A man's alcoholism threatens to destroy his life. Life Times.

MEET TWO OF L.A.’S FINEST:SYKES—THE VETERANAND FRANCISCO—THE ALIEN The time—a future closer than we know. Where groups of extraterrestrial aliens have become familiar members of our society. The place—Los Angeles. Still a town of fast times and hard crime, touching every life form inside the city limits. The cops—Sykes, earthman, and Francisco, alien. Facing a menace meaner than the meanest streets on the beat. Fighting an enemy as terrifying as the darkest forces in a vast, unfathomable universe. Battling back with the best—and the deadliest—of both their worlds.

Re-read this classic romance by USA Today bestselling author Carole Mortimer Dizzy James first sees Professor Zach Bennett swimming naked in his castle pool—and what a sight it is! The normally stuffy looking scholar has a body made for sin, and Dizzy is intrigued to see what else he's hiding... But can she convince Zach that she's not the wayward girl he's been led to believe she is? And that, despite her name, Dizzy is anything but? What Zach thinks of her should be a matter of supreme indifference to her. Yet somehow, it isn't...and Dizzy has one chance to make Zach notice her! Originally published in 1988

Jim Qwilleran packs up his old kit bag and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, for a sun-and-fun summer at his log cabin in Moose County. Their vacation starts out ominously with the disappearance of a handyman hired to patch up Qwilleran's cabin. But the felines really start throwing catfits when they come across a dead body or two...A serial killer may be right under Koko's nose, and now this ingenious Siamese must dig deeper to clear poor Qwilleran of suspicion--and dig up the motive for a catastrophic crime.

Book DescriptionAn indispensable guide to the novels of Sackett family saga, written by the foremost author of the American frontier experience. Describes the plots, characters, and settings of the novels. Includes detailed glossaries & the Sackett family tree.

