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Year of the Griffin (Gollancz S. F. Ser. #2)
by Diana Wynne JonesA hilarious fantasy sequel to The Dark Lord of Derkholm, set at the University after the ‘fantasy world’ tours have stopped, and centred around 6 students (one a Griffin) and the bumbling new University Head Wizard. From the ‘Godmother of Fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones.
The Year of Our War (Gollancz S. F. Ser.)
by Steph SwainstonThe most exciting, original and important new fantasy novel to be published since China Miéville's PERDIDO STREET STATION. A breathtakingly skilful debut.A superb work of literary fantasy. In a truly original imagined world of breathtaking, sometimes surreal beauty, fifty utterly alien but disarmingly human immortals lead mankind in a centuries-long war.Jant is the Messenger, one of the Circle, a cadre of fifty immortals who serve the Emperor. He is the only immortal - indeed the only man alive - who can fly.The Emperor must protect mankind from the hordes of giant Insects who have plagued the land for centuries, eating everything and everyone in their path. But he must also contend with the rivalries and petty squabblings of his chosen immortals. These will will soon spill over into civil war.Steph Swainston has written an astonishingly original literary fantasy. She writes beautifully. Her novel places her in a tradition of writing typified by Mervyn Peake, M. John Harrison and China Miéville. This is a breathtaking debut novel of the finest quality.
Ye Gods!: Contains Expecting Someone Taller And Ye Gods!
by Tom HoltA suburban house, a child called Jason who strangles large snakes whilst still in his cot, the Olympian gods and a Girl Next Door are the ingredients of this fantasy by Tom Holt, author of Flying Dutch and Expecting Someone Taller.Being a hero bothers Jason. It's easy to get maladjusted when your mum's a suburban housewife and your dad's the Supreme Being. It can be a drag slaying fabulous monsters and retrieving golden fleeces from dragons, and then having to tidy your room before your mum'll let you watch Star Trek .
The Yawnicorn
by Emily HamiltonA magical picture book featuring a very special unicorn, specially designed to help children settle down for bedtime.Do you ever have trouble dropping off to sleep? Is your head all busy? Does your duvet feel itchy? Well, don't worry, because the Yawnicorn is here to help!Yawnicorn knows when you can't get to sleep, and he's about to sweep you away on a magical nighttime adventure through rainforests, oceans and across the starry skies before bringing you home, nicely worn out and ready to fall into a happy, deep slumber. This magical, soothing and reassuring story is perfect for anyone who has ever felt anxious or found it hard to get to sleep - perfect for bedtime, night after night. Get ready to join the Yawnicorn on an adventure you'll never forget! From the much-loved illustrator of The World Made a Rainbow.
The Yawnicorn
by Emily HamiltonMagic is waiting in this rhythmic, calming tale that is the perfect bedtime story for when little ones struggle to fall asleep!You're tucked into bed, ready for sleep. But . . . your head is all busy. and your legs are all twitchy. And this blanket is so itchy!It's time to call on the Yawnicorn! Tuck in for an enchanting nighttime adventure flying over oceans, marching through jungles, and soaring across glittering galaxies until you find your perfect dreamland. With the Yawnicorn's help, young readers are destined for a night of magical wonder and sweet dreams.Join the Yawnicorn on a bedtime adventure you'll never forget!
The Yawnicorn
by Emily HamiltonMagic is waiting in this rhythmic, calming tale that is the perfect bedtime story for when little ones struggle to fall asleep!You're tucked into bed, ready for sleep. But . . . your head is all busy. and your legs are all twitchy. And this blanket is so itchy!It's time to call on the Yawnicorn! Tuck in for an enchanting nighttime adventure flying over oceans, marching through jungles, and soaring across glittering galaxies until you find your perfect dreamland. With the Yawnicorn's help, young readers are destined for a night of magical wonder and sweet dreams.Join the Yawnicorn on a bedtime adventure you'll never forget!
Yasmin the Night Owl Fairy: The Twilight Fairies Book 5 (Rainbow Magic)
by Daisy MeadowsYasmin the Night Owl Fairy has lost her magical sleep dust - which means nobody knows when to be asleep or when to be awake! Can Kirsty and Rachel catch the thieves before they become too sleepy...?
