stuffed into a barrel, severed heads in a refrigerator, and skulls boiled clean and stashed in a filing cabinet. Tacked to the freezer were Poloroid photographs of mutilated corpses.

When investigators arrested 31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer, they realized they had stumbled onto a "real-life Hannibal Lecter"—a sadistic murderer who told them he had saved a human heart "to eat later". What could turn a handsome, former tennis player, the son of middle-class parents, into a perverse serial killer whose unthinkable acts shocked the nation?

The Jeffrey Dahmer Story takes you into Jeffrey Dahmer's twisted world of bizarre sexual encounters, mutilation and cannibalism—in one of history's most appalling true crime cases.

With 8 pages of chilling photographs.

Paige Davis 0696218364 Paige Davis provides a fascinating look at her life as host of Trading Spaces.

Fans peek into what happens when the camera isn’t rolling during the taping of the show’s third season.

Interactions on screen are even more interesting after readers learn what life is like on the road with the cast and crew.

Get the host’s view of what it is like to work with each member of the diverse, zany crew—including on-set photos taken by Paige.

Prima Development 0761539409

Michael DeVine 0812098013 The border collie has only recently been recognized by the AKC as a separate breed. Here is extensive description of this high-energy, highly intelligent working dog's physical and emotional traits and suitability as a pet. Here too is advice on purchase, training, health care, exercise, feeding, and much more. Paperback / 120 Pages / 6 1/2 x 7 7/8 / 1997

Philip K. Dick 0345404475 "The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world."
—John Brunner
THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . .
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time.
By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . .
They even built humans.
Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.
Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.
"[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from."
—Paul Williams
Rolling Stone

Philip K. Dick 067974066X Stunningly plausible in its portrayal of a neo-fascist America, where everyone informs on everyone else, this Orwellian novel bores deeply into the bedrock of the self—and plants dynamite at its center. "Fifty or a hundred years from now, (Dick's) world will stand alone on its own terms."—Norman Spinrad.

William Diehl 0345395069 William Diehl stunned readers with Primal Fear and Show of Evil, the national bestsellers featuring Chicago lawyer Martin Vail. Now, in his gripping new novel of suspense, Diehl enters uncharted territory, pushing Vail and the legal system he represents to the brink of destruction.

After an ultra-right-wing militia seizes truckloads of highly volatile weapons, the president turns to Illinois attorney general Martin Vail. His job: nail the terrorists in their tracks. Vail plunges into his new, near-impossible mission, one that soon explodes into a personal nightmare as his most chilling adversary, Aaron Stampler, returns—seemingly from the dead—to exact a vengeance that could bring Vail to his knees. . . .

Stephen R. Donaldson 0553295098 The Real Story is a short but intense tale set in a future in which humans travel between the stars using "gap drives," controllable brain implants are punishable by death, and a private company called the United Mining Company runs law enforcement for all of known space. Ensign Morn Hyland lives aboard a police ship with most of her family, chasing down pirates and other illegals who prey on the weak or smuggle goods into forbidden space.

Through a strange turn of events, one particularly nasty perpetrator ends up with Morn as his companion—or at least that's the way it appears to the folks at the space station's bar. Why would a young, strong, beautiful police officer associate with a crusty, murdering pirate? People watch with interest as Morn appears to fall in lust with another racy illegal, Captain Nick Succorso. Morn and Nick must have plotted together to frame Angus and escape together, right? But the real story was quite different.

Dale Dougherty 0937175595 For people who create and modify text files, sed and awk are power tools for editing. Most of the things that you can do with these programs can be done interactively with a text editor. However, using sed and awk can save many hours of repetitive work in achieving the same result.

To master sed and awk you must thoroughly understand UNIX regular expressions, and understand the syntax of sed and awk commands. This handbook treats regular expressions as a foundation for learning about sed and awk and contains a comprehensive treatment of sed and awk syntax. It emphasizes the kinds of practical problems that sed and awk can help users to solve, with many useful example scripts and programs.

Contents include: A tutorial showing basic operations of sed and awkRegular expression syntax and examplesBasic and advanced sed commandsFeatures of awk (plus gawk and nawk)Common programming constructsAdvanced topicsUser-contributed scripts

Sean Duffy 0312163908 This book surveys Irish history in the first half of this millennium, written in a style which will make it accessible to those new to the subject, incorporating the findings of recent research, and offering a reinterpretation of the evidence. Rather than having the English invasion as its starting point, as is previous practice, the volume places it as its centrepiece, and traces in detail the pre-invasion background. While acknowledging the importance of the English invasion as the single most formative development in Irish secular affairs, this book emphasises the importance of politics in native Ireland, which has sometimes in the past been neglected.

Dave Duncan 0345352920 The Goddess had rescued Wallie Smith from certain death, endowed him with a magnificent new body, and gifted him with the legendary Sapphire Sword of Chioxin. She asked only one service in return...

So Wallie became the Goddess' champion — and promptly found himself on the losing side in a battle against magics far beyond any the priests of the Goddess could hope to summon, After eons of exile, sorcerers walked the World again, claiming lands and souls for their Fire God.

Wallie quickly found that swords were no match for spells — and how could mere mortals prevail against the powers of magic?

Dave Duncan 0345352939 The Riddle of the Goddess

Wallie Smith had been dying on another world when the Goddess transferred his mind to the body of the barbarian swordsman Shonsu. Then She gave him the great, magical Sapphire Sword of Chioxin and sent him on a mission.

All he had to do was to lead the arrogant band of swordsmen to destroy the sorcerers and their Fire God.

Now Wallie discovered that he'd already tried it — and been hopelessly defeated.

A few complications cropped up. Wallie's reputation was in tatters. His best friend and pupil was apparently planning to betray him. And if he won, he would doom all hope of progress and learning in this World of the Goddess — doom the Goddess Herself.

It made an interesting kind of riddle. All he had to do was find the solution — and survive, if he could!

Dave Duncan 0380791269 Swords-and-sorcery fans aren't always proud. At times, they're left feeling a little embarrassed when they get a fix for their "pulp" addiction, maybe even sheepishly admitting that the genre isn't always that... sophisticated. Well, with Dave Duncan's The Gilded Chain, no apologies are necessary.

The author presents traditional high fantasy, with knights and magic (and even a few monsters) in a Tudoresque setting. The Gilded Chain satisfies all the usual cravings, while still managing to be both original and thought-provoking. Subtitled A Tale of the King's Blades (an indication that more excellent stand-alones should follow), Gilded Chain follows the career of Durendal, one of the King's magical and deadly swordsmen, who's compelled to serve his ward until death with single-minded purpose. Bound to a conniving, sniveling courtier and apparently doomed to a boring—or worse, compromising—existence, Durendal must find a way to fulfill both his potential and his duty. Events quickly hurl him halfway across the world to investigate the grisly secret behind a brotherhood of immortal swordmasters. This quest fuels the plot for the remainder of the book, which is nearly impossible to put down after the halfway point (just about the time a side story involving a Lord Roland cleverly dovetails with the main narrative). An inventive, intelligent exploration of duty and honor, and just a corking good adventure besides, The Gilded Chain is swords-and-sorcery at its best. —Paul Hughes

Dave Duncan 0345352912 The last thing Wallie Smith remembered was a fog of hospitals, grim-faced doctors, and pain. So when he woke in the body of a barbarian swordsman, attended by a beautiful slave girl and a wizened old priest nattering about the Goddess, he assumed it was a fever-dream.

But the World could not be dismissed so lightly. A naked little demigod called Shorty explained that the Goddess needed a swordsman. If Wallie undertook the job and succeeded, all that World had to offer would be his. If he refused, the results would be...unpleasant.

Wallie was not convinced, but Shorty was exquisitely persuasive. Soon Wallie found himself bearing a magnificent sword, with no idea how to use it — and the servants of the Goddess were out to stop him.

Dave Duncan 0345358368 Set on a distant planet, far in the future, West of January tells the story of a world in which time moves very slowly. Because it takes a lifetime for each region of the planet to experience dawn, midday and dusk, the planet's population does not remember the catastrophes that occur as the sun moves across the sky-entire civilizations have been scorched into oblivion. The only people who remember the dangers of the past are the planet's "angels"-a people who have tried to preserve past technologies to save the planet. This action-filled story of a very strange planet showcases Duncan's remarkable ability to create unique worlds.

David J. Duncan 0345374819 Well met, traveler! Since you are going in my direction, why don't we walk on together for a while? If luck is with us, perhaps we shall overtake Omar before nightfall, if that pirate of an innkeeper spoke true . . .
You say you have never heard of Omar? Why, he is the finest storyteller alive! His tale of the God of War is a marvel. Heroes, and villains, and gods — what's that you say? Yes, of course there is a beautiful maiden — it would be a poor tale, else. And for all the clash of armies and the great deeds of the mighty, it's a story to make you laugh out loud.
Omar himself swore that every word was true — but I own I am puzzled over that . . . No matter, step lively now, friend. Omar is probably just up the road a piece, with a tale to make the miles take wing . . .

David Eddings 0345335708 END OF THE QUEST

It had all begun with the theft of the Orb that had so long protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy. Afterward, he discovered that his aunt was really the Sorceress Polgara and his grandfather was Belgarath, the Eternal Man. Then, on the long quest to recover the Orb, Garion found to his dismay that he, too, was a sorcerer.

Now, at last, the Orb was regained and the quest was nearing its end. Of course, the questors still had to escape from this crumbling enemy fortress and flee across a desert filled with Murgo soldiers searching for them, while Grolim Hierarchs strove to destroy them with dark magic. Then, somehow, they must manage to be in Riva with the Orb by Erastide. After that, however, Garion was sure that his part in these great events would be finished.

But the Prophecy still held future surprises for Garion—and for the little princess Ce'Nedra.

This continues the magnificent epic of The Belgariad, begun in Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, and Magician's Gambit—a fantasy set against a background of the war of men, Kings, and Gods that had spanned seven thousand years—a novel of fate, strange lands, and a prophecy that must be fulfilled!

David Eddings 0345383273 Danger stalked Queen Ehlana's realm. When an ambasador from the far-off Tamul Empire begged for help, Sparhawk, Ehlana's champion and Prince Consort, was the Emperor's last hope. For surely the knight who had killed the evil God Azash could prevail against the terror in Tamul. But waiting for him was a glittering court seething with corruption, treachery—and the greatest danger Sparhawk would ever face!

David Eddings 0345352661 A sequel to THE BELGARIAD, Garion has slain the evil God Torak, and fulfilled the prophecy. But suddenly another prophecy is foretold. Again a great evil is brewing in the East. And again Garion finds himself caught between two ancient Prophecies, with the fate of the world resting on him....

David Eddings 0345335457 Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, had joined a dangerous mission to recover the stolen Orb that supposedly protected the West from the evil God Torak. And somehow, she found herself feeling quite tender for Garion, the innocent farm boy, who would be forced into the strange tower in the center of all evil to retrieve the Orb by himself.

David Eddings 0345335511 "Eddings' BELGARIAD is exactly the kind of fantasy I like. It has magic, adventure, humor, mystery, and a certain delightful human insight."
Piers Anthony
Long ago, the Storyteller claimed, in this first book of THE BELGARIAD, the evil god Torak drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe.
But Garion did not believe in such stories. Brought up on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he loved—but did not know...?

David Eddings 0345335651 "BELGARIAD is exactly the kind of fantasy I like. It has magic, adventure, humor, mystery, and a certain delightful human insight."
PIERS ANTHONY
The master Sorcerer Belgarath and his daughter Polgara the arch-Sorceress were on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain its saving power before the final disaster prophesized by the legends. And with them went Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle. He had never believed in sorcery and wanted no part of it. Yet with every league they traveled, the power grew in him, forcing him to acts of wizardry he could not accept.

David Eddings 0345373529 Ehlanda, Queen of Elenia, has been poisoned. A deep enchantment sustains her life, but it will end soon. Then Sparhawk, Knight of the Queen's Champion, learns where to get to cure for the poison. He and his companions set forth on a dangerous quest to find the antidote before the queen should perish and the peace ends....

David Eddings 034537472X Finally the knight Sparhawk had come to possess Bhellion, the legendary jewel of magic. With it, he frees Queen Ehalana from the crystalline cocoon that preserves her life, but Bhellion carries dangers of its own. And now Sparkhawk is being stalked by a dark lurking menace that is only the beginning of his troubles....

David Eddings 0345388666 Book Two of The Tamuli. The New York Times Bestseller!
Years ago, the Child-Goddess Aphrael had hidden Bhelliom, the Stone of Power, at the bottom of the sea. Yet now it is needed again to stop a malign force from spreading evil and destruction across the lands. Sparhawk, Queen's champion, sets out to retrieve the Stone. But others seek the gem for their own diabolical ends. Most fearsome of these are the Shining Ones, whose mere touch melts human flesh from bone. Now Sparhawk finds himself stalked by these creatures out of myth . . . whose touch is all too real.

David Eddings, Leigh Eddings 0345367693 Sparhawk, Pandion Knight, and Queen's Champion have returned to Elenia after ten years of exile, only to find young Queen Ehlanda trapped in a block of ensorcelled crystal. As Sparhawk sets out to find a cure for Ehlana, he discovers that only he can defeat the evil plots that threaten her rule....

David Eddings, Leigh Eddings 0345338715 THE DRIVE OF PROPHECY

The quest was over. The Orb of Aldur was restored. And once again, with the crowning of Garion, there was a descendant of Riva Iron-grip to rule as Overlord of the West.

But the Prophecy was unfulfilled. In the east, the evil God Torak was about to awaken and seek dominion. Somehow, Garion had to face the God, to kill or be killed. On the outcome of that dread duel rested the destiny of the world. Now, accompanied by his grandfather, the ancient sorcerer Belgarath, Garion headed toward the City of Endless Night, where Torak awaited him.

To the south, his fiancée, the princess Ce'Nedra, led the armies of the West in a desperate effort to divert the forces of Torak's followers from the man she loved.

The Prophecy drove Garion on. But it gave no answer to the question that haunted him: How does a man kill an immortal God?

Here is the brilliant conclusion to the epic of The Belgariad, which began in Pawn of Prophecy—a novel of fate, strange lands, and a Prophecy that must be fulfilled—the resolution of the war of men, Kings, and Gods that had spanned seven thousand years!

Charles Einstein 0517675773

Stephen Elliott 0804113491 Every crossword fan should keep this reference within reach. The softcover edition is billed as the most comprehensive pocket crossword dictionary on market. And this hybrid dictionary, thesaurus and almanac lives up to the promise. Probable answers to clue words are listed alphabetically and by number of letters. Literary, dramatic, historical and other references are usefully arranged. "Elephant Man" listings, for example, include the film's director and cast members. "Festival" includes the festival names of the Greek and Roman deities. Look under "Language" for the mother tongues of nearly three pages of countries. A very handy book!

Bret Easton Ellis 0330448013

Bret Easton Ellis 0679743243 This powerful and poignant novel of L.A., from the author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho, depicts a generation's overwhelming dissatisfaction with the way things are, and its insistence on remaining as detached and isolated as possible.

Bret Easton Ellis 0679781498 Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait
of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a
world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or
hope.

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of
limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago,
and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his
best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday
turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy
mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

Bret Easton Ellis 067978148X Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan 80s, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future—or even the present—who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.

Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance.

Inc. Acclaim Entertainment, Acclaim Entertainment 0761537198 Respect the Ride, not Gravity

Grab your bike, strap on your gear and get ready to re-enter Dave Mirra's world in Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2. Crate the BMX experience you want to have with the only extreme sports video game to feature 10-time world champion and II-time X-Game medalist, Dave Mirra.

It's time to re-enter Dave Mirra's world...
It's time to show the competition what you've got...
It's time to ride.
Inside this guide you'll find:

• A special introduction written by Dave Mirra.
• Biographies of all 14 BMX riders.
• All available bikes for each rider.
• Detailed explanations of the NEW, 'Park Editor' mode.
• Hints and tips on using the new SIK trick system to create tricks.
• Step-by-step walkthroughs of all the huge game-play levels.
• Competition strategies for all 13, super-competitive multi-player games.
• Exclusive hints and tips straight from Acclaim Entertainment's Quality Assurance Dept. and the game designers at Z-Axis.

Bart Farkas 1566868912 BradyGames Diablo II Official Strategy Guide features coverage of the five character classes, including strategy for each skill and detailed tables of all vital stats. A guide through all four Acts— featuring valuable battle strategy and tips for discovering secrets along the way. An exhastive compilation of the monsters and items you will find in Diablo II.

David Farland 0812570693 David Farland's "Runelords" fantasy sequence began in 1998 with The Sum of All Men, a career-relaunch novel whose sales far outstripped earlier SF published under his real name Dave Wolverton. Runelords are supermen whose strength, stamina, and vision, and other physical abilities are multiplied by magical "endowments" transferred from unfortunate donors who are crippled by their loss: the archvillain in the story is virtually invincible thanks to tens of thousands of endowments.

This second book avoids middle-volume doldrums by introducing a vast onslaught of still tougher and memorably unpleasant nonhumans who even the villains must oppose. Meanwhile, various characters skirmish on different parts of the map, and the hero struggles with unreliable powers conferred on him when he was chosen as Earth King to save the land and humanity—or maybe only a tiny part of each.

Farland maintains a steady flow of new situations, reversals, gambits, and surprises ... it's a real shock when one chap who has incurred a dreadful penalty for virtuous reasons is not spared (as expected in the normal chivalry of fantasyland) but rather pays the full, eye-watering price. One small criticism: the writing contains occasional sloppiness and repetition. Nonetheless, this is a rousing, painfully gripping story. —David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

David Farland 0765341077 Certain works of fantasy are immediately recognizable as monuments, towering above the rest of the category. They have been written by the likes of Stephen R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind. Now add to that list David Farland, whose epic fantasy series began with The Runelords, continued in Brotherhood of the Wolf and the New York Times bestseller Wizardborn, and reaches its peak now in The Lair of Bones.

Prince Gaborn, the Earth King, has defeated the forces arrayed against him each time before: the magical and human forces marshaled by Raj Ahten, who seeks immortality at any cost and has given up his humanity in trade; and the inhuman, innumerable, insectile hordes of the giant Reavers from under the Earth, whose motives are unknowable, but inimical to human life. Now there must be final confrontations, both on the field of battle, with the supernatural creature that Raj Ahten has become, and underground, in the cavernous homeland of the Reavers, where the sorcerous One True Master who rules them all lies in wait—in the Lair of Bones. The survival of the human race on Earth is at stake.

David Farland 0812541626 The Runelords is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting—and even some of the story—is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak to even walk. A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.

Runelords excels because this novel idea is not mere window dressing—Farland uses it to explore fundamental questions of life and morality. The story's hero, the young Runelord Gaborn, struggles to define his role in this "shameful economy" while keeping his commitments to himself, to his people, to the woman he loves, and to the earth itself. We end up asking ourselves the same questions: Should you choose your friends based on insight or virtue? Is it better to be just or good? Competent fantasy lets you escape to adventure in faraway lands, but exceptional fantasy makes sure you have something to think about when you get back. Runelords accomplishes the latter. —Paul Hughes

David Farland 0812570707 This is the third book in David Farland's epic fantasy Runelords series, following The Runelords and Brotherhood of the Wolf. Having sacrificed most of his Earth-based magical powers in the previous book, King Gaborn is sworn to pursue the army of unfathomable Reavers across the land of Mystarria, hoping to slay them before they can take refuge in their underground lair. A revelation from Averan, a young girl who's gained the memories of a Reaver by eating its brain, forces a change in plan, however. If the Reavers get underground, she learns, they will be rallied by the magic of the One True Master Reaver and return to fight, more deadly than ever. Averan's own budding Earth Power leads to her being chosen as apprentice by Gaborn's Earth wizard Binnesman, and her Reaver knowledge will make her an indispensable part of Gaborn's forces. In the meantime, evil forces seek to murder Gaborn's wife and prevent her from giving birth to a son who could be more powerful than his father, while Gaborn's enemy Raj Ahten—who, like Gaborn, is also losing his endowed Earth Power—pursues the Reavers through his kingdom as well.

