Collection: Science Fiction

One of Us Is Lying meets A Good Girl's Guide to Murder in this don't-dare-to-look-away dark academia thriller that explores how secrets can rot an institution--and the people who uphold it--from the inside out.

Everyone wants to be a Lily.

At Archwell Academy, it's the ticket to a successful future. But like every secret society, there is something much darker beneath the surface ... sometimes girls disappear.

When four Archwell students find themselves trapped in a time loop, they must relive their worst memories, untangling the Lilies' moldering roots and unraveling the secrets at the core of their school ... before they destroy their futures forever.

The Castle: Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about his duties. As the villagers and the Castle officials block his efforts at every turn, K's consuming quest - quite possibly a self-imposed one - to penetrate the inaccessible heart of the Castle and take its measure is repeatedly frustrated. Kafka once suggested that the would-be surveyor in The Castle is driven by a wish "to get clear about ultimate things," an unrealizable desire that provided the driving force behind all of Kafka's dazzlingly uncanny fictions. The Trial: Written in 1914, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K, a respectable bank officer who is suddenly arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

Devoted to Tolkien, the teller of tales and co-creator of the myths they brush against, these essays focus on his lifelong interest in and engagement with fairy stories, the special world that he called faërie, a world they both create and inhabit, and with the elements that make that world the special place it is. They cover a range of subjects, from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings and their place within the legendarium he called the Silmarillion to shorter works like "The Story of Kullervo" and "Smith of Wootton Major."

From the pen of eminent Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, the individual essays in this collection were written over a span of twenty years, each written to fit the parameters of a conference, an anthology, or both. They are revised slightly from their original versions to eliminate repetition and bring them up to date. Grouped loosely by theme, they present an unpatterned mosaic, depicting topics from myth to truth, from social manners to moral behavior, from textual history to the micro particles of Middle-earth.

Together these essays present a complete picture of a man as complicated as the books that bear his name--an independent and unorthodox thinker who was both a believer and a doubter able to maintain conflicting ideas in tension, a teller of tales both romantic and bitter, hopeful and pessimistic, in equal parts tragic and comedic. A man whose work does not seek for right or wrong answers so much as a way to accommodate both; a man of antitheses.

Scholars of fantasy literature generally and of Tolkien particularly will find much of value in this insightful collection by a seasoned explorer of Tolkien's world of faërie.

Bamf! Thwip! Escaping the turmoil of FALL OF X in a flash of smoke and brimstone, Nightcrawler reinvents himself as the Uncanny Spider-Man! As the swashbuckling, devil-may-care hero battles some of the most iconic members of the real Spidey's rogues' gallery, hangs out with other web-slingers and saves civilians - mutant and human alike - Kurt Wagner is having the time of his life! But it's not all fun and games. This Nightcrawler-turned-wall-crawler can't ignore the mutant plight forever. He's in the sights of Silver Sable. And throughout it all, he must confront a long-simmering mystery surrounding his mother Mystique! Plus: The definitive origin story of Nightcrawler clears away all the lies you've been told - and delivers the truth about Raven Darkhölme and Kurt Wagner, once and for all! Collecting UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN #1-5 and X-MEN BLUE: ORIGINS.

A charming novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and How to Stop Time, following a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and its inhabitants over centuries

Early morning, 1902. At 7/7 Marchmont Crescent, Eilidh the charlady tips coal into a fire grate and sets it alight. Overhearing, Grimalkin the cat ambles over to curl up against the welcome heat and lick his favorite human's hand. But this is to be his last day on earth...before he becomes the Ghost Cat.

Follow Grimalkin as he witnesses the changes of the next 120 years, prowling unseen among the inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement while unearthing some startling revelations about the mystery of existence, the unstoppable march of time and the true meaning of feline companionship.

"To me, my X-Men!" This - the first full-sized sourcebook for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game - features the X-Men and all their various spin-off teams, greatest allies and most fearsome foes. Written by d616 System co-creator and New York Times-bestseller Matt Forbeck (The Marvel Encyclopedia, Dungeons & Dragons: Endless Quest) and packed with illustrations by Marvel's incredible army of artists, the X-Men Expansion is jammed full of vital information about Marvel's most popular mutants, including new options for creating characters, new Traits, new Tags and new Powers! It also includes new profiles for dozens of characters from X-Force, New Mutants and Marauders, new full-color maps of famous X-Men homes, including the Xavier Institute, Krakoa and Arakko and plenty of plot hooks for an entire campaign. Answer the call and join the X-Men!

