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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Amber Spyglass'
From the very start of its very first scene, The Amber Spyglass will set hearts fluttering and minds racing. All we'll say here is that we immediately discover who captured Lyra at the end of The Subtle Knife, though we've yet to discern whether this individual's intent is good, evil, or somewhere in between. We also learn that Will still possesses the blade that allows him to cut between worlds, and has been joined by two winged companions who are determined to escort him to Lord Asriel's mountain redoubt. The boy, however, has only one goal in mind--to rescue his friend and return to her the alethiometer, an instrument that has revealed so much to her and to readers of The Golden Compass and its follow-up. Within a short time, too, we get to experience the "tingle of the starlight" on Serafina Pekkala's skin as she seeks out a famished Iorek Byrnison and enlists him in Lord Asriel's crusade:
A complex web of thoughts was weaving itself in the bear king's mind, with more strands in it than hunger and satisfaction. There was the memory of the little girl Lyra, whom he had named Silvertongue, and whom he had last seen crossing the fragile snow bridge across a crevasse in his own island of Svalbard. Then there was the agitation among the witches, the rumors of pacts and alliances and war; and then there was the surpassingly strange fact of this new world itself, and the witch's insistence that there were many more such worlds, and that the fate of them all hung somehow on the fate of the child.Meanwhile, two factions of the Church are vying to reach Lyra first. One is even prepared to give a priest "preemptive absolution" should he succeed in committing mortal sin. For these tyrants, killing this girl is no less than "a sacred task."
In the final installment of his trilogy, Philip Pullman has set himself the highest hurdles. He must match its predecessors in terms of sheer action and originality and resolve the enigmas he already created. The good news is that there is no critical bad news--not that The Amber Spyglass doesn't contain standoffs and close calls galore. (Who would have it otherwise?) But Pullman brings his audacious revision of Paradise Lost to a conclusion that is both serene and devastating. In prose that is transparent yet lyrical and 3-D, the author weaves in and out of his principals' thoughts. He also offers up several additional worlds. In one, Dr. Mary Malone is welcomed into an apparently simple society. The environment of the mulefa (again, we'll reveal nothing more) makes them rich in consciousness while their lives possess a slow and stately rhythm. These strange creatures can, however, be very fast on their feet (or on other things entirely) when necessary. Alas, they are on the verge of dying as Dust streams out of their idyllic landscape. Will the Oxford dark-matter researcher see her way to saving them, or does this require our young heroes? And while Mary is puzzling out a cure, Will and Lyra undertake a pilgrimage to a realm devoid of all light and hope, after having been forced into the cruelest of sacrifices--or betrayals.
Throughout his galvanizing epic, Pullman sustains scenes of fierce beauty and tenderness. He also allows us a moment or two of comic respite. At one point, for instance, Lyra's mother bullies a series of ecclesiastical underlings: "The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief." Needless to say, Mrs. Coulter is as intoxicating and fluid as ever. And can it be that we will come to admire her as she plays out her desperate endgame? In this respect, as in many others, The Amber Spyglass is truly a book of revelations, moving from darkness visible to radiant truth. --Kerry Fried [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Better Than Life'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Brothers in Arms'
After the audacious prison camp escapade described in Borders of Infinity, Miles is on the run from the Cetagandans, who aren't about to take that kind of thing lying down. The worst of it is, Miles and his friends are starting to see double, and it takes a while to find out who is responsible. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'
Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cetaganda'
Attending a diplomatic ceremony on Cetaganda, Miles and Cousin Ivan get into a heap of political trouble when the late empress's lifelong attendant is murdered, and Ivan gets involved with several beautiful and well-connected aliens. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cetaganda: A Vprlpsogam Advemtire'
Miles is stuck visiting Cetaganda with his doltish cousin Ivan, representing Barrayaran nobility at an Imperial funeral. Miles must have suspected that it wasn't going to be dull after the bogus docking instructions and the odd man who launched himself into their ship and started to pull a weapon on them. Three attacks and a mysterious murder later, Miles is juggling two emperors, two secret services, and a half-dozen traitors--nd that's not even counting the women. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Children of the Mind'
Children of the Mind, fourth in the Ender series, is the conclusion of the story begun in the third book, Xenocide. The author unravels Ender's life and reweaves the threads into unexpected new patterns, including an apparent reincarnation of his threatening older brother, Peter, not to mention another "sister" Valentine. Multiple storylines entwine, as the threat of the Lusitania-bound fleet looms ever nearer. The self-aware computer, Jane, who has always been more than she seemed, faces death at human hands even as she approaches godhood. At the same time, the characters hurry to investigate the origins of the descolada virus before they lose their ability to travel instantaneously between the stars. There is plenty of action and romance to season the text's analyses of Japanese culture and the flux and ebb of civilizations. But does the author really mean to imply that Ender's wife literally bores him to death? --Brooks Peck [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Count Zero'
Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human.
Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dandelion Wine'
World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.)
Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, and to all the wondrous and magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing. --Stanley Wiater [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age'
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diplomatic Immunity: A Vorkosioan Adventure'
Fans won't find this surprising in the least, but Miles Vorkosigan--the plucky, short-statured hero of Lois McMaster Bujold's beloved series--is uniquely incapable of having an uneventful honeymoon. Between a racially fueled diplomatic dispute, the appearance of a hermaphroditic old flame, and a bizarre Cetagandan genetic conspiracy, Miles just can't seem to get a minute of peace with his new wife, the lovely and resourceful Ekaterin (whom Miles courted in A Civil Campaign).
Miles had hoped to give "hands-on op games" a rest once and for all, but when the Emperor urgently calls on him to resolve a "legal entanglement" in Quaddiespace, diplomacy alone might prove inadequate. (Quaddies, you'll remember, are the no-legged, four-armed free-fallers introduced in Falling Free.) Our newly minted Imperial Auditor almost immediately forgets all about "Baby's First Cell Division" (after the assignment comes in, Ekaterin quickly observes "You know, you keep claiming your job is boring, Miles, but your eyes have gone all bright"), but even Miles feels the heat after his diplomatic attempts devolve into a series of flattering assassination attempts.
Vorkosigan (and family now!) is as winning as ever, with Bujold offering up her usual fun mix of space-opera action and droll social commentary in a character-centered plot. And here's a bonus for Milesophiles and Vorkosiga novices alike: a book-by-book timeline detailing what trouble Miles got into and when. --Paul Hughes [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dragondrums'
When his boy soprano voice begins to change, Piemur is drafted by Masterharper Robinton to help with political work and is sent on missions that lead him into unusual and sometimes dangerous adventures. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dragonsong'
Anne McCaffrey's best-selling Harper Hall Trilogy is a wonder-filled classic of the imagination. Dragonsong, the first volume in the series, is the enchanting tale of how Menolly of Half Circle Hold became Pern's first female Harper, and rediscovered the legendary fire lizards who helped to save her world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dune: House Corrino'
The triumphant conclusion to the blockbuster trilogy that made science fiction history!
In Dune: House Corrino Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring us the magnificent final chapter in the unforgettable saga begun in Dune: House Atreides and continued in Dune: House Harkonnen.
Here nobles and commoners, soldiers and slaves, wives and courtesans shape the amazing destiny of a tumultuous universe. An epic saga of love and war, crime and politics, religion and revolution, this magnificent novel is a fitting conclusion to a great science fiction trilogy ... and an invaluable addition to the thrilling world of Frank Herberts immortal Dune.
Dune: House Corrino
Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together and that can be found only on the desert world of Dune.
In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.
But Duke Leto Atreides, grief-stricken yet unbowed by the tragic death of his son Victor, determined to restore the honor and prestige of his House, has his own plans for Ix.