In the end, the book stops just as things are finally starting to move, but while offering little plot development and no real surprises, this latest chapter in the Runelords saga is still likely to please Farland's dedicated fans. —Charlene Brusso

Phil Farrand 0440508088 For those fans who think they know everything about The X-Files, The Nitpicker's Guide for X-Philes may hold some surprises. From equipment flubs and plot oversights to changed premises and fun facts, author Phil Farrand covers the first four seasons with full reviews of every episode. Why is it that the character T.A. Berube has a six-digit zip code? How could Samantha Mulder, agent Mulder's missing sister, have two birthdays? And how about the VCR in the "Wetwired" episode that continues to play a videotape after the video has been ejected. Compiled with the Nitpicker's Prime Directive in mind, "All nits picked shall derive from sources the creaters consider canonical," as well as the Secondary Directive, "all nitpickers shall perform their duties with lightheartedness and good cheer." The Nitpicker's Guide for X-Philes is a thorough, dense read for the dedicated X-Files fan looking for a little fun and a lot of facts.

Raymond E. Feist 0553563734 Long recovered from the ravages of the Riftwar, the land and people of the kingdom of the Isles thrive. Nicholas, the youngest son of Prince Arutha, is intelligent and gifted but vastly inexperienced. In hopes of hardening him, his father sends him and his irreverent squire, Harry, to live at Rustic Castle Crydee to learn of life beyond the halls of privilege. But within weeks of Nicholas and Harry's arrival, Crydee is viciously attacked by unknown assailants, resulting in murder, massive destruction, and the abduction of two young noblewomen. The raiders have come from a pirate haven and are no ordinary foe ... but an enemy connected to dark magical forces that threaten the lands Nicholas will someday rule — if he survives.

Lionel Fenn 0812537890

Lionel Fenn 0812537858

William R. Forstchen 0345316827

William R. Forstchen 034531137X

Neil Gaiman 1840237422 "It’s all devastatingly true — except the bits that are lies" — Douglas Adams

Upon publication Don’t Panic established itself as the definitive companion to Adams’s life and work. This new revised edition comes up to date, covering his later work and untimely death in 2001, and including a new introduction by Neil Gaiman.

Acclaimed author Neil Gaiman celebrates the life of Douglas Adams who, in a field in Innsbruck in 1971, had an idea that became The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — the radio series that started it all, the five book ‘trilogy’, the TV series, almost-film, and everything that followed. Don’t Panic also tells the story of the other projects Douglas worked on, including his posthumous collection The Salmon of Doubt.

Prima Games 0761542639 Build Your World. Invent Your Weapons. Create Your Adventure.
·Tips on navigating the dungeons
·Detailed walkthrough with valuable maps
·Complete training section
·Strategies for fishing, creating a Georama, and using the camera effectively
·Monster stats and tables

Angus G Garber 0831706953

Angus G Garber 0831706953

James Finn Garner 0028604199 Following in the footsteps of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, this book retells classic bedtime stories, stripped of any elements that might be offensive to women, gays, short people, minorities, giants, or wolves, as well as any details that might encourage aggression, cruelty, sexism, prejudice, littering, and so on.

At the same time he pokes fun at our politically correct sensitivity, the author points out biases in our traditional stories that we may not have been aware of.

Randall Garrett 0553259423

William Gibson 0441007554 Although Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network. Nodal points are rare but significant events in history that forever change society, even though they might not be recognizable as such when they occur. Colin isn't quite sure what's going to happen when society reaches this latest nodal point, but he knows it's going to be big. And he knows it's going to occur on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which has been home to a sort of SoHo-esque shantytown since an earthquake rendered it structurally unsound to carry traffic.

Colin sends Barry Rydell (last seen in Gibson's novel Virtual Light) to the bridge to find a mysterious killer who reveals himself only by his lack of presence on the Net. Barry is also entrusted with a strange package that seems to be the home of Rei Toi, the computer-generated "idol singer" who once tried to "marry" a human rock star (she's also from Idoru). Barry and Rei Toi are eventually joined by Barry's old girlfriend Chevette (from Virtual Light) and a young boy named Silencio who has an unnatural fascination with watches. Together this motley assortment of characters holds the key to stopping billionaire Cody Harwood from doing whatever it is that will make sure he still holds the reigns of power after the nodal point takes place.

Although All Tomorrow's Parties includes characters from two of Gibson's earlier novels, it's not a direct sequel to either. It's a stand-alone book that is possibly Gibson's best solo work since Neuromancer. In the past, Gibson has let his brilliant prose overwhelm what were often lackluster (or nonexistent) story lines, but this book has it all: a good story, electric writing, and a group of likable and believable characters who are out to save the world ... kind of. The ending is not quite as supercharged as the rest of the novel and so comes off a bit flat, but overall this is definitely a winner. —Craig E. Engler

William Gibson 0441117732 Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties—some of whom aren't remotely human.

Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer

William Gibson 0399141308 The author of the ground-breaking science-fiction novels Neuromancer and Virtual Light returns with a fast-paced, high-density, cyber-punk thriller. As prophetic as it is exciting, Idoru takes us to 21st century Tokyo where both the promises of technology and the disasters of cyber-industrialism stand in stark contrast, where the haves and the have-nots find themselves walled apart, and where information and fame are the most valuable and dangerous currencies.

When Rez, the lead singer for the rock band Lo/Rez is rumored to be engaged to an "idoru" or "idol singer"—an artificial celebrity creation of information software agents—14-year-old Chia Pet McKenzie is sent by the band's fan club to Tokyo to uncover the facts. At the same time, Colin Laney, a data specialist for Slitscan television, uncovers and publicizes a network scandal. He flees to Tokyo to escape the network's wrath. As Chia struggles to find the truth, Colin struggles to preserve it, in a futuristic society so media-saturated that only computers hold the hope for imagination, hope and spirituality.

William Gibson 0553281747 Into the cyber-hip world of William Gibson 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 Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.

An over-the-top thrill ride sequel to Neuromancer and Count Zero.

William Gibson 0441569595 Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace—and science fiction has never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway—jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way—and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance—and a cure—for a price....

William Gibson 0441000681 Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace—and science fiction has never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway—jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way—and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance—and a cure—for a price....

William Gibson 0399149864 The first of William Gibson's usually futuristic novels to be set in the present, Pattern Recognition is a masterful snapshot of modern consumer culture and hipster esoterica. Set in London, Tokyo, and Moscow, Pattern Recognition takes the reader on a tour of a global village inhabited by power-hungry marketeers, industrial saboteurs, high-end hackers, Russian mob bosses, Internet fan-boys, techno archeologists, washed-out spies, cultural documentarians, and our heroine Cayce Pollard—a soothsaying "cool hunter" with an allergy to brand names.

Pollard is among a cult-like group of Internet obsessives that strives to find meaning and patterns within a mysterious collection of video moments, merely called "the footage," let loose onto the Internet by an unknown source. Her hobby and work collide when a megalomaniac client hires her to track down whoever is behind the footage. Cayce's quest will take her in and out of harm's way in a high-stakes game that ultimately coincides with her desire to reconcile her father’s disappearance during the September 11 attacks in New York.

Although he forgoes his usual future-think tactics, this is very much a William Gibson novel, more so for fans who realize that Gibson's brilliance lies not in constructing new futures but in using astute observations of present-day cultural flotsam to create those futures. With Pattern Recognition, Gibson skips the extrapolation and focuses his acumen on our confusing contemporary world, using the precocious Pollard to personify and humanize the uncertain anxiety, optimistic hope, and downright fear many feel when looking to the future. The novel is filled with Gibson's lyric descriptions and astute observations of modern life, making it worth the read for both cool hunters and their prey. —Jeremy Pugh

William Gibson 0399154302 Now that the present has caught up with William Gibson's vision of the future, which made him the most influential science fiction writer of the past quarter century, he has started writing about a time—our time—in which everyday life feels like science fiction. With his previous novel, Pattern Recognition, the challenge of writing about the present-day world drove him to create perhaps his best novel yet, and in Spook Country he remains at the top of his game. It's a stripped-down thriller that reads like the best DeLillo (or the best Gibson), with the lives of a half-dozen evocative characters connected by a tightly converging plot and by the general senses of unease and wonder in our networked, post-9/11 time.

Across the Border to Spook Country

For the last few decades, William Gibson, who grew up in Virginia and elsewhere in the United States, has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, just across the border from Amazon.com's Seattle headquarters, which made for a short drive for a lunchtime interview before the release of Spook Country. We met just a few miles from where the storylines of the new novel, in a rare scene set in Gibson's own city, converge. You can read the full transcript of the interview, in which we discussed, among other things, writing in the age of Google, visiting the Second Life virtual world, the possibilities of science fiction in an age of rapid change, and his original proposal for Spook Country, which we have available for viewing on our site. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

Amazon.com: Could you start by telling us a little bit about the scenario of the new book?

William Gibson: It's a book in which shadowy and mysterious characters are using New York's smallest crime family, a sort of boutique operation of smugglers and so-called illegal facilitators, to get something into North America. And you have to hang around to the end of the book to find out what they're doing. So I guess it's a caper novel in that regard.

Amazon.com: The line on your last book, Pattern Recognition was that the present had caught up with William Gibson's future. So many of the things you imagined have come true that in a way it seems like we're all living in science fiction now. Is that the way you felt when you came to write that book, that the real world had caught up with your ideas?

Gibson: Well, I thought that writing about the world today as I perceive it would probably be more challenging, in the real sense of science fiction, than continuing just to make things up. And I found that to absolutely be the case. If I'm going to write fiction set in an imaginary future now, I'm going to need a yardstick that gives me some accurate sense of how weird things are now. 'Cause I'm going to have to go beyond that. And I think over the course of these last two books—I don't think I'm done yet—I—I've been getting a yardstick together. But I don't know if I'll be able to do it again. I don't know if I'll be able to make up an imaginary future in the same way. In the '80s and '90s—as strange as it may seem to say this—we had such luxury of stability. Things weren't changing quite so quickly in the '80s and '90s. And when things are changing too quickly, as one of the characters in Pattern Recognition says, you don't have any place to stand from which to imagine a very elaborate future.

Amazon.com: Now that you're writing about the present, do you consider yourself a science fiction writer these days? Because the marketplace still does.

Gibson: I never really believed in the separation. But science fiction is definitely where I'm from. Science fiction is my native literary culture. It's what I started reading, and I think the thing that actually makes me a bit different than some of the science fiction writers I've met who are my own age is that I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Burroughs in the same week. And I started reading Beat poets a year later, and got that in the mix. That really changed the direction. But it seems like such an old-fashioned way of looking at things. And it's better not to be pinned down. It's a matter of where you're allowed to park. If you can park in the science fiction bookstore, that's good. If you can park in the other bookstore, that's really good. If people come and buy it at Amazon, that's really good.

I'm sure I must have readers from 20 years ago who are just despairing of the absence of cyberstuff, or girls with bionic fingernails. But that just the way it is. All of that stuff reads so differently now. I think nothing dates more quickly than science fiction. Nothing dates more quickly than an imaginary future. It's acquiring a patina of quaintness even before you've got it in the envelope to send to the publisher.

Amazon.com: So do you think that's your own career path, that you're less interested in imagining a future, or do you think that the world is changing?

Gibson: I think it's actually both. Until fairly recently, I had assumed that it was me, me being drawn to use this toolkit I'd acquired when I was a teenager, and using my old SF toolkit in some kind of attempt at naturalism, 21st-century naturalistic fiction. But over the last five to six years it's started to seem to me that there's something else going on as well, that maybe we're in what the characters in my novel Idoru call a "nodal point," or a series of them. We're in a place where things could just go anywhere. A couple of weeks ago I happened to read Charlie Stross's argument as to why he believes that there will never, ever be any manned space travel. It's not going to happen. We're not going to colonize Mars. All of that is just a big fantasy. And it's so convincing. I read that and I'm like, "My god, there goes so much of the fiction I read as a child."

William Gibson 0553566067 The author of Neuromancer takes you to the vividly realized near future of 2005. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich—or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash.

Barry Gifford, Lawrence Lee 0312113382 Here, in what has become a classic of its kind since its publication in 1978, is the fascinating story of an American literary legend, recorded through the voices of the friends and lovers of Jack Kerouac, "King of the Beats." Authors Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee retraced Keoruac's life at home and on the road, and talked with the prophets, musicians, poets, socialites, and working people who knew Jack Kerouac. Some are famous (Allen Ginsberg, Gore Vidal, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, among others), some are not (Jack's boyhood buddies, his lovers, his barroom companions). All have contributed to a remarkably vibrant, riveting portrait of a life. We see Jack at Columbia University and on the scene of Greenwich Village; speeding across the tarmac of America with Neal Cassidy ("Dan Moriarty" in Keorac's classic novel, On the Road); at home with his possessive mother; in California, drinking wine and talking Buddhism; and finally, in Florida, where his life ends tragically at age forty-seven. Jack's Book, like Kerouac's novels, makes a unique contribution to our understanding of a man and a generation that shaped the dreams and visions of those who followed.

Carol Gilligan, Lyn Mikel Brown 0345382951 "Should sound a national alert to society that even our most privileged girls still pursue normal femininity at great risk to personal and civic health."
THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE
Lyn Mike Brown and Carol Gilligan ask "What, on the way to womanhood, does a girl give up?" One hundred girls gave voice to what is rarely spoken and often ignored: that the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence and disconnection, a troubled crossing when a girl loses a firm sense of self and becomes tentative and unsure. These changes mark the endge of adolescence as a watershed in women's psychological development and the stories the girls tell are by turns heartrending and courageous. Listening to these girls provides us with the means of reaching out to them at this critical time, and of better understanding what we as women and men may have left behind at our own crossroads.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

Jane Goldman 0061053341 The X-Files Book of the Unexplained is the perfect synthesis of popular media, folklore, theory, and fact. Author Jane Goldman appraises the merits of episodes such as "Ghost in the Machine," in which special agents Mulder and Scully investigate a murderous computer system. However, Goldman's exploration of the inspirations for these episodes is what sets The X-Files Book of the Unexplained apart from a mere episode guide. For "Ghost in the Machine," Goldman interviews experts in the field of artificial intelligence such as MIT's Mark Torrence. She also recounts reports of Japanese workers killed by assembly-line robots that run amuck and the bizarre case of chess champion Nikolai Gudkov, who was electrocuted by the computer opponent he had just checkmated. The photographs and quotes from the television show, interspersed throughout, are a bonus for X-philes and accentuate the book's truth-is-stranger-than-fiction theme. If you enjoy this book, be sure to pick up volume two as well. —Brian Patterson

Terry Goodkind 0765362643 Basis for the television series Legend of the Seeker, launching in Fall 2008! Millions of readers the world over have been held spellbound by this valiant tale vividly told.

Now, enter Terry Goodkind's world, the world of the Sword of Truth.

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help ... and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.

In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword— to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed ... or that their time has run out.

This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.

Dan Gookin 1878058789 Dan Gookin's C for Dummies is a two-volume tutorial for beginner C programmers that looks at the basics of programming from the ground up. It moves at a slow, but very logical, pace. If you've ever found traditional C programming books too hard, these two books might be worth a look. The author takes great care in presenting the basics of programming from the ground up and avoids complicated math and syntax wherever possible. The first volume covers the fundamentals of the language, such as basic language constructs, variable types, functions, program logic, looping, and simple console I/O. The second half presents more ANSI C functions, arrays, and strings. Only then does the author take on the difficulties of C pointers. The tutorial closes with some file I/O and the basics of using multi-file projects. Throughout these two books, the author succeeds in making programming fun with a lot of humor (including comics) and as little jargon as possible. The technical information is in there too, between the lines, in separate sections. Each chapter ends with a quiz to make sure you are getting all the basics of programming in C (answers are included at the end of volume two). Plenty of source code is provided for all examples. All in all, this set provides a really successful introduction to C programming, which can succeed where other tutorials fail. If you've been stumped by other introduction to C texts, check out these two books.

Robert S. Gottfried 0029123704 A fascinating work of detective history, The Black Death traces the causes and far-reaching consequences of this infamous outbreak of plague that spread across the continent of Europe from 1347 to 1351. Drawing on sources as diverse as monastic manuscripts and dendrochronological studies (which measure growth rings in trees), historian Robert S. Gottfried demonstrates how a bacillus transmitted by rat fleas brought on an ecological reign of terror — killing one European in three, wiping out entire villages and towns, and rocking the foundation of medieval society and civilization.

Joanne Greenberg 0451160312 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity.

David G. Hartwell 0061020540 In 1996, editor/critic David G. Hartwell began selecting his best-of-the-year stories in an anthology providing an interesting juxtaposition to Gardner Dozois's long-running Year's Best Science Fiction series.

Most of Hartwell's picks are by leading authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Reed, Gene Wolfe, Brian Aldiss, Stephen Baxter, Brian M. Stableford, and Sarah Zettel; several are by less-well-known writers.

Don't miss "Game of the Century," "Visit the Sins," "Kinds of Strangers," or "Huddle." Hugo nominees include "Ancient Engines" by Michael Swanwick, "Fossil Games" by Tom Purdom, "Border Guards" by Greg Egan, and "Macs" by Terry Bisson (which also won the Nebula short story award).

Small, light, and less costly than most anthologies, Hartwell's fifth collection is one of the series' strongest; almost every one of the 24 stories (plus one poem) makes an enjoyable read. —Bonnie Bouman

Robert A. Heinlein 0441783589 Juan Rico signed up with the Federal Service on a lark, but despite the hardships and rigorous training, he finds himself determined to make it as a cap trooper. In boot camp he will learn how to become a soldier, but when he graduates and war comes (as it always does for soldiers), he will learn why he is a soldier. Many consider this Hugo Award winner to be Robert Heinlein's finest work, and with good reason. Forget the battle scenes and high-tech weapons (though this novel has them)—this is Heinlein at the top of his game talking people and politics.

Joseph Heller B00147Y1MQ

Paul Helman, Robert Veroff 0805303219

Barb Hendee, J.C. Hendee 0451461436 Magiere the Dhampir was created by a shadowy, long-forgotten enemy of many names-an enemy who the elf Leesil was trained from childhood to kill. They were brought together by the Fay to forge an alliance that might have the power to stand against the forces of dark magics. But as Magiere and Leesil uncover the truth, they discover just how close the enemy has always been...

Frank Herbert 0425027066 This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. —Brooks Peck

Frank Herbert 0441172717 This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. —Brooks Peck

Frank Herbert 0441172695 Paul Atreides, genetically bred and trained to become the leader of his planet, is still subject to human frailties. The second book of the series.

Hermann Hesse 0553208845 In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. In this translation Sherab Chodzin Kohn captures the slow, spare lyricism of Siddhartha's search, putting her version on par with Hilda Rosner's standard edition. —Brian Bruya

Jack Higgins 0425152235 Former IRA enforcer Sean Dillon races against time to hunt down the deadly ""January 30"" terrorists, independent, ruthless killers plotting a peace-destroying assassination, before he himself falls prey to the ultimate assassin, the Angel of Death. Reprint. PW.

