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Chris and his friends are setting off on the first trip ever to be made to the planet Jupiter. One thing puzzles them – they have been given no details of the time the flight will take. But as the space ship continues on its journey they are told that they will travel at higher speeds than have ever been achieved before. The effects of the tremendous speed turn out to be much more serious than expected…

After the radiation bombardment from those mysterious structures on the Moon – chronicled in The Domes of Pico – it was inevitable, of course, that a lunar landing would have to be made; and Chris thought, too, that it was inevitable that he should be chosen for the job. But things didn’t work out quite as planned. There was an American candidate for the honour of piloting the first Western rocket to the Moon; and the Russians had their own schemes for turning it into a Soviet satellite…

A new life – but will it bring happiness?

Wonderfully compelling historical romance – perfect for fans of BRIDGERTON

Bridie Tantallon is setting out on a new life – one that she hopes will bring opportunities and, if she is lucky, happiness. It is the turn of the century, and she is setting out from London to Edinburgh to help her great aunt complete her memoirs.

An orphan, Bridie’s life has not been easy, but could this be just what she needs? So she is not deterred by her aunt’s pretended dipsomania, the various half-hearted attempts made on her life, or even her growing love for Lady Otranta’s long-suffering heir, Andrew. Otranta’s memoirs, detailing her rise from a music hall magician’s assistant to a confidante of Queen Victoria, are interwoven with the more recent tale of Bridie’s adventures.

Will she ever escape her past?

Romantic suspense for fans of Joan Aiken and Bridgerton

Young Hester Malpass knew little of her past. Only that she was an orphan who was now working in a railway station restaurant for a tyrannical old woman. She dreamed of escape, of finding a brighter place for herself out in the world.

Then one day, dashing Captain Deveraux, a famous balloonist, lured her away to become his partner in a new aerial adventure. Had Hester not fallen in love with the captain, she would never have dared. But dare she did.

Life took a violent and frightening turn. Suddenly Hester was confronted with the strange ghosts of her past, and the deadly secret of the fine and handsome captain.

Link Denham needs a job. Any job.

When he’s offered the position of navigator on board the leaky, rickety Glamorgan, he takes it without asking too many questions. The destination? A planet that has barely been contacted in two hundred years, in a dystopic system, isolated from the rest of the galaxy.

What he thought would be a simple job quickly turns into something far more complicated, as he finds himself embroiled in a complex web of treachery, double-crossing and alien politics. And what of this infamous machine the natives have, which can replicate anything put inside . . . ?

Murray Leinster was a prolific figure in pulp fiction, writing short stories and novels across many genres. The Duplicators is a science fiction romp in his characteristic style, and a wonderful example of 1960s pulp science fiction.

The first battles began in the wilderness. The animals in the forests and glades struggled furiously for life and often fought with splendid courage. But they never won; they were always killed. And now it was man’s turn…

Space Tug by Murray Leinster is an independent sequel to the author’s popular Space Platform.

Joe Kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. In desperation he turned toward Haney. “My God, we’ve been locked out!”
Through the transparent domes of their space helmets, Joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across Haney’s face. But it was true! Joe and his crew were locked out of the Space Platform.
Four thousand miles below circled the Earth. Under Joe’s feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. But without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. Joe looked at his oxygen meter. It registered thirty minutes to live.

In the Well-Built City, Master Drachton Below’s power is absolute, and he will not hesitate to use it. His primary method of control is through his physiognomists, who are trained to read a person’s face and body, perceiving that person’s past and secrets-and even events yet to come. These seers are the judges and jury. Now Drachton has found something that could extend his reign for eternity: a fruit that bestows immortality. To investigate its whereabouts, Below sends cold, collected physiognomist Cley to the remote mining town of Anamasobia. One at a time Cley interrogates the townspeople, performing his usual fact finding without issue. That is, until he meets the beautiful and bright Arla, who harbors a secret that could potentially turn Cley’s world upside down-and topple the Well-Built City itself.

