Рассказ вошёл в сборники: The Golden Apples of the Sun (Золотые яблоки солнца) R Is For Rocket (Р — значит ракета) The Vintage Bradbury (Классический Брэдбери) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (И грянул гром: 100 рассказов)

A raucous, stunningly candid, deliriously smart diary of two years in the life of the incomparable Heidi Julavits Like many young people, Heidi Julavits kept a diary. Decades later she found her old diaries in a storage bin, and hoped to discover the early evidence of the person (and writer) she’d since become. Instead, "The actual diaries revealed me to possess the mind of a paranoid tax auditor." The entries are daily chronicles of anxieties about grades, looks, boys, and popularity. After reading the confessions of her past self, writes Julavits, "I want to good-naturedly laugh at this person. I want to but I can't. What she wanted then is scarcely different from what I want today." Thus was born a desire to try again, to chronicle her daily life as a forty-something woman, wife, mother, and writer. The dazzling result is The Folded Clock, in which the diary form becomes a meditation on time and self, youth and aging, betrayal and loyalty, friendship and romance, faith and fate, marriage and family, desire and death, gossip and secrets, art and ambition. Concealed beneath the minute obsession with “dailiness” are sharply observed moments of cultural criticism and emotionally driven philosophical queries. In keeping with the spirit of a diary, the tone is confessional, sometimes shockingly so, as the focus shifts from the woman she wants to be to the woman she may have become. Julavits's spirited sense of humor about her foibles and misadventures, combined with her ceaseless intelligence and curiosity, explode the typically confessional diary form. The Folded Clock is as playful as it is brilliant, a tour de force by one of the most gifted prose stylists in American letters

In a remote town in the Himalaya, Maya tries to put behind her a time of great sorrow. By day she teaches in a school and at night she types up drafts of a magnum opus by her landlord, a relic of princely India known to all as Diwan Sahib. Her bond with this eccentric, and her friendship with a peasant girl, Charu, give her the sense that she might be able to forge a new existence away from the devastation of her past. As Maya finds out, no place is remote enough or small enough. The world she has come to love, where people are connected with nature, is endangered by the town's new administration. The impending elections are hijacked by powerful outsiders who divide people and threaten the future of her school. Charu begins to behave strangely, and soon Maya understands that a new boy in the neighbourhood may be responsible

She is never cold, she always knows exactly what time it is, and her hair grows two inches while she sleeps. Fifteen-year-old Corinna Stonewall--the only Folk Keeper in the city of Rhysbridge — sits hour after hour with the Folk in the dark, chilly cellar, "drawing off their anger as a lightning rod draws off lightning." The Folk are the fierce, wet-mouthed, cave-dwelling gremlins who sour milk, rot cabbage, and make farm animals sick. Still, they are no match for the steely, hard-hearted, vengeful orphan Corinna who prides herself in her job of feeding, distracting, and otherwise pacifying these furious, ravenous creatures. The Folk Keeper has power and independence, and that's the way she likes it

They were playing at time and magic, but time is tricky and magic is dangerous! When Farrell returned to Avicenna after years away, he found his oldest friend Ben living with an unattractive older woman named Sia. Ben and Farrell’s girlfriend, Julie, were also mixed up with the League for Archaic Pleasures—a group that playacted the events and manners of medieval chivalry, sometimes too seriously. Nothing was quite as it seemed. Sia’s ancient house developed rooms that impossibly appeared and disappeared. Apparently helpless, Sia still had enormous powers that no human could defy when she chose to exert her will. And some members of the League were not playacting—they were the medieval characters they portrayed. Even mild-mannered Ben was sometimes possessed by a Ninth Century viking, driven to madness by the modern world he could not understand. Attending a League revel with Julie, Farrell was amused by the claim of fifteen-year-old Aiffe that she was a witch. But later he saw her, attempting to summon a demon, conjure out of air the form of Nicholas Bonner, who had been sent to limbo five centuries before! With Bonner’s skills added to Aiffe’s talents, the pair soon made chaos of the League’s annual mock war. But Bonner’s real goal was the defeat of Sia, with whom he seemed to have a mysterious connection. Gradually, Farrell realized that Bonner represented a growing evil such as the Twentieth Century had never known. Only Sia’s powers stood against it. But Sia had retreated into a room that could not exist, hiding in illusion. Here in his first fantasy novel since The Last Unicorn was published in 1968, Peter Beagle again proves his mastery in a tale of magic, illusion, and delusion, mixed with a cast of human characters only he could create