Michael A. Hiltzik 0887309895 Throughout the '70s and '80s, Xerox Corporation provided unlimited funding to a renegade think tank called the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Occupying a ramshackle building adjacent to Stanford University, PARC's occupants would prove to be the greatest gathering of computer talent ever assembled: it conceptualized the very notion of the desktop computer, long before IBM launched its PC, and it laid the foundation for Microsoft Windows with a prototype graphical user interface of icons and layered screens. Even the technology that makes it possible for these words to appear on the screen can trace its roots to Xerox's eccentric band of innovators. But despite PARC's many industry-altering breakthroughs, Xerox failed ever to grasp the financial potential of such achievements. And while Xerox's inability to capitalize upon some of the world's most important technological advancements makes for an interesting enough story, Los Angeles Times correspondent Michael Hiltzik focuses instead on the inventions and the inventors themselves. We meet fiery ringleader Bob Taylor, a preacher's son from Texas known as much for his ego as for his uncanny leadership; we trace the term "personal computer" back to Alan Kay, a visionary who dreamed of a machine small enough to tuck under the arm; and we learn how PARC's farsighted principles led to collaborative brilliance. Hiltzik's consummate account of this burgeoning era won't improve Xerox's stake in the computer industry by much, but it should at least give credit where credit is due. Recommended. —Rob McDonald

S. E. Hinton 014038572X According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers—until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. This classic, written by S. E. Hinton when she was 16 years old, is as profound today as it was when it was first published in 1967.

S.E. Hinton 0440975344 Rusty-James isn't book-smart—he relies on his fists instead of his brains. So far whenever he gets into trouble, his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy, has bailed him out. Then one day Rusty-James's world comes apart in an explosive chain of events—and this time the Motorcycle Boy isn't around to pick up the pieces.

Benjamin Hoff 0140067477 Is there such thing as a Western Taoist? Benjamin Hoff says there is, and this Taoist's favorite food is honey. Through brilliant and witty dialogue with the beloved Pooh-bear and his companions, the author of this smash bestseller explains with ease and aplomb that rather than being a distant and mysterious concept, Taoism is as near and practical to us as our morning breakfast bowl. Romp through the enchanting world of Winnie-the-Pooh while soaking up invaluable lessons on simplicity and natural living.

Beth Hollinger 0744004780 BradyGames' Suikoden IV Official Strategy Guide includes the following: WALKTHROUGH & MAPS: Every destination on the high seas is thoroughly covered with a walkthrough that provides an initial listing of objectives followed by a more detailed description of how to advance the story. Detailed maps show the location of every item to be discovered during your travels, and where to find recruits to aid you in your cause.
108 STARS OF DESTINY: Learn everything there is to know about each character that joins you on this epic adventure! Get detailed information about their weapons, recommended equipment sets and the Rune affinities!
ITEM AND ENEMY DATA: You’ll be fully armed with every shred of knowledge about the equipment your characters can use, and the enemies they face. Whether you want to know what items an enemy drops, or what Runes it resists, it’s all covered.
MINI-GAMES: Spend your downtime between battles playing the many mini-games found throughout the world. There’s a game for everyone, and they’re all covered inside!

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Role-Playing Game

This product is available for sale in North America only.

Elizabeth M. Hollinger 0761517685 Locations of all the Stars
Full details on the Headquarters System and Mini-Games
Locations and descriptions of all Runes
Strategies for Bosses and Major Army Battles
Positions of all items and equipment
All secrets revealed

Nick Hornby 0670915637 Narrated in turns by a dowdy, middle-aged woman, a half-crazed adolescent, a disgraced breakfast TV presenter and an American rock star cum pizza delivery boy, A Long Way Down is the story of the Toppers House Four, aka Maureen, Jess, Martin and JJ. A low-rent crowd with absolutely nothing in common - save where they end up that New Year's Eve night. And what they do next, of course. Funny, sad, and wonderfully humane, Nick Hornby's new novel asks some of the big questions: about life and death, strangers and friendship, love and pain, and whether a slice of pizza can really see you through a long, dark night of the soul.

Alex Irvine 0756641225

Alexander C. Irvine 0345466985 From award-winning author Alexander C. Irvine comes a compelling, fantastical riff on history and World War II. The Narrows takes place in Detroit, where Henry Ford’s factories have been retooled for America’s grand war effort. But there are also more clandestine operations under way–including a top-secret effort to produce golems–powerful beings fashioned from the earth–to destroy Nazis. Here lurk strange spies in unlikely places–and a not-so-extraordinary man who is inadvertently poised at the bizarre, urgent center of it all. . . .

Spared fighting in Europe because of a bum hand, Jared wishes he could join the cause, instead of mindlessly sifting clay to be made into golems. But there is something that preys on his dreams: the devilish dwarf known as the Nain Rouge. In his youth, Jared once actually saw the Dwarf–a chilling creature that shows itself to individuals just before their demise. Now the Nain Rouge appears to be coming back for Jared himself.

Many have a profound interest in Jared’s childhood run-in with the Dwarf–including a German spy, Jared’s hateful foreman at the golem factory, and a shape-shifting Indian shaman. But what could a simple man who earns a meager living possibly have to do with espionage and dark deeds? While Jared toils invisibly in the bowels of Ford’s plant, the answer is about to reveal itself in a cataclysm of mythic and sinister proportions.

Alexander C. Irvine 0765301164 Alexander C. Irvine makes a strong debut with A Scattering of Jades, a novel that can be read with equal validity as fantasy, alternate history, or secret history. In 1835, an attempted human sacrifice goes awry, sparking a fire that consumes much of Manhattan and destroys journalist Archie Prescott's home and family. Stephen Bishop, a slave exploring a Kentucky cave system, discovers a peculiar Aztec mummy that seems, sometimes, to move. A complex conspiracy involving Aaron Burr, P.T. Barnum, Tammany Hall, Irish gangsters, and a traveling medicine man will bring together Archie, Stephen, an accursed girl who may be Archie's daughter, and ferocious Aztec deities in the underworld of Mammoth Cave, in an epic struggle that will determine the fate of the earth. —Cynthia Ward

Steve Jackson 155634760X Munchkins have hacked their way through dungeons, kung fu temples, starships, haunted houses, and super-foes. Now they face their greatest foe: Cthulhu. Will they survive? Will they retain their sanity? Will they...level up? Of course they will. If something has got stats, you can kill it and take its stuff. Munchkin Cthulhu is a standalone game in the Munchkin line, this time lampooning Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and the horror gaming that surrounds it. Brought to you by Steve Jackson and John Kovalic, this set summons classic monsters from outside reality...to let you kill them, level up, and loot.

Richard Johnsonbaugh, Martin Kalin 0023611316 The introductory text to applications programming in ANSI C assumes no prior programming experience in C or any other language. Sample applications allow students to see the development of a complete C program. This edition includes a chapter on computer systems and program development to provide background for readers with no programming experience, and a chapter on advanced topics. Over 700 new section review exercises are presented, as well as more than 200 programming exercises.

Lynn Johnston 0836218213 Lynn Johnston brings her particular talent and hilarious insights to parents' No. 1 domestic problem—having a teenager! Every parent (and every teenager) will identify with the chaosthat adolescent Michael's hormone attacks bring to the Patterson household.

Lynn Johnston 0836204247 In a collection of selections from the popular and critically acclaimed comic strip about family life, mother Elly gets her first job, baby April arrives, and Farley's bouncy puppy Edgar moves in. Original. 100,000 first printing.

Marcelle Karp, Debbie Stoller 0140277749 "In BUST we've captured the voice of a brave new girl: one that is raw and real, straightforward and sarcastic, smart and silly, and liberally sprinkled with references to our own Girl Culture." So say Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller, smart, sassy founders of BUST ("the magazine for women with something to get off their chests"), and editors of this funky, fabulous, neofeminist manifesto. The Guide to the New Girl Order collects the best of BUST, including thoughtful articles, personal essays, and racy rants about anything from abortion to the lameness of the Lifetime television network. In their own words, they address "that shared set of female experiences that includes Barbies and blowjobs, sexism and shoplifting, Vogue and vaginas."

Having started out as a hand-stapled zine, BUST swims with an in-your-face, grrrl power attitude that alternately taunts, encourages, and calls readers to battle. Contributors range from mysterious authors with names like Betty Boob and Scarlett Fever to such famous femmes as Courtney Love. Karp and Stoller organize the pieces into sections labeled "Sex and the Thinking Girl, "Men Are from Uranus," etc., offering introductions for each that provide humor, insight, and cultural context. And with selections like "Sex, Lies, and Tampax," "How to Be as Horny as a Guy," and "Bitch on Heels," this is not your mother's ladies' journal. Also included are such hilarious explorations of pop culture as "The Mysterious Eroticism of Mini-Backpacks," "My Keanu, A Fantasy," and "Bring Me the Head of Melanie Banderas." Whether you're intimidated or intrigued by such an irreverent approach to redefining the feminine, there's only more to come—and there's no place to hide. As the editors warn, "Wake up and smell the lipgloss, ladies: the New Girl Order has arrived." —Brangien Davis

Susanna Kaysen 0679746048 When reality got "too dense" for 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen, she was hospitalized. It was 1967, and reality was too dense for many people. But few who are labeled mad and locked up for refusing to stick to an agreed-upon reality possess Kaysen's lucidity in sorting out a maelstrom of contrary perceptions. Her observations about hospital life are deftly rendered; often darkly funny. Her clarity about the complex province of brain and mind, of neuro-chemical activity and something more, make this book of brief essays an exquisite challenge to conventional thinking about what is normal and what is deviant.

Jack Kerouac 0140168125

Jack Kerouac 0140042520 One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan.

Jack Kerouac 0140185216 On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.

Ken Kesey 0451163966 An inmate of a mental institution tries to find the freedom and independence denied him in the outside world.

Stephen King 0670846503 When rough sex between Jessie and Gerald Burlingame turns deadly, leaving Gerald dead and Jessie handcuffed to the bed, it sets in motion a terrifying and psychologically twisted twenty-eight hours. 1,500,000 first printing. $750,000 ad/promo. BOMC Main.

Stephen King 0451160525 Thirty-three years, a horrific and life-altering accident, and thousands of desperately rabid fans in the making, Stephen King's quest to complete his magnum opus rivals the quest of Roland and his band of gunslingers who inhabit the Dark Tower series. Loyal DT fans and new readers alike will appreciate this revised edition of The Gunslinger, which breathes new life into Roland of Gilead, and offers readers a "clearer start and slightly easier entry into Roland's world."

King writes both a new introduction and foreword to this revised edition, and the ever-patient, ever-loyal "constant reader" is rewarded with secrets to the series's inception. That a "magic" ream of green paper and a Robert Browning poem, came together to reveal to King his "ka" is no real surprise (this is King after all), but who would have thought that the squinty-eyed trio of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach would set the author on his true path to the Tower? While King credits Tolkien for inspiring the "quest and magic" that pervades the series, it was Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that helped create the epic proportions and "almost absurdly majestic western backdrop" of Roland's world.

To King, The Gunslinger demanded revision because once the series was complete it became obvious that "the beginning was out of sync with the ending." While the revision adds only 35 pages, Dark Tower purists will notice the changes to Allie's fate and Roland's interaction with Cort, Jake, and the Man in Black—all stellar scenes that will reignite the hunger for the rest of the series. Newcomers will appreciate the details and insight into Roland's life. The revised Roland of Gilead (nee Deschain) is embodied with more humanity—he loves, he pities, he regrets. What DT fans might miss is the same ambiguity and mystery of the original that gave the original its pulpy underground feel (back when King himself awaited word from Roland's world). —Daphne Durham

Stephen King 0451157753

E.E. Knight 0451459733 The alien Reapers have ruled Earth for forty-five years. David Valentine is a member of the human resistance, who is now being trained as a Cat-an elite stealth warrior. His first mission is to investigate the threat of the Twisted Cross, a mysterious new force under Reaper control.

E.E. Knight 0451460189 As the Resistance attempts to overthrow their vampiric alien masters, elite Cat force member David Valentine embarks on a terrifying journey in search of a long-lost weapon that will guarantee their victory-and the end of the Kurian Order's domination of Earth.

E.E. Knight 0451460596 Returning to the Ozark Territories, freedom fighter David Valentine is shocked to find it overrun by vampiric Kurians under the command of the merciless Consul Solon. In a desperate gambit, Valentine leads a courageous group of soldiers on a mission to drive a spike into the gears of the Kurian Order. Valentine stakes life, honor, and the future of his home in a rebellion that sparks the greatest battle of his life.

E.E. Knight 0451459393 Louisiana, 2065. A lot has changed in the 43rd year of the Kurian Order. Possessed of an unnatural hunger, the bloodthirsty Reapers have come to Earth to establish a New Order built on the harvesting of human souls. They rule the planet. And if it is night, as sure as darkness, they will come.

But on this pitiless world, the indomitable spirit of man still breathes in Lieutenant David Valentine. And his mission is to win back Earth...

Brian Kramer 0696217279 Tours more than 20 Trading Spaces locations across the U.S. to inspire readers.

Readers will learn the latest decorating/design techniques showcased on Trading Spaces, while exploring alternative ideas to achieve the custom look they want.

Shows readers how to add personal touches to everyday items.

Unique Trading Spaces Toolbox sidebars will help readers build the attitudes and skills necessary for successfully transforming “blah” into beautiful.

Brian Kramer 0696217120 Fans of cable TV’s mega-hit Trading Spaces know the rules: Two sets of homeowners, each helped full-time by a designer and part-time by a carpenter, swap houses and dive into a frenzied, two-day redo of a designated room. They have $1,000 apiece to pull off the job—no peeking at the other team’s work until time is up. But there’s more to reality TV than meets the viewer’s eye. This book tells all, including the actual number of days and off-camera supporting players needed to dramatize just one hour of on-air excitement and tension. This book is like a backstage pass for Trading Spaces groupies. They’ll read juicy biographical tidbits about quirky cast members, as well as design dos and don’ts. Bold graphics and splashy photography show off myriad styles: country kitsch, classic with a hint of modern, contemporary and sleek, rustic comfort, Euro chic, and even the outrageously weird.

Brian Kramer 0696217260 Tours more than 20 Trading Spaces locations across the U.S. to inspire readers.

Readers will learn the latest decorating and design techniques showcased on Trading Spaces, while exploring alternative ideas to achieve the custom look they want.

Uses a series of before and after pictures to show how adding color in various ways can change the mood of an entire room .

Unique Trading Spaces Toolbox sidebars will help readers build the attitudes and skills necessary for successfully transforming “blah” into beautiful.

Robert L. Kruse 0132081822

Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell 0553572776 As Leia must deal with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes a prisoner aboard a runaway spacecraft of unknown origin. The ship is following an unstoppable path to its homeworld, destroyed by Imperial forces. Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi, where his every belief about the use of the Force is about to be challenged. And while Leia ponders a diplomatic solution to the aggression of the fierce Yevetha race, Han pilots a spy ship into the heart of Yevethan space and finds himself a hostage on one of the vast fleet of warships under the command of a ruthless leader.

Margaret Wade Labarge 0807056278

Sterling E. Lanier 0345308417 Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath — and a highly trained killer. Together with his great riding moose and the young bear who was his friend, he was on an extraordinary mission. For this was five thousand years after the holocaust known as The Death. Now the evil Brotherhood of the Unclean was waging all-out war against the few remnants of normal humanity, determined to wipe out all traces of its emerging civilization. Hiero's task was to bring back a lost secret of the ancients that might save the humans. But his path lay through the very heart of the territory ruled by the Unclean and their hordes of mutated, intelligent, savage beast followers. And the Unclean were waiting for him!

Sterling E. Lanier 0345308824

Sterling E. Lanier 0345302281

Gary Larson 0836220986 Here, in this eighth all-new collection of The Far Side, are gathered all the denizens from that often strange but always funny world—creatures who first were seen in such newspapers as the New York Daily News and the Washington Post. Illustrated.

Gary Larson 0836220498 The Far Side® and the Larson® signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc.

Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain 0802130623 Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account-part of it gleaned from secret government files-tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early l950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history. "Engaging throughout . . . at once entertaining and disturbing." - Andrew Weil, M.D., The Nation; "Marvelously detailed . . . loaded with startling revelations." - Los Angeles Daily News; "An engrossing account of a period . . . when a tiny psychoactive molecule affected almost every aspect of Western life." - William S. Burroughs; "An important historical synthesis of the spread and effects of a drug that served as a central metaphor for an era." - John Sayles.

John R. Levine, Margaret Levine Young 1878058584 The title of this book invites comment. "Some things weren't meant for dummies and Unix is one of them," you might say. Wrong! Levine and Young take advantage of the Dummies format's strength with command-line operating systems. They flatten the learning curve and have even the greenest beginner doing useful work with Unix in mere hours.

Once you get past a couple of pointless chapters about offering pizza to Unix experts in exchange for help, you'll find conceptual explanations of files, directories, permissions, and redirection. Command explanations take a hybrid form; they mix "type this verbatim" statements with tables showing switches and parameters.

Much of Unix for Dummies is task-oriented. You'll find a whole chapter on printing, for example, that covers the commands you'll need to know to format and print a document on the right printer. Other chapters cover file searches, software installation, and X Windows navigation. The book also provides cursory coverage of four text editors—ED, vi, Emacs, and pico—but you learn little more than how to enter and save text in each.

Levine and Young include an eminently useful "DOS-to-Unix Rosetta Stone" that immediately tells you, for example, that the approximate Unix equivalent of DOS's copy is cp. DOS experts who are new transplants to a Unix environment will appreciate this translation guide. The authors wrap up with a wealth of basic troubleshooting information and a command reference.

This book, along with its companion, More Unix for Dummies, is the perfect choice for those who have no knowledge of Unix and need to learn it quickly.

James Luceno 0345428609 Merciless attacks by an invincible alien force have left the New Republic reeling. Dozens of worlds have succumbed to occupation or annihilation, and even the Jedi Knights have tasted defeat. In these darkest of times, the noble Chewbacca is laid to rest, having died as heroically as he lived—and a grief-stricken Han Solo is left to fit the pieces of his shattered soul back together before he loses everything: friends, family, and faith.

Refusing help from Leia or Luke, Han becomes the loner he once was, seeking to escape the pain of his partner's death in adventure . . . and revenge. When he learns that an old friend from his smuggling days is operating as a mercenary for the enemy, he sets out to expose the traitor. But Han's investigation uncovers an even greater evil: a sinister conspiracy aimed at the very heart of the New Republic's will and ability to fight—the Jedi.

Now Han must face down his inner demons and, with the help of a new and unexpected ally, honor Chewbacca's sacrifice in the only way that matters—by being worthy of it.

James Luceno 0345428595 A string of smashing victories by the forces of the sinister aliens known as the Yuuzhan Vong has left New Republic resources and morale stretched to the breaking point. Leia Organa Solo, estranged from her husband, Han, oversees the evacuation of refugees on planets in the path of the merciless invaders. Luke Skywalker struggles to hold the fractious Jedi Knights together, even while one of them undertakes a bold but reckless undercover mission.

Manipulating their alliance with the amoral Hutts, the Yuuzhan Vong leave a cunning trail of vital information where New Republic agents are sure to find it—information the desperate defenders cannot afford to ignore: the location of the aliens' next target.

Then Han Solo stumbles into the dark heart of raging battle, thus beginning a furious race against time that will require every skill and trick in his arsenal to win...

Robert Ludlum 0553569570 American agent Harry Latham has prenetrated the fortresslike mountain hideaway of the Brotherhood of the Watch, a neo-Nazi organization that was born in the days after the fall of the Third Reich. After three years in deep cover, Latham has suddenly disappeared. His brother Drew, Special Officer for Consular Operations in Paris, is frantic to discover Harry's fate. But when Harry resurfaces, he's carrying dangerous cargo: an explosive list of the secret supports of the Brotherhood, including high-ranking US officials. Why has the Brotherhood let him live? Can Drew Latham still trust his own brother? Drew's search for the truth about Harry and the growing Nazi threat to the free world will plunge him into a labyrinth of deceit and death.

Robert Ludlum 0553287737 The world's two deadliest spies in the ultimate showdown. At a small-town carnival two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed Jason Bourne. Only they know Bourne's true identity and understand the telegram is really a message from Bourne's mortal enemy, Carlos, known also as the Jackal, the world's deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And furthermore, they know that the Jackal wants: a final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb, professor of Oriental studies, husband, and father, must do what he hoped he would never have to do again — assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne. His plan is simple: to infiltrate the politically and economically Medusan group and use himself as bait to lure the cunning Jackal into a deadly trap — a trap from which only one of them will escape.