He will free the Ixians from their oppressive conquerors and restore his friend Prince Rhombur, injured scion of the disgraced House Vernius, to his rightful place as Ixian ruler. It is a bold and risky venture, for House Atreides has limited military resources and many ruthless enemies, including the sadistic Baron Harkonnen, despotic master of Dune.
Meanwhile, Duke Letos consort, the beautiful Lady Jessica, obeying the orders of her superiors in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, has conceived a child that the Sisterhood intends to be the penultimate step in the creation of an all-powerful being. Yet what the Sisterhood doesnt know is that the child Jessica is carrying is not the girl they are expecting, but a boy.
Jessicas act of disobedience is an act of love her attempt to provide her Duke with a male heir to House Atreides but an act that, when discovered, could kill both mother and baby.
Like the Bene Gesserit, Shaddam Corrino is also concerned with making a plan for the future securing his legacy. Blinded by his need for power, the Emperor will launch a plot against Dune, the only natural source of true spice. If he succeeds, his madness will result in a cataclysmic tragedy not even he foresees: the end of space travel, the Imperium, and civilization itself.
With Duke Leto and other renegades and revolutionaries fighting to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to engulf their universe, the stage is set for a showdown unlike any seen before.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dune: House Corrino'
The triumphant conclusion to the blockbuster trilogy that made science fiction history!
In Dune: House Corrino Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring us the magnificent final chapter in the unforgettable saga begun in Dune: House Atreides and continued in Dune: House Harkonnen.
Here nobles and commoners, soldiers and slaves, wives and courtesans shape the amazing destiny of a tumultuous universe. An epic saga of love and war, crime and politics, religion and revolution, this magnificent novel is a fitting conclusion to a great science fiction trilogy ... and an invaluable addition to the thrilling world of Frank Herberts immortal Dune.
Dune: House Corrino
Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together and that can be found only on the desert world of Dune.
In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.
But Duke Leto Atreides, grief-stricken yet unbowed by the tragic death of his son Victor, determined to restore the honor and prestige of his House, has his own plans for Ix.
He will free the Ixians from their oppressive conquerors and restore his friend Prince Rhombur, injured scion of the disgraced House Vernius, to his rightful place as Ixian ruler. It is a bold and risky venture, for House Atreides has limited military resources and many ruthless enemies, including the sadistic Baron Harkonnen, despotic master of Dune.
Meanwhile, Duke Letos consort, the beautiful Lady Jessica, obeying the orders of her superiors in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, has conceived a child that the Sisterhood intends to be the penultimate step in the creation of an all-powerful being. Yet what the Sisterhood doesnt know is that the child Jessica is carrying is not the girl they are expecting, but a boy.
Jessicas act of disobedience is an act of love her attempt to provide her Duke with a male heir to House Atreides but an act that, when discovered, could kill both mother and baby.
Like the Bene Gesserit, Shaddam Corrino is also concerned with making a plan for the future securing his legacy. Blinded by his need for power, the Emperor will launch a plot against Dune, the only natural source of true spice. If he succeeds, his madness will result in a cataclysmic tragedy not even he foresees: the end of space travel, the Imperium, and civilization itself.