A Kafkaesque journey into the unknown, The Physiognomy is an award-winning trip through a land where the line between reality and imagination is constantly blurred.

Widely acclaimed as one of the first successful female science fiction authors, Mildred Clingerman returns with the exciting follow up to her 1961 science fiction collection, A Cupful of Space. Her stories tend to wed a literate tone to subject matters whose ominousness is perhaps more submerged than the horrors under the skin made explicit in the work of Shirley Jackson, but equally as deadly.

Clingerman’s new anthology, The Clingerman Files, includes all of her originally published stories; The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak, Mr. Sakrison’s Halt, Wild Wood, The Little Witch of Elm Street and many other favourites. Also included are previously unpublished works; Top Hand, Tribal Customs, The Birthday Party, Fathers of Daughters and many more soon to be favourites. The key to her stories is that they appear simple and straightforward, but each takes a twist or turn that, even when you’re tempted to guess where they’re heading, they take you there in a way you would never have bargained on.

Other writers of the period tried to make big splashes. Clingerman, it seems, prided herself in concealing her effects within her masterfully constructed sentences. They barely make a ripple on the surface; all their power and drive lurk deep down below. So many of her stories are alive with the underpinning notion that the cosmological vistas we spy at the end ends of telescopes and various other means of measurement belong to the very same universe under our feet. We’re not apart from the universe, we’re a part of it. Nearly every story here is alive with that sensibility, in the truest sense of that word. In every sentence there is a note (a gentle one, but insistent) of silent rebellion, a surreptitious snarl, entreating you to see that not the everyday, but an undiscovered marvel.

May these eloquent rebellions be undiscovered no longer.

The 22nd Century. Dr. Charles Forbin is Earth’s most powerful man. As mediator between Colossus, the Super Computer, and the rest of humanity, Forbin holds the key to Earth’s fate.
When Colossus, an awe-inspiring technological creation, suddenly became self-aware and took upon itself the task of righting humanity’s wrongs with no regard for humans themselves, Forbin intervened. He took the decision to turn off his great machine – but could not do it alone.
Forbin called upon invaders from Mars. The Martians did their fastidious work, shutting down Colossus. The Earth descended into chaos. Rival factions sparred for supremacy, with only Forbin to control the populace and maintain order.
But now, the Martians have returned. And they want compensation. Forbin is asked to design a super Collector in order to solidify the Earth’s supply of oxygen – or, a large proportion of it – to be handed over to the Martians. But to do so would condemn the lives of hundreds of millions of Earth’s inhabitants. There is only one entity on Earth with the power to stop the Martians…Colossus must return.

Captain Corrain is hailed as a hero but he knows all such praise would turn to anger if certain people knew what had really happened. The wizard who supposedly saved him and his comrades has merely claimed the island of the corsair’s for his own. No one knows what this enigmatic newcomer intends to do next. Corrain has good reason to fear the worst, as he confides in Lady Zurenne of Halferan. He knows he can trust her now that still more perilous secrets bind the two of them together. This disastrous turn of events cannot be concealed from Hadrumal’s powerful mages. The Chief Mage Planir’s leadership is now openly questioned. Surely he will enforce his authority by crushing this upstart? But the Aldabreshin warlords act first. The warlords are watching the ominous skies as a once in a lifetime conjunction of the stars approaches. Will the warlords be content to drive this solitary wizard out of the Archipelago or has the time come for them to destroy all magic?

Several years ago, Matthew the Magician ended an age-old war. It only cost him everything – and everyone – he knew and loved. Turning against his mentor, Jane Andraste, in the realm of Faerie left him physically crippled and his power shattered.

But Matthew remains the protector of New York City. So when he finds a young woman brutally murdered by a Fae creature, he must bring her killer to justice before Jane uses the crime to justify more war-and before he confronts an even larger threat in the greatest Adversary of all . . .

