For fifteen virtual reality gamers undertaking a four-and-half day quest, the fantasy slaying of monsters is suddenly interrupted-by murder.

    It is the monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of psychohistory. Now, with the permission -- and blessing -- of the Asimov estate, the epic saga continues.Fate -- and a cruel Emperor's arbitrary power -- have thrust Hari Seldon into the First Ministership of the Empire against his will. As the story opens, Hari is about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the all but impossible task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife" Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit him against future history's most awesome threat.

    When he died in London in 1727 he was so renowned he was given a state funeral—an unheard-of honor for a subject whose achievements were in the realm of the intellect. During the years he was an irascible presence at Trinity College, Cambridge, Newton imagined properties of nature and gave them names—mass, gravity, velocity—things our science now takes for granted. Inspired by Aristotle, spurred on by Galileo’s discoveries and the philosophy of Descartes, Newton grasped the intangible and dared to take its measure, a leap of the mind unparalleled in his generation.James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius, and one of the most acclaimed science writers of his generation, brings the reader into Newton’s reclusive life and provides startlingly clear explanations of the concepts that changed forever our perception of bodies, rest, and motion. Ideas so basic to the twenty-first century we literally take them for granted.

    Abandoned hulks of machinery rust in the colorless landscape. Dark, oily seas beat against a jagged black shore. And the remnants of a reentry space vehicle crash into the rough waves. In it sleeps Ripley, a woman who has battled the enemy twice. It killed her whole crew the first time. The second time, it slaughtered a spaceload of death-dealing Marines. Now on this prison planet that houses only a horde of defiant, captive men, she will have to fight the ultimate alien horror one more time.

    The attraction between Gabrielle and Holden still sizzles on the surface even after all these years since their last encounter. Having just experienced serious relationship breakups neither one is ready to start again. Instead, they make a rebound pact. Casual sex, no strings attached-and rule #1? Don't fall in love. Problem is, with each scorching encounter, Gabrielle and Holden find themselves falling hard and fast. After college, Gabrielle Dane makes one terrific mistake. Thinking she's sneaking into her crush's bedroom at an all-night party, she ends up sleeping with her older brother's best friend. It's only when the sun comes up that she recognizes Holden Bellamy. Mortified, Gabrielle leaves to train with a renowned chef in France, vowing never to return to her hometown and the awkwardness of her one night stand mix-up. But several years later, she finds herself doing just that, and she runs smack into the delicious man who makes her catches her breath. Holden Bellamy, owner of Belle Ami, a critically acclaimed vineyard, has always had a thing for his best friend's little sister...even if she was off limits. Waking up to her in the morning several years back was a remarkable surprise, one that crashed and burned when she left town without a word. Now he's face to face with the woman he never stopped wondering about.

    Here are three of his finest works, presented in their entirety. Tess of the Durbervilles tells the tragic tale of a poor young girl's coming of age and her traumatic relationships with two men: the wealthy and cold Alec D'Urberville and the beautiful, but unforgiving Angel Clare. Michael Henchard, the title character of The Mayor of Casterbridge, reaches the pinnacles of power-only to lose everything through folly and bad luck. Set in Hardy's beloved Wessex, and always attentive to the struggles of everyday life in the farming community, Far From the Madding Crowd centers on Bathsheba Everdene and the men who love her.

    It remains an elementary and non-mathematical introduction to molecular spectroscopy that emphasizes the overall unity of the subject and offers a pictorial perception rather than a mathematical description of the principles of spectroscopy.

    And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its heart.For 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. Yet Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.Quantum sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age. In 1925 the quantum pioneers nearly all hailed from upper-middle-class academic families; most were German; and their average age was 24. But it was their irrational, romantic spirit, formed in reaction to the mechanised slaughter of the First World War that inspired their will to test science to its limits.The essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of young men at its heart.

