Professor Lidenbrock can't resist the opportunity to investigate, and with his nephew Axel, he sets off across Iceland in the company of Hans Bjelke, a native guide. The expedition descends into an extinct volcano toward a sunless sea, where they encounter a subterranean world of luminous rocks, antediluvian forests, and fantastic marine life — a living past that holds the secrets to the origins of human existence.

    A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.

    Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

    This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

    The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

    and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

    Now people unquestioningly accept the Tripods' power. They have no control over their thoughts or their lives.But for a brief time in each person's life—in childhood—he is not a slave. For Will, his time of freedom is about to end—unless he can escape to the White Mountains, where the possibility of freedom still exists.

    They will meet witches and armored bears, fallen angels and soul-eating specters. And in the end, the fate of both the living—and the dead—will rely on them.Phillip Pullman’s spellbinding His Dark Materials trilogy has captivated readers for over twenty years and won acclaim at every turn. It will have you questioning everything you know about your world and wondering what really lies just out of reach.

    It was a dark and stormy night.Out of this wild night, a strange visitor comes to the Murry house and beckons Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe on a most dangerous and extraordinary adventure—one that will threaten their lives and our universe.Winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal, A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L'Engle's classic Time Quintet.

    It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes  memory. Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart. Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse. Armed with only a strange bow, he begins his journey, but some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him. Around them swirl a remarkable cast of characters, including a Cyclops raised by robots and a young girl with tragic curiosity, as well as historical figures, such as writer Raymond Roussel, heiress Sarah Winchester, and photographer Edward Muybridge.  While fact and fiction blend, the hunter will become the hunted, and everyone’s fate hangs in the balance under the will of the Vorrh.

    Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).

    Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

    With no help from other worlds, they subsist on the food they can grow and that's little enough. But their purpose, their whole life is to maintain the machines that will one day make their world as habitable as old Earth. Life used to be hard. Now as their crops fail, livestock sickens, and the temperature drops, it's becoming impossible. This year's Winter Season Feast won't be the usual celebration. It's not a time for optimism or hope - and it's not a time to welcome unexpected guests. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory find a society breaking apart under the strain. Tensions are mounting, old rivalries are coming to the fore, people are dying...and then the Doctor's old enemies, the Ice Warriors, make their move. With the cold-hearted threat of invasion, the real battle for survival begins. Or does it? The Doctor begins to suspect that behind everything lies a deadlier, and even more chilling danger...

    But his new owner, Baslim, is not the disabled beggar he appears to be: adopting Thorby as his son, he fights relentlessly as an abolitionist spy. When the authorities close in on Baslim, Thorby must ride with the Free Traders — a league of merchant princes — throughout the many worlds of a hostile galaxy, finding the courage to live by his wits and fight his way from society's lowest rung. But Thorby's destiny will be forever changed when he discovers the truth about his own identity...

    Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monsters.