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Boston landlady Harriet Sutton discovers a note about a conspiracy to murder someone – a note that must have come from one of her tenants.

When a tenant is murdered, she asks psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing to investigate. Her son, a Vietnam veteran whom the police consider a victim of combat fatigue who may be capable of anything, is under suspicion. And as the mystery unfolds, Harriet Sutton tries desperately to prove them wrong.

One October night in the middle of the twentieth century Detective Inspector John Cheviot got into a taxi, bound for New Scotland Yard. When he stepped out it was from a horse-drawn cab, the year was 1829, and a beautiful woman was beckoning him in front of Old Scotland Yard.

There were things Cheviot remembered but couldn’t use – like how to analyse fingerprints; and things he didn’t know that he could have used – like how advanced his romance with Lady Flora really was. And there wasn’t even time to learn, because in the midst of helping Robert Peel establish the respectability and competence of his new police force, Cheviot suddenly finds himself and his lady accused of cruel murder.

BURNING SKY is a collection of twenty-seven short stories by award-winning author Rachel Pollack. These stories – many of which have remained almost wholly unknown until now – reflect the author’s interests in unorthodox sexuality and subjectivity of experience, as well her wry sense of humor and impressive imagination.

It was a sultry summer day in 1981, and the 3 billion or so inhabitants of the world went about their daily routine unaware that, possibly, the fate of the human race lay in the shaking hands of one George Mercer, an insignificant and slightly neurotic employee of the New York City Department of Welfare.

For George had been informed, by an accredited emissary of the Galactic Overlords, that he had 12 hours in which to prove the people of the Earth worthy of admission into the Galactic Federation. George, and George alone, would represent all of mankind. If he failed the entire planet would be destroyed.

Was this all a nightmare of delusions dredged up by his tortured subconscious? Or a very real nightmare that would end in the Day of the Burning . . .

Science fiction begins, wrote Algis J. Budrys, where unreality leaves off. In these unforgettable stories Budrys creates an alien but familiar world stripped of the lies of everyday life: a world where cannibalism is a medical, not an ethical problem; where “not-dying” is the alternative to both life and death; where the last man on Earth dances in hideous and exquisite joy.

Lavan Chitward is a very unhappy young man; pulled away from his country home by his parents’ ambitions and resettled in the big city of Haven, he is desperately lonely, bullied and beaten at school, ignored by his parents. It is not surprising that he falls ill — but his illness is the first manifestation of a terrible power, the Gift of the Firestorm, a power which can and does kill. If controlled, the Gift of the Firestorm can save Valdemar, but if it is uncontrolled, it will destroy the country — and him. Chosen by the Companion Kalira, brought into the ranks of the Heralds of Valdemar, Lavan finds acceptance and hope for the first time. But war with Karse threatens to engulf the Kingdom and only Lavan Firestorm stands between Valdemar and destruction — and only then if he can harness his dreadful power to his will.

In its northern fastness Britannia – despite all the benefits of the Pax Romana, with its technology and brutally rationalist philosophy – has kept its mysterious secrets, hidden deep in the wild forests that still cover much of the land.

As the Empire gathers its forces, three young people hold the future in their hands: the Roman Viti, now known as Coll, Angus the mechanic-turned-revolutionary and Mirana the student, now in touch with strange powers.

And as the cold, rational imperatives of Rome meet the wild magic of an older world, the Empire’s dominion will at last be challenged.

The Burning Forest: the triumphant conclusion to the magical epic A Land Fit for Heroes.

John Sladek wrote some of the best science fiction stories of the 20th-century and his parodies of famous s/f authors are uproariously “right-on”. His talent went under-appreciated except by a few devoted followers, even though his satirical writing was on a par with the early Kurt Vonnegut.

Keep The Giraffe Burning is Sladek’s second short story collection (of four published during his life-time) and contains seventeen stories originally published in (mostly) various SF magazines between 1968 and 1975.

Bright the sun burning,
Night will come turning,
Mothwings go spinning,
End and beginning,
Eye of the star,
Where Old Gods are.

Players, take your places!
The Land itself calls Game!

Escape is all that Quir thinks about. Escape from the enclosure on Earth. Escape from the endless interrogations. Quir’s memories have been burned out; all he knows is that he must give scientific data to humans whenever they ask for it.

Emerging from the burned remains of their old home, the ancient, elegant Scarabae ready themselves for a new life of seduction and feasting, until little Ruth ignites a blaze of chaos through the streets of London that threatens them all.

This is book two in the Blood Opera series.

It’s the end of the nineteenth century in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and ghost hunters from the Maoshan traditions of Daoism keep malevolent spiritual forces at bay. Li-lin, the daughter of a renowned Daoshi exorcist, is a young widow burdened with yin eyes-the unique ability to see the spirit world. Her spiritual visions and the death of her husband bring shame to Li-lin and her father-and shame is not something this immigrant family can afford.