XX
by Angela ChadwickGUARDIAN BEST BOOKS OF 2018 'One of the feminist novels of 2018' Stylist'Handmaid's Tale-shaped hole in your life? (Read) XX' The Times'Fantastic - completely topical, utterly believable, and that rare thing: an issue-driven book that feels like a story, not an issue' Julie Cohen'Pulled on my heartstrings . . . could not recommend more' Bookbag'A pacy dystopian thriller' Red Magazine'Topical, probing and quietly intense - XX is a phenomenal debut' Skinny'Fantastic' Storgy'Powerful exploration . . . Beautifully paced' Mancunion'Emotionally compelling' - Lauren Wilkinson on her Year in Reading for Millions***HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR A CHILD OF YOUR OWN? When Rosie and Jules discover a ground-breaking clinical trial that enables two women to have a female baby, they jump at the chance to make history.Fear-mongering politicians and right-wing movements are quick to latch on to the controversies surrounding Ovum-to-Ovum (o-o) technology and stoke the fears of the public. What will happen to the numbers of little boys born? Is there a sinister conspiracy to eradicate men at play?In this toxic political climate, Jules and Rosie try to hide their baby from scrutiny. But when the news of Rosie's pregnancy is leaked to the media, their relationship is put under a microscope and they're forced to question the loyalty of those closest to them, and battle against a tirade of hate that threatens to split them apart...***What readers are saying: 'Well written, perfectly paced and so timely,. Through excellent character development, Chadwick manages to explore the social, ethical and political questions raised, while still telling what is at its core a beautifully human story.''I could not put this down, even when my heart was aching and my pulse was raging.''This is politically and ethically engaging, as well as a very personal read. It shows a world that is only a few years away, and it left me with a lot of thoughts about gender and science. Excellent.'"The whole plot was set out so effectively that it made me feel like this was something that could be being developed somewhere in the world right now or it's in the near distant future!
Xstabeth: A Guardian Book of the Day
by David KeenanPre-order XSTABETH in paperback, ebook or audio before 1 November to access the exclusive digital prequel, THE TOWERS THE FIELDS THE TRANSMITTERS. Full details: bit.ly/XstabethPreOrder 'This book spoke, it said "read me" from the very first sentence as if it were alive, it gave me visceral joy' Kim Gordon'Reading [Xstabeth] feels like being cut open to the accompanying sound of ecstatic music' Edna O'Brien'Prepare for more of that inimitable Keenan narrative voodoo brilliance' Wendy ErskineIn St Petersburg, Russia, Aneliya is torn between the love of her father and her father's best friend. Her father dreams of becoming a great musician but suffers with a naivete that means he will never be taken seriously. Her father's best friend has a penchant for vodka, strip clubs and moral philosophy.When an angelic presence named Xstabeth enters their lives - a presence who simultaneously fulfils and disappears those she touches - Aneliya and her father's world is transformed. Moving from Russia to St Andrews, Scotland, Xstabeth tackles the metaphysics of golf, the mindset of classic Russian novels and the power of art and music to re-wire reality. Charged with a consuming intensity and a torrential rhythm that pulses with music, it is an offering of transcendence and a love letter to the books of Chandler, Nabokov and Dostoevsky, by a writer who is rewriting the rulebook of contemporary fiction.
The Xothic Cycle
by Lin CarterThe late Lin Carter was a prolific writer and anthologist of horror and fantasy with over eighty titles to his credit. His tales of Mythos horror are loving tributes to H. P. Lovecraft's 'revision' tales and to August Derleth's stories of Hastur and the R'lyeh Text. This collection of Carter's Mythos tales includes all five Xothic Legend Cycle stories:- The Dweller in the Tomb- Out of the Ages- The Horror in the Gallery- The Thing in the Pit- The Winfield HeritanceFilled with mind-bending, soul-warping terror, Carter taps into the eldritch horrors that Lovecraft brought into the world...
Xerkan the Shape Stealer: Series 23 Book 4 (Beast Quest #118)
by Adam BladeBattle fearsome beasts and fight evil with Tom and Elenna in the bestselling adventure series for boys and girls aged 7 and up.Back in Avantia from their exile in the Wildlands, Tom and Elenna face their deadliest enemy yet. Can they fight the ghoulish Beast Xerkan - and reveal the truth about the mysterious Prince Angelo before the kingdom of Avantia is changed for ever?There are FOUR thrilling adventures to collect in The Shattered Kingdom series - don't miss out! Querzol the Swamp Monster; Krotax the Tusked Destroyer; Torka the Sky Snatcher; Xerkan the Shape Stealer.If you like Beast Quest, check out Adam Blade's other series: Team Hero, Sea Quest and Beast Quest: New Blood!
Xerik the Bone Cruncher: Series 15 Book 2 (Beast Quest)
by Adam BladeBattle fearsome beasts and fight evil with Tom and Elenna in the bestselling adventure series for boys and girls aged 7 and up.Tom's Quest to retrieve the missing royal treasures of Tangala leads him into greater danger. Can he defeat the fearsome Xerik, a monstrous Beast lurking in the swamps of Pania?There are FOUR thrilling adventures to collect in the Beast Quest: Velmal's Revenge series: Wardok the Sky Terror; Xerik the Bone Cruncher; Plexor the Raging Reptile; Quagos the Armoured Beetle.If you like Beast Quest, check out Adam Blade's other series: Team Hero, Sea Quest and Beast Quest: New Blood!
