So why did he dream the other night--and dream that he has a son?At one time, Batou had a human love for his partner, the legendary Major, before he witnessed her transfiguration into something beyond humanity. Now he has only his job, and his beloved basset hound, Gabriel. But when Batou has a near-death experience in an arranged car "accident," he returns home to find Gabriel has gone missing--perhaps, to go look for her owner's lost soul.Batou's desperate search for Gabriel leads him down surreal streets where homeless men fight tanks and yakuza racing hounds chase rabbits downloaded into their heads. Batou fears his poor dog has made a horrible mistake out of innocence--for Batou has taken a cold look inside himself...and decided that he never truly had a soul...Innocence, After The Long Goodbye is the prequel to the Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence film, also available as a four-volume Ani-Manga box set from VIZ Media. The Innocence novel contains a special bonus discussion between the director, Mamoru Oshii, and the author, Masaki Yamada.

    From the world's greatest fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano comes a masterful interpretation of the classic opera The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.Mateki is a beautiful and tragic tale of a young prince who must put away his flute and become a warrior to save his love from the lord of darkness.

    Four action-packed books in one box set! The last world war is over. But humanity's fight for survival is only just beginning… In the dying days of the Trade Wars, Earth lay in ruins. Her cities burned, her fields smoldered and her people starved. Yet whilst the politicians squabbled, one squad of Jarheads did their duty. Heroes to a man (and woman), Quinn's Marines followed orders, even the deep black, secret peace mission kind. And it got them locked away. For good. For the Marines, peace meant a life sentence breaking rocks on Uranus' most distant moon. But when a meteor strike unleashes an alien intelligence bent on taking over the human race, only the Jarheads can save it. The only problem is their prison is two and a half billion kilometers from Earth on a good day. Oh, and their fellow inmates want them dead... Hey, nobody ever said saving the world would be easy. Fugitive Marines 1-4 contains: Breakout Wanted Lockdown Uprising

     Perc Alexander is one of the rare humans who can shift into an animal, in his case the form of an extinct cat. As a professional athlete who trained his body for years before the shifter revelation, he doesn’t think much about this new ability. Not until the NFL suspends him for being a shifter. Never one to give up easily, he works within the system to fight shifter discrimination in professional sports.Perc knew arguing the suspension would make him a target. What he didn’t expect was being knocked out and abducted by an outfit running an illegal operation involving shifters. He finds out just how far his animal instincts will go to save himself and others from their brutal abductors. In the aftermath he questions if he could have done more, saved more if he fully embraced his cat sooner. Still reeling from survivor's guilt and guided by a newfound sense of purpose, Percival is determined to fight for his career and shifter rights, more so now that he understands how high the costs may be. He knows for certain he is more than a football player and cat shifter. It’s time the rest of the world learned that as well, no matter what it costs him.

    Over a thousand pages of heart-pounding sci-fi action. One great price. With over a hundred thousand books sold and borrowed, the Argonauts series has been one of the best-selling sagas published on Amazon over the past year. For fans of military science fiction and space opera alike, this bundle contains the first three novels: Bug Hunt, You Are Prey, and Alien Empress. In this compelling set, Rade Galaal and his elite team of mercenaries enter the fray to deal with an alien infestation, infiltrate a stone-age civilization, and defend an extraterrestrial homeworld. Download this unique bundle today, because there's never been a better time to hunt some bugs.

    Anyone is welcome to read it, of course, but it is primarily intended for those who’ve read either or both of the United Federation Marine Corps and/or the United Federation Marines’ Lysander Twins series. Unlike the other books in both series, there is no combat action in the story. Regardless, I hope it is a fitting conclusion before the UFMC universe continues a century in the future from where these two series left off.

    Halo: The Essential Visual Guide delves even deeper into the phenomenon that is Halo. Covering material from Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, and the latest game, Halo: ODST, the book provides amazing images and insightful information making you feel as if you yourself are part of the game! (c)2011 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

    One day after school, he discovers and impulsively steals the gym clothes of Nanako Saeki, the classmate he has a crush on. However, a lonely girl named Sawa Nakamura happens to catch him in the act. Nakamura blackmails Kasuga into a "contract," under the threat of revealing his secret.

    Visually spectacular, shockingly violent, and singularly horrifying, Gantz is a relentless fever dream of consummate skill and fiendish imagination. This value-priced omnibus collection features 680 pages of havoc and horror!Kei Kurono's work as a Gantz alien fighter is a hellish nightmare, but his life as a high-school student is looking up, with a new ladylove opening his heart. But when his beloved is threatened by a Gantz-obsessed schoolmate on a shooting rampage, Kei must face the murderous student without his Gantz suit for protection!Collects Gantz individual volumes 10, 11, and 12.

    It's a choice.The United Galactic Government is mired in a decade-long war for control of a key planet. Weakened by overextension and political intrigue, they could lose everything.When a child of privilege gives up everything to enlist and fight for what is right, he learns what it means to become part of a team. He encounters refugees, aliens he never expected to empathize with, and the loss of comrades. In the end he must develop the courage to stand up, not only to aliens and governments, but his own family.

    The climactic engagement of this war, Operation Repulse, took place from August 2063 to February 2064, and was the most significant clash of arms on European soil in four hundred years.

    It features art from beloved series such as Clover, Magic Knight Rayearth, Legend of Chun Hyang, Clamp in Wonderland and many others. Also included: original Clamp artwork, the original comic Princess Mokona of the CLAMP Country (featuring the Clamp artists themselves), a CLAMP interview and a complete catalogue of all featured images with a description of each. The work here spans the period between 1989-2002.

    Loaded with techniques and tips from an exciting young artist and writer with a fresh style, this book includes great step-by-step instruction from initial lines to black-and white inked illustration to finished art in color.

    Hiroaki Samura's massive manga series spawned two anime adaptations, a spinoff novel, an art book, and a live-action film! Samura's storytelling tour-de-force also won Japan's Media Arts Award, several British Eagle Awards, and an Eisner Award, among other international accolades. Intense and audacious, Blade takes period samurai action and deftly combines it with a modernist street idiom to create a style and mood like no other work of graphic fiction.Collects Blade of the Immortal volumes 1 to 3 in the original 7x10 serialized format, in a faux-leather hardcover treatment, and with a bookmark ribbon.

    Experts say they are scanner echoes tossed out of the past by the Phenomenon. The rumors and a cryptic entry in an ancestor's diary propel Lieutenant-Commander Mart Britlot of the Confederation navy into the dangerous Sivon sector of space. There, Britlot hopes to find help for the Confederation, now facing a two-front war. As the last living Confederation descendant of the Adian nation, Britlot is obsessed with finding the ghost ships, believed destroyed during a mass emigration 300 years in the past. He dreams of riding to the rescue at the head of the never defeated Adian fleet; he dreams of finding family after the death of all his near relatives at the hands of the Combine. He'll drive his ship and crew beyond endurance to achieve this. The felid Tlartox Empire, eager to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Confederation, has voted to annul the long-standing peace treaty. The glory of The Hunt beckons. Admiral Tood Tlomega has focused on the human planet Lormar, with its great naval base, as a fitting target for retribution. She will return dignity to the people of Tlar. She will return them to the path that Tlar illuminated so many centuries ago.But a small band of Tlartox subversives intend to rake a claw across the plans of the war-mongers, and give both the Empire and the Confederation something they hadn't counted on.