A haunting entry in the World Fantasy Award-winning Mythago CycleIn Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock gave us an intricate world spun from the stories of Irish and English mythology, a great forest steeped in mystery and legend, whose heart contains secrets that will change all who behold them.Young Tallis is one such seeker. When she was just an infant, she lost her brother Harry to Ryhope Wood. Her adolescent fancies now cause her to suspect that he is still alive---and in grave danger. Tallis follows Harry into the primal Otherworld armed only with magic, masks, and clues left by her grandfather. Eventually the primitive forest gives way to Lavondyss itself, a fascinating and terrible realm where she is forced to confront the mythagos, physical manifestations of the legends of humanity's collective unconscious.Join Tallis on her quest into the ultimate unknown, and be invited into one of the finest and most compelling mythologies you will ever encounter. "A stunningly good book . . . conveys the haunting power of old heroes and lost gods."--Locus"Magical . . . It is rare to find a sequel which measures up to its original; but Lavondyss surpasses it."--Times Literary SupplementAbout the AuthorRobert Holdstock's novels include Mythago Wood, which won the World Fantasy Award; Lavondyss; and Gate of Ivory. He lives in London.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.White Mask[GABERLUNGI]The bright moon, hanging low over Barrow Hill, illuminated the snow-shrouded fields and made the winter land seem to glow with faint light. It was a lifeless, featureless place, and yet the shapes of the fields were clear, marked out by the moonshadow of the dark oak hedges that bordered them. Distantly, from that shadow round the meadow called The Stumps, the ghostly figure began to move again, following a hidden track over the rise of ground, then moving left, into tree cover. It stood there, just visible now to the old man who watched it from Stretley Farm; watching back. The cloak it wore was dark, the hood pulled low over its face. As it moved for the second time, coming closer to the farmhouse, it left the black wood behind. It was stooped, against the Christmas cold, perhaps. Where it walked it left a deep furrow in the fresh snow.Standing at the gate of the farm, waiting for the moment he knew, now, must surely come, Owen Keeton heard his grandchild begin to cry. He turned to the dark face of the house and listened. The sobbing was a brief disturbance; a dream perhaps. Then the infant girl was quiet again.Keeton retraced his steps across the garden, stepped into the warm house and kicked the snow from his boots. He walked into the parlour, prodded the log fire with the metal poker until the flames roared again, then went to the window and peered out at the main road to Shadoxhurst, the nearest village to the farm. He could just hear, very distantly, the sound of carols. Glancing at the clock above the fire he realized that Christmas Day had begun ten minutes before.At the parlour table he stared down at the book of folklore and legend that lay open there. The print was very fine, the pages thick and of good quality paper; the illustrations, in full colour, were exquisite. It was a book he loved, and he was giving it to his granddaughter as a present. The images of knights and heroes inspired him; the Welshness of the names and places made him nostalgic for the lost places and lost voices of his own youth in the mountains of Wales. The epic tales had filled his head with the sound of battle, war-cry, and the rustle of tree and bird in the glades of haunted forest.Now there was something else in the book, written in the white spaces around the print: a letter. His letter to the child.He turned back to the beginning of that letter, where the chapter on Arthur of the Britons began. He scanned the words quickly:My dear Tallis: I'm an old man writing to you on a cold December night. I wonder if you will love the snow as much as I do? And regret as much the way it can imprison you. There is old memory in snow. You will find that out in due course, for I know where you come from, now…The fire guttered and Keeton shivered despite it, and despite the heavy coat he wore. He stared at the wall, beyond which the snow-covered garden led to the fields, and that hooded figure, coming towards him. He felt a sudden urgent need to have done with this letter, to finalize it. It was a sort of panic. It gripped his heart and his stomach, and the hand that reached for the pen was shaking. The sound of the clock grew loud, but he resisted the urge to stare at it, to mark the passage of time, so little time, so few minutes…He had to finish writing the letter, and soon. He bent to the page and began to squeeze the words into the narrow margin:We bring alive ghosts, Tallis, and the ghosts huddle at the edge of vision. They are wise in ways that are a wisdom we all still share but have forgotten. But the wood is us and we are the wood! You will learn this. You will learn names. You will smell that ancient winter, so much more ferocious than this simple Xmas snow. And as you do so, you are treading an old and important pathway. I began to tread it first, until they abandoned me…He wrote on, turning the pages, filling the margins, linking his own words to the unconscious child with the words of fable, forming a link that would be of value to her, one day in her future.When he had finished the letter he used his handkerchief to blot the ink then closed the book. He wrapped it in heavy brown paper and tied it with a length of string.On the brown paper he wrote this simple message: For Tallis; for your fifth birthday. From Granddad Owen.He buttoned up his coat again and went back out into the cold, silent winter's night. He stood outside the door for a moment feeling frightened, very disturbed. The hooded figure had come all the way across the fields and was standing by the gate to the garden, watching the house. Keeton hesitated a moment longer, then trudged over to it.Only the gate separated them. Keeton was shivering inside his heavy overcoat, but his body burned with heat. The hood was low over the woman's head and he could not tell which of the three she was. She must have been aware of his unspoken thought since she looked up slightly, turning to regard him. As she did so, Keeton realized she had been staring past him. A white mask gleamed from below the woollen cape."It's you, then…" Keeton whispered.Distantly, moving down the slope from the earthworks on Barrow Hill, he saw two other hooded figures. As if aware that he had noticed them, they stopped and seemed to shrink into the whiteness of the land.He said, almost bitterly, "I was beginning to understand. I had begun to understand. And now you're abandoning me…"In the house, the child cried out. White Mask glanced towards the landing window, but the cry was another transient moment of disturbance. Keeton watched the ghost woman and couldn't help the tears that surfaced to sting his eyes. She looked back at him and he thought he saw some hint of her face through the thin holes that were the eyes."Listen to me," he said softly. "I have something to ask you. You see, they've lost their son. He was shot down over Belgium. They've lost him and they'll grieve for years. If you take the daughter, now…if you take her now…" he shuddered, wiped a hand across his eyes and took a deep breath of the frozen air. White Mask watched him without movement, without sound. "Give them a few years. Please? If you don't want me…at least give them a few years with the child…"White Mask slowly raised a finger to the lips of the chalk-smeared wood which covered her face. Keeton could see how old that finger was, how loose the skin on the hand, how small the hand.Then she turned and ran from him, her dark cloak billowing, feet kicking up the snow. Halfway across the field she stopped and turned. Keeton heard the shrill sound of her laughter. This time, as she ran, it was away to the west, towards the shadow wood, Ryhope Wood. On Barrow Hill her companions were running too.Keeton knew the country well. He could see at once that the three figures would meet at the edge of Stretley Stones meadow, where five ogham stones marked ancient graves.He was both relieved and intrigued, relieved because White Mask had agreed with his request; he was certain of it. They would not come for Tallis, not for many years. He was certain of it.And he was intrigued by the Stretley Stones, and by the ghost women who were moving to rendezvous there.The child would be safe…He glanced round, guiltily. The house was in silence.The child would be safe for a few minutes…just a few minutes…he would be back at the house long before Tallis's parents returned from the Christmas service.Stretley Stones beckoned him. He pulled his coat more tightly around him, opened the gate, and waded out into the deep snow of the field. He followed White Mask's tracks, and soon he was running to see what they would do in the meadow where the marked stones lay…Copyright © 1988 by Robert Holdstock

