Shadow of Night (Hardback)
Deborah Harkness
SHAD
The sequel to A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness's Shadow of Night continues the story of historian Diana Bishop, a woman descended from a line of powerful witches, who along with long-lived vampire Matthew Clairmont has broken the law of dividing creatures. The fragile coexistence of witches, daemons, vampires and humans has been dangerously threatened. Seeking safety, Diana and Matthew travel back in time to London, 1590. But they soon realise that the past may not provide a haven... This is a book that will appeal to fans of fantasy and romance and fans of the original are sure to fall for Diana and Matthew once more in this stunning, richly imagined, epic tale.
Please note that this hardback has 580 pages and not 336 as advertised in our recent catalogue.
GOLL
Eight novels that will introduce readers to the enigmatic and vibrant nature of the science fiction and fantasy genres. All these books are still held in high esteem by today's authors, and you'll have the chance to meet vampires, demons and become immersed in fantastical worlds. This introductory set includes I Am Legend, The Name Of The Wind, The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Book Of The New Sun, Flowers For Algernon, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Hyperion and Eric.
Deadlocked (Hardback)
Charlaine Harris
DLOC
The twelfth True Blood book from Charlaine Harris, Deadlocked continues the adventures of cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse - and the vampires and shapeshifters are still not getting on with each other. Sookie and Area Five investigator Bill find themselves having to solve the murder of a woman whose body has just been found in Eric Northman's front yard. Sookie believes that this time the dead girl's fate has nothing to do with her, but she is wrong. She has an enemy far more devious than she'd ever expect - and this enemy is aiming to make Sookie's world come crashing down.
Thornyhold (Paperback)
Mary Stewart
MARYI
Thornyhold is a house deep in a wild wood that feels like something out of a fairy tale. To Gilly, it is an enchantment. Her very own enchantment, left to her by the cousin whose occasional magical visits brightened her childhood. And as she explores, she discovers more about the woman who had come to seem like a fairy godmother for her: her herbalists's skills, her still room, her abilities to foresee and to heal. She discovers that the local people believe that Gilly has inherited not just the house, but also the magical spell-weaving powers that live on in the house and garden. Slowly, quietly, she comes to realise that they are right.
Ragnarok (Hardback)
A. S. Byatt
ACOUE
Recently evacuated to the British countryside and with World War Two raging around her, one young girl is struggling to make sense of her life. Then she is given a book of ancient Norse legends and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. Intensely autobigraphical and linguistically stunning, this book is a landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's truly great writers. Intensely timely it is a book about how stories can give us the courage to face our own demise. The Ragnarok myth, otherwise known as the Twilight of the Gods, plays out the endgame of Norse mythology. It is the myth in which the gods Odin, Freya and Thor die, the sun and moon are swallowed by the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Midgard eats his own tale as he crushes the world and the seas boil with poison. It is only after such monstrous death and destruction that the world can begin anew. This epic struggle provided the fitting climax to Wagner's Ring Cycle and just as Wagner was inspired by Norse myth so Byatt has taken this remarkable finale and used it as the underpinning of this highly personal and politically charged retelling
Kiss of Crimson (Paperback)
Lara Adrian
AAMFH
With one reckless, irresistible kiss, Dante binds Tess to himself for eternity...He comes to her more dead than alive, a huge black-clad stranger mortally wounded and rapidly losing blood. As she struggles to save him, vet Tess Culver is unaware that the man calling himself Dante is no man at all but one of the Breed, vampire warriors engaged in a desperate battle. But in a single erotically-charged moment Tess is plunged into his world - a shifting, shadowed place where bands of Rogue vampires stalk the night, cutting a swathe of terror. Haunted by visions of a dark future, Dante lives and fights like there is no tomorrow. Tess is a complication he does not need - and yet his touch has awakened in her hidden gifts and desires and a hunger she never knew she possessed...and bonded by blood, Dante and Tess must work together to overcome the deadliest of enemies.
Midnight Awakening (Paperback)
Lara Adrian
AAMFI
He has resisted temptation for centuries - until he meets someone whose heart is as frozen as his...With a dagger in her hand and vengeance on her mind, Elise Chase prowls Boston's streets in search of retribution against the Rogue vampires who took from her everything she cherished. Using her psychic gift she stalks her prey, well aware that the power she possesses is destroying her. She must learn to harness this gift and for that she can turn to only one man - the vampire Tegan. Tegan is no stranger to loss and he knows fury, but when he slays his enemies it is with ice in his veins. He is perfect in his self-control - until Elise seeks his aid. An unholy alliance is forged, one which will plunge them into a tempest of danger, desire, and the darkest passions of the heart...