Brian Lumley 0812536282 The twin sons of Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, have taken very different paths. Nathan as his father's powers—to talk to the dead, to travel instantly through space. Like Harry, this new Necroscope fights evil wherever he finds it.

His twin, Nestor, has become the most horrifying evil imaginable: a shape-shifting, blood sucking Wamphyi Lord! Devoid of human feeling, Nestor and his companion, the beautiful, malevolent Wratha the Risen, hunt without mercy.

The battle between the brothers mirrors the war between vampires and humans. On mankind's side: terrible weapons brought from Earth by Nathan's allies. But the vampires are numerous and powerful, and neither side has a clear advantage...until Nathan and his legions of the dead discover a way to destroy the vampires forever.

In the midst of a titanic battle, Nathan makes a desperate move that forever changes millions of lives and two worlds: the vampire world...and earth.

Brian Lumley 0812520629 Nestor and Nathan Kiklu are the twin sons of Harry Keogh, the Necroscope. United by blood, they also share some of their father's awesome powers—but what they do with those gifts cannot be more different!

Nathan takes up the struggle against the metamorphic vampires, while Nestor, fascinated by the vampires' eerie evil, has become his twin's worst nightmare: a Wamphyri Lord!

Harry Keogh's sons have become the bitterest of enemies, each determined to destroy the other. When next they meet, one will surely die!

Brian Lumley 0812521374 Except to Harry Keogh, Necroscope. And what they tell him is horrifying.

In the Balkan mountains of Rumania, a terrible evil is growing. Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.

The vampire's human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire's mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead.

Dragosani works not for Ferenczy's freedom but world domination. he will rule the world with knowledge raped from the dead.

His only opponent: Harry Koegh, champion of the dead and the living.

To protect Harry, the dead will do anything—even rise from their graves!

Brian Lumley 0812508335 Brian Lumley's Necroscope novels are one of the horror genre's most towering achievements. They chronicle the adventures of Necroscope, Harry Keogh, his successor, Jake Cutter, and the psychically gifted agents of E-Branch, Britain's super-secret spy organization, and their battles against the malevolent, shape-shifting Wamphyri and their spawn. Their exploits have spanned two worlds, thirteen novels, and an infinity of time. The Necroscope novels have sold more than two million copies in English alone.

Tor Books is proud to publish Necroscope: Deadspeak in hardcover for the first time. Previously available only as a mass market, paperback Necroscope: Deadspeak is the fourth volume in Lumley's exciting vampire series, and marks the beginning of a new phase in the story of the Necroscope.

Harry Keogh has triumphed over much adversity in his life, from the death of his mother and the discovery of his amazing powers-to talk to the dead and to travel instantaneously to any place via the Möbius Continuum-to the fallout from his war against the vampires. He lost his body, though not his life; his wife and infant son disappeared without a trace; and he had to kill a woman he had come to love. What should have been a joyful reunion with his son was tinged with horror when Harry realized that his boy-now a man-was half-Necroscope and half-vampire, and thus a deadly double threat to all mankind.
Father faced son in a terrible battle, and when it was over, Harry awoke safe in his own bed, at home . . . but his Necroscope powers were gone, locked away in the depths of his mind!
Now, a new evil rears its head in the Balkan Mountains. Janos Ferenczy, master vampire and black magician, has risen from an ages-long sleep. As the first step in his plans of conquest, he conjures dead men and women into a perverse semblance of life and subjects them to fiendish tortures. But the shrieks of the dead barely begin to satisfy Janos's bloodlusts as he prepares an army of undead warriors to conquer the world.

The dead try desperately to attract the Necroscope's attention, but Harry Keogh is deaf to their pleas and their screams. As Harry searches for a cure, he learns that to save mankind he must ally himself with the crafty father of vampires, the infamous Faethor Ferenczy. Centuries dead, Faethor lies in his grave and schemes. He will help Harry defeat Janos-but his price will be very high indeed!

Brian Lumley 0812508351 There's a maniacal murderer on the loose, brutally slaughtering young women with a ferocity that rivals that of vampires Harry Koegh has spent his life combatting. The Necroscope's been asked to solve the crimes...asked by the dead spirits of the madman's victims.Harry cannot turn down a request from the dead...even if it costs him his soul. In the climactic battle with the vampires, mankind prevailed and purged the vampires from earth—thanks to Harry, his team of psychically-gifted spies, and Faethor Ferenczy, long-dead 'father' of the world's vampires, who betrayed his own kind.But Harry's alliance with Faethor has a terrible cost—Harry—Harry's very humanity is under attack from the vampire evil coiled in his mind!

Brian Lumley 0812553640 Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, the man who can talk to the dead, and Earth's greatest vampire hunter, has been searching for his wife and infant son, gone missing during Harry's war against the vampires. This obsession has left him open to subtle influence by an ancient vampire, Radu. Entombed in amber, trapped in undeath, Radu plans for his resurrection and plots the destruction of other vampires who might challenge his supremacy.Thus, Radu's enemies are now Harry's—and Harry cannot properly defend himself. His powers—his deadspeak and his ability to transport himself through the Mobius Continuum—are locked away in the recesses of his vampire-clouded mind.But Harry is not without allies, living and dead. E-Branch, the psychic spy organization, is worried about Harry. So is harry's long-dead Ma, and the ancient philosopher and prophet Nostradamus, whose centuries-old quatrain make eerie sense in the modern world.Right now, Harry Keogh doesn't even know he's the Necroscope. But Earth's teeming dead won't let him forget them for long—and won't let him forget that Radu and his vampire kind are humanity's deadliest enemies.

Eric Lustbader 0671703498 Nicholas Linnear, visionary hero of The Ninja, The Kaisho, and Floating City, returns in...Second Skin

Eric Lustbader's powerful novels have established him as "an author of authentic and engrossing Oriental intrigue second to none" (Ib Melchior, Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now the international bestselling master storyteller brings us a globe-spanning new novel of epic adventure. Nicholas Linnear is back — to confront his most formidable and hated enemy.

Nicholas Linnear won a major battle with the apocalyptic destruction of Floating City. But his enemy has taken flight from the city's ruins in Vietnam to regroup and mount the assault that will solidify his ultimate power — and destroy Linnear. Mick Leonforte, an international corporate power broker as well as a criminal czar, is preparing to take on Linnear, his sworn nemesis, on the battleground where business and warfare become one. With the help of seasoned New York City police detective Lew Croaker and the dazzling, cunning Vesper Arkham, Linnear pursues his prey — placing Koei, the woman he loves above all else, in the vengeful path of a criminal genius. And it will plunge Nicholas into the depths of Kshira — the terrible force that even the master who trained him in the mysteries of psychic warfare was powerless to escape.

Eric Lustbader; Eric Van Lustbader 0586071652

Eric Van Lustbader 0449205975 "Brilliant...Perhaps no other piece of fiction since SHOGUN illuminates the mind, machinations, and mores of Eastern peoles with the style and intensity of JIAN."
THE MIAMI HERALD
Jake Maroc is the top agent for the Quarry, the secretive government agency. Nichiren, Jake's sworn enemy, is a cold killer with a deadly secret. Shi Zilin is a wily Communist minister, a survivor of eras in turmoil. Which one of them will emerge the true Jian—the consummate warrior, the man who excels, the supreme master of the arts of love and combat, strength and wisdom?
Four ancient pieces of jade are the key to unlocking the grand scheme of the Jian. The price is Hong Kong—glittering jewel that sets the KGB, the Communist Chinese, and the Americans in a deadly battle.

Eric Van Lustbader 042504453X

Anthony Lynch, Anthony James 0761508651 This book reveals the secrets behind the hottest role-playing game available for the Sony Playstation. You get:

• Walkthroughs for all adventures, including objectives, enemies, and "the Goods"
• Which magic items and other tools to use
• Expert advice for choosing characters with the best mix of magical skills and battle sense
• Strategies to take you from the Village of Isla to the Abyss Tips on fighting formations and tactical choices
• Secrets of the Active Playing System, which can turn the tide in
a tough battle
• And more!

About the Author
Anthony James is the author of Soul Blade: Unauthorized Game Secrets, Blast Corps: Unauthorized Game Secrets, Vandal Hearts: Unauthorized Secrets & Solutions, and other Prima electronic entertainment books.

Patrick Lynch 0425154882 When a particularly contagious strain of an Ebola-like virus breaks out deep in the rain forest, a team of American biological-warfare experts investigates and discovers that the world is in grave danger. Reprint.

Elizabeth A. Lynn 0441006116 Karadur and Tenjiro are twin sons of Kojiro Antani, the dragon lord of Ippa. But only Karadur, whose name means "fire-bringer," bears the blood of the dragon in his veins. His younger brother, Tenjiro or "Heaven's hope," was second out of the womb and is the weakest and smallest of the two. As the twins grow to maturity, Karadur is anxious to attain the promise of his blood and transform into the dragon he is capable of becoming. But Tenjiro, who bears the scars of Karadur's claws, resents his older brother and, on the eve of Karadur's transformation, steals the talisman that makes the change possible. That same night he disappears, fleeing to a distant, icy realm where he will reemerge as a powerful wizard bent on destroying his older brother. But Karadur, lord of Dragon Keep, is prepared to go to war against Tenjiro, and it's likely only one will survive. —Craig Engler

editors at TIME Magazine, Time Magazine 1929049625 The TIME 2002 ANNUAL provides the best journalism available on the years top stories, including the attack on America, other world events, politics, science and technology, health and education, arts and entertainment, and milestones

Editors of Time Magazine 1932273034 rom the way we communicate...to the way we travel....from the way we entertain ourselves to the way we do business in every aspect of our lives...it is all so radically different from the time of our grandparents. Now, the editors of TIME tell the fascinating stories behind the most important innovations of the past 100 years, from computers, space shuttles, and cell phones, to zippers, Teflon and the Internet. Here is a celebration of ingenuity in every form, from the kitchen to the garage, from the multiplex to the mousepad. Here are intriguing portraits of the brilliant scientists, oddball inventors and shade-tree mechanics who created our modern world.

Editors of Time Magazine 1932273530

The Editors of Time Magazine 1883013887 Each year TIME Annual reports on the most important stories of the past 12 months with all the resources of the world'd leading news magazine.

Time Magazine 1883013615

Gregory Maguire 0061350966 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Julian May 0345309898 When a one-way time tunnel to Earth's distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....
THE SAGA OF PLIOCENE EXILE
Volume I:THE MANY-COLORED LAND
Volume II:THE GOLDEN TORC
Volume III:THE NONBORN KING
Volume IV:THE ADVERSARY
. . . and don't miss A PLIOCENE COMPANION

Julian May 0345314212

Jay Mcinerney 0394726413 The tragicomedy of a young man in NYC, struggling with the reality of his mother's death, alienation and the seductive pull of drugs.

Dennis L. McKiernan 0451457005 Finally, the story of the Great War of the Ban is told! Two young wanderers are given a small copper coin by a dying human, who tells them to deliver it "East to Agron" and "warn all," but dies before explaining who they are to deliver it to, and what they are to warn them of. Making matters worse, in order to deliver the message, the pair must pass through a war in the East between the Black Mage Modru and the alliance of free folk opposing him, and end up being drawn into events which threaten to overwhelm them, save for the coin which has much more significance than anyone could imagine!

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812571304 The saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., has become one of the standard works of fantasy in the 1990s. VOYA says, "Modesitt's logical structure of the interrelationship of order and chaos, magic and technology, is one of the most through in modern fantasy. The personal growth of his characters and the depiction of their world, it well-written and credible - and involves the reader... The serious fantasy reader will revel in Modesitt's work." Launched with The Magic of Recluce, the novels of Recluce have gone on to sell over a million copies in paperback.

The most recent of the Recluce novels, Fall of Angels, introduced the engineer/smith Nylan, the only man among the leadership of the company of "angels" marooned on a high plateau in the west of Candar, and perhaps the one person most responsible for their survival. But the angels are a matriarchal band, and so Nylan must leave his companions and seek a life elsewhere. He travels down from the plateau into the world of warring kingdoms and strange magics with his companion, Ayrlyn, the healer, and his infant son. They are in search of a place to lead a peaceful life, but they look different from the locals, and their talents are most valued in battle - and so the war between chaos and order begins again.

The Chaos Balance is the seventh book of the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812548248 Candar is being invaded and Lerris must become the greatest wizard of all time-or see his whole world destroyed.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812538951 L. E. Modesitt's bestselling fantasy novels set in the magical world of Recluce have established a standard of entertainment in contemporary fantasy. "In Modesitt's universe, where good and evil, chaos and order, are in perpetual conflict, a young wizard finds that his destiny is to strike a balance, but at considerable personal cost. Modesitt creates a deeper and more intricate world with each volume," says Publishers Weekly. "Modesitt's elaborate and intelligent working out of a systemof magic and a system of technology parallel to it is becoming more the lifeblood of the Recluce books with every new volume. . . . His saga continues to gain in popularity," says Booklist. Each Recluce novel tells an independent story that nevertheless reverberates though all the other Recluce novels to deepen and enrich the reading experience.

Now in Fall of Angels, Modesitt moves deep into Recluce's past to chronicle the founding of the Empire of the Legend, the almost mythological domain ruled by woman warriors on the highland plateau of the continent of Candar. He tells the story from the point of view of Nylan, the engineer and builder whose job it is to raise a great tower on the plateau known as the Roof of the World. Here the exiled women warriors will live and survive to fulfill their destiny. Here a revolutionary new society will be born . . . if Nylan can get the tower built and defenses in place before the rulers of the lowland nations come with their armies to obliterate them all. And if Nylan can learn to control the magical powers that are growing within him.

Thus Modesitt relates the story of how magic comes into the world of Recluce, in a fantasy novel destined to please the growing Recluce audience and win new readers to the series.

Fall of Angels is the sixth book of the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812534050 Return now to the world of Recluce in The Magic Engineer.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812505182 With The Magic of Recluce, L.E. Modesitt made his impressive hardcover debut, breaking out in wide scope and grand scale with a novel in the great tradition of the war between good and evil in a wonderful fantasy world. Modesitt had been producing fast-paced, slickly-written novels of SF adventure, often compared to the work of Keith Laumer and Gordon R. Dickson. Then, in his biggest and best book yet, he broadened his canvas and turned to fantasy and magic, stepping immediately into the front rank of contemporary fantasy writers.

The Magic of Recluce is a carefully-plotted fantasy novel of character about the growth and education of a young magician. In it, Modesitt confronts real moral issues with gripping force, builds atmosphere slowly and convincingly and gives his central character, Lerris, real intellectual challenges. This is the kind of highly-rationalized fantasy that Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson write when they write fantasy, colorful and detailed.

He is given the standard two options: permanent exile from Recluce or the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive. He chooses dangergeld.

Though magic is rarely discussed openly in Recluce, it becomes clear, when Lerris is sent into intensive training for his quest, that he has a natural talent for it during his weapons lessons. And he will need magic in the lands beyond, where the power of the Chaos Wizards reigns unchecked. He must learn to use his powers in an orderly way or fall prey to Chaos.

Lerris may resent order, but he has no difficulty choosing good over evil. As he begins his lonely journey, he falls into the company of a gray magician, once of Recluce, who tutors him in the use of magic and shows him some of the devastation caused by the Chaos Wizards in the great wars between Chaos and Order of past times.

Lerris pursues a quest for knowledge and power that leads him across strange lands, through the ghostly ruins of the old capitol of Chaos, down the white roads of the Chaos Wizards to a final battle with the archenemy of Order, discovering in the end true control of magic, true love, and the beginning of true wisdom. An epic adventure, The Magic of Recluce, is a triumph of fantasy.

The Magic of Recluce is the first book of the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812534042 The saga of Recluce, launched in The Magic of Recluce and continuing in The Towers of the Sunset and The Magic Engineer reaches a new climax in The Order War. "Modesitt has created an exceptionally vivid world," says L. Sprague de Camp, "so concretely visualized as to give the impression that Modesitt himself must have dwelt there." Publishers Weekly says, "Modesitt creates a complex world bgased on a plausible system of magic and peopled with engaging and realistic characters."

Set after the events of The Magic Engineer (and prior to The Magic of Recluce) The Order War illuminates great figures and major events in the historic war between order and chaos that is the central focus of the saga of Recluce.

The deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, have completed their great highway through the Westhorns and now threatened the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. The ruler of Sarronnyn appeals to the Black order wizards of Recluce for help.

Justen - a young Black Engineer in the city of Nylan - joins the relief force. Despite their success in destroying more than half the White armies, Sarronnyn falls to the White Wizards, and Justen is chased into the most inhospitable desert in Candar. These trials are but the beginning, for the White Wizards have all Candar in their grasp. Justen must fight both Recluce and Fairhaven, as well as the highest powers of order and the forbidden technology to harness chaos itself in his efforts to halt the conquest of the chaos wizards.

The Order War is the fourth book of the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0765312131 Ordermaster is the 13th book in the Saga of Recluce and the direct sequel to Wellspring of Chaos. The cooper Kharl has no sooner taken possession of the estate bestowed upon him by Lord Ghrant of Austra for his aid in quelling the revolt of Ghrant's dispossessed brother, when he is summoned back to the capital. Hagen, his friend the lord-chancellor, needs help in dealing with rebellious nobles. After a bloody campaign, in which Kharl discovers and is forced to use even more deadly order magery, civil order is restored and Ghrant's throne firmly secured. But Kharl is now a famous and feared public figure, the Lord's Mage, and his notoriety makes him uncomfortable.

To his surprise, Kharl is soon called upon again by Lords Ghrant and Hagen, this time to return to his homeland of Nordla as envoy, because Nordla has become the next target of Hamorian expansion. Back in his hometown of Brysta, he discovers that his old enemy Egen is engaged in a plot with the Hamorians to take the throne from his father and open Nordla to the enemy. Kharl has to find a solution, for the sake of both the land of his birth and his adopted new country.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812545591 When Anna Marshall is transported from her boring and frustrating life in Ames, Iowa, to the very different world of Erde, she's angry and confused, but soon finds out that for the first time in her life she's uniquely powerful. In Iowa Anna was a music instructor and small-time opera singer, but on Erde her musical ability makes her a big-time sorceress—potentially.

First she must figure out how to use her ability before the big-time rulers who've notices her arrival kill her just because she's an unpredictable new power....Those rulers may wish they hadn't waited as long as they did.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 076534808X Kharl is the best cooper in Brysta, one of the major cities in Nordla, and his life has been as ordered and dependable as his barrels. His trouble begins when he saves a neighbor's daughter from the violent advances of two upper-class men. Then he rescues an actual rape victim he finds unconscious in an alley, a blackstaffer — a young expatriate mage — from Recluce, and that makes his wife very uneasy. The culprit in both cases turns out to have been Egen, the cruel and corrupt son of the local ruler. When the blackstaffer is mysteriously murdered in Kharl's cooperage, Kharl is jailed, tried, and flogged, and in a shocking turnaround released—and his consort executed for the murder, which she did not commit. Egen again. Kharl ends up on the run, with just a handful of coins and a few clothes, but he also takes the slain woman's black staff and her book, The Basis of Order, which explains the principles of its power. The diligent cooper is about to learn a new, very different skill.