A vacant patch of South African veld next to the comfortable, complacent Malgas household has been taken over by a mysterious, eccentric figure with "a plan." Fashioning his tools out of recycled garbage, the stranger enlists Malgas's help in clearing the land and planning his mansion. Slowly but inevitably, the stranger's charm and the novel's richly inventive language draws Malgas into "the plan" and he sees, feels and moves into the new building. Then, just as remorselessly, all that seemed solid begins to melt back into air

A gripping ultramodern novel…fast-paced and suspenseful. – Chicago Tribune Con artists Kidd and LuEllen utilize state-of-the-art, high-tech corporate warfare to organize the technological takedown of a defense industry corporation, but their string of successes is cut short when the ultimate con artist gets conned

Lucifer Dye, born in Montana and educated in (among other places) Shanghai’s most distinguished bordello, is in San Francisco being debriefed following his dismissal from Section Two, a secret American intelligence agency. Dye and Section Two are parting company because of the sudden and unexpected death of an important Red Chinese double agent that resulted in Dye’s spending three months in a Singapore prison. Unemployed, but with a passport, a certified severance check, and his wits, Dye is approached by a man named Victor Orcutt. Orcutt is in the business of cleaning up corrupt cities through the application of “Orcutt’s First Law,” which is “To get better, it must get much worse.” Victor Orcutt’s proposal is that he will pay Dye $50,000 to corrupt an entire American city. Dye accepts the proposal, and so begins Ross Thomas’s most exciting, violent, and suspenseful novel yet, a masterwork from “a master of escape and adventure” (Pasadena Star-News)

From Publishers Weekly The shoot-'em-up potential of spiritual subject matter has recently been profitably exploited by a number of writers (most notably James BeauSeigneur in his Christ Clone trilogy). In this compelling, science-based entry, Iles (Sleep No More; 24 Hours; The Quiet Game) gives his own particular spin on biblical mayhem. "My name is David Tennant, M.D. I'm professor of ethics at the University of Virginia Medical School, and if you're watching this tape, I'm dead." Tennant works for Project Trinity, a secret government organization attempting to build a quantum-level supercomputer. Using advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques, Tennant and five other top scientists have supplied Trinity, the experimental computer, with molecular copies of themselves as models for a neurological operating system. As Trinity comes to life, the men who control the experiment begin to split into competing factions, each determined to use the computer for his own ends. When Tennant tries to shut the project down because of ethical considerations, he is marked for death by the beautiful but physically and psychologically scarred Geli Bauer, head of security. Iles writes himself onto a high wire that stretches over a dangerous fictional chasm as Tennant begins to have narcoleptic seizures and see life through the eyes of Jesus Christ. That this talented author makes it to the other side without falling is testament to his ingenuity and intelligence. Armageddon looms as nuclear missiles streak toward the United States, and the fate of mankind rests on Tennant's ability to reason with the omnipotent Trinity. Readers interested in the exploration of religious themes without the usual New Age blather or window-dressed dogma will snap up this novel of cutting-edge science

Blending historical chronicle, fiction, and commentary, The Forbidden Kingdom brings together the seemingly unrelated lives of a twentieth-century ship's radio operator and the sixteenth-century Portuguese poet-in-exile Luis Camoes. Jacob Slauerhoff draws his reader into a dazzling world of exoticism, betrayal, and exile, where past and present merge and the possibility of death is never far away. Born in The Netherlands in 1898, upon graduating from university Jacob Slauerhoff signed up as a ship's surgeon with the Dutch East India Company. He was at sea throughout his life, voyaging to the Far East, Latin America, and Africa

A career is blooming... A glittering French aristocrat is on the run, disguised as a British governess. England's top spy has a score to settle with her family. But as they're drawn inexorably into the intrigue and madness of Revolutionary Paris, they gamble on a love to which neither of them will admit

Here is a novel of Russia under Stalin. In the course of a thrilling story, we learn of the desperate hazards which beset the traveler entering the Soviet Republic upon a secret mission and endeavoring to re-cross the frontier without official papers. In the epicurean Duke de Richleau, the Jewish financier Simon Aron, and the wealthy young American Rex Van Ryn, a modern trinity of devoted friends has been created whose audacious exploits may well compare with those of Dumas’ famous Musketeers. Vivid, exciting, ingenious, it combines high qualities of style with thrilling and provocative narrative

