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The Russians will pay $4,000,000 for the top secret formula to a revolutionary new metal … and the CIA will do anything to stop them.

American inventor Dr Paul Forrester is the man that both sides want. He alone can decipher the vital code but, for two years, Forrester has been in a mental asylum – ever since that bloody day when he walked in on his beautiful wife and her lover.

So it’s Nona Jacey, Forrester’s former lab assistant, who becomes a helpless pawn in the power struggle to possess the scientist. Because she is the only person that holds the key to unlocking Forrester’s mind …

A hurricane of terrifying intensity is looming over Florida. Along a state highway, a handful of foolhardy souls trying to outrun the storm are forced to seek shelter in an abandoned house.

Thrown together by nothing more than chance, this disparate bunch of misfits includes an undercover agent seeking revenge for a personal tragedy, a burgeoning criminal in over his head, a beautiful young widow trying to start over, and a businessman whose life’s work is crumbling before his eyes. Their refuge from the awesome power of nature becomes a sort of grand and grisly hotel – especially once the invisible hand of flying death descends.

Trillions were hard, bright, tiny things which suddenly arrived – millions and millions and millions of them – one windy day in a village called Harbourtown.

No one could explain them, much less why they had suddenly arrived. Were they a blessing, as their beauty suggested, or a deadly, inexplicable threat? A boy with a microscope was just as likely to come up with the answer as all the acknowledged experts in any known kind of science, so somehow it seemed natural for two ‘ordinary’ boys, Scott and Bem, to join forces with an ex-spaceman against the frightening efforts of the ruthless General Harman to destroy the Trillions, no matter what the cost.

In The Moment of the Magician Alan Dean Foster continues the adventures of Jon Thomas Meriweather, the Spellsinger, in a land where magic and constant danger combine against a background of beauty and individual courage.

Jon-Tom (as he is known in the land), in his quest to find a way back to his own world, discovers that there exists in the land another human from Earth who may hold the secret he so desperately seeks. This individual, however, is reputedly evil and has strange powers.

Jon-Tom’s adventures in seeking out this mysterious and dangerous human make this sequel to The Day of Dissonance a suspenseful and exciting saga in the Spellsinger epoch.

For Mary Stevenson Crye, a beautiful young housewife, life had been wonderful. Loving husband, two delightful children, meaningful existence in a small Southern community. Then it all fell apart: with the sudden, unexpected death of her husband, Stevie must struggle to earn a living as a free-lance writer.

When her typewriter – the sole economic support for her surviving family – breaks down, Stevie begins to receive demonic messages through the machine, the prelude to a living nightmare of satanic emissaries, ghouls from beyond the grave, and the revelation of an unrequited curse over the Crye household.

For Mary Stevenson Crye, the nightmare is about to begin . . .

He held the power of life after the world’s end! In four days the world was coming to an end! The exploding sun would burn every living thing on Earth to a cinder! In Simsville, it was Bill Easson who got the job of picking those fit to escape. He had to choose ten people – men, women, or children – out of its desperate, hysterical three thousand. Whom should he pick – the beautiful, the bold, or the clever? Did they really have a chance to reach a new world in the rickety, jerry-built, inadequate space boat that would be given them? Would cold and hostile Mars welcome them?

Once the city of Carrig stood supreme on this planet that had been settled by space refugees in the distant, forgotten past. From every corner of this primitive lost world caravans came to trade – and to view the great King-Hunt, the gruesome test by which the people of Carrig chose their rulers.

Then from space came new arrivals. And with them came their invincible death guns and their ruthless, all-powerful tyranny.

Now there would be no King-Hunt in Carrig, or hope for the planet-unless a fool-hardy high-born named Saikmar and a beautiful Earthling space-spy named Maddalena, could do the impossible . . .



(First published 1969)

As a young boy, Laurie Linton encountered a strange apparition: a ghostly man who urgently mouthed a message:
KILL MAGOBION!
Years later, as a member of the UN Narcotics Security Agency, Linton and the beautiful Carol Kennedy were assigned a special duty: investigation of a mysterious drug which endowed its addicts with superhuman powers.
Now, that investigation leads Linton and Carol into a bewildering maze where past and future slide by each other at terrifying speed…where international peace teeters in the balance…and where all blues point to the top-secret Ministry of Internal Security and its prestigious, powerful leader – COLONEL PIERS MAGOBION.