'I don't think my mum's fit to be a parent, really I don't.'How would you feel if your mother had royal-blue hair and wore lavender fishnet tights? But Minna's whole family (including her mum's punk boyfriend, Crusher Maggot) is a bit unusual. Being the only sensible one is not easy for Minna...

When Frank wins an all-expense-paid vacation to Spain's Costa del Sol, the brother detectives are set for some good times in the sunny paradise. But instead of flamenco music and bullfights, Frank and Joe find themselves running from the law.

It was 2020. Six years had passed since the destruction of the Super Dimensional Fortresses 1 and 2, that final tragedy of the First Robotech War. But Earth was on the mend now, and from the wreckage of those ships the Robotech Defense Force had succeeded in fashioning a new battle fortress -- the SDF-3. Its mission: to cross the galaxy and make peace with Tirol's Robotech Masters. It sounded straightforward enough; but unknown to Admirals Rick and Lisa Hunter and their crew of thousands, the Robotech Masters were already on their way to Earth! Nevertheless Tirol would have a greeting in store for the Expeditionary Mission: an incendiary salute from the warlord whose hordes had conquered half the galactic Quadrant -- the Invid Regent! Threatened with a swift and violent end, and suddenly torn by internal struggles for power, the RDF would find itself thrust into a savage war for survival!

In an extraordinary novel, Pohl has cast the events surrounding the explosion at Chernobyl into a monumental work of speculative fiction. Based on careful research, Chernobyl takes readers into the lives, homes and heartbeats of the people who were there.

Set against the background of war-torn Savannah during the Revolution, this enchanting novel unfolds the sags of a family divided – and a beautiful heroine, Mercy Phillips, caught desperately between the passions of Rebel and Tory.Mercy Phillips was a penniless English orphan when Hart Purchis, wealthy young heir to the Winchelsea Plantation rescued her from the mob.Hart did not know it then, but Mercy was to play a part in his life that would shape not only the future of Winchelsea but the whole American Revolution itself.

Mac Williams, goalie for the Cougars, is known as much for his upbeat game chatter as for his outstanding saves. But when an anonymous artist starts making fun of him with a weekly cartoon, Mac is anything but upbeat. To make matters worse, he suspects that somebody close to him is the cartoonist. Would one of his friends really betray him-or is there someone else who wants to make him look ridiculous?From School Library JournalGrade 3-5AWhen a cartoon appears in the school newspaper making fun of Mac's "motor mouth," the boy tries to find out who is responsible. This is one of Christopher's typical play-by-play sports stories with an upbeat ending and simple vocabulary and sentence structure. However, the plot is not particularly memorable. Mac has the bravado and confident personality often necessary for a successful goalie, but with all of his bragging, readers will wonder how he has any friends. Conversation between characters doesn't ring true and slang such as "You look spiffy" or the reference to a girl getting all "dolled up" for a dance sounds like phrases from the '40s or '50s rather than the '90s. Consider this for purchase only if more sports stories by Christopher are needed.ABlair Christolon, Prince William Library, Manassas, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistGr. 3^-6. Christopher scores again with this exciting sports story that is also a pretty good whodunit. Mac Williams, star goalie for the Cougars, is suddenly the target of a series of unflattering cartoons that mysteriously begin appearing in the school newspaper. His efforts to discover the identity of the cartoonist are the basis of the plot, and readers will have fun trying to figure it out right along with Mac. Although Christopher does a good job of dispensing clues without being too obvious, some older readers may not be challenged enough by the mystery element. Other themes, such as loyalty, trust, and a budding romance with the younger sister of a primary suspect, will hold their interest more, along with the dynamic soccer play-by-play. A great choice for engaging reluctant readers. Lauren Peterson

A retired general and his hit-man kidnap a Russian scientist and travel through time to an alternate New York of 1939. Plenty of high-tech glitz charges this powerful, breakthrough science fiction novel by the author of Ambient.