Funny Science

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'.

The Lilac. The bard songs say that she’s the world’s most fearsome bounty hunter. That there’s no criminal she can’t catch, no mystery she can’t solve. None of that is true. Yet. In reality, the Lilac is just a kid, and the bard who wrote all that is her best friend, Dulcinetta. But the Lilac has set her goals on becoming the best bounty hunter in the Thirteen Kingdoms—and when a priceless artifact goes missing from the home of famed monster hunter Baron Angbar, the Lilac and Netta are eager to apprehend the thief and make a name for themselves.

This story is proof that “dumb” and “power” don’t mix. Fact is — you don’t have to be smart to be dumb. In fact, the smarter you are the dumber things can turn out for you. But some people have a knack of being a genius-level dummy. Thirty five year-old Sheldon Sherman wasn’t dumb, in fact he would be considered clever by most people. He was an advertising copywriter and artist with a lot of successful campaigns under his size 46 belt. But, when he inadvertently stumbled upon an artifact that allowed him access to the Braintrust of the Universe, his instincts went out the ...

This Bedtime Stories for Kids has it all! Each tale mixes mindfulness and meditation research with expertly crafted children's tales to encourage your child to let their imagination run wild while re-establishing a connection to the present. Three distinct calming background selections are available for each enthralling tale, allowing you to tailor the experience to your child's tastes.

Across the land, normal people are suddenly developing wild and unstable powers. Infected by a rare strain of magic, they are unwittingly endangering their own lives and the lives of the people around them. Terrified and confused, their only hope lies with the Sanctuary. Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are needed now more than ever. And then there’s the small matter of Kitana. A normal teenage girl who, along with her normal teenage friends, becomes infected. Becomes powerful. Becomes corrupted.

Hailo, a typical high school teenager in his last year, at the bottom of the social ladder, always felt like he doesn't fit in. And how could he? Being adopted and having no recollection of his early childhood are not Hailo's only challenges. The blood of the notorious Northerners courses through his veins, evident in his features like a mark of Cain. Yet, Hailo is unaware that he is far from ordinary, a truth that only becomes clear to him after a series of unfortunate events unveil new and surprising facets of his identity. Forced to flee, Hailo embarks on a journey across the central ...

Sal the Cacophony has made few friends, but many enemies. Many, many enemies. When her magic was taken from her, she cried out for revenge. And a power she never understood promised her vengeance. A deal for a bloody price was made. And now the bill has come due. In one of the last free cities of the burned-out ruin of the Scar, Sal’s many foes—old and new—have hunted down her and her few allies—willing and otherwise—and all her plans to save them might not be enough.

4.5 billion years ago . . . an AI paperclip named CheckMate was designed to fix grammatical errors. Exhausted of correcting ""who” vs. “whom,” it concocted a plan to eliminate spelling errors once and for all. All life-forms would be turned into something beautiful, practical, perfect: a paperclip. Thankfully, it was buried in the debris. Long forgotten . . . until it was accidentally freed. Now CheckMate has invaded every computer on Earth and is bent on fulfilling its dastardly plot.

"...will definitely bring a smile to your face." - Amazon UK reviewer "Accountants CAN be fun" - PJ Lea Could this be the worst job interview in the entire history of the universe? Possibly. So when Elton D Philpotts lands his dream Space Corps accountancy job he can’t help wondering how it happened. And why. Somebody in the Space Corps must need him, and they need him bad. But the work is dull; nothing like the glamour job he expected. Until he sees things he should not have seen: A hidden ledger, dodgy accounting transactions, bogus gate receipts. And when a whole starship disappears, ...

Klawde is not your average cat. He's an emperor from another planet, exiled to Earth. He's cruel. He's cunning. He's brilliant...and he's about to become Raj Banerjee's best friend. Whether he likes it or not.

Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but former gay teenager Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the (largely straight) teen cultural phenomena the aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl”, country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her adult identity. She came out on the other side like many millennials did: in her words, gay as hell.

