GIFT BOX SET OF 4 BOOKS TITLED: THE PUPPET MASTERS - ISBN 0345330145, WALDO&MAGIC - ISBN 0345330153, DOUBLE STAR - ISBN 0345330137 AND THE DOOR INTO SUMMER - ISBN 0345330129

    The station is in a security lockdown and the sole apparent occupant, a Union captain, offers Kieran an entire ship if he can disable the lockdown. Kieran realizes that he’s probably dealing with a criminal, rather than an actual captain, but he’s just desperate enough to accept. He flies out to the nearest station and returns with a slicer and some dangerous-looking backup. As he’s making his approach to the station, Kieran hears a garbled cry for help over the comm. He hopes it’s just his imagination.But it’s not. Half the station’s crew is being held hostage, while the other half appear to be masquerading as Union officers. Kieran and his team disable the lockdown, and to Kieran’s amazement, they are given a ship as promised. As they are leaving the station, they see an entire fleet of Union cruisers pouring out of the newly-reactivated space gate. Kieran is confused. What are so many warships doing on the frontier? The Union isn’t at war.Kieran sets out to investigate, but along the way strange things start happening to him and his crew. At first there seem to be logical explanations, but before long the answers are not so clear. As time goes by, Kieran realizes the horrible truth:He wasn’t the only one trying to escape. . . .

    But the governments and power structures didn't yet control space, where bold new techniques could freely be applied and the vast resources of the solar system could be utilized by such courageous men and women as: • Aneas MacKenzie—he had believed in the man he had helped to reach the office of the presidency of the United States, and had tirelessly rooted out corruption wherever he found it, until the trail led straight back to the White House. After that, no place on Earth was safe for him. • Laurie Jo Hansen—she controlled a multi-national corporation more powerful than many governments. Unlike those governments, she wanted to see Earth’s problems solved and reaching the high frontier was the only way to do that. • Kevin Senecal—he had made the mistake of fighting back against a juvenile gang, and accidentally killing one of them while escaping. Both the gang and the law were after him, and on all of Earth there was no place to hide. • Ellen MacMillan—a young employee of the Hansen Corporation who fascinated Kevin, she was on a secret mission, and the biggest secret was her real name.   Two complete novels—High Justice and Exiles to Glory—in one volume by a New York Times best-selling author, telling of an Earth sinking into a morass of corruption, red tape, and failure of nerve, while a dedicated few dare to reach for the stars.

    Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely—the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.Vivid, tumultuous, and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason’s mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut, The Lost Books of the Odyssey.

    Weil comes the first three books in the Slaver Wars series. Over 400,000 copies sold.The Hocklyns were a cruel and callous race. World after world fell to the onslaught of their powerful warfleets. Populations were ruthlessly reduced with the remainder becoming slaves working for the benefit of the Hocklyn Slave Empire. For thousands of years this had been the way of life for the Hocklyns, but now they had encountered an adversary who refused to bow down to their powerful fleets. The Human Federation of Worlds would not become slaves.It was up to Fleet Admiral Hedon Streth to stop the advance of the Hocklyns. If he failed, then the Human Federation of Worlds would be no more, and the entire galaxy would fall to the conquering Hocklyn war machine.

    He has a mission for them. He wants them to kill an innocent man by the name of James Price. If they don't, the world is doomed. Their refusal sends them forward forty years in time where they see the repercussions of letting James Price live. The Earth has been devastated and mankind is on the brink of extinction. They need to survive this terrible new world and return to the past. But is it right to kill an innocent man? Even when they know what his future will produce?And if the decision to change history is not difficult enough, it is what Axel and Brodie learn about themselves that will change their relationship forever...

    Le Guin—selected with an introduction by the author, and combined in one volume for the first time.The Unreal and the Real is a collection of some of Ursula K. Le Guin’s best short stories. She has won multiple prizes and accolades from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud Awards. She has had her work collected over the years, but this is the first short story volume combining a full range of her work. Stories include: -Brothers and Sisters -A Week in the Country -Unlocking the Air -Imaginary Countries -The Diary of the Rose -Direction of the Road -The White Donkey -Gwilan’s Harp -May’s Lion -Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight -Horse Camp -The Water Is Wide -The Lost Children -Texts -Sleepwalkers -Hand, Cup, Shell -Ether, Or -Half Past Four -The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas -Semely’s Necklace -Nine Lives -Mazes -The First Contact with the Gorgonids -The Shobies’ Story -Betrayals -The Matter of Seggri -Solitude -The Wild Girls -The Flyers of Gy -The Silence of the Asonu -The Ascent of the North Face -The Author of the Acacia Seeds -The Wife’s Story -The Rule of Names -Small Change -The Poacher -Sur -She Unnames Them -The Jar of Water