With Duke Leto and other renegades and revolutionaries fighting to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to engulf their universe, the stage is set for a showdown unlike any seen before. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Farnham's Freehold'
You Would Have Peace? Then Prepare for War! Hugh Farnham was a practical, self-made man. And when he saw the clouds of nuclear war gathering, he built a bomb shelter under his house, hoping for peace and preparing for war. What he hadn't expected was that when the apocalypse came, a thermonuclear blast would tear apart the fabric of time and hurl his shelter into a world with no sign of other human beings. But Farnham's small group had barely settled down to the back-breaking business of low-tech survival when they found that they were not alone after all. The same nuclear war that had catapulted Farnham two thousand years into the future had destroyed all civilization in the northern hemisphere. And the world had changed in more ways than one. In the new world order, Farnham and his family, being members of the race that had nearly destroyed the world, were fit only to be slaves. After surviving a nuclear war, Farnham had no intention of being anybody's slave, but the tyrannical power of the Chosen Race reached throughout the world. Even if he managed to escape. Where could he run to...? [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Flag in Exile'
Baen edition paperback vg [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'God Emperor of Dune'
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Leto II, God Emperor of Dune, trades his humanity for immortality and, as the magnificent sandworm of Dune, desperately attempts to save mankind. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Idoru'
Colin Laney is a data analyst with a talent for seeing patterns, or nodes, as he calls them, in the flow of information that is cyberspace. Chia McKenzie is a young member of the fan club for the Japanese pop supergroup Lo/Rez. When a rumour involving the lead singer of Lo/Rez and an idoru, a Japanese virtual-reality singing idol, brings both Laney and Chia to Tokyo, the resulting web of events involves Russian criminals, Japanese schoolgirls, and illegal nanotechnology. And it's all set in a Tokyo that is literally growing and changing around the characters, rising from the rubble of a major earthquake.
Idoru is not William Gibson's best novel, but it is a good example of his primary strength: creating worlds that don't so much show the future as expose the world we already live in, a world of computers, information, mega-corporations, pop art, tabloids, and rock & roll. Idoru works not only on its own terms but also as a set-up for Gibson's next novel, All Tomorrow's Parties. Gibson broadens his perspective by including a wider range of characters than in his earlier novels, but mainly Idoru moves Gibson's work forward by pushing further into his familiar territory. It is the work not of a writer who is discovering new topics, but of one who is re-examining his old ones, bringing greater depth and maturity to his art in the process. --Greg L. Johnson [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Imzadi'
The author of several Star Trek and Next Generation bestsellers returns with a thrilling new hardcover sure to be a sensation. Years before they served on board the Enterprise, Commander Riker and Counsellor Troi had a tempestuous love affair on her home planet. Now Counsellor Troi's mysterious death signals the beginning of a journey for Riker that will force him to choose between Starfleet's strictest rule . . . and the one he calls Imzadi. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Killashandra'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man in the High Castle'
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Masterharper of Pern'
In a time when the deadly scourge Thread has not fallen on Pern for centuries--and many dare to hope that Thread will never fall again--a boy is born to Harper Hall. A musical prodigy who has the ability to speak with the dragons, he is called Robinton, and he is destined to be one of the most famous and beloved leaders Pern has ever known.
It is a perilous time for the harpers who sing of Thread--they are being turned away from holds, derided, attacked, even beaten. In this climate of unrest, Robinton will come into his own. But despite the tragedies that beset his own life, he continues to believe in music and in the dragons, and he is determined to save his beloved Pern from itself--so that the dragonriders can be ready to fly against the dreaded Thread when at last it returns . . . [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Methuselah's Children'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'October Country'
Ray Bradbury's first short story collection is back in print, its chilling encounters with funhouse mirrors, parasitic accident-watchers, and strange poker chips intact. Both sides of Bradbury's vaunted childhood nostalgia are also on display, in the celebratory "Uncle Einar," and haunting "The Lake," the latter a fine elegy to childhood loss. This edition features a new introduction by Bradbury, an invaluable essay on writing, wherein the author tells of his "Theater of Morning Voices," and, by inference, encourages you to listen to the same murmurings in yourself. And has any writer anywhere ever made such good use of exclamation marks!? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pandora's Star'
paperback, vg++ [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Powers That Be'
Her lungs destroyed by poisoned gas, Major Yanaba Maddock has been reduced to spying on the icy planet of Petyabee. As her health returns, she realizes that something worth fighting--and living--for is happening on the planet. 2 cassettes. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pretties'
Tally has finally become 'pretty'. Her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are cool, her boyfriend is totally gorgeous, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted. But beneath all the fun - the non-stop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom - is a nagging feeling that something is very wrong. Something important. And sure enough, when a message from Tally's 'ugly' past arrives, the fun stops cold. Now Tally has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Puppet Masters'
Earth was being invaded by aliens and the top security agencies were helpless: the aliens were controlling the mind of every person they encountered. So it was up to Sam Cavanaugh, secret agent for a powerful and deadly spy network, to find a way to stop them--which meant he had to be invaded himself! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Redemption Ark'
Late in the twenty-sixth century, the human race accidentally triggers the Inhibitors. Fifty years later, these alien killing machines-designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it-are fast approaching.
