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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…

Starships are grounded, interrupting vital inter-stellar commerce, all the highly-developed industries have stopped, man turns to the primitive sources of animal fat and wood for light and heat. With civilization waning, the young scientist Kleon, sentenced to death for using precious conserves of power in an attempt to generate vast energy from dead matter, makes a spectacular bid for the freedom of the whole universe.

Over the years, in a variety of venues, Lawrence Watt-Evans has turned his sharp, analytical, and slightly crazed mind to everything from weaponized poetry to why the Enterprise doesn’t have seatbelts, and everyone from Jane Austen to Buffy Summers. Collected for the first time are twenty-three of these essays, discussing icons of comic books, television, novels, movies, and much more!

One night Ed Smith thought he was having a waking nightmare when he saw a monstrous face at his window, but in the morning his neighbors were missing. The people who later turned up were not quite right, and gradually Smith realized they not only weren’t his neighbors, but weren’t even human – they were the creatures he had seen . . .

Thumb Rivera is in a bind. A college dropout, aspiring writer, smalltime marijuana grower, and biker club hang-around, Thumb finds himself confined to his rural ranch house in the desolate Maine countryside, helpless to do anything but watch as his former friends and housemates scheme behind his back, conspire to steal his girlfriend, and make inroads with the Blood Eagles, a dangerous biker gang.

Thumb is also dead.

A ghost forced to haunt his survivors and reflect back on the circumstances that led to his unsolved murder, Thumb discovers he has one channel through which he can communicate with the living world: Ben, an unemployed ghost hunter. Ben soon convinces local curmudgeon Fred Muttkowski, failed novelist turned pig farmer, to turn Ben’s Ouija-board conversations with Thumb into an actual book.

Thumb has two things on his mind: To solve, and then avenge, the mystery of his own violent death, and also to tell his story. That story is American Ghost-as told to Ben, then fictionalized by Fred. It’s at once a clever tale of the afterlife, a poignant examination of the ephemeral nature of life, and a celebration of writing and the written word.

Sudden death lurks along the canals of Venice …

That’s what Don Micklem, millionaire American playboy on the trail of a disappearing one-time British agent, discovers the hard way. Has his quarry been murdered or has he committed treason?

Against the backdrop of Venice’s sinister waterways, Micklem must fight a ruthless political organization while facing the prospect of a violent death at every turn.

When Sergeant Devery is allotted a female police office to assist him on a plain-clothes prowl he is concerned it will cramp his style. He soon changes his tune when the woman in question turns out to be ‘unusually beautiful’.

The Devil Was Handsome is a fascinating portrait of drug-dealing, assault and murder against the backdrop of mid-twentieth-century CID methods, written by a serving police officer.

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Has an innocent man suffered for another’s crime? Is there, lurking in the background a cunning maniac killer, selecting his victims carefully in turn?

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a hunch that could lead him to the killer – but not until his beloved wife Alison finds herself caught in the web, headed for disaster, and a grave close to the sea-shore…

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…

When young Roy Malcolm won the aviation quiz contest, his prize should have meant an ordinary sight-seeing jaunt on one of the man-made space stations that circled the earth. But instead the trip turned into a terrifying journey as misadventure after misadventure plagued the artificial satellite. The climatic moment came when one of the crew pushed the wrong button and rocketed the runaway ship into outer space…

The seasons have turned from spring to summer across the quiet earth – yet the Fhoi Myore were hiding in mist, awaiting their chance to unleash their icy realm of death. To defeat the Cold Gods, Corum of the Silver Hand must restore the High King’s power with legendary treasures – the Golden Oak and the Silver Ram – lost talismans that wield miraculous forces. Forces that Corum must now tame…

Georges Rivac is in big trouble. His London contact doesn’t want his business and has never heard of Rivac’s Czech client. And Rivac’s chances of proving his innocence rapidly diminish when that client finally turns up – dead.

Then Rivac meets Zia, the delectable Hungarian, whose job it was to watch the Czech’s movements. And together they uncover a hornet’s nest of espionage and treachery that send them running for their lives.

From the moment Helga Rolfe, the elegant wife of one of the richest tycoons, picks up a gum-chewing boy young enough to be her son, events jump back and skid through a series of 180-degree turns. Games of bluff and counter bluff quickly develop into a dangerous and deadly battle and as the action hots up, Chase weaves a fast-moving story of blackmail, intrigue and extortion with a hair-raising climax.

A brilliant but sadistic safe-breaker; a beautiful seductress; an expert young hunter and an ace pilot with a shady past – this is the team that undercover operator Armo Shalik assembles to steal the priceless Borgia ring from millionaire Max Kahlenberg’s closely guarded fortress in the remote and deadly African bush.