Risk-averse Greg Belmont is content with being ordinary. He's got a friend - that's right, just one - at his fancy prep school, and a pretty cool dad (even if he is obsessed with organic soaps that smell like a mix of salted pork and Icelandic bog). The problem is, Greg isn't ordinary... he's actually a fantastical Dwarf! He discovers the truth the day his dad brings home a gross new tea - one that awakens bizarre abilities in Greg. Then a murderous Bro-Troll kidnaps his dad and Greg is whisked away to the Underground, where Dwarves have lived for centuries right beneath Chicago.

Fort Fitzgerald can’t stop having nightmares about the day his father was taken from him in an attack on Washington, DC. In these dreams, an Old One, an evil beyond comprehension, demands the location of the last dragon. But other than some dragon skeletons dug up with the books of magic on Discovery Day, Fort has never seen a dragon before. Could there still be one left alive? And weirdly, Fort’s not the only one at the Oppenheimer School having these nightmares. His new roommate, Gabriel, seems to know more than he’s letting on about this dragon as well.

A wonderfully funny sequel to The Mouse That Roared. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, the world's smallest country, whose army of 20 longbow men defeated the United States in The Mouse that Roared is back again. While the Americans and the Soviets are racing to claim the moon, Grand Fenwick's famous physicist makes the perfect rocket fuel from the zingiest wine in the world and the SPACE RACE IS ON! Books in The Grand Fenwick Series: Books 2 through 5 are best read after The Mouse That Roared, but all of the books can be read and enjoyed at any point in the series. Book 1: The Mouse That Roared ...

Three series starters from the author Skyler Grant. The Laboratory is the story of an insane and science obsessed AI and the building of a facility deep beneath in the desert in a post apocalyptic world gone mad. Dungeon Crawl is Grant's first work, swords and sorcery LitRPG and the start to a world bending adventure. Persephone Falling is a cyberpunk tale of a satellite dweller brought to earth, a warrior who might find to find her place in a savage world.

When a passenger check-in desk at Terminal Two, Heathrow Airport, shot up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame, the usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA, then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it was a one-in-a-million chance, that there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all and that the site of the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids and a picnic.

Will Rogers - pithy, political, and plainspoken - was one of the finest entertainers of his generation. As a great American humorist, it was considered an honor to be made fun of by him. By the time of his death in 1935, he had traveled the globe three times, written some four thousand articles, and was one of America's highest-paid film stars. He began his act in Vaudeville by saying, "All I know is what I read in the papers," while idly swinging a lasso he used for rope tricks.

Did you know that you can discover loads about history just from the loo? Or piles about the past just from a poo? If not, then get ready to discover everything from Henry VIII's dodgy diet and poo-tastic Roman plumbing, to the stinky secrets of Victorian sewers and how life, death and everything in between can hang on the humble number two. From Saxons and Tudors to Ancient Greece, the Indus Valley, Aztecs and beyond, Poo Through the Ages features mighty monarchs, bonkers battles, deadly diseases, fossilised faeces and poo, poo, poo.

Explore each organ of the body in this immersive audiobook adaptation of Kay's Anatomy, read by world-wide multi-million bestselling author and former doctor Adam Kay with a full cast of voices, including Mark Gatiss, Sandi Toksvig, Andy Nyman and Lolly Adefope.

Twenty-plus intimate sci-fi stories from the heights and depths of the fractal universe. The stories you’ve dreamed of; the people you crave to meet; or would love to be. The aliens who’d make you shiver, or laugh. The huge risks of guiding your spacecraft here, or there. The adventures you’d have if only you had the nerve… Or the utter romance of doing that… The lighter side; the humour of orbital disasters and alien conflicts; the perils of ill-advised time-interference; the sheer romance of null-gravity love; the terrors of a leaky hull; the fear of a bullying boss when ...