The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons-and a renegade named Clavain is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own devices.
And the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Renegades of Pern'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ringworld Throne'
In Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers Larry Niven created Known Space, a universe in the distant future with a distinctive and complicated history. The center of this universe is Ringworld, an expansive hoop-shaped relic 1 million miles across and 600 million miles in circumference that is home to some 30 trillion diverse inhabitants. As in his past novels, Niven's characters in The Ringworld Throne spend their time unraveling the complex problems posed by their society. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scar'
In the third book in an astounding, genre-breaking run, China Miéville expands the horizon beyond the boundaries of New Crobuzon, setting sail on the high seas of his ever-growing world of Bas Lag.
The Scar begins with Miéville's frantic heroine, Bellis Coldwine, fleeing her beloved New Crobuzon in the peripheral wake of events relayed in Perdidio Street Station. But her voyage to the colony of Nova Esperium is cut short when she is shanghaied and stranded on Armada, a legendary floating pirate city. Bellis becomes the reader's unbelieving eyes as she reluctantly learns to live on the gargantuan flotilla of stolen ships populated by a rabble of pirates, mercenaries, and press-ganged refugees. Meanwhile, Armada and Bellis's future is skippered by the "Lovers," an enigmatic couple whose mirror-image scarring belies the twisted depth of their passion. To give up any more of Miévilles masterful plot here would only ruin the voyage through dangerous straits, political uprisings, watery nightmares, mutinous revenge, monstrous power plays, and grand aspirations.
Miéville's skill in articulating brilliantly macabre and involving descriptions is paralleled only by his ability to set up world-moving plot twists that continually blow away the reader's expectations. Man-made mutations, amphibious aliens, transdimensional beings, human mosquitoes, and even vampires are merely neighbors, coworkers, friends, and enemies coexisting in the dizzying tapestry of diversity that is Armada. The Scar proves Miéville has the muscle and talent to become a defining force as he effortlessly transcends the usual clichés of the genre. --Jeremy Pugh [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Short Victorious War'
The families who rule the People's Republic of Haven need a short, victorious war to calm the Proles and defuse any threat of civil war. In their way stands a kingdom that has always backed down before. . .but Honor Harrington wasn't involved before. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Slaughter House Five'
Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Space Trilogy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Splinter of the Mind's Eye'
The further adventures of Luke Skywalker as he fights for right and justice against the evil Imperial forces on the planet Mimbran. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Star Trek'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Star Wars'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Star Wars: Children of the Jedi'
As Children of the Jedi opens, a crazed, drug-addled ex-smuggler named Drub McKumb lunges at Han Solo in the middle of his and Leia's state visit to Ithor. (Long after the destruction of the second Death Star, Leia is now the New Republic's work-weary head of state.) Han, Leia, and Luke soon surmise that this isn't just another of Han's drinking buddies but rather a weirdly altered man carrying a terrible secret. Piecing together clues from McKumb's glossolaliac rants, Han and Leia set off in search of the ancient hiding place of the Children of the Jedi, while Luke--using the Force and his former-pupil-and-pal-turned-droid Nichos as a random number generator--decides to head off to a set of coordinates halfway across the galaxy.