Amuro is back and he has placed himself on the front lines. But that means that Neo Zeon is also on the move. They have set up a decoy to slow down Federation movements and that almost cost him his life. Still reeling from his memories of his last great encounter with Char and now facing an even more determined force, Amuro has to get back to speed and maybe a new mobile suit will help with that. Ultimately though, this war will be fought by a new generation. So we are introduced to young Hathaway and Quess. They will eventually join the fight, but will they know what their roles will be in this game.

The Chrysalids is set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David, the young hero of the novel, lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, who exist in a state of constant alert for any deviation from what they perceive as the norm of God's creation, deviations broadly classified as "offenses" and "blasphemies." Offenses consist of plants and animals that are in any way unusual, and these are publicly burned to the accompaniment of the singing of hymns. Blasphemies are human beings--ones who show any sign of abnormality, however trivial. They are banished from human society, cast out to live in the wild country where, as the authorities say, nothing is reliable and the devil does his work. David grows up surrounded by admonitions: KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT.

At first he hardly questions them, though he is shocked when his sternly pious father and rigidly compliant mother force his aunt to forsake her baby. It is a while before he realizes that he too is out of the ordinary, in possession of a power that could doom him to death or introduce him to a new, hitherto-unimagined world of freedom.

The Chrysalids is a perfectly conceived and constructed work from the classic era of science fiction. It is a Voltairean philosophical tale that has as much resonance in our own day, when genetic and religious fundamentalism are both on the march, as when it was written during the Cold War.

In this electrifying near-future thriller, five strangers guard government secrets, but only four can be trusted.

In the 21st century, information is king. But computers can be hacked and files can be broken into - so a unique government initiative has been born. Five ordinary people have been selected to become Minders - the latest weapon in thwarting cyberterrorism. Transformed by a revolutionary medical procedure, the country's most classified information has been taken offline and turned into genetic code implanted inside their heads.

Together, the five know every secret - the truth behind every government lie, conspiracy theory and cover up. In return, they're given the chance to leave their problems behind and a blank slate to start their lives anew.

But not everyone should be trusted, especially when they each have secrets of their own they'll do anything to protect...

Book Three of the Epic Prequel to the Classic Novel Dune--Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture

The grand finale of the complex epic trilogy of the generation before Frank Herbert's masterwork Dune.

Shaddam Corrino IV, Emperor of the Known Universe, has risked everything to create a substitute for the spice melange . . .

The substance that makes space travel possible . . .

That prolongs life . . .

That allows prescience . . .

A substance that is found only on the desert planet Arrakis, a harsh world of storms and monstrous sandworms.

Shaddam has used the noble houses as chess pieces for his scheme, causing the overthrow of powerful families, raising other houses to power.

The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood works their own plans, manipulating bloodlines, trying to create their long-awaited messiah, the Kwisatz Haderach.

Duke Leto Atreides battles his mortal enemy, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, while his love for the beautiful and wise Jessica grows even in the face of bloodshed and betrayal.

But are they all just pawns of an inevitable future centered around the planet Dune?

Look for the entire prequel series
DUNE: HOUSE ATREIDES - DUNE: HOUSE HARKONNEN - DUNE: HOUSE CORRINO

Out in the darkness of space, something is targeting the Greatships.

With their vast cargo holds and a crew that could fill a city, the Greatships are the lifeblood of human occupied space, transporting an unimaginable volume - and value - of goods from City, the greatest human orbital, all the way to Tradepoint at the other, to trade for xenoglas with an unknowable alien species.

It has always been Marca Nbaro's dream to achieve the near-impossible: escape her upbringing and venture into space.

All it took, to make her way onto the crew of the Greatship Athens was thousands of hours in simulators, dedication, and pawning or selling every scrap of her old life in order to forge a new one. But though she's made her way onboard with faked papers, leaving her old life - and scandals - behind isn't so easy.

She may have just combined all the dangers of her former life, with all the perils of the new . . .,
,

Soon to be a major motion picture streaming on Netflix!

The first installment of Scott Westerfeld's New York Times bestselling and award-winning Uglies series--a global phenomenon that started the dystopian trend.