Here is the most exciting and dangerous adventure of them all, in which Tarzan of the Apes is faced with some of his most baffling challenges ever! A beautiful white girl on safari is captured by a lost civilisation of semi-pagan tribesmen in inaccessible jungle, and worshipped as a prisoner goddess…

Two ruthless crooks from across the ocean, on a feverish hunt for a lost horde of gold in Tarzan’s territory, plunder the innocent folk and creatures of the forest in their relentless search…

And a young man – strong, and bronzed and dressed in a loin-cloth – calls himself ‘Tarzan’, and causes chaos and confusion among all but the most faithful of the real jungle hero followers.

Tarzan had renounced his right to the woman he loved, and civilisation held no pleasure for him. After a brief and harrowing period among men, he turned back to the African jungle where he had grown to manhood. It was there he first heard of Opar, the city of gold, left over from fabled Atlantis. It was a city of hideous men – and of beautiful, savage women, over whom reigned La, high priestess of the Flaming God. Its altars were stained with the blood of many sacrifices. Unheeding of the dangers, Tarzan led a band of savage warriors toward the ancient crypts and the more ancient evil of Opar.

Earl Dumarest, now a vanquished and captive mercenary, is offered the choice of surrender to the fearsome Cyclan or the chance of freedom by the beautiful and ruthless Lady Delphine. The risks are terrifying – but has Dumarest a choice?

Intent on finding the legendary world of Terra – Earth – the planet of his birth; pursued by the brilliant and ruthless megalomaniac race, the Cyclan, whose secret key to Galactic domination only he possesses; trapped on a plague ship hurtling through a universe determined to destroy it, and captained by a madman – Earl Dumarest is tempted by the irresistible but fatal promise of Delphine.

The choice is simple – to abandon his dreams or perish by them, just as they promise fulfilment.



(First published 1976)

A collection of Silverberg’s best short fiction, as selected by the author.

The 1950s: The Road to Nightfall, The Macauley Circuit, Sunrise on Mercury, Warm Man.

The 1960s: To See the Invisible Man, Flies, Passengers, Nightwings, Sundance.

The 1970s: Good News from the Vatican, Capricorn Games, Born with the Dead, Schwartz Between the Galaxies.

The 1980s: The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve, The Pope of the Chimps, Needle in a Timestack, Sailing to Byzantium, Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another.

The 1990s: Hunters in the Forest, Death Do Us Part, Beauty in the Night.

The 2000s: The Millennium Express, With Caesar in the Underworld.

Lucius Shepard’s short fiction ranges far and wide over the field of SF and fantasy, and is crammed with show-stopper ideas and an intense originality. The Ends of the Earth is a testimonial to a genius of the genre, and a major American writer. Winner of the 1992 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.

Contents:
The Ends of the Earth (1989)
Delta Sly Honey (1987)
Bound for Glory (1989)
The Exercise of Faith (1987)
Nomans Land (1988)
Life of Buddha (1988)
Shades (1987)
Aymara (1986)
A Wooden Tiger (1988)
The Black Clay Boy (1987)
Fire Zone Emerald (1985)
On the Border (1987)
The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter (1988)
Surrender (1989)

They called him the Life-Lord and the deadly milk-white elixir that his syndicate pushed was called Lifewater.

As promised, Lifewater brought youth to the old. Women who were losing their once cherished beauty, men who were losing their strength gave their life’s savings for a vial of the magic substance. What they did not know was that the powerful brew could cause sudden and violent death.

As the fatal youth epidemic spreads throughout the Solar System, Captain Future battles with time and danger to save his fellow beings from doom – only to find himself trapped in a master fiend’s plot to conquer the solar system.

In that hidden valley, land of strangely forbidding beauty, Eric Nelson, soldier of fortune, faced a battle weirder and more savage than any he had ever fought. He was hired to fight for humanity, against beings that seemed to be both more and less than human.

The weapons of the enemy included centuries-old powers of magic and superstition . . . but Nelson fought grimly, even when his mind was helplessly trapped in the body of a wolf. Then came the climactic test of his allegiance, the knowledge that more than just humanity was at stake . . . and the final mind-shattering discovery of an alien secret that lay buried in the Cavern of Creation!

The sinister business of counter-espionage is played out by an array of magnificent characters. Quayle, compounded of wisdom, administrative genius and the ability to live without sleep, wine or women; Shaun O’Mara, who loves all those things, looks like an actor and is an aristocrat, and works with subtlety, artistry and distinction; and Ricky Kerr, a cleverly drawn portrait of a man who is not quite able to stand the pace.

The women, of course, dress superbly, move like angels, are as beautiful as diamonds and, with one notable exception, behave abominably.

