Early Science Fiction

David Fisher pushes paper for the EPA in a world that's a lot like ours...only different. In this California - and throughout the alternate United States - all gods are real, science doesn't exist, and magic rules everything, running imp-driven computers and creating anxiety-inducing bumper-to-bumper flying-carpet rush hours. Unfortunately, unchecked magic use can leave dangerous residues, creating hours of mind-numbing deskwork for David and his fellow bureaucrats at the Environmental Perfection Agency.

In Harry Turtledove's mesmerizing alternate history of World War II, the choices of men and fate have changed history. Now it is the winter of 1941. As the Germans, with England and France on their side, slam deep into Russia, Stalin's terrible machine fights for its life. But the agreements of world leaders do not touch the hearts of soldiers. The war between Germany and Russia is rocked by men with the courage to aim their guns in a new direction. England is the first to be shaken.

In the real world, England and France allowed Adolf Hitler to gobble up the Sudetenland in 1938. Once Hitler finished dismembering Czechoslovakia, he was ready to go to war over Poland a year later. But Hitler had always been eager to seize Czechoslovakia, no matter the consequences. So what if England and France had stood up to the Nazis from the start, and not 11 months later? That is the question behind the War That Came Early series.

Protozoa is a word from biology via the Greek, meaning "first animals". These short stories were indeed among the first life spontaneously generated in Lois McMaster Bujold's nascent writing career. Along with an introduction by the author, this collection features the short stories "Barter", "Garage Sale", "The Hole Truth", "Dreamweaver's Dilemma", and "Aftermaths".

A catastrophic fall from a towering cliff face sends shockwaves through a migrating people, leaving ten dead and their world irrevocably changed. Danijel, the strong and enigmatic leader, must guide his people on a perilous journey to the warmer lands of the Lowland, where dangers both seen and unseen lurk at every turn. His authority is challenged by the cunning and ambitious Ohad, whose treachery threatens to shatter the fragile unity of the group. In this brutal and unforgiving world, survival is a constant battle. Liùsaidh, Danijel's woman, fights against desperate odds to stay alive ...

This collection of over 50 stories brings together three of Enid Blyton's earliest and most imaginative story collections - The Book of Fairies (1924), The Book of Brownies (1926) and The Book of Pixies (1989) - and shows Blyton at her most imaginative and playful.

After a desperate escape from the Blue Stone Island, Skree and his faithful companion Zuka must find a new home for Priestess and the last of the Kobold race. Joining the fiery Captain Fenna Lis and her no-nonsense first mate Hawkins, Skree finds plenty of opportunities to grow in skill and strength. With few options available to him, Skree must provide a haven for his friends and the last survivors of the Kobold race. Luckily, Captain Fenna knows just the right guy to solve their problem, but it won't be easy. Or cheap.

The Ranger's Apprentice origin story fans have been waiting for. Before they became the most famous Ranger in the land and the hard-working Ranger Commandant, Halt and Crowley were young friends determined to change the world. The scheming Baron Morgarath is drawing other power-hungry knights and barons to his banner. King Oswald is wasting away, and, if gossip can be believed, Prince Duncan is causing havoc in the north.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

Space Station Oberon is expecting a Very Important Person, and Hal Junior has been given a choice: he must look after the VIP's snotty little kid, or miss out on a camping trip to planet Gyris. Bear in mind Hal Junior has spent his entire life aboard a space station, and he'll do anything to go camping. Well, almost anything. No homework, no chores ... and absolutely no babysitting! It turns out the kid is the least of Hal's problems, because together they uncover a terrible secret which could mean the end of the space station!

New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.

He’s powerful, he’s virtually unstoppable, and he just wants to be left alone. In a world filling up with the supernatural, a lone werewolf drifts into a farming community looking for work and promptly kicks a hornet’s nest. Actually, he would prefer it was a hornet. What he kicks is much worse.

This is your pilot speaking. We have a problem in the engine bay. It's nothing to worry about, but please make your way to the escape pods. Hal Junior and Stephen 'Stinky' Binn live aboard a high-tech space station, far from the nearest planet. The rules are strict, and their lives are carefully regulated. That's why they're so excited about the camping trip to Planet Gyris ... imagine a whole week of fishing, swimming, sleeping in tents and running wild! Unfortunately, the boys crash land in the middle of a forest, and there's little chance of rescue. Is this the end of the camping trip .....

Best known for such blockbuster film adaptations of his work as Blade Runner and Total Recall, Dick (1928…82) is an iconic figure in sf whose every written word remains of interest. This generous sampling of his early writings is an entirely original collection covering a wide variety of themes and settings, ranging from the near to the far future and from the earthly mundane to almost unimaginably exotic worlds.

A science fiction mystery book set in the United States and England during the early 20th century.In **Morgan's Amnesia**, Alexander Hawthorne weaves a gripping tale of intrigue and adventure. This **science fiction mystery** begins in a quiet American town, where Matthew, a down-and-out former Army Intelligence officer, finds himself drawn into the enigmatic world of Morgan, a wealthy man with a haunting past and a severe case of amnesia. Unraveling the PastMatthew's encounter with Morgan is anything but ordinary. Morgan possesses a strange notebook filled with cryptic entries, some ...

Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness and devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense - nothing more than a quirky artefact born of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling.

Back in the 1950s at the dawn of science fiction, writers were turning out wildly imaginative stories for the pulp magazines. Robert Silverberg, writing as David Osborne, estimates he wrote over a million words in one year. Here are three more exciting stories from those heady days from the pioneers of science fiction: "Aliens from Space" by David Osborne, "The Man with Three Eyes" by E. L. Arch, and "Conquest of Earth" by Manly.

Madison Avery's dreams of ever fitting in at her new school died when she did. Especially since she was able to maintain the illusion of a body, deal with a pesky guardian angel, and oh yeah, bring the reaper who killed her to his untimely end. Not exactly in-crowd material. It's amazing that her crush, Josh, doesn't think she's totally nuts.

The first three stories in the Matt Ransom series have been gathered together for the first time in this exciting and explosive collection. The Velvet Sea, The Tender Shore, and the powerful The Gentle Tide await readers just past the shore…

After being ignominiously shipped out of England following their participation in the Janus affair, Braun and Books are ready to prove their worth as agents. But what starts as a simple mission in the States - intended to keep them out of trouble - suddenly turns into a scandalous and convoluted case that has connections reaching as far as Her Majesty the Queen.