Classic Science

In what is considered one of Heinlein's most hair-raising, thought-provoking, and outrageous adventures, the master of modern science fiction tells the strange story of an even stranger world. It is 21st-century Luna, a harsh penal colony where a revolt is plotted between a bashful computer and a ragtag collection of maverick humans, a revolt that goes beautifully until the inevitable happens. But that's the problem with the inevitable: it always happens.

After being thrown out of the window of his luxury apartment, science-fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of Hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the nine circles of Hell, led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures.

Kidnapped at an early age, Ansset has been raised in isolation at a mystical retreat called the Songhouse. His life is filled with music, and having only songs for companions, he develops a voice that is unlike any other. But Ansset's voice is both a blessing and a curse, for it reflects all the hopes and fears of his audience, and, by magnifying their emotions, can be used either to heal or to destroy.

On Arrakis, now called Rakis, known to legend as Dune, 10 times 10 centuries have passed. The planet is becoming desert again. The Lost Ones are returning home from the far reaches of space. The great sandworms are dying, and the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax struggle to direct the future of Dune. The children of Dune's children awaken as from a dream, wielding the new power of a heresy called love.

Diviner Alex Verus finally made one too many enemies on the Council of Mages, and now one of them is angry enough to have him executed. Fighting for his life is nothing new, but this kill order also calls for the death of Alex's dependents - and there's no way that he'll let Luna, Anne, and Vari take the heat. With only a week before he's history, Alex will have to figure out how to disassociate himself from his friends, scrounge up allies on the council, and hopefully keep his head attached to his body.

All I wanted to do was take a break from college to check out LegendFest, some good ol' cosplay, and maybe find a lady to hit it off with. My life took a new direction, though, when I found out myths like Red Riding Hood are real, and they’re in an ongoing war against evil to save us all. More than that, they are being hunted, mistaken as humanity's enemy. They need a mortal to serve as their protector, someone to keep them out of harm's way while leading the battle against the likes of the Big Bad Wolf, Baba Yaga, and other evil legends. Now, I am that protector.

A game is only a game if you can quit. This is something I learned the hard way. I just wanted to let off some steam in virtual reality and ended up getting murdered and imprisoned in the body of one of the undead - slow, clumsy, and cursed to die at the hand of other players over and over again. The only way out of this awful predicament was to find the legendary Scroll of Rebirth, but the helpless plague-ridden corpse would need to be turned into a real killing machine. If only people knew what it was like to level up a dead rogue....

When a small crew of scoundrels, would-be heroes, deviants, and ruffians discover a map that they believe will lead them to a fabled sword buried in the barrow of a long-dead wizard, they think they've struck it rich. But their hopes are dashed when the map turns out to be cursed and then is destroyed in a magical ritual. The loss of the map leaves them dreaming of what might have been, until they rediscover the map in a most unusual and unexpected place.

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassed beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good...and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

Jasper Fforde's delightfully zany Thursday Next series shows no signs of slowing down with its seventh entry, The Woman Who Died a Lot. Despite being semihappily semi-retired from SpecOps, Thursday accepts the head librarian position at the Swindon library. But soon threats from a supreme Deity, a mnemonomorph, and the nefarious Goliath corporation press Thursday back into active duty.

Alexander Weiss inadvertently insults Athena, goddess of wisdom, and she casts him away on a forgotten isle filled with statues. Being marooned is bad enough, but the fact that the island is also the home of Euryale, elder sister to Medusa, makes the situation a touch worse. The only thing keeping Alex from being petrified is the fact that Euryale has taken a liking to the blundering mortal. For now.

Bea’s back! But life at the Academy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Being the only fairy is bad enough, but then the rumours of a ghost spread, setting everybody on edge. And when people are afraid, it’s never a good time to be the odd one out. So Bea is determined to keep her head down and not, absolutely not, draw attention to herself. That is, until she comes face to face with the so-called ghost. Bea realises that things at the Academy are a lot more complicated than they first appear - and that's before an unwelcome face turns up begging a favour.

Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.

This massive 128-hour collection builds a bridge between Western and Eastern philosophy, connecting many of the most important and influential works ever written. Here you’ll encounter thinkers who dared to question everything, challenged the norms of their day and reshaped how humanity sees itself and the world.

One of the most profound studies of warfare ever written, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought that emphasizes outwitting one's opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of force - an approach very different from that stressed in the West, where the advantages of brute strength have overshadowed more subtle methods.

Join the children Tangle and Mossy as they embark on a journey of faith, spiritual maturity and sanctification. Richly imaginative and sparkling with mythic qualities, this story communicates the joy of entering into faith as a child, traveling through life with a loving companion, and longing for the heavenly country.

Plucked from time, Sir Thomas More arrives on the human colony of Astrobe in the year AD 2535, where there is trouble in utopia: Can he and his motley followers save this golden world from the Programmed Persons, and the soulless perfection they have engineered? The survival of faith itself is at stake in this thrilling, uncategorizable, wildly inventive first novel - but the adventure is more than one of ideas. As astonishingly as Philip K. Dick and other visionaries of the 1960s new wave, Lafferty turns the conventions of space-opera science fiction upside down and inside out.

Here is the timeless story of Mary Poppins, the world's favorite nanny, and her magical adventures with the Banks family. Mary Poppins is like no other nanny the Banks children have ever seen. It all starts when their new nanny is blown by the east wind onto the doorstep of the Banks house, carrying a parrot-headed umbrella and a magic carpetbag. She becomes a most unusual nanny to Jane, Michael, and the twins.

Duty, love and war are a lethal mix. Val Standish is a farm girl on Nadolo Prime, and everyone knows there's only one way off that backwater planet: joining the Imperial Fleet. When an empire-spanning civil war breaks out, the peaceful life she knows is shattered. With war engulfing the Empire, Standish will do whatever it takes to survive, never knowing that her adventures will take her to the very heart of power, while exposing her to more danger than she’d ever imagine. Standish is a full-length standalone space opera novel in the Earth Saga series. Start here for thrilling space ...

Since the moment I was ripped from my mother's womb, I've been an outcast among my own kind. The Sidhe might possess magical Gifts, unbelievable wealth, and unfathomable power, but I don't want a thing to do with them. I ran away from their lands in the Highlands of Scotland when I was 11 years old, and I've never looked back. I don't need a clan. I've got my own family of highly skilled thieves who mean more to me than any Sidhe ever could.