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty. And as a pretty, she'll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world--and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever.

The brutally engineered class divisions of Snowpiercer meets Rivers Solomon's The Deep in this high-octane post-climate disaster novella written by Nommo Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region's survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers' most affluent rule from their lofty perch at the top while the rest are crammed into the dark, fetid floors below sea level.

There are also those who were left for dead in the Atlantic, only to be reawakened by an ancient power, and who seek vengeance on those who offered them up to the waves.

Three lives within the towers are pulled to the fore of this conflict: Yekini, an earnest, mid-level rookie analyst; Tuoyo, an undersea mechanic mourning a tremendous loss; and Ngozi, an egotistical bureaucrat from the highest levels of governance. They will need to work together if there is to be any hope of a future that is worth living--for everyone.

Back from the future, it's Miguel O'Hara - the Spider-Man of 2099! But he's become stranded in the present day, when the omnipresent future corporation Alchemax has only just been formed - and Miguel has a chance to stop its corruption before it starts! But all his plans are derailed when the vicious Inheritors attack the Spider-Verse - and by the time Spidey returns to the cusp of the 22nd century, the malicious Maestro has taken charge! To save tomorrow, Miguel will have to visit today all over again. Now, heroes from both eras - including the time lost Captain America 2099 - must join his fight to prevent the disaster that left 2099 in ruins! Collecting SPIDER-MAN 2099 (2014) #1-12; SPIDER-MAN 2099 (2015) #1-25; CAPTAIN MARVEL (1999) #27-30; SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN (2013) #17-19; SECRET WARS 2099 #1-5; and material from 2099 UNLIMITED #1-3 and #8-10, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2014) #1, and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2015) #1.

Part parable, part fantasy novel, part laugh-out-loud satire, American Desert is the story of Theodore Street, a college professor on the brink of committing suicide. When the decision is taken out of his hands--he's hit by a car and his head is severed from his body--he must come to terms with himself. At his funeral, he sits up in his own coffin with the stitches that bind his head to his body clearly visible. Everyone is horrified by this resurrection. He becomes a source of fear and embarrassment to his daughter, and an object of derision and morbid curiosity to the press and the scientific communities, and is anointed as a sort of devil by an obscure religious cult. In the process, Theodore manages to reestablish his relationship with his estranged wife and family and to rediscover the value of his life. In this experimental, satirical, and bizarre novel, critically acclaimed author Percival Everett once again takes on the assumptions of a culture whose priorities have gone out of whack. He lampoons the press, religion, and academia while offering, ultimately, an existential meditation of what constitutes being alive.

"This is fantasy served with a twist of Monty Python, parody that works by never taking itself too seriously." --Publishers Weekly

Murder! Mahem! Bacon sandwiches! People are dying suspiciously in Ankh-Morpork, and Sam Vimes of the City Watch will find the truth. Another brilliant and hilarious Discworld adventure from beloved New York Times bestselling author Terry Pratchett

For Commander Sam Vimes, Head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, life consists of trouble . . . and more trouble: a werewolf with pre-lunar tension, a dwarf with attitude, a golem who's begun to think for itself. Now he's got the unusual deaths of three elderly Ankh-Morporkians on his hands. It's murder in Discworld!--which ordinarily is no big deal. The problem is, the deaths do not bear the clean, efficient marks of the Assassins' Guild; there's an apparent lack of motive, and there's no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene. What Vimes does have are some tracks of white clay and more bothersome "clue" thingies that muck up his investigations.

The anger of a fearful populace is already targeting the city's small community of golems--those mindless, absurdly industrious creatures of baked clay, who can occasionally be found toiling in the city's factories. And certain highly placed personages are using the unrest as an excuse to resurrect a monarchy--which would be bad enough even if their would-be "king" wasn't as empty-headed as your typical animated pottery.

In addition to quieting the restless populace, Vimes has to find out whodunit--and howdunit too. He's not even sure what they dun. But as soon as he knows what the questions are, he's going to look for some answers.

The Discworld novels can be read in any order, but Feet of Clay is the 3rd book in the City Watch collection and the 17th Discworld book.

The City Watch collection in order:

Guards! Guards!Men at ArmsFeet of ClayJingoThe Fifth ElephantNight WatchThud!Snuff