Tradition and a sacred caste system ruled life on the planet Darkover, but two men and two women dared to defy the ancient law. Together they formed a powerful alliance, but was it strong enough to resist the terrible forces of Darkover? Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978

This is the Abstract (a summary) of the book. Easy reading for 15 minutes. Category: Philosophy | Inspiration & Motivation | Personal Growth For more than half a century, in such books as The Art of Happiness and The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace, the Dalai Lama has guided us along the path to compassion and taught us how to improve our inner lives. In A Force for Good, with the help of his longtime friend Daniel Goleman, the New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence, the Dalai Lama explains how to turn our compassionate energy outward. This revelatory and inspiring work provides a singular vision for transforming the world in practical and positive ways. Much more than just the most prominent exponent of Tibetan Buddhism, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is also a futurist who possesses a profound understanding of current events and a remarkable canniness for modern social issues. When he takes the stage worldwide, people listen. A Force for Good combines the central concepts of the Dalai Lama, empirical evidence that supports them, and true stories of people who are putting his ideas into action — showing how harnessing positive energies and directing them outward has lasting and meaningful effects. Goleman details the science of compassion and how this singular guiding motivation has the power to • break such destructive social forces as corruption, collusion, and bias • heal the planet by refocusing our concerns toward our impact on the systems that support all life • reverse the tendency toward systemic inequity through transparency and accountability • replace violence with dialogue • counter us-and-them thinking by recognizing human oneness • create new economic systems that work for everyone, not just the powerful and rich • design schooling that teaches empathy, self-mastery, and ethics Millions of people have turned to the Dalai Lama for his unparalleled insight into living happier, more purposeful lives. Now, when the world needs his guidance more than ever, he shows how every compassion-driven human act — no matter how small — is integral for a more peaceful, harmonious world, building a force for a better future. Revelatory, motivating, and highly persuasive, A Force for Good is arguably the most important work from one of the world’s most influential spiritual and political figures. Praise for A Force for Good “A Force for Good offers ideas that every individual can work with and build on, ranging from things that help the environment to things that help the less fortunate. [It’s] a long-range, global plan from a brilliant futuristic thinker, so this is a book that can be of value to any human living on Earth. When you’re ready for a jolt of optimism, pick up this book.”—Pop Culture Nerd “Far from being a self-help book, this examines specific ideas espoused by the Dalai Lama, such as emotional hygiene, compassionate economy, and education of the heart that can make the world a better place. An optimistic and thoughtful primer with practical applications.”—Booklist

Life was not possible on that watery world except on the Hundred Islands. The Empire of Arelia ruled them all—all except one. Peldain was entirely covered with a forest so impenetrable and so deadly that all attempts to explore it were disastrous. Then a man came out of that jungle—a human—who told the Arelians that at the center of the island a secret kingdom flourished. There was nothing for it but to organise an expedition. However deadly the alien forest might be, if one man could get out, an army could get in. So Lord Vorduthe landed and began the assault on the great green enemy. Nobody could have foreseen the horrors with which the forest defended itself. Nobody could have foreseen the price that would be paid by Vorduthe’s men. And only Vorduthe himself would learn the incredible secret of the island… if his mind could stand it!

Vengeance will be hers. Allison Sekemoto once struggled with the question: human or monster? With the death of her love, Zeke, she has her answer. Monster. Allie will embrace her cold vampire side to hunt down and end Sarren, the psychopathic vampire who murdered Zeke. But the trail is bloody and long, and Sarren has left many surprises for Allie and her companions - her creator Kanin, and her blood brother, Jackal. The trail is leading straight to the one place they must protect at any cost - the last vampire-free zone on Earth, Eden. And Sarren has one final, brutal shock in store for Allie. In a ruined world where no life is sacred and former allies can turn on you in one heartbeat, Allie will face her darkest days. And if she succeeds, her triumph will be short-lived in the face of surviving forever alone. THE FINAL HUNT IS ON

The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. Won Nebula Award in 1975. Won Hugo and Locus Awards in 1976