Wellspring of Chaos is the twelfth book in the Recluce Saga and takes place roughly 60 years after the close of The Order War (Recluce #4). It is Modesitt at the top of his form, returning to his most famous fantasy world, yet does not require previous knowledge of Recluce to be enjoyed. It's publication is sure to be one of the fantasy milestones of the year.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. 0812541715 In this author's popular Recluce fantasies—beginning with The Magic of Recluce—the classic theme of youngsters growing to adult power and responsibility is repeatedly retold in terms of magic skill. Past books focused on the apparent good guys——"black—"black" magicians who use order-magic (cooling, healing, strengthening) and constantly oppose the White Order of chaos wizards whose talent is fire and dissolution. Young hero Cerryl has a natural bent for chaos, and for him the Whites offer the only game in town. Painfully, he learns about balance: order-magic can be deviously used for destruction, chaos can cleanse and anyway requires order-control if it's not to destroy the user. This moves interestingly away from simplistic "black is good, white is bad" magical color-coding ... but although Cerryl is a decent, ethical white wizard, the Order remains unpleasantly tyrannical—for example, an instant life sentence of slave labor for the equivalent of expired license plates. The magic training is interesting if repetitive (apprentices practice firebolts by zapping blockages in the public sewers), but Modesitt's real story lies in waiting for Cerryl to become a full mage of the Order and perhaps confront its injustices in the massive sequel, Colors of Chaos. —David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

L. E. Modesitt 0812570936 The biggest fantasy from L. E. Modesitt, Jr. to date, Colors of Chaos is the story of the White Chaos wizard Cerryl: his education in life and love, and his rise to power in the magicians guild of Fairhaven. This is the direct sequel to The White Order, which told of Cerryl's boyhood and youth, and takes place at the same time as the events in Modesitt's earlier novel, The Magic Engineer. Yet it stands alone, the longest Recluce novel, a portrayal of the growth and change of character and of the strengths and weaknesses of an age-old civilization held together by the power of magic.

Ceryl, now a full mage in The White Order, must prove himself indispensible to Jeslek, the High Wizard. Whether through assassination, effective gorvernance of occupied territory or the fearless and clever direction of troops in battle, Ceryl faces many harrowing obstacles, not the least of which is Anya, the plotting seductress who's the real power behind the scenes of the white wizards. With his wits, his integrity, and the support of his love, the Black healer Leyladin, he must survive long enough to claim his rightful spot within the ruling heirarchy of the White Order.

This is a must-read for followers of the Saga of Recluce, offering a unique, sympathetic point of view of the White Chaos wizards-the forces that throughout history have opposed the magicians of Recluce.

Colors of Chaos is the ninth book in the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt 0765319276 Acclaimed author L. E. Modesitt, Jr. continues his new Recluce story in Mage-Guard of Hamor, the second of two volumes set mostly on the continent of Hamor, far across the sea from Recluce, where the story began.

Rahl was a young apprentice on the island of Recluce sent to the mages training school for testing, then banished to Hamor. His education now continues under dangerous circumstances. In Hamor, his powers have increased, but so has the amount of trouble he attracts.

The whole society of Hamor is a new culture for Modesitt—and Rahl—to explore, one in which magic is a monopoly of the state. Rahl is a mage now, powerful and still just as dangerous to himself and to others. This is the story of how he gains both more knowledge and power, and more self-control.

L. E. Modesitt 0812579488 L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is one of the standard setters in fantasy today, and his most famous series is the Saga of Recluce. Each novel fills in pieces of the history of this land where Chaos and Order strive to maintain a magical balance.

Magi'i of Cyador marks the beginning of a new tale from deep within the rich depths of the history of Recluce. This is the story of Lorn, a talented boy born into a family of Magi'i. A diligent student of remarkable talent, Lorn lacks only the single most coveted attribute required of a Magus of Cyador: unquestionable loyalty. Lorn is too independent for his own good.

So Lorn is forced to become a lancer officer, and he's sent to the frontier to fight off the all-too-frequent barbarian raids—a career that comes with a 50% mortality rate. His enemies don't expect him to survive . . .

Lorn is a fresh, new character who will enrich one of today's most important fantasy series: the saga of Recluce.

Magi'i of Cyador is the tenth book in the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt 0765357755 L. E. Modesitt, Jr. begins a new Recluce story in Natural Ordermage, the first of two volumes set mostly on the continent of Hamor, far across the sea from Recluce.

Rahl, a young apprentice scrivener on the island of Recluce, likes life to work out in his favor. And he has a bad attitude, too. To make sure things go his way, he uses a small amount of order magic in opportunistic moments—but his abilities are starting to get the attention of the Council magisters. So the Council sends him to the mages training school for testing, and through misuse of his powers, which are getting stronger all the time, he gets himself banished to the continent and empire of Hamor.

As an exile in Hamor, working in the Ordermage Council's import and export business, Rahl’s powers increase more—and so does the amount of trouble he can get into.

Welcome to the fantasy world of L. E. Modesitt, where the adventure is just beginning.

L. E. Modesitt 0812589262 L. E. Modesitt, Jr. is one of the standard setters in fantasy today and his most famous series is the Saga of Recluce. Each novel fills in pieces of the history of this land where Chaos and Order strive to maintain a magical balance.

Scion of Cyador continues the story begun in Magi'i of Cyador. Exploring the rich depths of the history of Recluce, Magi'i of Cyador introduced Lorn, a talented boy born into a family of Magi'i. A diligent student mage who lacked blind devotion, Lorn was made a lancer officer and shipped off to the frontier—a career that comes with a 50% mortality rate.

Having survived his extended stint fighting both barbarian raiders and the giant beasts of the Accursed Forest, Lorn has proven himself to be a fine officer . . . perhaps too fine an officer. As his prowess has grown, so has his number of enemies and rivals. Too much success has made him a marked man. When he returns to his home, both he and his young family become targets while all of Cyad is in upheaval over deadly political infighting. But Lorn is now hardened, a deadly fighter himself, especially when the Empire is at stake.

Scion of Cyador is the completion of another grand story in the Recluce saga.

Scion of Cyador is the eleventh book in the saga of Recluce.

L. E. Modesitt 0812540026 The Spellsong War continues the story of Anna, who in The Soprano Sorceress went from middle-aged music professor in Iowa to savior and regent of the kingdom of Defalk, on Erde, where music is magic. Though Anna is considered an intelligent and fair regent, women on Erde are very much second-class citizens, and she is continually frustrated that the men she must negotiate with respect her power as a sorceress but fail to recognize her other gifts. However, she has little time to consider her own position, as she tries to rebuild the war- and famine-shattered Defalk for its eventual ruler, the child Lord Jimbob. The kingdoms that surround Defalk are plotting to overthrow Anna, and she walks a fine line in using magic against them; every spell weakens her, and the wrong spell could even kill her. Anna's maturity and concentration are a refreshing find in the fantasy genre. There's no silly romance here; instead, readers are treated to a thoughtful plot, realistic problems, and a finely drawn heroine.

Terry Moore B000K6UKJA

Terry Moore 189259711X My Other Life contains the powerful and moving story of a horrendous plane crash that rips the lives of Francine, Katchoo and David apart. And, to make matters worse, Katchoo discovers the plane crash was no accident, as the demons from her other life come back to claim her for good. A heartbreaking story that launched the SIP books in a new direction.

Terry Moore 1892597012 This is the extraordinary graphic novel taught in university classrooms across the nation as a leading example of contemporary literature. From its comic beginnings in the first book, SiP takes a dramatic turn in I Dream Of You. Katchoo returns from a mysterious three-month trip to Canada to find her trusted friend David and roommate Francine angry and demanding answers. But Katchoo can't tell Francine the truth: that she was once a highly paid call girl working for the wicked and powerful Darcy Parker. Now, after two years of hiding within Francine's quiet domestic life, Parker has found Katchoo and threatens to take away the one thing Katchoo holds most dear, the secret love of her life, Francine. In this touching story of unrequited love set against the backdrop of organized crime, writer/artist Terry Moore delivers an unforgettable love story that has become a graphic novel classic, winning the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series.

Terry Moore 1892597039 This collection presents a restless time for Francine, Kathcoo and David as they struggle with their relationships in the aftermath of the I Dream of You period. However, in their self-absorbing conflicts they fail to notice an ominous presence that rises and surrounds their lives like a deadly storm. A powerful look at the human heart caught off guard. This collection includes a five page color dream swquence by Jim Lee!

Terry; Kwitney, Alisa [intro] Moore B000PJUJ7U

WALLACE MOORE 0515039349

Mike Myers, Robin Ruzan 1562829793 A film tie-in which features Wayne and Garth, two adolescents obsessed by Heavy Metal and Hot Babes. From Aerosmith to Madonna ("heavily babetitious"), they ponder the great issues of the world in a language all their own. The book includes essays, photographs, a crossword puzzle and a glossary.

Andrew Neiderman 0671014102 When Kevin Taylor joins the Manhattan criminal law firm of John Milton & Associates, he's hit the big time. At last, he and his wife can enjoy the luxuries they've so desired — money, a chauffeur-driven limo, and a stunning home in a high-rise. Then Milton assigns Kevin one of the most notorious cases of the year, with a file that had been put together prior to the crime. Throwing himself into his work, Kevin begins to see a pattern of evil emerging from behind the firm's plush facade. Acquittal after acquittal, every criminal client walks free, and Kevin's suspicions slowly give way to terror. For Kevin has just become The Devil's Advocate.

Larry Niven 0345333926 A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

Andre Norton 0441045340 Third Ace printing, same cover as first two. This is D-534, published in 1961. 200 years after the Destruction, young Fors set off to explore the empty lands to the north. He was a member of a clan which concerned itself with recapturing the knowledge and skills of their ancestors. By adding to that knowledge, Fors hoped to secure a place as one of the leaders of his clan, a "Star Man," like his late father.

Bill Nowlin 1579400884 Mr. Red Sox is the first biography of Pesky ever published. With a baseball career spanning eight decades, Johnny has been clubhouse kid, major league shortstop with stats better than several Hall of Famers, coach, manager, broadcaster and a special evaluator of talent. At age 84, he is still in uniform, in the clubhouse and out on the field before every Red Sox home game. This book illuminates one of the most interesting lives in baseball in the twentieth century.

Eric S. Nylund 038079294X The Earth is the graveyard of billions, thanks to mathematician and rogue cryptographer Jack Potter and the treacherous extraterrestrial creature known as Wheeler, Jack's one-time business partner in the trade of alien and human technologies.But Potter and a handful of others managed to escape the holocaust thanks to the miracle of teleportation. From the cold gray ruins of the Moon, the last pitiful remnants of the human race now stare down at the devastation that one of their diminished species unwittingly helped to bring about. Here at civilization's end, a beautiful Chinese mind assassin, a cold-blooded cybernetics genius, a DNA-manipulating "gene witch," and Jack himself stand at the threshold of a new day — when accelerated evolution will open the door to the full achievement of human potential; when the epic saga of humanity will begin again and Jack will ultimately be redeemed...if he doesn't go insane first.

But Wheeler is still out there — and out to finish what he started. And this universe isn't big enough for Jack Potter to hide himself in.

Stewart O'Nan, Stephen King 0743267524 Fans watching the 2004 baseball playoffs were often treated to shots of Stephen King sitting in the stands, notebook in hand. Given the bizarre events on the field, from the Red Sox's unprecedented comeback against their most hated rivals to their ace pitcher's bleeding, stitched-together ankle—not to mention the Sox's first championship in 86 years—you could be forgiven for thinking King was writing the script as he went along, passing new plot twists down to the dugouts between innings.

What he was writing, though, along with his friend and fellow novelist Stewart O'Nan, was Faithful, a diary of the 2004 Red Sox season. Faithful is written not from inside the clubhouse or the press room, but from the outside, from the stands and the sofa in front of the TV, by two fans who, like the rest of New England, have lived and died (mostly died) with the Sox for decades. From opposite ends of Red Sox Nation, King in Maine and O'Nan at the border of Yankees country in Connecticut, they would meet in the middle at Fenway Park or trade emails from home about the games they'd both stayed up past midnight to watch. King (or, rather, "Steve") is emotional, O'Nan (or "Stew") is obsessively analytical. Steve, as the most famous Sox fan who didn't star in Gigli, is a folk hero of sorts, trading high fives with doormen and enjoying box seats better than John Kerry's, while Stew is an anonymous nomad, roving all over the park. (Although he's such a shameless ballhound that he gains some minor celebrity as "Netman" when he brings a giant fishing net to hawk batting-practice flies from the top of the Green Monster.)

You won't find any of the Roger Angell-style lyricism here that baseball, and the Sox in particular, seem to bring out in people. (King wouldn't stand for it.) Instead, this is the voice of sports talk radio: two fans by turns hopeful, distraught, and elated, who assess every inside pitch and every waiver move as a personal affront or vindication. Full of daily play-by-play and a season's rises and falls, Faithful isn't self-reflective or flat-out funny enough to become a sports classic like Fever Pitch, Ball Four, or A Fan's Notes, but like everything else associated with the Red Sox 2004 season, from the signing of Curt Schilling to Dave Roberts's outstretched fingers, it carries the golden glow of destiny. And, of course, it's got a heck of an ending. —Tom Nissley

P. Michael O'Sullivan 0695803638

Michael Palmer 0553568760 Dr. Sarah Baldwin races to a Boston hospital with a young woman whose normal labor has suddenly become a matter of life and death. As she struggles to save both mother and baby, she doesn't know that two other women have already died under horrifying identical circumstances. And so begins Sarah's own nightmare, as she learns that the prenatal herbal vitamins she prescribed are the only thing these women have in common. Soon Sarah is fighting to save her career, her reputation—her life. For she's certain there must be some unknown factor linking these women, and as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will do anything—even murder—to keep a devastating secret.

Michael Palmer 0553572210 In his five bestselling novels, from The Sisterhood to Natural Causes, physician Michael Palmer has drawn on years of firsthand emergency-room experience to create the drama of a frighteningly authentic world—a world where the line between medicine and murder is scalpel-thin. Now, in his most harrowing suspense novel yet, Palmer reveals how the power to heal can become a license to kill....

With his wife, Evie, scheduled for surgery the next day, Dr. Harry Corbett goes to the hospital for what he hopes will be a quiet evening of reconciliation. In recent weeks Evie, never quick to share her feelings, has been more closed and distant than ever.

But when Harry reaches Evie's room, it is too late for reconciliation. Shockingly, without warning, Evie is dead. The police suspect homicide. And their only suspect is Dr. Harry Corbett.

Harry is not prepared for the stunning revelations that follow: His bright, beautiful, highly ambitious wife was leading a double life; she may have had
dangerous secrets. But what secret could have been explosive enough to die for?

Then the killer strikes again, boldly, tauntingly murdering one of Harry's favorite patients in such a way that only Harry knows the death was not natural. This time Harry is certain: The killer, medically sophisticated, coolly arrogant, moving undetected through a busy urban hospital, could only be a doctor. And he wonders—how many more will die?

Desperately Harry probes deeper, following the only clue Evie left. What he finds is a sinister pattern that threatens patients in every hospital in the city. Harry is engaged in a life-and-death battle of wits with a chillingly efficient monster. And until the doctor is unmasked, no patient is safe from his lethal silent treatment.

Michael Palmer has done it again, delivering a no-holds-barred novel of medical intrigue— a gripping thriller that features the most terrifying physician
since Hannibal Lecter. Silent Treatment will keep your pulse racing from beginning to end

Pcs 0761510680 Lead the Liberation Army to victory with this strategy guide that tells players how to assemble unbeatable battle formations, win one-on-one AND in army vs. army mode, recruit the best volunteers for the Liberation Army, construct an impenetrable castle fortress to house your army, and much more.

Pcs 0761511857 Detailed strategies, bios, stats, and tips for all characters
Winning moves lists
Hints for defeating the CPU
Secret characters revealed
Special moves and combos Memory card stickers!About the Author

Prima Creative Services is a team of gaming experts that has produced over 60 strategy guides for Prima Publishing, and collectively has two decades of experience in the gaming magazine field.

Donald J Pfeil 0345253779

Sylvia Plath 0060930187 Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in 1963 and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and perfectly-written book, which remains one of the best-told tales of a woman's descent into insanity.

Plato. 0915144158 The third edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works. A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with a Select Bibliography.

Edgar Allan Poe 0894712330 Includes short stories, poems, and other works by one of the great American writers.

Petru Popescu 0380728249 A cross between the novel Jurassic Park and the movie Quest for Fire, Almost Adam is a speculative tale about the survival of the Australopithecus (an early human ancestor living two million years ago) in a remote part of Kenya. The book is often compared to John Darnton's Neanderthal, but it's actually much better. The American Anthropological Association recently gave Almost Adam a surprisingly positive review on the pages of its newsletter—a good endorsement coming from a crowd that might be tough to please. The science is solid and the story is good, if a bit long. With this novel, Petru Popescu offers a pleasant way to learn about the past.

Terry Pratchett 0061020710 The Colour of Magic is Terry Pratchett's maiden voyage through the bizarre land of Discworld. His entertaining and witty series has grown to more than 20 books, and this is where it all starts—with the tourist Twoflower and his hapless wizard guide, Rincewind ("All wizards get like that ... it's the quicksilver fumes. Rots their brains. Mushrooms, too."). Pratchett spoofs fantasy clichés—and everything else he can think of—while marshalling a profusion of characters through a madcap adventure. The Colour of Magic is followed by The Light Fantastic. —Blaise Selby

Terry Pratchett 0061020699 Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels, consistent number one bestsellers in England, have garnered him a revered position in the halls of parody along with Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.

In Equal Rites, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of an eighth son, who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late...

Terry Pratchett 0061057649 In Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett continues the fantasy adventures on Discworld—where anything goes. Anything but murder, that is. Commander Vimes of the Watch must investigate a puzzling series of deaths, with help from various trolls and dwarfs. Pratchett's humor and excellent writing skills draw the reader effortlessly into his zany world. Feet of Clay is 19th in the series. —Blaise Selby

Terry Pratchett 0061056901 Marvelous Discworld, which revolves on the backs of four great elephants and a big turtle, spins into Interesting Times, the 17th outing in Terry Pratchett's rollicking fantasy series. The gods are playing games again, and this time the mysterious Lady opposes Fate in a match of "Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread." —Blaise Selby

Terry Pratchett 006105691X There are strange goings-on at the Opera House in Ankh-Morpork. A ghost in a white mask is murdering, well, quite a lot of people, and two witches (it really isn't wise to call them "meddling, interfering old baggages"), or perhaps three, take a hand in unraveling the mystery. Fans of the popular Discworld will be happy to see some old friends again in Maskerade, the 18th novel in the series. —Blaise Selby

Terry Pratchett 0061020656 It's bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn't a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. After all, he's been trained at Ankh-Morpork's famed assassins' school, across the sea from the Kingdom of the Sun.First, there's the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad — a pyramid to end all pyramids. Then there are the myriad administrative duties, such as dealing with mad priests, sacred crocodiles, and marching mummies. And to top it all off, the adolescent pharaoh discovers deceit, betrayal — not to mention a headstrong handmaiden — at the heart of his realm.

Terry Pratchett 0061020621 They say there are only two things you can count on ...

But that was before DEATH started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now DEATH is having the time of his life, finding greener pastures where he can put his scythe to a whole new use.

But like every cutback in an important public service, DEATH's demise soon leads to chaos and unrest — literally, for those whose time was supposed to be up, like Windle Poons. The oldest geezer in the entire faculty of Unseen University — home of magic, wizardry, and big dinners — Windle was looking forward to a wonderful afterlife, not this boring been-there-done-that routine. To get the fresh start he deserves, Windle and the rest of Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find DEATH and save the world for the living (and everybody else, of course).

Richard Preston 0345409973 In New York City in the late '90s, a 17-year-old girl heads off to her private school even though she has a cold. By art class her nose is gushing mucus and she's severely disoriented. Within seconds, it seems, she's in convulsions and, most bizarrely, can't stop biting herself. All the reader can do is hope she'll die quickly, but Kate Moran's body still has a few more disgusting turns to undergo, and Richard Preston—a Jacobean master of ceremonies par excellence—takes us through them in bizarre and bloody detail.