    In 1905 an unknown 26-year-old clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, who had supposedly failed math in school, burst on to the scientific scene and swept away the hidebound theories of the day. The clerk, Albert Einstein, introduced a new and unexpected understanding of the universe and launched the two great revolutions of twentieth-century physics, relativity and quantum mechanics. The obscure origin and wide-ranging brilliance of the work recalled Isaac Newton’s “annus mirabilis” (miracle year) of 1666, when as a 23-year-old seeking safety at his family manor from an outbreak of the plague, he invented calculus and laid the foundations for his theory of gravity. Like Newton, Einstein quickly became a scientific icon--the image of genius and, according to Time magazine, the Person of the Century.The actual story is much more interesting. Einstein himself once remarked that “science as something coming into being ... is just as subjectively, psychologically conditioned as are all other human endeavors.” In this profile, the historian of science L. Randles Lagerstrom takes you behind the myth and into the very human life of the young Einstein. From family rifts and girlfriend troubles to financial hardships and jobless anxieties, Einstein’s early years were typical of many young persons. And yet in the midst of it all, he also saw his way through to profound scientific insights. Drawing upon correspondence from Einstein, his family, and his friends, Lagerstrom brings to life the young Einstein and enables the reader to come away with a fuller and more appreciative understanding of Einstein the person and the origins of his revolutionary ideas.About the cover image: While walking to work six days a week as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein would pass by the famous "Zytglogge" tower and its astronomical clocks. The daily juxtaposition was fitting, as the relative nature of time and clock synchronization would be one of his revolutionary discoveries in the miracle year of 1905.

    A gripping thriller from the author of the Goodfellowe Series.

    This space station is strategically located not only because of its orbit about Bajor, but also because of its proximity to the only known stable wormhole in the galaxy. After meeting the other Bajoran and Starfleet personnel assigned to the station, including a former Bajoran freedom fighter and a shapeshifter, Sisko finds himself in that very wormhole and in the midst of a metaphysical experience as the alien inhabitants of the wormhole question the concepts of time and love. Sisko, filled with humanistic hubris, begins to explain these experiences, and resolve his painful past.

    After nosing around, Luke claims that the business is being sabotaged from within. Meanwhile some of the Gilchrists suspect that he'll destroy the company to gain revenge: his father was disinherited by Justine when he left at the altar the bride she had handpicked (the woman who became Katy's mother). In fact, Luke plots only to win Katy, which is not easy, given that the young woman wants out of her job and away from everyone named Gilchrist. In her own saucy, upbeat style, Krentz (Sweet Fortune) turns this eccentric family and pair of mismatched lovers (so everyone tells them) into an entertaining story. Krentz is even confident enough to question the genre rules she plays by so well, as when Katy walks out on Luke during a passionate love scene, saying, There's no call to get surly. You started this. Her fans will eat it up.

    From Bo's heart to yours, he shares common stories with uncommon stories with uncommon wisdom.

    His only chance for survival is locked within a band of mining robots who are dutifully searching the surface for a mysterious object known as the Key to Perihelion. His name is Derec. His journey will take him to a city different from any he has ever known. A fantastic metropolis beyond his dreams: Robot City.

    Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula shares the fascinating story of this groundbreaking formula--long regarded as the gold standard for mathematical beauty--and shows why it still lies at the heart of complex number theory. This book is the sequel to Paul Nahin's An Imaginary Tale: The Story of I [the square root of -1], which chronicled the events leading up to the discovery of one of mathematics' most elusive numbers, the square root of minus one. Unlike the earlier book, which devoted a significant amount of space to the historical development of complex numbers, Dr. Euler begins with discussions of many sophisticated applications of complex numbers in pure and applied mathematics, and to electronic technology. The topics covered span a huge range, from a never-before-told tale of an encounter between the famous mathematician G. H. Hardy and the physicist Arthur Schuster, to a discussion of the theoretical basis for single-sideband AM radio, to the design of chase-and-escape problems. The book is accessible to any reader with the equivalent of the first two years of college mathematics (calculus and differential equations), and it promises to inspire new applications for years to come. Or as Nahin writes in the book's preface: To mathematicians ten thousand years hence, Euler's formula will still be beautiful and stunning and untarnished by time.