The 1990s present humanity with a dilemma when two groups of aliens arrive on Earth. The first invaders introduce themselves as altruistic ambassadors, but the second warn that their predecessors are actually unstoppable planet-eaters who will utterly destroy the world. The American president accepts this message as the ultimate judgment and calls for fervent prayers to appease the Forge of God. Meanwhile, military men plot to blow up spaceships, and both scientists and lay people help the second alien race preserve Earthly achievement. Nominated for Nebula Award in 1987. Nominated for Hugo and Locus awards in 1988

The Forge: Fire and Ice is a SciFan anthology that delves into the dark side. From people on alien worlds to aliens in our world, the stories explore a multiplicity of backdrops in realms of adventure, drama, success and failure. The perils of deep space mining; a portal within a yellow bus; a mild-mannered figure bent on terrible revenge; a worm in a toffee apple; a desperate chase to find air – dystopia meets utopia, blemish meets perfection. With a Foreword by Dr Who actor, Simon Fisher-Becker

Chaz Wilmot is a painter born outside his time. He possesses a virtuosic command of the techniques of the old masters. He can paint like Leonardo, Goya, Gainsborough-artists whose works sell for millions-but this style of painting is no longer popular, and he refuses to shape his talent to fit the fashion of the day. So Wilmot makes his living cranking out parodies for ads and magazine covers. A break comes when an art dealer obtains for him a commission to restore a Venetian palace fresco by the eighteenth-century master Tiepolo, for a disreputable Italian businessman. Once there, Wilmot discovers that it is not a restoration but a re-creation, indeed a forgery. At first skeptical of the job, he then throws himself into the creative challenge and does the job brilliantly. No one can tell the modern work from something done more than two hundred years ago. This feat attracts the attention of Werner Krebs, an art dealer with a dark past and shadier present who becomes Wilmot's friend and patron. Wilmot is suddenly working with a fervor he hasn't felt in years, but his burst of creative activity is accompanied by strange interludes: Without warning, he finds himself reliving moments from his past-not as memories but as if they are happening all over again. Soon, it is no longer his own past he's revisiting; he believes he can travel back to the seventeenth century, where he lived as the Spanish artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva Velázquez, one of the most famous painters in history. Wilmot begins to fantasize that as Velázquez, he has created a masterpiece, a stunning portrait of a nude. When the painting actually turns up, he doesn't know if he painted it or if he imagined the whole thing. Little by little, Wilmot enters a mirror house of illusions and hallucinations that propels him into a secret world of gangsters, greed, and murder, with his mystery patron at the center of it all, either as the mastermind behind a plot to forge a painting worth hundreds of millions, or as the man who will save Wilmot from obscurity and madness. In Chaz Wilmot, we meet the rarest breed of literary hero, one for whom the reader feels almost personally responsible. By turns brutally honest and self-deceptive, scornful of the world while yearning to make his mark on it, Wilmot comes astonishingly alive for the reader, and his perilous journey toward the truth becomes our own. The Forgery of Venus, a blend of erudition, unflagging narrative brio, and emotional depth, brings us inexorably toward the intersection where genius and insanity collide. Miraculously inventive, this book cements Gruber's reputation as one of the most imaginative and gifted writers of our time

Kevin thought he’d left Tara behind in Chicago. So what’s she doing in tiny Hardyville, Colorado, with a three-month-old baby, and no memory of their breakup?

From The New York Times bestselling author of The Lotus Eaters, a novel of a California ranching family, its complicated matriarch and an enigmatic caretaker who may destroy them. When Claire Nagy marries Forster Baumsarg, the only son of prominent California citrus ranchers, she knows she's consenting to a life of hard work, long days, and worry-fraught nights. But her love for Forster is so strong, she turns away from her literary education and embraces the life of the ranch, succumbing to its intoxicating rhythms and bounty until her love of the land becomes a part of her. Not even the tragic, senseless death of her son Joshua at kidnappers' hands, her alienation from her two daughters, or the dissolution of her once-devoted marriage can pull her from the ranch she's devoted her life to preserving. But despite having survived the most terrible of tragedies, Claire is about to face her greatest struggle: An illness that threatens not only to rip her from her land but take her very life. And she's chosen a caregiver, the enigmatic Caribbean-born Minna, who may just be the darkest force of all. Haunting, tough, triumphant, and profound, The Forgetting Tree explores the intimate ties we have to one another, the deepest fears we keep to ourselves, and the calling of the land that ties every one of us together