They all end up finding more than they bargained for: Han and Leia's search for the Jedi ends on icy, isolated Belsavis; while Luke stumbles onto a humongous but dormant Imperial death machine- -which, not coincidentally, has stirred to life the intent to utterly annihilate Belsavis. Can he possibly stop it in time? Star Wars authors tend to be either you-love-'em-or-you-hate-'em types, but veteran writer Hambly makes a good go at falling into the former camp in this outing, along with the likes of Michael Stackpole and Kevin J. Anderson. --Paul Hughes [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Timeline'
When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole," and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.
This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates's most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artifacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever, but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages, and Crichton marvelously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air." I dare you not to turn the page!
Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the cutting-edge computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armor shining with blood. --Tim Appelo [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Uglies'
Playing on every teens passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shays cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the riders skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vibrant With Words: The Letters of Ursula Bethell'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vision of the Future'
Grand Admiral Thrawn, long believed dead, has returned. Civil war is imminent in the New Republic. And what--or who--is the Hand of Thrawn? Vision of the Future is the conclusion of the two-part Hand of Thrawn series, written by Timothy Zahn, Hugo Award-winning author of the original trilogy based on the Star Wars films. The book is read by Tony Award-nominee Anthony Heald, who uses his theatrical talents to perform everything from love scenes to fight scenes as the story unfolds. His range of voices--from the "distinctive, somewhat prissy" voice of C-3PO to the gruff cynicism of Han Solo--is complemented by selections from John Williams's score and sound effects from the Star Wars films. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'War of Honor'
David Weber's Honor Harrington series continues in this 10th novel, which picks up the action several years after the previous volume, Ashes of Victory. With a ceasefire in place with the Peeps, the new government of the Star Kingdom ignores the wishes of Queen Elizabeth and then threatens the very fabric of the Manticore Alliance against the People's Republic of Haven. We find Honor in the role of a senior political advisor, performing with her usual flair and élan.
With War of Honor coming in at over 800 pages, Weber has room to expand subplots and secondary characters and bring to the reader a feeling of depth and completeness seldom seen in science fiction novels. Favorite characters from past stories return, many of them growing in stature from unimportant secondary characters to major players in the "Honorverse." Weber serves up trouble in Silesia, the excitement of a new wormhole junction, scheming in Manticorian politics, strange events deep in Peep territory, and plenty of exploding spaceships--and, as publisher Jim Baen says, "We like exploding spaceships." --Ron Peterson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Catalejo Lacado'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dios Emperador De Dune / God Emperor of Dune'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Vino Del Estio/Dandelion Wine'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Miroir D'Ambre'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prisonniers Du Temps'