Xenos Rampant: Science Fiction Wargame Battles
by Daniel Mersey Richard CowenScience Fiction wargame rules for large skirmishes, based on the popular Rampant system.Xenos Rampant is a setting agnostic, large skirmish, miniature wargame for fighting science fiction battles using 28mm figures. Developed from the popular Lion Rampant ruleset, the core mechanics featured within will be instantly recognisable to those familiar with the other Rampant systems, while still being accessible to new players. Xenos Rampant contains all the rules, army lists, and scenarios required to fight science fiction battles as well as a whole host of subgenres including: post-apocalyptic, weird war, near future. So, whatever your science fiction preference, the rules can cover it – just let your imagination run rampant.
Xenos Rampant: Science Fiction Wargame Battles
by Daniel Mersey Richard CowenScience Fiction wargame rules for large skirmishes, based on the popular Rampant system.Xenos Rampant is a setting agnostic, large skirmish, miniature wargame for fighting science fiction battles using 28mm figures. Developed from the popular Lion Rampant ruleset, the core mechanics featured within will be instantly recognisable to those familiar with the other Rampant systems, while still being accessible to new players. Xenos Rampant contains all the rules, army lists, and scenarios required to fight science fiction battles as well as a whole host of subgenres including: post-apocalyptic, weird war, near future. So, whatever your science fiction preference, the rules can cover it – just let your imagination run rampant.
Xenocide: Book 3 of the Ender Saga (Ender Saga #3)
by Orson Scott CardEnder and Valentine Wiggin: brother and sister whose lives have shaped history. Valentine is 'Demosthenes', whose subversive, incendiary writings fight the monstrous power of Starways Congress, masters of the Hundred Worlds. And Ender...As a child, Ender commanded a warfleet that wiped out a planet. The triumph of his life could be his fight to stop it happening again. It might be his tragedy that he cannot. Congress has sent a warfleet to Lusitania, home to Ender, his family, two alien species and the deadliest virus ever known. The warfleet carries an order to destroy. To commit xenocide.
Xeno: Science Fiction
by D. F. JonesAlien horror becomes a living nightmare as the Xenos, meaning "strangers", inflict mayhem on earth. International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of "cosmic skyjackings" is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course. National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Military officials, the government and the FBI work alongside physician Mark Freedman and Soviet scientists to uncover the supernatural mystery that lies behind these unexplainable events. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures that not even the wildest imagination could invent - sinister parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision. The terror that unfolds has terrifying consequences for all involved, and the invasion reveals something much more frightening and final than ever suspected.
Xeelee: Vengeance
by Stephen BaxterHalf a million years in the future, on a dead, war-ravaged world at the centre of the Galaxy, there is a mile-high statue of Michael Poole.Poole, born on Earth in the fourth millennium, was one of mankind's most influential heroes. He was not a warrior, not an emperor. He was an engineer, a builder of wormhole transit systems. But Poole's work would ultimately lead to a vast and destructive conflict, a million-year war between humanity and the enigmatic, powerful aliens known as the Xeelee. The Xeelee won, but at a huge cost. And, defeated in a greater war, the Xeelee eventually fled the universe. Most of them.A handful were left behind, equipped with time travel capabilities, their task to tidy up: to reorder history more to the Xeelee's liking. That million-year war with humankind was one blemish. It had to be erased. And in order to do that, a lone Xeelee was sent back in time to remove Michael Poole from history . . .
Xeelee Sequence: Stories Of The Xeelee Sequence (The\xeelee Sequence Ser. #5)
by Stephen BaxterBeginning with RAFT in 1991, Stephen Baxter's epic sequence of Xeelee novels introduced readers to perhaps the most ambitious fictitious universe ever created. Beginning with the rise and fall of sub-quantum civilisations in the first nano-seconds after the Big Bang and ending with the heat death of the universe billions of years from now the series charts the story of mankind's epic war against the ancient and unknowable alien race the Xeelee.Along the way it examines questions of physics, the nature of reality, the evolution of mankind and its possible future. It looks not just at the morality of war but at the morality of survival and our place in the universe.This is a landmark in SF. And now, for the first time, all ten titles comprising the Xeelee sequence are collected together in one volume. Includes: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring, Coalescent, Exultant, Transcendent, Resplendent, Vacuum Diagrams, Xeelee: Endurance
Xeelee: Redemption
by Stephen BaxterMichael Poole finds himself in a very strange landscape . . . This is the centre of the Galaxy. And in a history without war with the humans, the Xeelee have had time to built an immense structure here. The Xeelee Belt has a radius ten thousand times Earth's orbital distance. It is a light year in circumference. If it was set in the solar system it would be out in the Oort Cloud, among the comets - but circling the sun. If it was at rest it would have a surface area equivalent to about thirty billion Earths. But it is not at rest: it rotates at near lightspeed. And because of relativistic effects, distances are compressed for inhabitants of the Belt, and time drastically slowed.The purpose of the Belt is to preserve a community of Xeelee into the very far future, when they will be able to tap dark energy, a universe-spanning antigravity field, for their own purposes. But with time the Belt has attracted populations of lesser species, here for the immense surface area, the unending energy flows. Poole, Miriam and their party, having followed the Ghosts, must explore the artefact and survive encounters with its strange inhabitants - before Poole, at last, finds the Xeelee who led the destruction of Earth...