When a sorcerer cripples her father, terrible plans are set in motion, and only Li-lin can stop them. To aid her are her martial arts and a peachwood sword, her burning paper talismans, and a wisecracking spirit in the form of a human eyeball tucked away in her pocket. Navigating the dangerous alleys and backrooms of a male-dominated Chinatown, Li-lin must confront evil spirits, gangsters, and soulstealers before the sorcerer’s ritual summons an ancient evil that could burn Chinatown to the ground.

Men hammered at phones as the lines burned their hands; distributor caps split, engines flashed into flame as gasoline from torn lines doused their blocks; computers rebelled, barraged their operators with lunatic results. An army of poltergeists was loose, ripping and snapping, jamming beyond all repair the machinery of war.

The siege was over. The citadel of Avillis had burned, burned through the night, with its terrible Lord and his monstrous children in it. Nothing remained now but broken walls, charred stumps where trees had, grown, tattered lattices open to the sky. But at the heart of the palace the great Cup of Avillis stood untouched: pure gold, crusted with jewels each worth an emperor’s ransom. Small wonder that Kachil, common thief, should covet it. Or Feluce, dapper arrogant climber; riches would mean much to him. But why did Havor of Taon, the hawk, join them to carry the cursed Cup away? For it was Havor who found that the Chalice once stolen could not be lightly cast aside, even in horror and despair. While always, inexorably, half-seen, slipping through shadows, shapes in the mind’s eye, three phantom riders followed after it across the winter-blasted plain.

This chilling tale of flight and inescapable pursuit rises to a confrontation of ghostly powers. Havor thought his story could have only one ending, but the spirit world can summon Forces of Light as well as Dark.

The megalomaniac Godmind is still planning to use all the minds in creation to make a vast ‘lens’, and if necessary it will burn out all life in the process.

Back beside the river and literally born again, Yaleen represents to the guild of riverwomen the perfect proof of salvation, of life after death. In fact, she is desperately searching for a way to save the whole universe from imminent destruction.

When Ray Jerome, a crotchety journalist on the Whiteford Examiner, is asked to investigate a case of spontaneous human combustion, his first reation is to ridicule the idea – but he is not able to back out of doing the story.

To his own surprise, he becomes fascinated by the phenomenon of people who burn up for no obvious reason. It is a fascination which will make 1996 the most unbelievable year of his life.

New York in 2040 is a city of the lost. A good place to work in Missing Persons. But business is not quite good enough for Hal Halliday to forget his sister, burned alive when only child all those years ago. And now VR offers the chance of bringing her back, the future may yet allow Hal to live in the past. If he can survive the next job …

Brilliant government scientist Richard Seaton discovers a remarkable faster-than-light fuel that will power his interstellar spaceship, The Skylark.
His ruthless rival, Marc DuQuesne, and the sinister World Steel Corporation will do anything to get their hands on the fuel.

When they kidnap Seaton’s fiancee and friends, they unleash a furious pursuit and ignite a burning desire for revenge that will propel The Skylark across the galaxy and back.

A raw hatred of ColSec burned in Cord. Hatred for the huge, world-dominating organization which had callously bundled Cord and a group of drop-out kids into a defective spacecraft and launched them out to live or die on a wild planet.

Luckily, cord and one of his new companions were able to crash-land their shuttle. But then the fight for survival was on – and some of the dangers they were to face had travelled there with them…

One moment Kenniston was strolling down the quiet street, lost in pleasant reverie. The next moment the sky split open!

It split wide open, and above them was a burn and a blaze of light – so swift, so violent, that the air itself seemed to have burst into flame. Then there was silence – awful, suffocating silence.

Kenniston felt the chill of premonition – a shapeless terror that grew into a thing too evil to be borne alone.

Earth and Firma were twin planets – mirror worlds in a single time-track. Now Firma was halted in its rotation around the sun by the Aliens. Unless Denning and Liston, twin humans, could destroy the Aliens and get Firma moving again, Earth would some day repeat Firma’s tragedy and be burned to a cinder.

The Aliens had an incredible array of weapons at their disposal.

Denning and Liston had only their courage and their brains.

They came to destroy! The treacherous Falcons, uniformed in the black leather tunics of the fanatic Secular Arm, descended on Corlay to burn and kill. Commanded by Lord Constant, ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, they were determined to crush the religious heresy of Kinship. But a new dream rose from the ashes. When four Kinsmen escaped the carnage of their beloved land, each helped to fulfill the miracle that had been foretold: the coming of the Child of the Bride of Time.

When a yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people, Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, is compelled to investigate the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter.

After the disaster the yacht’s burned captain was temporarily marooned on a small island, and soon it becomes apparent that one person is ruthlessly manipulating events. But for Boyleston and Kelly proving guilt appears impossible …

‘A major suspense novel’ New York Times

Eve: mysterious, tantalizing, alluring, wanton. Deep within this desirable but strange girl burns the violent fire that could destroy a man.

Clive Thurston had swindled his way to fame. He thought he knew the ropes and women. Maybe he did. But he didn’t know Eve, otherwise he’d have realized that he was just another fly stumbling into the deadly web of a woman who was beautiful to look at, but lethal to love.