SUMMARY: Dor agreed to act as King of Xanth so long as Trent was gone for a week. But the weeks passed and Trent did not return. Dor knew he had to rescue his king but with no magic powers, how could it be done...?

SUMMARY: Millie, a ghost for 800 years wants only one man--Jonathan, and he's a zombie. To prove himself, Magician Dor volunteers to get the potion that can restore Jonathan to full life. But he has to go back through time to do it, to a peril-haunted, ancient Xanth, where danger lurks at every turn....

EDITORIAL REVIEW: *He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could bear the voiced murmuring, small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body.* **The Illustrated Man** Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. A peerless American storyteller, his oeuvre has been celebrated for decades--from *The Martian Chronicles* and *Fahrenheit 451* to *Dandelion Wine* and *Something Wicked This Way Comes. * The Illustrated Man is classic Bradbury --a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin--visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body. The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful: the mournful cries of celestial travelers cast out cruelly into a vast, empty space of stars and blackness ... the sight of gray dust settling over a forgotten outpost on a road that leads nowhere ... the pungent odor of Jupiter on a returning father's clothing. Here living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, Martian invasions are foiled by the good life and the glad hand, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. Ray Bradbury's *The Illustrated Man* is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth, widely believed to be one of the Grandmaster's premier accomplishments: as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world. He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could hear the voices murmuring, small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body. Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. A peerless American storyteller, his oeuvre has been celebrated for decades--from *The Martian Chronicles* and *Fahrenheit 451* to *Dandelion Wine* and *Something Wicked This Way Comes*. THE ILLUSTRATED MAN is classic Bradbury--a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin--visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body. The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful: the mournful cries of celestial travelers cast out cruelly into a vast, empty space of stars and blackness...the sight of gray dust settling over a forgotten outpost on a road that leads nowhere...the pungent odor of Jupiter on a returning father's clothing. Here living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, Martian invasions are foiled by the good life and the glad hand, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. Ray Bradbury's THE ILLUSTRATEDMAN is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth, widely believed to be one of the Grandmaster's premier accomplishments: as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever. Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy. Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter. MATTER is a novel of dazzling wit and serious purpose. An extraordinary feat of storytelling and breathtaking invention on a grand scale, it is a tour de force from a writer who has turned science fiction on its head.

SUMMARY: When an eccentric professor acquires an ancient book, a riddle on a spare piece of parchment tucked neatly within its pages leads him and his nephew on an unparalleled adventure. The unlocked riddle brings them to a remote mountain on Iceland, where they enter an extinct volcano on a daring quest to reach the center of the earth. They soon find themselves at a giant underground ocean where the laws of science are constantly redefined and prehistoric creatures are in abundance. But in the bowels of the earth, a shocking discovery pits the travellers face to face with their own terrifying past. Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth has been read by millions of inquisitive minds and has influenced some of the worlds most famous explorers such as Admiral Byrd, who announced on his 1926 expedition to the North Pole that "it is Jules Verne who is bringing me." And renowned cave explorer Norbert Casteret said in 1938 that A Journey to the Center of the Earth was a "marvelous book which impressed and fascinated me more than any other. I have re-read it many times, and I confess I sometimes re-read it still, each time finding anew the joys and enthusiasm of my childhood."

SUMMARY: On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Welcome to a world like no other. The Ringworld: a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band 3 million times the surface area of Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of which are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe. Explorere Louis Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threaten to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now, the future of Ringworld lies in the actions of its children: Tunesmith, the Ghould protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous in order to save Ringworld's population, and the stability of Ringworld itself. Blending awe-inspiring science with non-stop action and fun, Ringworld's Children, the fourth installment of the multiple award-winning saga, is the perfect introduction for readers new to this New York Times bestselling series, and long-time fans of Larry Niven's Ringworld. (20040916)

SUMMARY: Come back to the Ringworld . . . the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered. A place of untold technological wonders, home to a myriad humanoid races, and world of some of the most beloved science fiction stories ever written! The human, Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee . . . legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. Something is going on with the Protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld. Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda--if anyone dares approach them to learn. Each race on the Ringworld has always had its own Protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a Protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld Throne? "Niven's work has been an intriguing and consistent universe, and this book is the keystone of the arch. . . . [His] technique is wonderfully polished, his characters and their situations are nicely drawn . . . wraps up (maybe) a corner of a very interesting universe." --San Diego Union-Tribune

SUMMARY: "This rousing sequel to the classic Ringworld continues the adventures of Louis Wu and Speaker-to-Animals on that fantastic planet."--School Library Journal An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

EDITORIAL REVIEW: A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **The science fiction masterpiece continues in the “major event,”(* Los Angeles Times*) *Children of Dune*.** With millions of copies sold worldwide, Frank Herbert’s Dune novels stand among the major achievements of the human imagination and one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction. The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, disappeared in the deserts of Arrakis. Like their father, they possess supernormal abilities—making them valuable to their aunt Alia, who rules the Empire. If Alia can obtain the secrets of the twins’ prophetic visions, her rule will be absolute. But the twins have their own plans for their destiny.

SUMMARY: A Sequel to The New York Times Bestselling Enders's Shadow Bestselling author Orson Scott Card brings to life a new chapter in the saga of Ender's Earth. Earth and its society has been changed irrevocably in the aftermath of Ender Wiggin's victory over the Formics--the unity enforced upon the warring nations by an alien enemy has shattered. Nations are rising again, seeking territory and influence, and most of all, seeking to control the skills and loyalty of the children from the Battle School. But one person has a better idea. Peter Wiggin, Ender's older, more ruthless, brother, sees that any hope for the future of Earth lies in restoring a sense of unity and purpose. And he has an irresistible call on the loyalty of Earth's young warriors. With Bean at his side, the two will reshape our future. Here is the continuing story of Bean and Petra, and the rest of Ender's Dragon Army, as they take their places in the new government of Earth.

SUMMARY: Don't panic! You're not timetripping! It's the tenth anniversary of the publication of Douglas Adams's zany, best-selling novel, and to celebrate Harmony is reissuing a special edition of this cult classic!By now the story is legendary. Arthur Dent, mild-mannered, out-to-lunch earth-ling, is plucked from his planet by his friend Ford Prefect just seconds before it was demolished to make way for a hyper-space bypass. Ford, posing as an out-of-work actor, is a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together the gruesome twosome begin their now-famous inter-galactic journey through time, space and best-sellerdom.For Hitchhiker fanatics (you know who you are!) who've read the books, seen the television program, and listened to the radio show, as well as newcomers to Douglas Adams's unique universe -- remember -- don't panic, don't forget to bring a towel, and don't forget to celebrate The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's tenth anniversary by wearing your bathrobe.From the Hardcover edition.

SUMMARY: The second book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which also includes Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, Perelandra continues the adventures of the extraordinary Dr. Ransom. Pitted against the most destructive of human weaknesses, temptation, the great man must battle evil on a new planet -- Perelandra -- when it is invaded by a dark force. Will Perelandra succumb to this malevolent being, who strives to create a new world order and who must destroy an old and beautiful civilization to do so? Or will it throw off the yoke of corruption and achieve a spiritual perfection as yet unknown to man? The outcome of Dr. Ransom's mighty struggle alone will determine the fate of this peace-loving planet.