601pages. poche. Broché. Au beau milieu du désert d'Arizona, un couple trouve sur la route un vieil homme en robe de bure. Il n'a plus sa tête, parle sans cesse d'écume quantique et ses doigts semblent gelés. Il meurt quelques heures plus tard à l'hôpital de Gallup. On ne retrouve sur lui que le plan d'un monastère français du XIVème siècle et un objet fabriqué par la société ITC -entreprise de haute technologie spécialisée dans la recherche en physique quantique -pour laquelle il travaillait. ITC est dirigée par Robert Doniger, un brillant -et non moins arrogant -physicien qui, depuis quinze ans, est à la pointe des recherches, et dont la plus récente et secrète entreprise est de recréer, grâce à une équipe de chercheurs, une communauté médiévale du XIVème siècle en Dordogne. Quelle n'est pas l'extrême surprise de ces historiens de l'université de Yale lorsqu'ils vont comparer le plan des fondations du monastère trouvé sur le vieillard et les résultats de leurs propres investigations: celui-là est plus riche d'informations que toutes leurs recherches! Mais ce n'est que la première de leurs surprises: quelques jours plus tard sont mis au jour des parchemins remontant à six cent cinquante ans: l'un d'entre eux, daté très précisément du 4 juillet 1357, dit "A l'aide". Il est signé par le professeur Johnson, leur propre directeur de recherches, parti deux jours plus tôt rencontrer Robert Doniger. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Borgerlige Partisaner'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Das Bernstein-Teleskop'
Gleich vom Anfang der ersten Szene an wird Das Bernstein-Teleskop den Leser packen und nicht mehr loslassen. Wir verraten an dieser Stelle allerdings nur, dass man sofort feststellt, wer zum Schluss von Das Magische Messer Lyra gefangen genommen hat, obwohl es nicht klar ist, ob die Absichten dieses Individiums nun gut oder böse sind. Wir erfahren auch, dass Will nach wie vor im Besitz der Klinge ist, die ihn befähigt, sich den Weg von einer Welt zur anderen zu schneiden, und dass sich ihm mittlerweile zwei geflügelte Freunde angeschlossen haben, die fest entschlossen sind, ihn zur Bergfestung Lord Asriels zu begleiten. Der Junge hat allerdings nur ein Ziel vor Augen -- seine Freundin zu retten und ihr den Alethiometer zurückzugeben, ein Instrument, das ihr und den Lesern von Der goldene Kompass und dessen Fortsetzung so viel offenbart hat. Wir müssen auch nicht lange warten, bis wir das "Prickeln des Sternenlichts" auf Serafina Pekkalas Haut erfahren dürfen, während sie einen ausgehungerten Iorek Byrnison ausfindig macht und ihn für Lord Asriels Kreuzzug anwirbt.
In der Zwischenzeit kämpfen die zwei Fraktionen der Kirche darum, als erste an Lyra heranzukommen. Eine davon ist sogar bereit, einem ihrer Priester schon im Voraus Absolution zu gewähren, sollte es ihm gelingen, die Todsünde zu begehen, das Mädchen zu töten; für diese Tyrannen wäre dies nichts Geringeres als "eine heilige Pflicht".
In dieser letzten Folge seiner Trilogie hat sich Philip Pullman die höchsten Ziele gesetzt. Sie darf ihren Vorgängern in Sachen schierer Action und Originalität in nichts nachstehen und muss gleichzeitig alle noch bestehenden Rätsel auflösen. Die gute Nachricht hierbei ist, dass es keine ernsthaft schlechten Nachrichten gibt. Nicht, dass Das Bernstein-Teleskop keine verfahrenen und riskant-gefährlichen Situationen enthalten würde -- die gibt es zuhauf (wer wollte es auch anders haben?). Aber Pullman führt seine Trilogie zu einem Schluss, der sowohl friedlich als auch niederschmetternd ist. Mit einem Erzählstil, der klar und dennoch lyrisch und plastisch daherkommt, blendet sich der Autor mühelos in die Gedankenwelt seiner Hauptfiguren ein und wieder aus. Er wartet zudem mit einigen zusätzlichen Welten auf. In einer davon wird Dr. Mary Malone in eine scheinbar einfache Gesellschaft aufgenommen. Das Milieu der Mulefa (auch hier verraten wir nicht mehr) macht sie reich an Bewusstsein, während ihr Leben einem langsamen und gemessenen Rhythmus folgt.
Im Verlauf seines Epos erhält Pullman seine Szenen gewaltiger Schönheit und Zärtlichkeit aufrecht und gewährt uns sogar den einen oder anderen Moment der humorvollen Entspannung. An einer Stelle beispielsweise schikaniert Lyras Mutter eine Reihe kirchlicher Befehlsempfänger. Mrs. Coulter ist ohne Frage so berauschend und umwerfend wie eh und je. Kann es sein, dass wir sie letztendlich sogar bewundern werden, während sie ihr verzweifeltes Spiel zu Ende bringt? In diesem Fall -- wie auch sonst -- ist Das Bernstein-Teleskop wahrlich ein Buch der Offenbarungen, das sich von der sichtbaren Dunkelheit zur strahlenden Wahrheit bewegt. --Kerry Fried [via]
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