But when Kahlenberg finds out they are coming, the gang’s expedition turns into a strictly one-way safari – to slaughter …

‘Insanely readable’ Observer

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

An earthquake shakes Southern California and the Los Angeles Police Department. With no air-conditioning and a temperature around 98 degrees the heat is turned up when there’s a triple shooting of a highly respected Doctor, his wife and his nurse.

Can Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and his team solve the case while chaos reigns around them?

When Trinidad was twelve, his Wiccan parents blew themselves up in an ecoterrorist attack that killed several Christians. Orphaned and disillusioned, he fled his home and his best friend Castile to soldier for the powerful Christian church inside the walled city of Boulder, Colorado.

Fostered by a loving priest and trained by a godless warrior, Trinidad learned the brutal art of balancing faith and war. He is the perfect archwarden, disciplined and devout. But when his Bishop turns up with a silver scar she claims is proof of angelic orders to crusade, Trinidad alone knows her story is a lie. The silver is from a mystical, ancient graveyard called the Barren, a place of healing reached only by Wiccan magic, a place that could turn Christianity on its head.

To accuse her outright would be treason, and gaining proof means committing heresy, both of which would be a death sentence for an archwarden. Instead, torn between the lure of powerful magic, his love for Castile, and his vows to defend the Church, Trinidad secretly conspires with a violent tribe of ancestor-worshipers and a Wiccan coven to stop the crusade. But as everyone he trusts is mired in betrayal and bent on vengeance, he soon realizes no amount of righteousness can stop the slaughter of thousands.

Sir Herbert Sterron is found dead, hanging by the neck from a curtain cord. He had good reason to want to kill himself, so nobody is unduly surprised.

But then hints of foul play start to emerge: Sterron’s wife, Griselda, was desperately unhappy with the marriage; and shocking evidence is uncovered that incriminates not just the County Sheriff but a Catholic priest.

Now what looked to be a straightforward suicide is turning into something quite different – a complex case of murder . . .

Retired professor Andrew Basnett had been at a loose end since he’d finished writing his book, and a country visit with friends seemed just the diversion he needed.

But when seven friends gather to welcome him to their village, conviviality soon turns to crime as guests suddenly start dying – and Basnett finds himself seeking a clever killer who is sure to strike again.

‘Her fans will love it’ Kirkus Reviews

Dirk Wallace is handed a simple assignment – find out who’s blackmailing Mrs Thorsen’s daughter. Before long, Wallace realises that he’s up against some very organised crime.

And when things turn nasty, there’s only one thing to do. Wallace and his assistant quit the Acme Detective Agency and go it alone. There’s a score to be settled. And Dirk Wallace doesn’t want to have to play by the rules.

Following a civil war in 1971, England is a dystopia controlled by a ruthless dictator whose fiendish schemes include turning cadavers into robots with the help of Dr. Azimov of Vienna. But the dictator’s plans pale before those of Brenda Norcross, a brilliant and beautiful female industrialist – actually a bioengineered Martian super scientist in disguise – who plans to enslave the entire planet to provide breeding stock for the dying Martian race currently hiding out in the interior of Uranus.

Scott Hamilton is a professional thief, one who would never turn down an opportunity to steal something really worthwhile – in this case, a priceless collection of Ming Dynasty jade statuettes, whose owner is a man with a private army; a man rich enough to be above the law.

Hamilton’s accomplices are the charming and tough Gunilla von Mayenfels, who is a girl with an interest in jade, and the odious and unreliable Kosky. And the result of their attempt combines triumph and disaster in equal measure.

Deepwood Grange is no longer what it was in the thirties: the beautiful old house has been converted into luxury apartments, and the original family is long gone. But on a rare visit to her godmother, solicitor Rosa Epton finds herself quite entertained by the eccentric residents of the other flats. Until, that is, one of them turns up dead in the chimney of an empty apartment, and her godmother becomes a prime suspect.

Then her godmother disappears, and Rosa’s involvement becomes even more personal …

After attending a séance, Maskull, a restless and rootless man, finds himself embarking on a journey to the planet Tormance, which orbits Arcturus. Alone, he wanders the startling landscape, open to a bewildering range of experiences from love to ritual murder, encountering new monsters at every turn, metamorphosing, constantly seeking the truth about the divinity known as Shaping, Surtur and Crystalman. A Voyage to Arcturus is David Lindsay’s masterpiece, an extraordinary imaginative tour de force.

When a woman’s body is found by the Thames river police, floating opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, it doesn’t take DCI Brock long to work out that she has been murdered.

Further investigation reveals the woman was one of a stable of prostitutes run by a shadowy figure wanted in his native Australia. But the investigation presses other names upon Brock and Poole, and they must suffer several missed turns and pay the price for their assumptions before they get their man.