Ashes of Worlds (Paperback)
Kevin J. Anderson
AALSQ
The allied factions of humanity, along with the waning Ildiran Empire, the powerful water elementals and sentient trees, have defeated the near-invincible race of the hydrogues, driving them back into the depths of gas-giant planets. But before peace can heal the wounds between the races, two ancient enemies return: the capricious fiery elementals, the faeros, who mean to burn all those who fought alongside their enemies; and the lost hive race of the Klikiss, who intend to reclaim the worlds they inhabited 10,000 years earlier, worlds that are now home to many human colonies. Meanwhile, the leader of the Terran Hanseatic League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas, intends to pull all of humanity's unruly stepchildren into his iron grip -- even if it means he has to hold the Ildiran Mage-Imperator hostage, risking renewed war with an entire alien civilization. Thus the myriad storylines of galactic warfare and personal betrayals, starlost romances and titanic alien conflicts are brought to a thrilling conclusion.
Algebraist (Paperback)
Iain M. Banks
AAKIW
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known. As complex, turbulent, flamboyant and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, the new science fiction novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale.
Cold Commands (Hardback)
Richard Morgan
ACVIE
Ringil Eskiath, scarred wielder of the kiriath-forged broadsword Ravensfriend, is a man on the run - from his past and the family who have disowned him, from the slave trade magnates of Trelayne who want him dead, and apparently from the dark gods themselves, who are taking an interest but making no more sense than they ever have. Outlawed and exiled from his ancestral home in the north, Ringil has only one place left to turn - Yhelteth, city heart of the southern Empire, where perhaps he can seek asylum with the kiriath half-breed Archeth Indamaninarmal, former war comrade and now high-up advisor to the Emperor Jhiral Khimran II. But Archeth Indamaninarmal has problems of her own to contend with, as does her house guest, bodyguard and one time steppe nomad Egar the Dragonbane. And far from gaining the respite he is seeks, Ringil will instead find himself implicated in fresh schemes and doubtful allegiances no safer than those he has left behind. Old enemies are stirring, the old order is rotted through and crumbling, and though no-one yet knows it, the city of Yhelteth is about to explode ...
Minority Report (Paperback)
Philip K. Dick
ACGDD
This volume covers a wide span, from late 1954 through to 1963, the years during which Dick began writing novels prolifically and his short story output lessened. The title story of this collection has been made into the Steven Spielberg-directed movie of the same name, while "The Days of Perky Pat" inspired one of Dick's greatest works, the novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch; The Penultimate Truth grew from "The Mold of Yancy". Philip K. Dick is shown at his incomparable prime in this fourth volume of the definitive collection of short fiction.
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (Paperback)
Alastair Reynolds
ACFKE
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into interstellar space ...Alastair Reynolds burst onto the SF scene with the Arthur C. Clarke Award-shortlisted REVELATION SPACE, British Science Fiction Award-winning CHASM CITY, and REDEMPTION ARK. Now experience the phenomenal imagination and breathtaking vision of 'The most exciting space opera writer working today' (Locus) in these two tales of high adventure set in the same universe as his novels. The title story, 'Diamond Dogs', tells of a group of mercenaries trying to unravel the mystery of a particularly inhospitable alien tower on a distant world; 'Turquoise Days' is about Naqi, who has devoted her life to studying the alien Pattern Jugglers.
ADVPP
Part One of the highly anticipated fifth volume of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest epic work of the modern age. Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King's Landing with a price on his head. To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone -- a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall. And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.
ADVPQ
Part Two of the highly anticipated fifth volume of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest epic work of the modern age. In King's Landing the Queen Regent, Cersei Lannister, awaits trial, abandoned by all those she trusted; while in the eastern city of Yunkai her brother Tyrion has been sold as a slave. Having left his wife and the Red Priestess Melisandre under the protection of Jon Snow, Stannis Baratheon marches south to confront the Boltons at Winterfell. But beyond the Wall the wildling armies are massing for an assault! On all sides bitter conflicts are reigniting, played out by a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves. The tides of destiny will inevitably lead to the greatest dance of all.