A John Puller Novel #2 Army Special Agent John Puller is the best there is. A combat veteran, Puller is the man the U.S. Army relies on to investigate the toughest crimes facing the nation. Now he has a new case – but this time, the crime is personal: His aunt has been found dead in Paradise, Florida. A picture-perfect town on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Paradise thrives on the wealthy tourists and retirees drawn to its gorgeous weather and beaches. The local police have ruled his aunt’s death an unfortunate, tragic accident. But just before she died, she mailed a letter to Puller’s father, telling him that beneath its beautiful veneer, Paradise is not all it seems to be. What Puller finds convinces him that his aunt’s death was no accident...and that the palm trees and sandy beaches of Paradise may hide a conspiracy so shocking that some will go to unthinkable lengths to make sure the truth is never revealed

Arthur C. Clarke's brilliant exposition on the building of the space-station, THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE, has caused such a stir that many people have forgotten that the English writer can also create convincing, spine-tingling fiction. We think THE FORGOTTEN ENEMY is as fine a tale as has flowed from his prolific pen

Twenty-one year-old Maddie Asherford is haunted by a past she can’t remember. When she was fifteen years old, there was a tragic accident and she was left with amnesia. In the aftermath, Maddie’s left struggling with who she is—the forgotten girl she was six years ago or the Maddie she is now. Sometimes it even feels like she might be two different people completely—the good Maddie and the bad one. Good Maddie goes to therapy, spends time with her family, and works on healing herself. Bad Maddie rebels and has dark thoughts of hurting people and sometimes even killing them. Maddie manages to keep her twisted thoughts hidden for the most part. That is until she starts having blackouts. Each time she wakes up from one, she’s near a murder scene with no recollection of what happened the night before and this helpless feeling like she’s losing control of her life. Maddie doesn’t want to believe she’s a killer, but she begins to question who she really was in her past. If she was bad Maddie all along and that maybe she was a killer

The Forgotten King is new ebook writen by Jonathan Dunn. The Forgotten King ebook is a history of the Dark Ages, of the forgotten ages that followed the fall of Rome. Civilization did not collapse with the Roman empire, however, but grew again on an island nation off the coast of Europe. It was called Atilta, a land of ancient forests and great, maritime capitals. At this time, it was at war with itself as its people fought for freedom. Yet the freedoms they desired were contradictory: some longed to overthrow their tyrannical king, others their tyrannical God. It was a fight of forest against city, and nature against civilization; of man against beast, and beast against God. But whom was the victor? For the island of Atilta is no longer to be found. Yet its history remains, embedded into the myths and legends of an exiled people. This is its story. This is the history of The Forgotten King

Crais's latest L.A.-based crime novel featuring super-sleuth Elvis Cole blends high-powered action, a commanding cast and a touch of dark humor to excellent dramatic effect. One morning at four, Cole gets a call from the LAPD informing him that a murdered John Doe has claimed, with his dying breath, to be Cole's father, a man Cole has never met. Cole immediately gets to work gathering evidence on the dead man – Herbert Faustina, aka George Reinnike – while cramping the style of the assigned detective, Jeff Pardy. Though Cole finds Reinnike's motel room key at the crime scene, the puzzle pieces are tough to put together, even with the unfailing help of partner Joe Pike and feisty ex-Bomb Squad techie Carol Starkey, who's so smitten with Cole that she can't think of him without smiling. Days of smart sleuthing work take the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Detective" from a Venice Beach escort service to the California desert, then a hospital in San Diego, where doubts about Reinnike's true heritage begin to dissipate. Meanwhile, a delusional psychopath named Frederick Conrad, who is convinced that his partner in crime was killed by Cole, stalks and schemes to even the score. There's lots to digest, but this character-driven series continues to be strong in plot, action and pacing, and Crais (The Last Detective) boasts a distinctive knack for a sucker-punch element of surprise

Beneath dense gray clouds through which no sun shone lay a forgotten planet. It was a nightmare world of grotesque and terrifying animal-plant life. Gigantic beetles, spiders, bugs and ants filled the putrid, musty earth-ready to kill and devour anything in sight. There were men amidst this horror-men who cringed and ran from the ravening monsters and huddled in the mushroom forests at night. Burl was one of these creatures. But one day inspiration hit Burl. He would find a weapon-he would fight back. And with this idea the first step was taken in man’s most desperate flight for freedom in this most horrible of all worlds. But it was only a first step