‘If there are better thrillers it is hardly possible to think of them while under the spell of this one’ Times Literary Supplement

Fourteen miles off the tail-end of Andros Island in the West Indies lies Dark Bahama. Many people have discovered they can find their heart’s desires there; many have found, too, that even in paradise it pays to watch your step.

Viola Steyning is young, wayward, rich and good looking, and the sort of girl to cause her mother back home in England a certain anxiety. That is why Julian Isles has been sent out by Johnny Vallon of Chennault Investigations to bring her back alive – for beneath the tranquil surface of Dark Bahama’s tropical beauty lurk sinister and dangerous undercurrents.

On a Hollywood studio lot, a dancing bear – a Gypsy in a fur suit – does a little sly pickpocketing. In San Francisco, Daniel Kearny Associates are waging a campaign to repossess twenty-seven classic cars from people who are creatively determined to keep them. And in a fortress in the Big Sur wilderness, a rich man vows to steal a collectors’ item. Soon the bear, DKA and the millionaire entangle in a twisted plot of betrayal and murder.

When the dancing bear is killed, the police start searching for his beautiful wife, Yana. But Yana is eluding everyone – DKA included – and working a grift of her own.

Meanwhile a helicopter is headed for Big Sur, carrying the greatest scam of all.

When Dave Fenner is hired to solve the Blandish kidnapping, he knows the odds on finding the girl are against him – the cops are still looking for her three months after the ransom was paid. And the kidnappers, Riley and his gang, have disappeared into thin air.

But what none of them knows is that Riley himself has been wiped out by a rival gang – and the heiress is now in the hands of Ma Grisson and her son Slim, a vicious killer who can’t stay away from women, especially his beautiful new captive. By the time Fenner begins to close in on them, some terrible things have happened to Miss Blandish …

‘No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford’ Elmore Leonard

In an expensive Miami neighbourhood, Sergeant Hoke Mosely, Homicide Division, is called to investigate the lethal overdose of a young junkie. But what seems like a routine OD gives Moseley cause to doubt – particularly when he meets the dead kid’s stunning stepmother.

And with his two teenage daughters dumped on him by his troublesome ex-wife, a new beat partner struggling with an unplanned pregnancy, and fifty cold cases to solve, it starts to feel like this little matter of a dead junkie and his beautiful stepmother might just be the answer to Hoke’s prayers . . .

The fifth book in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series, featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire

Wade Barsad locked his wife Mary’s horses in their barn and then burned it down. In return she shot him in the head six times – or so the story goes. Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn’t believe Mary’s confession, and he’s determined to dig deeper.

Posing as an insurance claims investigator, Walt goes undercover and soon discovers that the population of an entire town might have wanted Wade dead, including a beautiful Guatemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor but not so much for honesty . . .

‘A winning mystery with characters coming off the page’ Portland Oregonian

Beautiful, amoral and ruthless – but was she a killer?
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

Ruth Garside was framed for three killings. But was she really guilty?

As a girl, Ruth was accused of a dreadful crime; as a wife she was suspected of her husband’s death; as a widow she was accused of her employer’s murder. ­­

‘I can prove her innocence,’ cried Thomas Fogg KC. ‘I can prove my own innocence,’ said Ruth. ‘She’s my client so she can’t be guilty, and by heck, I’ll prove it if it means the skies falling,’ declared Arthur Crook. Well – does he? And­ is he justified?

There’s something chillingly familiar about what’s happening to Nick Miller. He was so sure he’d left the past – and Holly Bourne – behind. Holly, pure delight to everyone else, but Nick’s girlfriend-from-hell. Except that all that was over years ago. Holly’s happily married now and thousands of miles away, and Nick’s wife, Nina, is expecting their first child. This can’t have anything to do with Holly.

Yet the shocks have only just begun for Nick and Nina, in a terrifying novel of obsessive love, and a young couple’s fight to escape its deadly stranglehold …

‘A beautifully crafted tale that builds to a dramatic climax’ Bookseller

“Go to thy master and say that Mardanax hath come. I have lived to see the barbarian Thongor in his tomb.”

As the stranger throws back his cloak the hellish gleam of his emerald eyes confirms his statement – Mardanax, the Black Magician of Zaar – has survived Thongor’s destruction of the dread City of Magicians.

Mardanax strikes swiftly. His evil sorcery explodes with inconceivable power, and Thongor lies dead. Thongor’s beautiful queen is drugged into mindless obedience to the Black Magician. Her son, the prince, is kidnapped. Thongor’s empire seems to have fallen to the forces of Chaos.

Then, wandering in the land of the dead, Thongor finds a powerful sword of light…