Xeelee: Endurance
by Stephen BaxterReturn to the eon-spanning and universe-crossing conflict between humanity and the unknowable alien Xeelee in this selection of uncollected and unpublished stories, newly edited and placed in chronological reading order.From tales charting the earliest days of man's adventure to the stars to stories of Old Earth, four billion years in the future, the range and startling imagination of Baxter is always on display. As humanity rises and falls, ebbs and flows, one thing is always needed - the ability to endure.Contains eleven short stories and novellas.
Xeelee: Vacuum Diagrams (ebook) (The\xeelee Sequence Ser. #5)
by Stephen BaxterReturn to the eon-spanning and universe-crossing conflict between humanity and the unknowable alien Xeelee in this collection of stories, available in ebook for the first time!Baxter's future history, known as the Xeelee sequence, is an exemplar of the form: it comprises his first four novels - Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring - and these marvellous linked stories, as well as those in the new collection XEELEE: ENDURANCE.Contains 21 short stories, all set in the XEELEE universe.
Xeelee: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring
by Stephen BaxterStephen Baxter's epic sequence of Xeelee novels was introduced to a new generation of readers with his highly successful quartet, Destiny's Children, published by Gollancz between 2003 and 2006. But the sequence of novels began with RAFT in 1991.From there it built into perhaps the most ambitious fictitious universe ever created. Beginning with the rise and fall of sub-quantum civilisations in the first nano-seconds after the Big Bang and ending with the heat death of the universe billions of years from now the series charts the story of mankinds epic war against the ancient and unknowable alien race the Xeelee.Along the way it examines questions of physics, the nature of reality, the evolution of mankind and its possible future. It looks not just at the morality of war but at the morality of survival and our place in the universe.This is a landmark in SF.
X The Unknown
by Shaun HutsonIn a quiet field in Buckinghamshire, a huge crack has appeared in the earth's surface. And people are dying. Incinerated beyond recognition. At the same time, hospitals have noticed an increase in catastrophic deformities in foetuses, and cancer levels soaring.Dr Adam Royston, a scientist working at the nearby military base, thinks he knows what it is; a creature as old as the earth that slumbers for centuries, then wakes to feed on the energy and radiation produced by humans. But if he's right, and they can't find a way to destroy the creature roaming the countryside, then it's not just Buckinghamshire that could be in danger, but the whole world.
X-Treme Possibilities: A Paranoid Rummage Through The X-Files (X-files Ser.)
by Paul Cornell Keith Topping Martin Day'Open your mind to extreme possibilities'Scully's desire to be recognised as 'a medical doctor', ooze, mouthfuls of difficult dialogue and the tendency for characters not to make it through the pre-titles sequence were just a few of the tragically underexamined elements of THE X-FILES phenomenon - until the first edition of this book. Now the authors take their study of televisions weirdest show through to the end of series five, and THE X-FILES movie.X-TREME POSSIBILITIES presents a unique analysis of the programme that transformed US television. While sometimes witty and light-hearted, this volume is also a serious study of the elements that made the show such a success. As well as a detailed episode guide of the first five seasons, the book pieces together the nature of the series' Conspiracy - and attempts to discover just what the truth is.Never before has THE X-FILES been put under such focused, affectionate and bizarre scrutiny. Please note this new release of the second edition has not been updated.
The X-Machine
by John E. Muller Lionel Fanthorpe Patricia FanthorpeSally McQuire worked for an unusual organisation. She was an undercover agent for the I.P.F., but her friends knew her only as a scatter-brained night club dancer. Then came the Thing. At first there were just off paragraphs in provincial papers. A cow disappeared. Fish stopped biting. Finally Jon Vardo, a shepherd, vanished without a trace. The I.P.F. put Sally on the track. She discovered a strange common denominator linking the events. There was a mathematical and geographical sequence. Sally arranged to be at the next danger zone, and then she too vanished. This is a story of humanity at its best, locked in a life and death struggle with a cruel, cold culture of Beings from the Beyond. This is a story of humanity fighting against incredible odds and fantastic weapons. Can the mind of man hold its own against deadly, sinister Intelligence from beyond the stars?