New York Times best seller Lincoln Child returns with a riveting new thriller featuring the charismatic and quirky Professor Jeremy Logan, renowned investigator of the strange and the inexplicable, as he uncovers a long-lost secret experiment only rumored to have existed. Jeremy Logan (The Third Gate, Deep Storm) is an “enigmalogist” — an investigator who specializes in analyzing phenomena that have no obvious explanation. In this newest novel, Logan finds himself on the storied coastline of Newport, Rhode Island, where he has been retained by Lux, one of the oldest and most respected think tanks in America. Just days earlier, a series of frightening events took place in the sprawling seaside mansion that houses the organization. One of its most distinguished doctors began acting erratically — violently attacking an assistant in the mansion's opulent library and, moments later, killing himself in a truly shocking fashion. Terrified by the incident and the bizarre evidence left behind, the group hires Logan to investigate — discreetly — what drove this erudite man to madness. His work leads him to an unexpected find. In a long-dormant wing of the estate, Logan uncovers an ingeniously hidden secret room, concealed and apparently untouched for decades. The room is a time capsule, filled with eerie and obscure scientific equipment that points to a top-secret project long thought destroyed, known only as “Project S.” Ultimately the truth of what Project S was... and what has happened in that room... will put Logan in the path of a completely unexpected danger. One of his most thrilling novels to date, The Forgotten Room is replete with veiled, fascinating history and all the exhilarating action and science that are the hallmarks of a Lincoln Child blockbuster

An international bestseller, this is a German soldier’s first-hand account of life on Russian front during the second half of the Second World War. When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue and constant deprivation. Posted to the crack Gross Deutschland division, with its sadistic instructors who shoot down those who fail to make the grade, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive. As the biting cold of the Russian winter sets in, and the tide begins to turn against the Germans, life becomes an endless round of pounding artillery attacks and vicious combat against a relentless and merciless Red Army. A book of stunning force, this is an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war. This book was first published in France under the title Le Soldat oublié

The Forgotten Waltz is a memory of desire: a recollection of the bewildering speed of attraction, the irreparable slip into longing, that reads with breathtaking immediacy. In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, in the winter of 2009, it has snowed. A woman recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for "the love of her life." As the city outside comes to a halt, she remembers the days of their affair in one hotel room or another: long afternoons made blank by bliss and denial. Now, as the silent streets and the stillness and vertigo of the falling snow make the day luminous and full of possibility, she awaits the arrival on her doorstep of his fragile, twelve-year-old daughter, Evie. In The Forgotten Waltz, Enright is at the height of her powers. This is Anne Enright's tour de force, a novel of intelligence, passion, and real distinction

The internationally bestselling fantasy sensation is back, with brand-new stories set in the world of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle! A wanderer and a cursed child. Spells and magic. And dragons, of course. Welcome back to the world of Alagaesia. It's been a year since Eragon departed Alagaesia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunari, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective. This volume features three original stories set in Alagaesia, interspersed with scenes from Eragon's own unfolding adventure. Included is an excerpt from the memoir of the unforgettable witch and fortune-teller Angela the herbalist . . . penned by Angela

Set in New England, The Forms of Water is a superb exploration of the complexities of family life, grief and the ties that continue to bind us to the past. At the age of 80, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is now confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. As a last wish, he is desperate to catch a final glimpse of the 200 acres of woodland on which once stood his parental home. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city. The Forms of Water is the story of what happens when Brendan convinces his staid nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit. What begins as a joke, becomes infinitely more complex as the family roles begin to rearrange themselves. A rich and absorbing look at the complexities of family life, at grief and at the ties that continue to bind us to the past

From bestselling historian Adrian Goldsworthy, a profoundly authentic, action-packed adventure set on Rome’s Danubian frontier. AD 105: DACIA The Dacian kingdom and Rome are at peace, but no one thinks that it will last. Sent to command an isolated fort beyond the Danube, centurion Flavius Ferox can sense that war is coming, but also knows that enemies may be closer to home. Many of the Brigantes under his command are former rebels and convicts, as likely to kill him as obey an order. And then there is Hadrian, the emperor’s cousin, and a man with plans of his own. Reviews for the Vindolanda Trilogy:

During the waning summer days of 1987, a deranged Vietnam vet stalks Grand Rapids, Michigan, abducting and murdering nameless victims from the streets, leaving no leads for police. That is, until he picks up sixteen-year-old Molly. From their treehouse fort in the woods, three neightborhood boys spy the killer holding a gun to Molly's back, they go to the police - only to have their story disregarded. But the boys know evil lives in their midst. A growing sense of honor and urgency forces the boys to take action - to find Molly, to protect themselves, to stand guard for the last long days of summer. At turns heartbreaking and breathtakingly thrilling,The Fortperfectly renders a coming-of-age story in the 1980s, in those final days of childhood independence, discovery, and paradise lost

If there still remains any doubt, this novel confirms Lethem's status as the poet of Brooklyn and of motherless boys. Projected through the prism of race relations, black music and pop art, Lethem's stunning, disturbing and authoritatively observed narrative covers three decades of turbulent events on Dean Street, Brooklyn. When Abraham and Rachel Ebdus arrive there in the early 1970s, they are among the first whites to venture into a mainly black neighborhood that is just beginning to be called Boerum Hill. Abraham is a painter who abandons his craft to construct tiny, virtually indistinguishable movie frames in which nothing happens. Ex-hippie Rachel, a misguided liberal who will soon abandon her family, insists on sending their son, Dylan, to public school, where he stands out like a white flag. Desperately lonely, regularly attacked and abused by the black kids ("yoked," in the parlance), Dylan is saved by his unlikely friendship with his neighbor Mingus Rude, the son of a once-famous black singer, Barnett Rude Jr., who is now into cocaine and rage at the world. The story of Dylan and Mingus, both motherless boys, is one of loyalty and betrayal, and eventually different paths in life. Dylan will become a music journalist, and Mingus, for all his intelligence, kindness, verbal virtuosity and courage, will wind up behind bars. Meanwhile, the plot manages to encompass pop music from punk rock to rap, avant-garde art, graffiti, drug use, gentrification, the New York prison system-and to sing a vibrant, sometimes heartbreaking ballad of Brooklyn throughout. Lethem seems to have devoured the '70s, '80s and '90s-inhaled them whole-and he reproduces them faithfully on the page, in prose as supple as silk and as bright, explosive and illuminating as fireworks. Scary and funny and seriously surreal, the novel hurtles on a trajectory that feels inevitable. By the time Dylan begins to break out of the fortress of solitude that has been his life, readers have shared his pain and understood his dreams

And when Elric had told his tree lies to Cymoril, and when he had taken leave of Rackhir the Red Archer, he set off into lands unknown, to seek knowledge which he believed would help him rule Melniboné as she had never been ruled before… But it was in the desert city of Quarzhasaat that he began the adventure which was to help set the course for his weird for years to come. The Chronicle of the Black Sword Lost in the immensities of the Sighing Desert, Quarzhasaat is a city of elaborate intrigue, ruled over by a council of seven known whimsically as the Six and One Other. When Elric, albino prince of Melniboné, arrives there he is weak and close to death, and is easily forced into agreeing to a mysterious quest: to find the Pearl at the Heart of the World, which will convey much power to its owner, but which lies concealed in the hidden Fortress of the Pearl. It is a quest which has defeated many before him, but Elric, armed with his soul-eating sword Stormbringer, is no ordinary adventurer

Maya Andreyeva is a “camera”, a reporter with virtual reality broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What she sees, millions see; what she feels, millions share. “Gripping…. One of the most promising SF debuts in recent years”

Before The Godfather and The Last Don, there was Puzo’s classic story about the loves, crimes and struggles confronted by one family of New York City immigrants living in Hell’s Kitchen. Fresh from the farms in Italy, Lucia Santa struggles to hold her family together in a strange land. At turns poignant, comic and violent, and with a new preface by the author, The Fortunate Pilgrim is Italian-American fiction at its very best

From the author of The Welsh Girl comes a groundbreaking, provocative new novel. Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience. Inhabiting four lives — a railroad baron’s valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood's first Chinese movie star, a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption — this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive — as much through love as blood. Building fact into fiction, spinning fiction around fact, Davies uses each of these stories — three inspired by real historical characters — to examine the process of becoming not only Chinese American, but American