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 the 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, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually anything to do with them at all.No rational cause could be found for the explosion - it was simply designated an act of God. But, thinks Dirk Gently, which God? And why? What God would be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport, trying to catch the 15.37 to Oslo?
The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for…) Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone? Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive — some say mad, others allege dangerous — scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson find a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and… a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.The first novel in an exciting new collaboration between Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter, transports readers to the ends of the earth — and far beyond. All it takes is a single step…
The story takes place following a nuclear holocaust which wipes out every major city east of the Mississippi and leaves the survivors permanently infected with plague. To prevent the plague from spreading, the army sets up a cordon sanitaire along the Mississippi. The story follows one survivor, Russell Gary, as he attempts to get back across the river.
Everything that lives contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It was the fate of the Assyrians and the Hittites, the Greeks and the Romans, the British and the Americans. And so it was for the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire. Conception, birth, growth, aging, death: This is the law of life, true for nations, worlds and stellar empires no less than for organisms.For the greatest and the smallest it is the same, differing on it in this: the greater the heights conquered, the greater the fall, the longer and darker the night that follows…The stories contained herein were first published as follows:“The Star Plunderer,” 1952.“Outpost of Empire,” , 1967.“A Tragedy of Errors” , 1967.“The Sharing of Flesh,” , 1968. Won Hugo and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1969.“Starfog,” 1967.
The “Folk” were first to arrive on this faraway planet, pushing aside the docile, intelligent aboriginal races they encountered. The “Masters” followed to subjugate the careless, complacent fellow humans who preceded them here. And so it has remained for ages.Fifteen-year-old Joseph Master Keilloran has known only privilege, respect, and civility. Born to take over the reins of House Keilloran when he comes of age, he awakens one night in the Great House of distant relatives to the thunder of battle—a terrifying din that has not been heard on this peaceful world since the original Conquest. All ...
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind themIn ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.From Sauron's fastness in the ...
The second volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure "The Lord of the Rings".Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs.Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin - alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.
Number Six – when John meets her in I Am Number Four she's strong, powerful, and ready to fight. But who is she? Where has she been living? How has she been training? When did she develop her legacies? And how does she know so much about the Mogadorians? In I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy, discover the story behind Six. Before Paradise, Ohio, before John Smith, Six was traveling through West Texas with her Cepan, Katarina. What happened there would change Six forever . . .
The series is set one-hundred-plus years into an interstellar war between two different human cultures, the Alliance and the Syndics. The protagonist of the story is discovered floating in a suspended animation escape pod one-hundred years after he made a "heroic last stand" against an enemy fleet. In the present, he's a renowned hero to the Alliance and his name and actions are used to justify poor tactics and decisions. Awakened after being discovered during a secret mission that turns out to be an enemy trap, he's suddenly dropped into the fleet commander's chair and expected to live up to the legend that has grown around him.
JASON HAS A PROBLEM. He doesn't remember anything before waking up in a bus full of kids on a field trip. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper, and his best friend is a guy named Leo. They're all students at the Wilderness School, a boarding school for "bad kids," as Leo puts it. What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly? Jason doesn't know anything — except that everything seems very wrong.PIPER HAS A SECRET. Her father, a famous actor, has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying ...
Grace Divine made the ultimate sacrifice to cure Daniel Kalbi. She was infected with the werewolf curse while trying to save him, and lost her beloved brother in the process. When Grace receives a haunting phone call from Jude, she knows what she must do. She must become a Hound of Heaven. Desperate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot—a newcomer to town who promises her that he can help her be a hero. But as the two grow closer, the wolf grows in Grace, and her relationship with Daniel is put in danger—in more ways than one. Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace begins to give into the wolf inside of her—not realizing that an enemy has returned and a deadly trap is about to be sprung.
BLAST OFF!"Between the first and last decades of the Twentieth Century lay a gulf greater than the wildest imagination could have conceived. It was the gulf between gunpowder and nuclear bomb, between messages tapped in morse code and global television from the sky, between Queen Victoria, Empress of India, and Kwame Chaka, Supreme President of the African Federation. But above all, it was the gulf between the first hundred-foot flight at Kitty Hawk , and the first billion mile mission to the moons of Jupiter. . . ."This was the beginning of the first version of 2001-the version that ...