The City Imperishable’s secret master and heir to the long-vacant throne has vanished from a locked room, as politics have turned deadly in a bid to revive the city’s long-vanished empire. The city’s dwarfs, stunted from spending their childhoods in confining boxes, are restive. Bijaz the Dwarf, leader of the Sewn faction among the dwarfs, fights their persecution. Jason the Factor, friend and apprentice to the missing master, works to maintain stability in the absence of a guiding hand. Imago of Lockwood struggles to revive the office of Lord Mayor in a bid to turn the City Imperishable away from the path of destruction. These three must contend with one another as they race to resolve the threats to the city.

Mad as Hell – and Loving It!

Ruthless mercenaries, hired by an ex-Pentagon chemical-weapons designer turned rogue, take over a small town in Oregon. The plan: use the citizenry as guinea pigs in a test-run of a bootlegged bio-agent for an Islamist terror organization.

But something goes wrong and the mercs and their clients find themselves surrounded by townsfolk who have turned into hyper-coordinated killing machines.

PAROXYSM is an action-packed tale about the seductive power of righteous violence, about how ordinary people can explode when fate gives them the power to hit back.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

THE TALES OF HENGHIS HAPTHORN

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn’s existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

In MAJESTRUM, Hapthorn is on the trail of an unknown killer who collects body parts from his victims. The search leads him off-planet, into the Ten Thousand Worlds of The Spray, then turns in an unexpected direction as the freelance discriminator learns that an ancient and evil power is plotting to reassert its dominion over Old Earth.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

His father wrongly executed when he was a child, Taziar Medakan had turned to stealing for his survival. He was the Shadow Climber, skilled at remaining one with the shadows, unseen in the midst of his enemies. And he stole not for profit, but for the challenge of it, donating most of his booty to those in need. But though Taz could defeat any trap, he wasn’t prepared for the treachery of Ilyrian, a cunning politician ready to sacrifice the Shadow Climber to gain power himself. So Taz found himself in the baron’s dreaded dungeons from which even a master thief’s only escape might be death! There he met Moonbear, a prince among barbarians, a swordsman beyond compare, and Taz’s last hope for salvation. Together the two sought their pathway to freedom. But it was a pathway that would set a whole kingdom on their trail in a pursuit led by Ilyrian and a Dragonrank sorcerer on his own mission of magical revenge.

With the Great War over, the Renshai have won back the Fields of Wrath. As the survivors limp homeward, Tae Kahn–Subikahn’s father–fears that a far larger and fiercer wave of enemy soldiers is headed toward them.

One Kjempemagiska and an army of their man-sized servants nearly defeated the entire Continent. This time, Tae is certain the ranks will include hundreds of these strong, magical, island-dwelling giants. The only hope for the peoples of the Continent is to regather their war-weary troops and convince the few magical beings of their own world to assist them.

It becomes a race against time as Tae, his friends, and his family struggle to convince the Continental generals of the danger; attempt to turn reluctant, antagonistic mages and elves into allies; spy on the giant Kjempemagiska sorcerors; and seek some means to defeat an enemy powerful beyond contemplation.

In 1993, a character took the fantasy world by storm. He was known by countless names and terrifying deeds-thief, magic wielder, swordsman, assassin, adventurer. But chief among those names and the most dangerous of his personae was Nightfall, a man-or perhaps the legendary demon himself-gifted with a power any sorcerer would kill to possess.

Now, Nightfall makes his triumphant return in a spellbinding new adventure that sweeps readers from the high courts to the darkest dungeons, from piracy and derring-do at sea to sorcerous encounters and cutthroat attacks in enemy territory.

Bound by sorcery and oath to guard and guide Prince Edward on his quest, Nightfall is forced to reveal his true name, Sudian, and to use every trick at his command to keep himself and his idealistic young charge alive. And when Edward suddenly becomes a king, he makes Sudian his advisor. But advisor or not, Sudian cannot dissuade King Edward from a journey to repay a debt of honor to Duke Varsah, an expedition that ends in disaster when all of Edward’s guards are slain and the king himself vanishes without a trace.