Clearly, whatever Kate had was a head cold with a scientific vengeance. Preston's heroine, Alice Austen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, realizes—in the first of several gripping autopsy scenes—that the girl's nervous system had been virtually destroyed. So far, only one other person is known to have died in the same way, but he was a homeless man. Austen must connect the two cases, seemingly linked only by the subway, before the media gets hold of them and drums up a paranoia-fest—and before the virus's creator can kill again.

The Cobra Event is itself a paranoia-fest, a provocative thriller that makes you wonder exactly how much bioterrorism is taking place in the real world. Preston, best known for his terrifying chronicle of the Ebola virus, The Hot Zone, and other impeccably researched nonfictions, is not content to create fast-paced nightmarish scenes. His novel is instead a complex morality tale anchored in uncomfortable fact. Preston is keen to convey the "invisible history" of bioweapons engineering and, equally, to show the unsung heroism of his scientific detectives (along with that of the nurses and technicians who literally sacrifice their lives for medicine). Like their creator, these characters are not without a sense of humor. One calls the manmade virus "the ultimate head cold." Readers will never forget literally dozens of scenes and will never again see the subway, rodents, autopsy knives, and—above all—runny noses in the same light.

Melanie Rawn 0886774500 Melanie Rawn's best-selling debut is a novel of love and war, magic and madness, and deadly dangerous dragons that hold the secret to unimaginable wealth that could prove key to mutual peace-or a bloody tyrant's reign. And among it all, an idealistic young ruler struggles to civilize a culture that understands the strength of the sword-but has yet to discover the true power of knowledge.

Melanie Rawn 0886776686 A thousand years ago, Mageborns fled prejudice and persecution to colonize the planet Lenfell—a perfect refuge for those whose powers were perceived as a threat by people not gifted with magic. But the greater the magic, the greater the peril. Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted the land with Wild Magic and unleashed hideous specters called Wraithenbeasts. Now, generations later, someone is planning another war on the still crippled planet that will tear three Mageborn sisters apart.

"I am mad (petulant, in fact!) that I can't immediately read book number two in the Exiles trilogy.... Melanie Rawn has established beyond doubt that she is a great writer of fantasy and The Ruins of Ambrai will join the Dragon series in my library of favorites for years to come." —Realms of Fantasy

Melanie Rawn 0886773490 As Prince Rohan's son, Pol, grew into the knowledge of statecraft and Sunrunner magic. But Pol was not the only prince who could lay blood claim to the crown, and soon Rohan's enemies would be ready to light a torch to set a dynastic war of succession sweeping across the land. Original.

Melanie Rawn 0886774039 It began with the discovery of The Star Scroll—the last repository of forgotten spells of sorcery. Now, as Andry, the new Sunrunner Lord of Goddess Keep, begins to master this potentially deadly knowledge and Pol, son of High Prince Rohan, seeks to touch the minds of dragons, their enemy is mobilizes to strike with forbidden lore and treachery.

James Redfield 0446671002 Find out for yourself why virtually everyone you know has this book, described as an "adventure in pursuit of a spiritual mystery", on their coffee table. In the tradition of Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886775493 With the Ragnarok looming over all the worlds, those sworn to law and those promised to chaos must unite to stop the Wizard-warrior by any means. Original.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886778603 The Pica Stone, which could prove the salvation of the elves has been shattered, most of its shards scattered on plains other than where mankind dwells. And it is up to Kevral, Darris, Ra-khir, Tae, and their fellow adventurers to journey to these different realms in hopes of recovering the shards. Yet even as they undertake their quest, Colbey and Odin have begun a final struggle, a new war of the gods which will determine the fate of the mortal world.

Praise for Beyond Ragnarok: Volume One Of The Renshai Chronicles:

"Readers looking for a good rousing tale of high fantasy can skip over Terry Brooks and David Eddings and sink their imaginations into Mickey Zucker Reichert's Beyond Ragnarok." —The South Bend Tribune

"Reichert has taken Norse mythology and expanded upon it without losing the feet of the original in order to create a fantastic world which she has peopled with characters that are larger than life but believable, a major achievement in itself. It's certainly her most ambitious and satisfying work to date." —Science Fiction Chronicle

"Her writing is altogether magnificent. The tangled interrelationships, including a tangled romance, are as fascinating as he enthusiastic descriptions of bloody, bloody battles. Her mastery of military matters is quite incredible. This first volume of The Renshai Chronicles is a must." —KLIATT

"...just perfect for fantasy quest fans to lose themselves in...a delightful fantasy, featuring sympathetic characters, magical battles galore, edge-of-seat suspense, and truly impressive world-building." —VOYA

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886773660

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886779197 Here, for the first time in one volume, are the first three novels in Mickey Zucker Reichert's most startlingly original series: an epic saga of a Vietnam soldier sent through time and space to a battlefield where the weapons are not bullets and grenades but swords and spells-and where elves, thieves, and martial arts masters can find themselves unwillingly enlisted in a war between the gods....

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886775035 First in a bold, magical trilogy of a world living in the shadow of an ancient prophecy of war. Enemies band together to attack the Renshai, the mightiest, most hated and feared of all warrior races. One Renshai escapes, determined to keep the memory of his people alive and to claim his vengeance on the slayers of his race. Original.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886775876 Nightfall—assassin, thief, swordsman, adventurer, and wielder of magic—has always evaded his pursuers, until he falls prey to a royal trap that leaves him bound by sorcery and oath to guard a young prince on an epic quest. Original.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886777593 It is a crucial moment in the world of men, as the elves who have survived Ragnarok are determined to destroy humankind! Now with an impostor placed upon the Bearnian throne, the critical balance between Law and Chaos may finally be overthrown. Only a small band of adventurers can free the rightful heir from the elves' clutches—if they don't run out of time first!.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0756402751 He has been known by countless names and terrifying deeds, but chief among those names is that of Nightfall, a man-or perhaps the legendary demon himself-gifted with a unique power which any sorcerer would kill to possess.

Now, Nightfall is bound by magic and oath to guard and guide a newly-crowned king. But when his liege disappears, Nightfall must get help from Duke Varsah-the man who wants nothing more than to see Nightfall destroyed.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886774195 When Shadow received a message that his old friend Shylar needed help, the master thief and his three friends—Allerum, the elven swordsman who had once been a 20th-century American solder, and the two Dragonmages, Silme and Astryd—imediately set out for Cullinsberg. But Cullinsberg was a trap—a trap laid by the greatest.

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886779340 The Bifrost Guardians is the bold and original five-book series that launched the career of Mickey Zucker Reichert. This epic saga of an American soldier sent from Vietnam through time and space to a battlefield where the weapons are not bullets and grenades, but swords and spells, is now reintroduced to readers through Daw's new omnibus collections.

In this second volume, which includes books four and five in the series, the forces of Chaos are unleashed-in a strangely altered, modern-day America.

Praise for The Bifrost Guardian series:

"Refreshingly daring...funny, touching, sad, impelling, and ultimately satisfying...I hope it marks a new trend in fantasy."-Thrust"Ms. Reichert has a master's touch for provoking curiosity and for drawing dynamic characters...keep the reader turning the pages."-Rave Reviews

"Inventive, fertile imagination...appealing characters."-American Fantasy

Mickey Zucker Reichert 0886775205 As the victorious Renshai struggle to place the rightful king of Bearn on his throne, word of the Western Wizard's death arrives, and Shadimar, the Wizard of the East, must find a mortal to replace him. Original.

Paul Reiser 0553573136 A popular standup comic's gentle riffs on the non-single state. Buy two — one for yourself, one for your significant other — and read them in bed together. If you laugh at the same parts, give yourselves two points; when you have 10,000 points, write to Paul Reiser and tell him what a great marriage you have and how funny his book is.

Mike Resnick 0446363200 Chief Detective John Sable is caught between his badge and his conscience as the two most famous executioners of all time prepare to do battle in his territory. Reprint.

Anne Rice 0345443683 In the past few years, many fans have sworn off Anne Rice, flinging her later novels against the wall with cries of "First draft!" and "Never again!" But these same fans may want to take a chance on her Southern gothic Blackwood Farm, a fast-paced and erotically charged, though uneven, novel of the Vampire Chronicles. Blackwood Farm has an unusual flaw: it isn't long enough. Many of its triumphs and tragedies demand more development than they receive. Motivations are sometimes unlikely or unexplained, and the ending is far too rushed.

Blackwood Farm introduces Quinn Blackwood, the sexy, eccentric young gentleman who becomes both a vampire and the heir to the Blackwood estate. All his life, Quinn has been haunted by Goblin, a doppelgänger no one else can see—or believe in. But Goblin is real, and he is becoming maliciously tangible, strengthened by the blood that Quinn unwillingly drinks. Quinn's only hope of liberation from his increasingly dangerous doppelgänger is to find the legendary vampire Lestat. But Lestat has vowed to destroy any vampire who sets foot in New Orleans....

Blackwood Farm features characters from both the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches series, but this self-contained novel makes a good entry point for newcomers to Anne Rice's fictional world (however, Vampire Chronicle virgins really should start with Interview With the Vampire, the first in the series and arguably the finest vampire novel of the 20th century). —Cynthia Ward

Anne Rice 0394498216 In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale—with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy—transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns—the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception—in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.

While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. —Patrick O'Kelley

Anne Rice 0345256085 In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale—with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy—transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns—the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception—in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.

While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. —Patrick O'Kelley

Anne Rice 0345397819 At the center of this dark and compelling tale is Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, who must flee from the darkly brutal, yet irresistable demon known as Lasher. With a dreamlike power, this wickedly seductive entity draws us through twilight paths, telling a chilling and hypnotic story of spiritual aspiration and passion.

Anne Rice 0345351525 Did you ever wonder where all those mischievous vampires roaming the globe in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles came from? In this, the third book in the series, we find out. That raucous rock-star vampire Lestat interrupts the 6,000-year slumber of the mama of all bloodsuckers, Akasha, Queen of the Damned.

Akasha was once the queen of the Nile (she has a bit in common with the Egyptian goddess Isis), and it's unwise to rile her now that she's had 60 centuries of practice being undead. She is so peeved about male violence that she might just have to kill most of them. And she has her eye on handsome Lestat with other ideas as well.

If you felt that the previous books in the series weren't gory and erotic enough, this one should quench your thirst (though it may cause you to omit organ meats from your diet). It also boasts God's plenty of absorbing lore that enriches the tale that went before, including the back-story of the boy in Interview with the Vampire and the ancient fellowship of the Talamasca, which snoops on paranormal phenomena. Mostly, the book spins the complex yarn of Akasha's eerie, brooding brood and her nemeses, the terrifying sisters Maharet and Mekare. In one sense, Queen of the Damned is the ultimate multigenerational saga. —Tim Appelo

Anne Rice 0345404319 In a swirling universe filled with death and life, corruption and innocence, this mesmerizing novel takes us on a wondrous journey back through the centuries to a civilization half-human, of wholly mysterious origin, at odds with mortality and immortality, justice and guilt. It is an enchanted, hypnotic world that could only come from the imagination of Anne Rice...

Anne Rice 0708831532 After the spectacular debut of Interview with the Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice put aside her vampires to explore other literary interests—Italian castrati in Cry to Heaven and the Free People of Color in The Feast of All Saints. But Lestat, the mischievous creator of Louis in Interview, finally emerged to tell his own story in the 1985 sequel, The Vampire Lestat.

As with the first book in the series, the novel begins with a frame narrative. After over a half century underground, Lestat awakens in the 1980s to the cacophony of electronic sounds and images that characterizes the MTV generation. Particularly, he is captivated by a fledgling rock band named Satan's Night Out. Determined both to achieve international fame and end the centuries of self-imposed vampire silence, Lestat takes command of the band (now renamed "The Vampire Lestat") and pens his own autobiography. The remainder of the novel purports to be that autobiography: the vampire traces his mortal youth as the son of a marquis in pre-Revolutionary France, his initiation into vampirism at the hands of Magnus, and his quest for the ultimate origins of his undead species.

While very different from the first novel in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat has proved to be the foundation for a broader range of narratives than is possible from Louis's brooding, passive perspective. The character of Lestat is one of Rice's most complex and popular literary alter egos, and his Faustian strivings have a mythopoeic resonance that links the novel to a grand tradition of spiritual and supernatural fiction. —Patrick O'Kelley

Anne Rice 0345384466 In this engrossing and hypnotic tale of witchcraft and the occult spanning four centuries, we meet a great dynasty of witches—a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being.

Jennifer Roberson 0886773245 She is Keely, twin sister to Corin, and daughter of Niall, the ruler of Homana. She alone has the power to shapechange into any form, a power akin to that of the Firstborn. And like her brothers, Keely has been chosen to play a crucial part in the Firstborn's prophecy.

Jennifer Roberson 0886774225 Aidan, heir to the Lion Throne of Homana and inheritor of a prophecy carried down through generations, is commanded by the Hunter to undertake a quest to claim a series of "god-given" golden links. He soon finds himself challenged by the Cheysuli's most deadly foe, Lochiel, who uses every trick of sorcery to stop Aidan and destroy the prophecy forever.

Jennifer Roberson 0886771242 In the aftermath of the revolution, Prince Donal is being trained as the first Cheysuli in generations to assume the throne. But will he be able to overcome the prejudice of a populace afraid of his special magic and succeed in uniting the realm in its life-and-death battle against the enemy armies and evil magicians?

Jennifer Roberson 0886772613 The prophecy of the Firstborn has shaped the lives of the Cheysuli nobility since the beginning of their kind. Now the time has come for the three Cheysuli sons of Homana's current ruler to fulfill their destinies. The price if even one of them fails will be the total destruction of their kingdom.

Jennifer Roberson 0879979070 The story of an ill-fated union between a Homanan princess and a Cheysuli warrior, that brought on a war of annihilation against the Cheysuli race . . . and the daughter of that union, who must accept her place in an ancient prophecy she cannot deny.

Jennifer Roberson 0886773172 Book two of this magical series find Homana strangling in the grasp of a usurper king. The time has come for Prince Carillon, Homana's rightful ruler, to free his land and restore the Cheysuli to their proper position. must overcome the fear and prejudice of an ignorant population . . . and answer the call of a prophecy he never chose to serve.

Jennifer Roberson 0886773172 Book two of this magical series find Homana strangling in the grasp of a usurper king. The time has come for Prince Carillon, Homana's rightful ruler, to free his land and restore the Cheysuli to their proper position. must overcome the fear and prejudice of an ignorant population . . . and answer the call of a prophecy he never chose to serve.

Jennifer Roberson 0886775248 Kellin, heir to Homana's throne, turns away from the prophecy of his fate and his own magical heritage, even as the Ihlini, the ancient enemies of his people, plot his death. Original.

Jennifer Roberson 0886771935 Niall, the heir to the crown, has been forced to flee the kingdom of Homana. But in exile, the prince finds his true power—a power which may prove Homana's only hope for salvation from a deadly menace. Original.

Joel Rosenberg 0451162129

Joel Rosenberg 0451451910 As magic from Faerie begins to creep into This Side, the border town of Ehvenor becomes the site of a battle between Jason Cullinane's warriors and the invading forces of sorcery.

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Jeff Rovin 0312969937 The word vespers in the title of this book is zoologist shorthand for vespertilionids, the family of small, insect-eating bats that includes the little brown bat. In the beginning of the novel, this ordinary bat, which normally never attacks human beings, is going crazy in packs and biting people in a suburb of New York City. An expert bat zoologist—in the form of an attractive but lonely young woman who works at the Natural History Museum—is called to the scene. One strange event involving bats follows another, and soon, a gruff but endearing New York cop is also on the case. They are called to investigate an enormous mound of guano in a subway under the city. If you know anything at all about the horror subgenre of mutant monster animals in the New York subway (think of the movies Alligator and Mimic), you know it won't be long before the lady zoologist and the male copper are falling in love while hot on the trail of monster bats—in this case, two of them, with 30-foot wing spans.

Author Jeff Rovin is the author of a wide variety of books on TV, movies, and cartoons. He knows the conventions of silly, scary monster tales, and spins them out adroitly in Vespers. The book reads like the screenplay for the inevitable movie: director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) has plans to film it. Is it ridiculous and shallow? Yes. Is it fun anyway? You betcha. —Fiona Webster

J K Rowling 0747574480

J K Rowling 0747574472

Fred Saberhagen 0812523563

J.D. Salinger 0316769487 Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

R.A. Salvatore 0345430433 R.A. Salvatore begins his second DemonWars trilogy with Ascendance, continuing the story of Pony, who is now Jilseponie Wyndon, the Baroness of Palmaris. This first book in the trilogy effectively sets up a new battle of good versus evil with plenty of action, political intrigue, and foes both old and new.

Good King Danube, ruler of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, is smitten with the lovely Baroness Jilseponie and seeks to have her as his wife against the wishes of his long-time mistress and much of the royal court. While Jilseponie does care for Danube, she still suffers from the loss of her husband, Elbryan the Nightbird, and their unborn child.

Unknown to Jilseponie, the child she thought dead was actually stolen and raised by elves. Despite the elves' purpose, the headstrong young Aydrian has plans of his own. Under their harsh guidance he has come to possess the fighting skill of his father and his mother's talent with gemstone magic. Every night a dark spirit whispers to him, guiding him. But is it the spirit of his father, the Nightbird, or is it something much more sinister?

As Aydrian escapes the elves, he finds an unlikely ally in Jilseponie's enemy, former Bishop De'Unnero, the weretiger. Together they set about a series of events that ensure that Pony's life and the peaceful kingdom of Honce-the-Bear will never be the same again.

Fans of the first DemonWars trilogy will be happy to see the continuation of Pony's story, and Ascendance effectively sets up the next trilogy with a compelling conflict not destined to be resolved until the final book. However, the villains are often more interesting than the hero, and Salvatore sometimes uses action to gloss over plotting that makes little sense. Despite its flaws, Ascendance has lively scenes, conflicted and interesting villains, and an exciting climax. Those new to DemonWars will want to begin with the first trilogy, starting with The Demon Awakens. —Kathie Huddleston

R.A. Salvatore 0880389052 The first in a series of premiere hardcover editions of Salvatore's classic dark elf tales.

This stunning new release of the classic R.A. Salvatore novel recounts the origins of Salvatore's signature dark elf character Drizzt Do'Urden and is the first-ever release of this Forgotten Realms novel title in hardcover. This title kicks off The Legend of Drizzt series, which will showcase the classic dark elf novels in new, deluxe hardcover editions. Each title features annotations by the author, all-new cover art, and forewords written by those who have become familiar with Salvatore and Drizzt over the years.

R.A. Salvatore 0345428455 Fifty-seven years have passed since the events of Phantom Menace, 25 since A New Hope, and 21 since the Empire's final defeat over Endor. The still-fragile New Republic, rocked by internal conflict, now faces a potentially overwhelming challenge from beyond the known galaxy: the Yuuzhan Vong, a sinister race of warriors using highly advanced (and creepy) organic "devices" and vehicles, whose immense strength and technological edge lets them fight toe to toe with Jedi. And who better to flesh out these powerful and malevolent aliens, so dismissive and disdainful of humanity, than R.A. Salvatore, the author who almost single-handedly popularized Dungeons and Dragons' equally awful bad guys, the Drow, with his Drizzt Do'Urden books.

In kicking off Del Rey's five-year New Jedi Order story arc, Salvatore must endure the predictable hazing of any new Star Wars author. But an accomplished storyteller backed by legions of fans, the Dark Elf author proves to be up to the task and thankfully sensitive to the well-loved characters he's borrowing time with. Vector Prime sets up the early stages of the covert Praetorite Vong invasion, giving us a closeup glimpse of this nefarious new race and following our heroes' attempts to combat them. Luke struggles with whether to revive the Jedi Council; Mara still fights her deadly disease; Lando is back helping Han, Chewie, and Leia; and Leia and Solo's kids finally come into their own. Prepare yourself, though, for when a major, beloved character gets ceremoniously smushed. (Although we've seen Boba Fett come back from worse.... ) —Paul Hughes

John Saul 0553287303 One hundred years ago, in the beautiful village of Secret Cove, Maine, on the night of the annual August Moon Ball, a shy and lovely servant girl committed an act so unspeakably violent that its legacy still lives. Now, the blood-drenched past of this small town is about to come to life once more—just in time for this year's August Moon Ball. HC: Bantam.

