Zachary E Britton

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

In Inside Out, Charlie Unwin, one of the world’s leading performance psychologists, explains the techniques that enable the elite to perform at their best under immense pressure. It reveals how they think, prepare, and perform, taking you inside the unpredictable modern battlefield, the chaos of the catwalk, the operating theater, the stadium, the maximum-security prison, and the opera house. The “inside out” method helps you gain control so that you can have a greater impact. It’s about mindset, learning new skills, maintaining confidence, and sustaining great results.

It all began when the half-able wizard Questor Thews announced that finally he could restore the Court Scribe Abernathy to human form. It was his spell that had turned Abernathy into a Wheaten Terrier - though with hands and able to talk. All went well - until the wizard breathed the magic dust of his spell and suddenly sneezed. Then, where Abernathy had stood, there was only a bottle containing a particularly evil imp.

A year had passed since Ben Holiday bought the Magic Kingdom from the wizard Meeks, who had set a series of pitfalls against him. Ben survived, by the aid of three loyal friends: Questor Thews, and ill-trained wizard; Abernathy, a talking dog, the court scribe; and the lovely Willow, who sometimes had to be a tree. But Ben had been troubled by dreams of disaster to his former partner, Miles Bennett. Yet when he returned to Earth, Ben found Miles doing splendidly. The dreams had been a trap by Meeks, who had returned to the Magic Kingdom as a tiny insect hidden in Ben's clothing.

Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement has promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention. The kingdom was in ruin. The Barons refused to recognize a king, and the peasants were without hope. A dragon was laying waste the countryside, while an evil witch plotted to destroy everything.