Now Sudian must turn to Duke Varsah for aid. But is he putting himself into the clutches of the very man responsible for Edward’s disappearance, a man whose greatest desire is vengeance against Sudian himself?

When Benton Collins returned from Barakhai-where magic had turned all but the royal family into inadvertent shapeshifters-he thought his adventures were at an end. But the friends he’d left behind still needed his aid, and Ben had to return to join in their desperate quest…

The mortal kingdoms are caught up in a shared catastrophe, cursed with sterility by the magic of the dark elves. Still, what elves have caused they may perhaps put right.

Humanity’s last hope hinges on a magical talisman-the Pica Stone. One of only nine solid objects ever created by magic, the Pica Stone was shattered in the days of the last Wizards. But when Captain, oldest of the elves, joins with his fellow light elves to work a spell to draw together all the scattered pieces of this legendary gem, eight shards remain missing, lost on worlds throughout the planes of existence.

The elves spell-shift a party of questers to each of these worlds to find the shards. Among the chosen are the Renshai warrior Kevral, her husband Ra-khir the knight, and Tae, a newly made prince and former thief. Each world offers unique challenges, but with the extinction of the human race as the price of failure, there can be no turning back….

The Last of the Renshai is the first volume of a sword-and-sorcery saga that is enormous in conception, and full of complex and arresting fantasy detail. The adventure arises from the trials of a lone warrior, a champion driven to avenge the genocide of his race. The magic lies with the immortal realms: this is a world controlled by four wizards whose strife not only presages the conflicts and wars of humans, it also threatens consequences and destruction on a world- wide scale. And the last Renshai is doomed to take on all – he will be the key for humans, wizards and gods alike. Throw in a fabulously detailed, rich fantasy world, and you have a tremendous, value-for-money, page turning epic

Welcome to Argylle, where the ruling family – a brilliant, flighty, civilized and occasionally dangerous clan of nearly-immortal warriors and magicians – are hoping for a few years of relative peace.

True, their Father Gaston has vanished, leaving both throne and family while he pursues some unexplained errand. His absence has stretched into years. True as well that their powerful Uncle Dewar has also wandered off without leaving a forwarding address, and hasn’t been heard from for a worrisome length of time. It’s a bad habit of running off that this family’s elders have.

But now young Prince Gwydion’s been stuck with ruling the Dominion of Argylle, and with any luck, life can go back to being a satisfactory mixture of intrigue, gossip and viniculture, periodically enlivened by amateur theatricals and the odd quest or two.

Yet Gwydion is finding this arrangement uncomfortable. Strange things keep turning up. A plague of monsters appears out of nowhere, attempting to take up residence in the local barns and forests. These are trumped by the arrival of a ravenous Great Dragon – ancient, sorcerous, profoundly cunning – so big you can see it thirty miles away. Meanwhile, a mysterious young woman has shown up, claiming to be Gwydion’s long-lost – indeed, quite unexpected – sister. And then there are the high-tech aliens, who say they just want to conduct a legal investigation. It’s enough, Gwydion thinks, to make a ruler want to find some nice long errand that’ll take him away from his homeland for a spell…

The Well-Favored Man is a courtly, complex, bloody-minded fantasy for those who love Roger Zelazny’s Amber, Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint and the fantasy adventures of Steven Brust.

Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. Look for us, they tell Pierce, if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden s court.

Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father s destructive love for King Arden s queen, and Heloise s decision to raise her younger son alone.

As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden’s youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father s kingdom.
Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory or destroy it…”

For fifteen years, Maria Devane has been desperately, passionately in love with Dante Romano. But Maria knows that Dante can never give everything of himself back – at least not all the time. Every month, Dante shifts shape, becoming a wild animal. He can’t choose when he shifts, the transition is often abrupt, and as he gets older the time he spends in human form is gradually decreasing.

Maria has kept his secret since the beginning, knowing that their love is worth the danger. But when a string of brutal attacks occurs in local parks while Dante is in animal form, Maria is forced to consider whether the lies she’s been telling about her life have turned into lies she’s telling herself . . .