Herbert Schildt 0072127066 Essential programming tips at your fingertips! This handy programmer's reference provides quick access to syntax, functions, classes, methods, as well as the Standard Template Library (STL). The book covers ANSI/ISO Standard C and C++, including the new C99 standard.

Eric Schlosser 0060938455 On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry's drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world's largest flavor company) and "what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns." Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is—literally—feces in your meat.

Schlosser's investigation reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants as he reveals the almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. His searing portrayal of the industry is disturbingly similar to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, written in 1906: nightmare working conditions, union busting, and unsanitary practices that introduce E. coli and other pathogens into restaurants, public schools, and homes. Almost as disturbing is his description of how the industry "both feeds and feeds off the young," insinuating itself into all aspects of children's lives, even the pages of their school books, while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. Fortunately, Schlosser offers some eminently practical remedies. "Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior," he writes. Where to begin? Ask yourself, is the true cost of having it "your way" really worth it? —Lesley Reed

Charles Sellier 0440218055 Collects the latest findings on the mysteries of the ancient world, speculating about the purpose of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the ""face"" seen on Mars, the Loch Ness monster, the Shroud of Turin, and the Bermuda Triangle.

Dr. Seuss 0679805273 Description coming soon...

Corey Seymour, Jann S. Wenner 0316005274 Few American lives are stranger, more action-packed, or wilder than that of Hunter S. Thompson. Born a rebel in Louisville, Kentucky, Thompson spent a lifetime channeling his energy and insight into such landmark works as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - and his singular and provocative style challenged and revolutionized writing.
Now, for the first time ever, Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour have interviewed the Good Doctor's friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues and woven their memories into a brilliant oral biography. From Hell's Angels leader Sonny Barger to Ralph Steadman to Jack Nicholson to Jimmy Buffett to Pat Buchanan to Marilyn Manson and Thompson's two wives, son, and longtime personal assistant, more than 100 members of Thompson's inner circle bring into vivid focus the life of a man who was even more complicated, tormented, and talented than any previous portrait has shown. It's all here in its uncensored glory: the creative frenzies, the love affairs, the drugs and booze and guns and explosives and, ultimately, the tragic suicide. As Thompson was fond of saying, "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

William Shakespeare 0451521323

Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson 0440539811 "The biggest sci-fi cult novel to come along since Dune."—The Village Voice.

Shel Silverstein 0060256737 Last night while I lay thinking here
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?...

Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel.

From the creator of the beloved poetry collections Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up, here is another wondrous book of poems and drawings.

Notable Children's Books of 1981 (ALA)
Best Books of 1981 (SLJ)
Children's Books of 1981 (Library of Congress)
1981 Children's Books (NY Public Library)
1981 USA Children's Books of International Interest
Winner, 1983-84 William Allen White Award (Kansas)
Winner, 1983 Garden State Children's Book Award (New Jersey Library Association)
1984 Garden State Children's Book Award for Non-Fiction (New Jersey Library Association)
1984 George C. Stone Center for Children's Books (Claremont, CA) "Recognition of Merit" Award

Shel Silverstein 0060256672 Shel Silverstein shook the staid world of children's poetry in 1974 with the publication of this collection, and things haven't been the same since. More than four and a half million copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends have been sold, making it the bestselling children's poetry book ever. With this and his other poetry collections (A Light in the Attic and Falling Up), Silverstein reveals his genius for reaching kids with silly words and simple pen-and-ink drawings. What child can resist a poem called "Dancing Pants" or "The Dirtiest Man in the World"? Each of the 130 poems is funny in a different way, or touching ... or both. Some approach naughtiness or are a bit disgusting to squeamish grown-ups, but that's exactly what kids like best about Silverstein's work. Jim Trelease, author of The New Read-Aloud Handbook, calls this book "without question, the best-loved collection of poetry for children." (Ages 4 to 10)

Dan Simmons 0553288202 The stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion. On the world of Hyperion the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing—nothing anywhere in the universe—will ever be the same.

Dan Simmons 0553283685 On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

A stunning tour de force, this Hugo Award-winning novel is the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the author of The Hollow Man.

Nikki Sixx 1416511946 In one of the most unique memoirs of addiction ever published, Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx shares mesmerizing diary entries from the year he spiraled out of control in a haze of heroin and cocaine, presented alongside riveting commentary from people who were there at the time, and from Nikki himself.

When Mötley Crüe was at the height of its fame, there wasn't any drug Nikki Sixx wouldn't do. He spent days — sometimes alone, sometimes with other addicts, friends, and lovers — in a coke and heroin-fueled daze. The highs were high, and Nikki's journal entries reveal some euphoria and joy. But the lows were lower, often ending with Nikki in his closet, surrounded by drug paraphernalia and wrapped in paranoid delusions.

Here, Nikki shares those diary entries — some poetic, some scatterbrained, some bizarre — and reflects on that time. Joining him are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Slash, Rick Nielsen, Bob Rock, and a host of ex-managers, ex-lovers, and more.

Brutally honest, utterly riveting, and shockingly moving, The Heroin Diaries follows Nikki during the year he plunged to rock bottom — and his courageous decision to pick himself up and start living again.

Jeff Smith 0963660993 After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert. One by one, they find their way into a deep, forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures." So begins Smith's charming masterpiece. Like the best Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons combined, Bone had me laughing out loud. I firmly believe that once you read Bone you're hooked for life. The beautiful hardcover packaging is well worth the extra money.

Jeff Smith 1888963018 When Bone first came on the scene, critics raved about it, often mentioning it as being "fun for the whole family." Jeff Smith has always been wary about others labeling his work "for children," partly because he knew that "no topic of human experience—from the introspection of Peanuts or the politics of Doonesbury to the lyricism of Pogo—was beyond the wonderful world of comics." He was also cautious because he knew that the story he was telling was going to deal with issues and themes graver than Saturday morning's cotton-candy cartoons. In Bone: The Dragonslayer, the first volume of the second Bone trilogy, there is conflict, sometimes involving violence. There are forces of evil. There is war. But Bone is neither pap nor pabulum; it is challenging without being obtuse, and yes, even within its fantasy setting, Bone is real. This distinct combination makes it the best kind of children's book. Parents, read this book with your children. You'll find it may turn out to be your favorite book, too.

Jeff Smith 0963660977 As the first Bone trilogy comes to a conclusion, questions are answered, mysteries are revealed, and the stage is set for the brewing conflict in the valley. Jeff Smith is in top form in Bone: Eyes of the Storm. His artful balancing of humor, suspense, and pathos makes for an unforgettable reading experience. The dream sequences in this volume are inspired pieces of comics storytelling, especially the six-page "Moby Bone" sequence: the pacing, illustration, symbolism, and panel layout are close to perfect. A special addition to this collection is a set of more than 40 pages that have been retouched from the already near-perfect original comics. There are also 5 never-before-seen story pages and 9 new illustrations.

Jeff Smith 0963660985 Part two of the first Bone trilogy has the three Bone cousins further entrenching themselves into their new valley home: Fone Bone is still pining for the lovely Thorn, Phoney Bone is plotting more schemes, and Smiley Bone is still, well, smiling! While it's hard to upstage the hilarity and operatic chaos of the cow race, one of the really special moments of this book is from the first chapter when Fone Bone tries to outdo a beautiful country boy in a battle for Thorn's attention. Bone: The Great Cow Race is funny, joyful, and bittersweet in a way that only the immensely talented Jeff Smith can deliver.

Jeff Smith 1888963042 As war spreads through the Valley and the rat creatures mount a vicious offense, Gran'ma, Lucius, Phoney Bone and the villagers join the Veni Yan warriors and set up base camp at Old Man's Cave to make a final stand against the Rat Creature army. Will Fone Bone be able to hold the alliance together? Will the rat creatures finally take over the valley and unleash the power of the Lord of the Locusts? Find out and discover much much more in this pivotal book.

Jeff Smith 1888963026 In their most popular adventure since "The Great Cow Race", Fone Bone and Smiley strike out into the wilderness to return a lost rat creature cub to the mountains. They meet new allies - a scrappy young band of animal orphans (their parents were eaten by the stupid rat creatures) and a mysterious new foe: the formidable Rock Jaw, a giant mountain lion who fancies himself the master of the eastern border. Together they uncover the riddles of nature and before it is over, two great titans of the realm meet in an earth-shattering clash that will determine the fate of the land.

Bethesda Softworks 0761552766 Find Your Path

* Detailed maps for every part of the world and every major city, plus special maps for every key section of the main quest.

* Specific chapters on how to create your character and maximize your abilities and skills.

* Over 300 full-color pages packed with information on everything you need to know about the massive gameworld of Oblivion.

* Walkthroughs for every quest in the game, including the main quest, all faction quests, as well as miscellaneous and freeform quests.

* Sections on various gameplay systems including stealth, combat, magic, enchanting, alchemy, and more.

* Detailed bestiary chapter to help you best deal with the denizens of Tamriel and Oblivion.

Michael A. Stackpole 0553578731 Corran Horn, hero of Rogue Squadron and former Corellian Security Force officer, has a problem: his wife, Mirax, has disappeared while on a secret mission. In his struggle to rescue his wife, Horn joins Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy as a charter recruit, befriends Mara Jade, tangles with a 4,000-year-old Sith lord, and goes undercover to infiltrate a notorious band of pirates. But what will he do when he finds himself faced with a dilemma—surrender to the dark side of the force or risk losing Mirax forever?

This abridgment (though approved by the licensor) causes some serious gaps in the story—major events are merely mentioned in passing, while others are described in great detail—but fans may be placated by sound effects and John Williams's music from the original Star Wars Trilogy. Tony Award-nominee Anthony Heald performs with his usual aplomb, providing distinctive voices for a wide range of characters and heightening the tension when necessary. (Running time: three hours, two cassettes) —C.B. Delaney

Michael A. Stackpole 0553579037 Michael A. Stackpole returns as author of the eighth book in the X-Wing series, taking over again after three novels from Aaron Allston. Wedge Antilles has transferred back from Wraith to Rogue Squadron, and many of the characters from Stackpole's first four books reappear, including Ysanne Isard, the villain of Book 4, The Bacta War.

Now that Grand Admiral Thrawn is dead, the New Republic wants to go after the warlords and decides to make an example of Krennel, who murdered a whole family in his rise to power. But Krennel has an unexpected ally: the treacherous Isard, whom the Rogues thought they had killed, is now plotting their downfall. She uses New Republic prisoners, with whom Rogue pilot Corran Horn was held for a while, as bait. The plot twists and turns, sometimes confusingly, as Krennel, Isard, and the Rogues try to outguess one another.

As ever in the X-Wing books, there are plenty of space battles, with Wedge Antilles, now promoted to general, leading the way. Meanwhile, the aversion Imperials feel toward nonhumans and the tensions between the various species making up the New Republic provide a couple of subplots that make this a thoughtful, action-packed installment in the series. —Liz Sourbut, Amazon.co.uk

Neal Stephenson 0380788624 Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series—for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods—World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty—we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes—inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe—team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto—all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). —Therese Littleton

Neal Stephenson 0553380966 John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change.

Neal Stephenson 0380815931 Neal Stephenson, author of the sprawling and engaging Cryptonomicon, has written a manifesto that could be spoken by a character from that brilliant book. Primarily, In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line discusses the past and future of personal computer operating systems. "It is the fate of manufactured goods to slowly and gently depreciate as they get old," he writes, "but it is the fate of operating systems to become free." While others in the computer industry express similarly dogmatic statements, Stephenson charms the reader into his way of thinking, providing anecdotes and examples that turn the pages for you.

Stephenson is a techie, and he's writing for an audience of coders and hackers in Command Line. The idea for this essay began online, when a shortened version of it was posted on Slashdot.org. The book still holds some marks of an e-mail flame gone awry, and some tangents should have been edited to hone his formidable arguments. But unlike similar writers who also discuss technical topics, he doesn't write to exclude; readers who appreciate computing history (like Dealers of Lightning or Fire in the Valley) can easily step into this book.

Stephenson tackles many myths about industry giants in this volume, specifically Apple and Microsoft. By now, every newspaper reader has heard of Microsoft's overbearing business practices, but Stephenson cuts to the heart of new issues for the software giant with a finely sharpened steel blade. Apple fares only a little better as Stephenson (a former Mac user himself) highlights the early steps the company took to prepare for a monopoly within the computer market—and its surprise when this didn't materialize. Linux culture gets a thorough—but fair—skewering, and the strengths of BeOS are touted (although no operating system is nearly close enough to perfection in Stephenson's eyes).

As for the rest of us, who have gladly traded free will and an intellectual understanding of computers for a clutter-free, graphically pleasing interface, Stephenson has thoughts to offer as well. He fully understands the limits nonprogrammers feel in the face of technology (an example being the "blinking 12" problem when your VCR resets itself). Even so, within Command Line he convincingly encourages us as a society to examine the metaphors of technology—simplifications that aren't really much simpler—that we greedily accept. —Jennifer Buckendorff

Neal Stephenson 0380977427 In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-—all before the year 1700.

In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel.

The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. —Patrick O'Kelley

Neal Stephenson 0553562614 From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet—incarnate as the Metaverse—looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist—hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.

Neal Stephenson 0553573861 Believe it or not, some readers find Zodiac even more fun than Neal Stephenson's defining 1990s cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash. Zodiac is set in Boston, and hero Sangamon Taylor (S. T.) ironically describes his hilarious exploits in the first person. S. T. is a modern superhero, a self-proclaimed Toxic Spiderman. With stealth, spunk, and the backing of GEE (a non-profit environmental group) as his weapons, S. T. chases down the bad guys with James Bond-like Zen.

Cruising Boston Harbor with lab tests and scuba gear, S. T. rides in with the ecosystem cavalry on his 40-horsepower Zodiac raft. His job of tracking down poisonous runoff and embarrassing the powerful corporations who caused them becomes more sticky than usual; run-ins with a gang of satanic rock fans, a deranged geneticist, and a mysterious PCB contamination that may or may not be man-made—plus a falling-out with his competent ("I adore stress") girlfriend—all complicate his mission.

Stephenson/S. T.'s irreverent, facetious, esprit-filled voice make this near-future tale a joy to read.

Bram Stoker 0393064506 Cause for international celebration—the most important and complete edition of Dracula in decades.

In his first work since his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger returns with this spectacular, lavishly illustrated homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula. With a daring conceit, Klinger accepts Stoker's contention that the Dracula tale is based on historical fact. Traveling through two hundred years of popular culture and myth as well as graveyards and the wilds of Transylvania, Klinger's notes illuminate every aspect of this haunting narrative (including a detailed examination of the original typescript of Dracula, with its shockingly different ending, previously unavailable to scholars). Klinger investigates the many subtexts of the original narrative—from masochistic, necrophilic, homoerotic, "dentophilic," and even heterosexual implications of the story to its political, economic, feminist, psychological, and historical threads. Employing the superb literary detective skills for which he has become famous, Klinger mines this 1897 classic for nuggets that will surprise even the most die-hard Dracula fans and introduce the vampire-prince to a new generation of readers.

Glenn Stout, Richard A. Johnson 0395884179 Oh, to be a Red Sox fan. It is a mark of the singular angst that attends the territory that the four retired numbers—9 (Ted Williams), 4 (Joe Cronin), 1 (Bobby Doerr), and 8 (Carl Yastrzemski)—taunt the faithful every game from their perch on Fenway's right-field facade; they precisely correspond to the date—September 4, 1918—that the Sox won their last World Series title. Less than two years later, owner Harry Frazee would sell his star pitcher and outfielder, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees, and the curse of the Bambino would take hold of Boston hearts.

From Cy Young to Cy Young award winner Pedro Martinez, this is a franchise full of myth and history—the first to win a World Series and the last to cross the color line—and, contend authors Glenn Stout, the series editor of the annual Best American Sportswriting volume, and Richard A. Johnson, curator of the Sports Museum of New England, the most interesting franchise in the history of the game. Their splendid, fully illustrated chronicle, rich with anecdotes, of the club from 1901 to the present makes it hard to argue with the assessment. The Sox have always been interesting—as well as frustrating, enigmatic, contradictory, and thrilling, and Red Sox Century touches all of those bases. This is an exhaustively researched history, but it's also a fan's book, filled with affection and exasperation. Stout and Johnson effectively pepper their narrative with personal reflections and observations from writers such as Peter Gammons, Dan Shaughnessy, and Elizabeth Dooley. They also pick a Red Sox all-century team, make a fine case for Pedro's '99 season as the best ever for a pitcher, compile some requisite stats, and assemble the most complete Sox bibliography ever. About the only thing they don't supply is a good parking place near Fenway. —Jeff Silverman

Hans Talhoffer 185367706X

Astro Teller 037570051X In Exegesis, Astro Teller deals with the issues of emerging machine intelligence without the usual simplifications and moral generalizations. It's the story of an artificial intelligence researcher and her creation, a program named Edgar, who develops self-awareness and must come to terms with its own existence. Through their e-mail—their only means of interaction—we watch them deal with the ramifications of Edgar's development, which includes the government's desire to capture Edgar and our cultural fear of Frankenstein's monster. Yet, while Exegesis draws upon the Frankenstein mythos, as well as the myth of Pygmalion, this isn't the story of science creating a monster. Instead, it's an exploration of what it means to be aware, of how humanity may interact with other forms of intelligence, of scientists' responsibilities to both the world and to their creations, and humanity's responsibilities in return. We do not see the scientist playing God so much as endeavoring to be a good parent. That parenting comes complete with all the hopes, fears, and uncertainties involved with bringing something precious and new into the world, and guiding it to an unknown and largely uncontrollable independence. Edgar, unlike such intelligent computer characters as HAL, Colossus, or Mycroft, is a fully realized, well-defined protagonist—familiar due to its human programming, yet alien in its mode of perception and thinking. Although it's impossible not to view this as a cautionary tale against a day when we will truly have to face the issue of self-aware machines, it is also a touching love story and pulse-quickening thriller—a complex story told very simply.

C. S. Thompson 190422458X

Hunter S. Thompson 0679785892 Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to consume during their short tour.

On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"—a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert—the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius. —Rebekah Warren

Hunter S. Thompson 0345410084 "California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again."  Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most no-torious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels.   In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial An-gels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when such countercultural movements were electrifying and horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy, and brutal honesty, and with a nuanced and incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, "For all its uninhibited and sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in 1967, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, and the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.

From the Hardcover edition.

J.R.R. Tolkien 0345339703 Frodo Baggins knew the Ringwraiths were searching for him—and the Ring of Power he bore that would enable Sauran to destroy all that was good in Middle-earth. Now it was up to Frodo and his faithful servant Sam to carry the Ring to where it could be detroyed—in the very center of Sauron's dark kingdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien 0345339738 THE GREATEST FANTASY EPIC OF OUR TIME

While the evil might of the Dark Lord Sauron swarmed out to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggled deep into Mordor, seat of Sauron’s power. To defeat the Dark Lord, the accursed Ring of Power had to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the way was impossibly hard, and Frodo was weakening. Weighed down by the compulsion of the Ring he began finally to despair.

The awesome conclusion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, beloved by millions of readers around the world.

J.R.R. Tolkien 0345339711 THE GREATEST FANTASY EPIC OF OUR TIME

The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring.

Thus continues the magnificent, bestselling tale of adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its soul-stirring climax in The Return of the King.

Gayla Trail 0743270142 This is not your grandmother's gardening book. You Grow Girl is a hip, humorous how-to for crafty gals everywhere who are discovering a passion for gardening but lack the know-how to turn their dreams of homegrown tomatoes and fresh-cut flowers into a reality.

Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, provides guidance for both beginning and intermediate gardeners with engaging tips, projects, and recipes — whether you have access to a small backyard or merely to a fire escape. You Grow Girl eliminates the intimidation factor and reveals how easy and enjoyable it can be to cultivate plants and flowers even when resources and space are limited. Divided into accessible sections like Plan, Plant, and Grow, You Grow Girl takes readers through the entire gardening experience:

Preparing soil

Nurturing seedlings

Fending off critters

Reaping the bounty

Readying plants for winter

Preparing for the seasons ahead

Gayla also includes a wealth of ingenious and creative projects, such as:

Transforming your garden's harvest into lush bath and beauty products

Converting household junk into canny containers

Growing and bagging herbal tea

Concocting homemade pest repellents

...and much, much more.

Witty, wise, and as practical as it is stylish, You Grow Girl is guaranteed to show you how to get your garden on. All you need is a windowsill and a dream!

Ivan Turgenev 0140441476 When first published in 1862, this novel of a divided Russia, with peasants set against masters and fathers set against sons, caused great outrage. But its enduring legacy of social insight and conscience mixed with drama has given it universal appeal. Features an introduction by Anna Tolstoy in an exciting new Bantam Classics' package.

Harry Turtledove 0345380495 A dazzling new fantasy for all the fans of the Videssos Cycle!

As the sun gleamed off the gilded domes of Videssos the city, Abivard, marshal of Makuran and son of Godarz, pondered the impossible. How could he carry out the command of Sharbaraz, King of Kings, to destroy the invincible Empire of Videssos?

Then, against all expectations, the Emperor of Videssos invaded Makuran itself. Abivard was thrust on the defensive, forced homeward to drive the invaders from the fabled land of the thousand cities.

Abivard needed not only his greatest battle skills but his most powerful magicians, for no one doubted that Videssian military strategy would be accompanied by the finest sorcery. Yet even as reality reversed itself and renegades plotted Abivard's ruin, the undaunted warrior vowed never to surrender . . .

Harry Turtledove 0345402995 With the arrival of spring, the Emperor Maniakes vows to unleash his troops against the enemy capital, where a hated despot sits arrogantly upon the throne. But from the moment Maniakes reaches the land of the Thousand Cities, he is plagued by a question no one can answer. Where is his nemesis, the ruthless commander whose cavalry no opposing force can withstand?.

Frank Vincent, Steven Prigge 0425215369 Don Corleone said it best-but these days, it's harder than ever to know how to act like a real man. Now, renowned actor and true-life man's man Frank Vincent—famed for his unforgettable tough-guy roles in such classic films as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and HBO's The Sopranos—shows how any man can be all that he can be in love, work, play, and life, including:

-Getting the best women by being the best man
- Dressing like a champ
- Winning big money and big respect in Las Vegas
- Choosing the right song to set the right mood
- Knowing how to eat-and cook-like a man
- Movies that men will always love
- Selecting, smoking, and savoring a great cigar

Remember: if you want to learn how to be a man's man, you gotta learn from a man's man. And that man is Frank Vincent

Kurt Vonnegut 0440131480 "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." So reads the tombstone of downtrodden writer Kilgore Trout, but we have no doubt who's really talking: his alter ego Kurt Vonnegut. Health versus sickness, humanity versus inhumanity—both sets of ideas bounce through this challenging and funny book. As with the rest of Vonnegut's pure fantasy, it lacks the shimmering, fact-fueled rage that illuminates Slaughterhouse-Five. At the same time, that makes this book perhaps more enjoyable to read.

Breakfast of Champions is a slippery, lucid, bleakly humorous jaunt through (sick? inhumane?) America circa 1973, with Vonnegut acting as our Virgil-like companion. The book follows its main character, auto-dealing solid-citizen Dwayne Hoover, down into madness, a condition brought on by the work of the aforementioned Kilgore Trout. As Dwayne cracks, then crumbles, Breakfast of Champions coolly shows the effects his dementia has on the web of characters surrounding him. It's not much of a plot, but it's enough for Vonnegut to air unique opinions on America, sex, war, love, and all of his other pet topics—you know, the only ones that really count.

Kurt Vonnegut 0440117658 A funny, chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence. Rudy Waltz, a.k.a. Deadeye Dick, takes readers on a zany search for absolution and happiness in this tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe and who we say we are. "Vonnegut is . . . a zany but moral mad scientist."—Time. Reissue.

Kurt Vonnegut 0440127793 Galapagos takes the reader  back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple  vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary  journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of  survivors stranded on the Galapagos Islands are about  to become the progenitors of a brave new, and  totally different human race. Here, America's master  satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is  sadly, madly awry — and all that is worth saving.

Kurt Vonnegut 0440194784 Welcome To The Monkey House is  a collection of Kurt Vonnueguts shorter works.  Originally printed in publications as diverse as  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction  and The Atlantic Monthly, what these  superb stories share is Vonnegut's audacious sense  of humor and extraordinary range of creative  vision.

Kip Ward 076150950X King's Field II is in many respects a more subtle and involved game than the original King's Field. Fortunately, Kip Ward has compiled all the knowledge you need to be victorious. The only question you have to ask yourself is how much help you want. The first part of the book lays out the big picture, explaining the fundamentals of the game and revealing the basic information you need to master. If you want more detailed guidance, part two provides a detailed walk-through of every level and quest, with tips on how to best face every challenge.

John Waters 0761503714 Diablo doesn't lend itself to easy answers. Random changes with each new game assure a new experience each time, so to win, you need a mastery of the constants you can rely on. As useful as the book's general tips are, its greatest advantage is in the pages and pages of charts comparing the traits of monsters, spells, weapons, armor, and much more. Rather than giving away how to win, this guide gives you the info you need to make your own wise choices. A special section covers additional information for the real-time Net version of the game.

Bill Watterson 0836220889 The first collection of the increasingly popular comic strip that features a rambunctious 6-year-old boy and his stuffed tiger who comes charmingly to life.

Bill Watterson 0836204387 Now that Bill Watterson has retired from drawing syndicated cartoons, the only way to get our Calvin and Hobbes fixes is through his book collections. The 10th Anniversary Book is particularly notable, because in addition to getting some of his most wonderful cartoons, we also gain a sense of Watterson as a person.

Approximately one-tenth of the book contains essays about matters great and small—from cartooning to life—and stories about the inspiration behind some of his greatest strips. Not surprisingly, Watterson shines through as a being of considerable integrity, and the cartoons gain in depth thanks to his commentary. And, of course, the cartoons in the other 90% of the book are alternately side-splitting hilarious or touching. Happy Anniversary, Bill, and good luck with whatever it is you are doing now!

Bill Watterson 0836218051 Calvin and Hobbes books have taken the country by storm and here's the biggest, brightest one yet! Calvin and Hobbest soared to the top of the bestseller lists in its first month of publication, selling a million copies within 9 months of publication. Something Under The Bed Is Drooling exploded out of the stores, selling nearly a million copies within the first month of publication! Now, those two books are brought together in this over-size anthology-type book. Adding to the fun in The Essential Calvin and Hobbes are an original 16-page story and color Sunday cartoons.

Bill Watterson 0836218981 They're back: Calvin, the six-year-old dirty tricksmeister and master of indignation and his warm, cuddly philosopher sidekick, Hobbes, a tiger whose idea of adventure is to lie on his back by the fire and have his stomach rubbed. In six short years this unlikely due has captured the hearts, the minds, and, most of all, the funny bones of America. They are the msot phenomenal success story in syndication - and publishing - history. In only six years, they appear in more than 2,100 newspapers worldwide, and Calvin and Hobbes wins as many readership polls as Calvin has excesses. All seven of Bill Watterson's collections have sold a million copies within a year of publication. This treasury collection contains a never-before-published full-color section, as well as the cartoons appearing in The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes "Boink." All Sunday cartoons are presented full-page and full-color.

Bill Watterson 0836218620 Wonder, merriment, and orneriness abound in this collection full of Watterson's superior artwork and keen ability to depict the inner hopes, joys, fears, and devilishness of the ever-enterprising Calvin and his sidekick, Hobbes.

Margaret Weis 088038266X One hundred years have passed since the fiery Cataclysm that changed the face of Krynn forever. For one hundred years, the people of Krynn have struggled to survive. But for some, those one hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Catapulted forward in time by Raistlin’s powerful magic, Caramon and Crysania find themselves aiding the mage’s unholy quest to master the Queen of Darkness. To his dismay, Raistlin discovers along the way that the annals of Time are not so easily bent to his will. Neither are the longings of his heart.

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0553271644 /Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Wielding the powerful, magic-absorbing Darksword, Joram returns to Merilon to win revenge and claim his birthright. Here he will test Bishop Vanya and his fierce army of Duuk-tsarith in a battle unlike any their world has known. From the bestselling authors of the Dragonlance series.

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0394739752 Dragons of Autumn Twilight sets 'em up, and Dragons of Winter Night knocks 'em down. The second volume in Dragonlance's seminal trilogy stokes the action with a big ol' blast of dragon breath. The War of the Lance has begun in earnest, and the Companions—Tanis, Flint, the twins Raistlin and Sturm, Flint Fireforge, Goldmoon, et al.—find themselves separated across Ansalon. Everyone's figured out that Takhisis's dragon minions aren't just scary bedtime stories, and the desperate search for the Dragon Orbs and the mythical Dragonlance is on. Lots of great combat, some humor and romance sprinkled in, and more solid character development for this complex band (especially Tanis and Laurana). An excellent follow-up bookended by cliffhangers—check out Dragons of Spring Dawning to see what happens next. —Paul Hughes

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0880383828 "Wanna Bet?"

The three adventure-seeking sons of Caramon Majere lose a bet to a flamboyant, magnificently bearded dwarf, and wake up, shanghaied, on an incredible gnomish sailing vessel questing after the legendary Graygem.

Who is the mysterious Dougan Redhammer, and what perils are in store for Sturm, Tanin, and Palin, the young mage haunted by the legacy of Raistlin?

In nine short stories by superlative writers, the companions confront wizards and dragons, magical spectacles and daggers possessed, and survive memorable encounters with the minor races of Krynn.

Plus, a rolicking new novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman chronicling the outrageous fortunes of the next generation of heroes.

The Dragonlance Saga, with three million copies sold, continues!

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0880384549 Is Raistlin truly dead?

The answer lies in the new Dragonlance novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, which gazes into the future of Caramon and his mage-son, and into the dark nether-past of Raistlin.

Untold tales of Krynn.

Tales of sea monsters, dark elves, ice bears, hideous hydra-headed serpents, and loathsome draconian troops.

Further adventures of the kender Tas; the innkeepr Otic and young Tika; the dwarf Flint and Tanis, leader of the companions; Caramon and Raistlin, twon brothers, one, a genial warrior, the other, a sickly magician and scholar.

Nine short stories by superlative writers, plus an exciting new novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

The Dragonlance Saga goes on!

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0880382678 Defying the fate that claimed his evil predecessor, Raistlin opens the Portal to the Abyss and passes through. With Crysania at his side, he engages the Queen of Darkness in a battle for the ultimate prize—a seat among the gods.

At the same time, Caramon and Tasslehoff are transported to the future. There they come to understand the consequences of Raistlin’s quest—and Caramon at last realizes the painful sacrifice he must make to prevent his brother’s success. Old friends and strange allies come together to aid him, but Caramon must take the last, greatest step alone.

The step into the Abyss.

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman 0880382651 In this bestselling TSR fantasy series, the War of the Lance ends, but peace settles uneasily over the land. If Raistlin becomes a god, Crysania and her twin brother Caramon are the only ones who can save their world. 2 cassettes.

Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman 0880381752 The final installment in Weis and Hickman's Chronicles series—Dragonlance—Dragonlance's undisputed must-read trilogy—brings on the main event: the Companions vs. the dragons in a knock-down drag-out at the iron works of Pax Tharkas, as the fate of Krynn hangs in the balance. They've mastered the Orbs and picked up the Dragonlance (see Dragons of Winter Night), and things are looking pretty good with the return of the good metallic dragons. But the band soon learns they must do battle with their own inner conflicts if they ever hope to defeat the Dark Queen Takhisis. A bang-up conclusion to Dragonlance's best-loved trilogy. —Paul Hughes

Rebecca Wells 0060502258 Wells is a Louisiana-born Seattle actress and playwright; her loopy saga of a 40-year-old player in Seattle's hot theater scene who must come to terms with her mama's past in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana, reads like a lengthy episode of Designing Women written under the influence of mint juleps and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is "part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah." The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest, and bonded for life because, as one says, "It's so much fun being a bad girl!"

Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of "Divine Secrets." It's a contrived premise, but the secrets are really fun to learn.

Michelle West 0886777062 In the sequel to Hunter's Oath, the Dark Lord and his evil minions once again menace Averalaan, and the Hunter Lord Gilliam and his huntbrother, Stephen, guided by Yvaine the seer, journey to the ancient city to confront the powers of darkness. Original.

Michelle West 0886776813 Swearing allegiance to the Hunter God, the people of Breodanir become prosperous under the protection of the Hunter Lords, and Gilliam of Elseth and the orphan boy Stephen must pledge the Oath of the Sacred Hunt. Original.

Tad Williams 0886777631 Best-selling fantasy author Tad Williams (Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series) begins a far-reaching cyberpunk saga with Renie Sulaweyo, a teacher in the South Africa of tomorrow, realizing something is wrong on the network. Some of the younger kids, including her brother Stephen, have logged into the net, but they can't get back out. The clues point to a mysterious golden city called Otherland, but everyone who tries to find out what's going on ends up dead. Settle in for a long, enjoyable ride, because this 770-page monster is just the first of four projected novels.

Tad Williams 0886773849 As Prester John, the High King, lies dying, war and chaos are imminent for the peaceful land of Osten Ard, and only a small group, the League of the Scroll, recognizes the true danger awaiting its world. Reissue.

Tad Williams 0886779065 Otherland, the quartet of which Mountain of Black Glass is the powerful third part, combines some terrifying speculation on the future of virtual reality with adventures no less terrifying because they are technologized dreaming. These are dreams the adventurers cannot awaken from and in which, if they die, they are really dead.

An epidemic of comatose children has led Renie and her San friend !Xabbu into the net and to a series of dream worlds created as palaces by the corrupt aspiring immortals, the Grail Brotherhood. Two of those children, Orlando and Fredericks, have become adventurers in their own right, while their parents' lawyer Ramsey follows real-world money and lesbian cop Calliope tracks a serial killer with serious ambitions to become an angry god. In this volume, adventures take place in a mythic ancient Egypt and a rambling Gormenghastlike house before all the virtual adventurers meet where they were always destined to, before the walls of Troy.

"All around, death. It was not a quiet presence during the long day—not a pale-faced maiden bringing surcease from pain, not a skillful reaper with a scalpel-sharp blade.... Death on the Trojan plain was a crazed beast that roared and clawed and smashed, which was everywhere at once, and which in its unending fury showed that even armored men were terribly frail things."

Tad Williams takes the gameworld and turns it on its head, passionately; how do we know that what bleeds does not feel pain? He writes a classic of cyberspace adventure that has a sorrowful heart. —Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

Tad Williams 0756400309 With Sea of Silver Light, Tad Williams completes his massive Otherland quartet, one of SF's more intriguing explorations of the eroding boundaries of the human and the nonhuman, the living and the dead. Otherland is a sequence that contains many secrets, and Williams plays fair by unpacking all of them in the final book. A group of adventurers searching for a cure for comatose children find themselves trapped in a sequence of virtual worlds, the only opponents of a conspiracy of the rich to live forever in a dream. Now, they are forced to make an uneasy alliance with their only surviving former enemy against his treacherous sidekick Johnny Wulgaru, a serial killer with a chance to play God forever.

Williams manages a vast cast of emotionally involving characters with considerable panache, but the real strength of the book is its endlessly questing intelligence; it is, among other things, an enquiry into the nature of storytelling as a way for human beings to give structure to their perceptions of the universe around them. It is as story that Sea of Silver Light ultimately works so well—involving us in the grueling descent of a vast mountain, the siege of an underground fortress, gun battles in a nightmare Wild West. Williams never neglects to tell us how things feel. He efficiently ties up every plot strand and convincingly reveals every secret in this large, complex plot. —Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

Tad Williams 0886778441 Tad Williams began his Otherland series with the massive City of Golden Shadow and continues it with the equally hefty River of Blue Fire. Williams says it will require four (big) books to tell his complex, multithreaded tale, and at the rate that the plot of this second novel moves, readers will see what he means. Not that the book is a slow read; in fact, River is as much a suspenseful page-turner as the first book.

As River opens, we join up again with the ragtag bunch of searchers trapped in an astoundingly detailed and frightfully dangerous virtual world known as Otherland. Lurking in disguise among the group is the brutally vicious serial killer Dread, trying to find information that will help him overthrow his Grail Brotherhood masters. The group follows a ubiquitous river through world after world, unable to go offline, and subject to the increasingly terrifying certainty that things in this supposedly virtual place are all too real. Meanwhile, Paul Jonas, an amnesic (but somehow pivotal) character fleeing from two sinister beings, finds more and more of his memory as he does his own Huck Finn river trip. As in the first novel, each new world that the characters enter, from Paleolithic Ice Age to something suspiciously like Oz, is fully realized and completely unpredictable.

Williams is a master at parceling out information to the reader in dribs and drabs, which is frustrating yet tantalizing, like a particularly good computer game. When the group is split up and the adventure divides further, the reader senses the author as a puppet master, following some incredibly complex flows of information. The best course is just to hang on and enjoy Williams's deft characterizations, lush descriptions, and wildly divergent plot. If you've ever been white-water rafting, you'll recognize the feeling. —Therese Littleton

Tad Williams 0756403588 NOW,THE EPIC FANTASY CONTINUES WITH SHADOWPLAY!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR TAD WILLIAMS'S SHADOWMARCH WAS HAILED AS...

Tad Williams 0756402972 The second book in the trilogy that launched one of the most important fantasy writers of our time

Tad Williams 0886775981 The evil minions of the Sithi Storm King begin their final preparations for the climatic moment of their dark sorceries, as they draw King Elias deeper into their nightmarish world. Reprint.

Tad Williams 0886776066 Miriaamele and Simon embark on a perilous quest through war- and magic-torn lands as they and the valiant followers of Josua Lackhand struggle to make a stand against the Storm King's seemingly unstoppable evil forces. Reprint.

Tom Wolfe 0553264915 They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking On the Road's hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's Many Years from Now cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy Magical Mystery Tour film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"—making a spectacle of himself—and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life was his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.

Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in Demon Box are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. —Tim Appelo

Timothy Zahn 0553298046 Timothy Zahn is the master of the Star Wars novel. His trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command) did almost as much as the movie trilogy's re-release to create new interest in Luke, Leia, and Han Solo. Specter of the Past is the first of a new series, The Hand of Thrawn. Princess Leia is trying desperately to hold the loose coalition of interests known as the New Republic together long enough to see the evil Empire finally vanquished. But in a stunning setback, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker discover that the pirate ships raiding New Republic transports are staffed with clones under the command of someone who claims to be Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Empire's most powerful warlord, believed dead for 10 years. Thrawn's plan for destroying the fragile New Republic seems well on the way to completion—unless Han, Leia, and Luke can stop it.

Timothy Zahn 0553578790 Timothy Zahn finishes the two-part Hand of Thrawn series with Vision of the Future. In the first book, Specter of the Past, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo battled the minions of the evil Grand Admiral Thrawn, long presumed dead. In the sequel, our heroes must prevent civil war and ensure that Thrawn's plans for a triumphant Empire are thwarted. Intergalactic intrigue, space battles, and heart-pounding action will thrill Star Wars fans in this eagerly awaited novel. Zahn is one of the most popular interpreters of the Star Wars universe with good reason.

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