From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the first instalment in the visionary novel cycle ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’. The story of the final days of our planet is told through the reports of Johor, an emissary sent from Canopus. Earth, now named Shikasta (the Stricken) by the kindly, paternalistic Canopeans who colonised it many centuries ago, is under the influence of the evil empire of Puttiora. War, famine, disease and environmental disasters ravage the planet. To Johor, mankind is a ‘totally crazed species’, racing towards annihilation: his orders to save humanity set him what seems to be an impossible task. Blending myth, fable and allegory, Doris Lessing’s astonishing visionary creation both reflects and redefines the history of our own world from its earliest beginnings to an inevitable, tragic self-destruction.

It was one of Pete Shay's stranger cases. He'd set out to find the killer of a small-time hood, and the trail led straight to Fat Vinny, the meanest loanshark in New York. But then Fat Vinny himself hired Shay to continue his investigation in order to prove Vinny's innocence.Shay knew that Vinny had never been innocent of anything in his life, but a client was a client, and Shay needed the money. He'd be up to his shoulder-holster in blood and bullets before this case was finished!

Widely regarded as Sorrentino's finest achievement, Mulligan Stew takes as its subject the comic possibilities of the modern literary imagination. As avant-garde novelist Antony Lamont struggles to write a "new wave murder mystery," his frustrating emotional and sexual life wreaks havoc on his work-in-progress. As a result, his narrative (the very book we are reading) turns into a literary "stew" an uproariously funny melange of journal entries, erotic poetry, parodies of all kinds, love letters, interviews, and lists—as Hugh Kenner in "Harper's" wrote, "for another such virtuoso of the List you'd have to resurrect Joyce." Soon, Lamont's characters (on loan from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flann O'Brien, James Joyce, and Dashiell Hammet) take on lives of their own, completely sabotaging his narrative. Sorrentino has vastly extended the possibilities of what a novel can be in this extraordinary work, which both parodies and pays homage to the...

14 short stories by Robert Bloch Sweets to the Sweet The Dream-MakersThe Sorcerer’s ApprenticeI Kiss Your Shadow—The Proper SpiritThe Cheaters Hungarian Rhapsody The Light-House The Hungry House Sleeping BeautySweet SixteenThe Mandarin’s Canaries Return to the SabbathOne Way to Mars

In THE WORLD I LEFT BEHIND ME an engaging crew, a madcap scheme, and a brilliant technological rationale combine to create a memorable adventure story.Roger Shore is perplexed when the strange “Mr. Smith” materializes in his laboratory with questions about the development of a faster-than-light vehicle; he is even more surprised when tapes of the exchange record his voice only; and thoroughly astounded when his supervisor reveals the existence of just such a project and invites him to be a member of the Project Demeter team. Interstellar flight a reality!Inaugurated when Kenneth Chew, rotund and single-minded physicist, makes the atomic breakthrough, Project Demeter attracts an intrepid and endearing crew, including the lovely Dr. Alexis Smith. Their goal: starflight to Alpha Centauri. Their base on the distant planet of Ceres is far from prying eyes on Earth, where growing Third World interests would be most hostile to such profligacy. But its very distance renders the crew more vulnerable to near-fatal interference from a hostile alien force with its very good reasons for ensuring the failure of this bold mission.For the stakes are far higher than Roger and his comrades even dare imagine. Travel at greater than the speed of light would evidence a technological breakthrough which would qualify Earth for inclusion in an intergalactic assemblage of intelligences.

Despite the title, the stories collected here recount cases from the middle of Miss Marple's career. They are: 'Sanctuary'; 'Strange Jest'; 'Tape-Measure Murder'; 'The Case of the Caretaker'; 'The Case of the Perfect Maid'; 'Miss Marple Tells a Story'; 'The Dressmaker's Doll'; 'In a Glass Darkly'; 'Greenshaw's Folly.'

The theft of some mutant army ants by a scarecrow leads the Three Investigators to the solution of two daring crimes in the art world.

In this second volume we return to Number 7B Praed Street where the inimitable and infallible master of deductive detection awaits. Again, we join Solar Pons, the latter-day Sherlock Holmes, and his colleague Dr Lyndon Parker, as they solve another four puzzling cases. These are superbly crafted tales of suspense, filled with Sherlockian ambience and macabre themes.Contents'The Adventure of the Shaft of Death''The Adventure of the Frightened Governess''The Adventure of the Defeated Doctor' 'Murder at the Zoo'

The continuation of the story which began in *Destination: Void,* Frank Herbert's science fiction classic. The last survivors of humanity have just been deposited on Pandora, a horrific, poisonous planet rife with deadly nerve-runners, hooded dashers, airborne jellyfish, and intelligent kelp. The determined colonists attempt to establish a bridgehead on the deadly, inhospitable planet, but more trouble arises. Their sentient ship - backed up by an impressive array of armaments - has decided it is God and is insisting the colonists find appropriate ways to worship it. In an attempt to help the people pass its test, Ship awakens chaplain-psychiatrist Raja Flattery from hibernation. Either the humans pass the test - or the human race could be destroyed.

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift-- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.

There was a lot of bad feeling left over from the War between the States, and not only between the North and South. Britain had allowed Confederate navy ships to use her ports, and after that, there wasn't much trust between them. Belle Boyd, the Rebel Spy, now with the U.S. secret service, had discovered an anarchist plot to attack Canada from U.S. soil, and she knew it had to be stopped. She soon found an ally in the Remittance Kid—but the Kid was working for the British...Could Belle really trust him...?

John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge and have earned him -- and his hero, British Secret Service agent George Smiley -- unprecedented worldwide acclaim.Rounding off his astonishing vision of a clandestine world, master storyteller le Carre perfects his art in Smiley's People.In London at dead of night, George Smiley, sometime acting Chief of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service), is summoned from his lonely bed by news of the murder of an ex-agent. Lured back to active service, Smiley skillfully maneuvers his people -- the no-men of no-man's land -- into crisscrossing Paris, London, Germany, and Switzerland as he prepares for his own final, inevitable duel on the Berlin border with his Soviet counterpart and archenemy, Karla.

The Inspector has fallen into disfavor with his Paris superiors and has been shunted to a district supervisor's job on the northern French coast. Here, among mussel-gatherers and lobstermen, Maigret suffers depression and boredom. He is an outsider. Even the local police inspector is dull and predictable, as everything in the coastal villages appears to be. But the discovery of a corpse in the house of a retired judge returns a sense of purpose to Maigret. The Boston Globe called this "one of Simenon's best Maigrets . . . replete with his customary irony and deft characterization".

Mark Counter, blond giant of Ole Devil Hardin's floating outfit, was famous throughout the West for his strength, his skill as a cowhand, his prowess with the ladies, and an ability second only to Dusty Fog when it came to a lightning-fast draw.But Mark had kin who were almost as famous as he was.Here, in one volume, is the story of Mark Counter's famous kin—James Allenvale Gunn, better known as Bunduki, Chief Game Warden of an African Wildlife Reservation—Brad Counter, Deputy Sheriff in Rockabye County—Sergeant Ranse Smith, member of the elite but little-publicized Company Z of the Texas Rangers—and Jessica and Trudeau Front de Boeuf, two of the most likeable rogues who ever trod the Old West.