It is issued in a foil-stamped slipcase. Published in a larger format than the Dark Tower series which enhances Michael Whelan's thirteen full-color plates and over twenty-three black & white designs."The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed." This is our introduction to Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger, published by Donald M. Grant in THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER in 1982. Twenty years later Stephen King revised and expanded this volume. In his own words: "What I did want to do was to give newcomers to the tale of the Tower (and old readers who want to refresh their memories) a clearer start and a slightly easier entry into Roland's world. I also wanted them to have a volume that more effectively foreshadowed coming events.This volume contains that expanded version as well as the novella THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA which chronicles an earlier adventure of Roland's as he pursued the Man in Black.

    Science-Fiction and WarA. E. Van Vogt. Recruiting StationLester del Rey. The Wings of NightRoby Wentz. Day After TomorrowMartin Pearson. The EmbassyIn Times to Come The Analytical Laboratory Anson MacDonald. Goldfish BowlSuppressed ViolenceIsaac Asimov. RunaroundMalcolm Jameson. DispersionBrass Tacks Eric Frank Russell. Describe a Circle

    "Homage to Switzerland" concerns various conversations at a Swiss railway-station restaurant.

    And so, for this holiday season, we present a Christmas story that only he could write, about the wicked boy who got everything.When Twain arrived in San Francisco in 1864, he quickly landed a job writing for a newly launched literary weekly called The Californian, which was co-edited by Bret Harte (future author of “The Outcast of Poker Flat”) and Charles Henry Webb. With their encouragement and guidance, he honed his skills as a satirist and within a few months he was paid $50 a month to write one piece per issue—a respectable amount at the time, although never enough for the young Samuel Clemens, whose financial woes were a recurrent theme in his journals and letters. The newspaper was a success, but turnover among owners and editors led to its eventual demise. Before the periodical ceased publication in 1868, it had also introduced Ambrose Bierce to its readers.Published two days before Christmas in the newspaper’s first year, “The Christmas Fireside” features a character familiar to readers of Mark Twain: the naughty boy. Compared with the affably mischievous Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, however, “Jim” is a downright monster. But Twain’s satire isn’t really about boyhood. If anything, Twain has written what might be called an “anti-story”—less about what does happen to Jim and more about what does not. He has two targets: the laughably implausible Sunday school catechisms of the era and (particularly in the closing paragraphs) the American propensity for rewarding corruption and vice among members of its political and entrepreneurial class. “Bah, humbug!” one might think, but what keeps the young Mark Twain from being the Californian Scrooge is a sense of impishness to mitigate the cynicism.

    When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and women of all ages and races—found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.This classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, includes an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in four BBC Radio full-cast dramatizations available for the first time in the U.S. Tolkien's tales of myth, mystery, and rumbustious exploits have been specially adapted for radio by Brian Sibley, one of the dramatists of the highly acclaimed BBC radio production of The Lord of the Rings. In Farmer Giles of Ham, having accidentally shot a giant, Farmer Giles finds his brave reputation being tested by Chrysophylax the dragon. In Smith of Wootton Major, when young Smith eats a piece of cake containing a silver star, he is granted access to the magical land of Faerie. In Leaf by Niggle, a thought-provoking allegory on the theme of creativity, the painter Niggle embarks on a fateful search for perfection. In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, join Tom and the Hobbits in scenes from The Lord of the Rings which were not included in the BBC Radio 4 dramatization.Dramatized by Brian SibleyMusic by Peter Howell of the BBC Radiophonic WorkshopProduced by John Taylor

    In their exile on the ground they have to adapt to vastly different circumstances, fight monsters resembling dinosaurs, and finally happen upon the godly giants, whose existence they had questioned.

    They wear green jackets and have an unusual reason for the colour - to avoid being mistaken for waiters, specifically the black-jacketed ones at their Vernon Hotel dinner. There's a criminal story behind the colour differentiation and a little priest, Father Brown, was involved. Deeply involved. (less)

    Campbell Jr.By His Bootstraps / by Robert A. Heinlein (writing as Anson MacDonald); interior artwork by Hubert RogersIn Times to Come / essay by The EditorThe Analytical Laboratory: August 1941 / essay by The EditorNot Final! (Jovians #1) / by Isaac Asimov; interior artwork by KollikerThe Sea King's Armored Division (Part 2 of 2) / essay by L. Sprague de CampManic Perverse / by Winston K. Marks; interior artwork by Frank KramerTwo Percent Inspiration / by Theodore Sturgeon; interior artwork by Hubert RogersCommon Sense / by Robert A. Heinlein; interior artwork by Paul OrbanBrass Tacks / essay by The EditorLetters / P. Schuyler Miller; Paul A. Carter; and E. Everett Evans

    It is perhaps best known for the diacopic use of the word "bells." The poem has four parts to it; each part becomes darker and darker as the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4. - Wikipedia

    The New Utopia is a short story in which the author describes his dream about a socialist society. Jerome's short essay describes a regimented future city, indeed world, of nightmarish egalitarianism, where men and women are barely distinguishable in their grey uniforms and all have short black hair, natural or dyed. Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels.

    But the problem Orne had was one step tougher than that! A science fiction classic from Frank Herbert, author of DUNE!

    Linked, equal but opposite, these blades are destined to be wielded by two of the greatest heroes of the Age of Darkness. And as the spears themselves, Appolonian and Dionysian, are equal and opposite, so too are those to whom they were gifted. This is their story too. The warrior-scholar, a savant and a servant. The warrior-king, a savage and a soldier. Their fates entwined in ways they do not understand, they carry the blades as both gift and curse, fulfilment of destiny unseen by any save the Master of Mankind. Read It Because This is truly a Horus Heresy story unlike any other. Chris Wraight crafts an elegiac look at two heroes of the Heresy, through the blades that bond them and forge a destiny that may well extend far beyond the stories that have yet been told…

    The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family's homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws' attacks on government supply ships and settlements...