    

    The wise will listen.” —Stephen Coonts From New York Times bestselling author, William R. Forstchen: In the span of a single second, the United States is plunged into darkness as an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) wipes out all electricity. Trains, planes, cars, phones, computers, power plants, electronics and electrical equipment—all comes to a screeching halt. The country is in chaos, and everyone wants to know why. Whatever the cause, looting, food riots, and global insurrection are the order of the day. The New Dark Ages are suddenly upon us in this series exploring the potential aftermath of a very real threat.One Second After — In the novel that was cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, professor John Matherson struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina mountain town after America loses a war in one second, a war that will send the country back to the Dark Ages.One Year After — Two years after nuclear weapons were detonated above the United States and brought America to its knees, the survivors of Black Mountain, North Carolina, are beginning to recover technology and supplies they had once taken for granted, like electricity, radio communications, and medications. When a “federal administrator” arrives in a nearby city, they dare to hope that a national government is finally reemerging. But the new regime is beginning to look a lot like tyranny.The Final Day — Since the detonation of nuclear weapons above the United States more than two years ago, the small town of Black Mountain, North Carolina has suffered famine, civil war, and countless deaths. Now, after defeating a new, tyrannical federal government, John Matherson and his community intend to restore their world to what it was before the EMP apocalypse. For the most part, they are succeeding . . . but progress is halted when the national government overturns the Constitution and a terrible truth is revealed: the people in power may have seen the EMP strike coming all along. Other Tor books by William R. ForstchenPillar to the SkyWe Look Like Men of WarAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    But they can’t tell anyone they’re doing so.As their trips to the past continue, they begin to realise how it could change a devastating moment from their own past. But for Caroline, it’s clear they don’t want the same outcome.Until, on one trip, one of them does something unthinkable which will change both their lives forever.For fans of Matt Haig, Claire North and Audrey Niffenegger.

    With "Nightfall," written in 1941, Asimov triggered a spark of awareness in the publishing community that science fiction could be more than Buck Rogers comic books. His "Foundation" series and robot novels (he coined the word "robotics") are acknowledged as the cornerstone of modern science fiction. Asimov's Foundation series was awarded the Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award in 1966. He was awarded the special lifetime Nebula Grandmaster award in 1987.Over the next fifty years, Isaac Asimov would distinguish himself as one of the most prolific, versatile, and creative authors ever. His broad range of works includes histories, children's books, collections of articles, mysteries, and books concerning the Bible, literature, geography, humor, and nonfiction science material. He managed over his creative lifetime to have at least one book included in each of the Dewey Decimal System's 10 major library classifications. He was known for his profound knowledge of Shakespeare, the Bible, Gilbert and Sullivan, limericks, and history, whether it be Roman, Greek or American. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 at the age of 72.Volume 1 of "Isaac Asimov: Short Stories" contains the Hugo and Nebula Award Nominee, Locus Poll Award Winner and Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Winner "Robot Dreams," the Hugo Award Winner and Locus Poll Award Nominee "Gold," the Locus Poll Award Nominee "Potential," the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Nominated "Kid Brother," and more excellent short science fiction, including arare 1974 Saturday Evening Post four-part series, collectively entitled the "The Dream."

     After the unfortunate events that took place in Britain, Jacob Hunter is no longer certain of many things, but this ill-fated truth is one he understands implicitly. Having spent months battling his addiction to the all-powerful blue orb, a device capable of traveling through time but equally adept at breaking a man’s mind, Jacob has finally succumbed to it. Once aided by loyal companions and the woman he loves, Jacob has abandoned everyone he has ever trusted, his mind warped by the orb’s influence. However, recently given new clues concerning the orb’s potential, Jacob departs for Rome, where he now knows a second orb lay hidden, waiting to be reunited with the orb he already possesses. Accompanied only by Rome’s manipulative empress, Agrippina the Younger, the pair journey to Rome where they hope to discover the secret to the orb’s power, but a destructive truth lies behind what they seek, one he may not be fully prepared to combat… But Jacob is not the only one about to embark on a daring quest. Having been abandoned and left without direction in the hinterlands of ancient Britain, Jacob’s sister, Diana, must find it in herself to rally Jacob’s jilted friends and corral an enraged Helena, the woman he loves, who carries her own mysterious secret after her life was miraculously saved at the brink of death. Unprepared for the responsibility suddenly thrust on her by Jacob's disappearance, Diana understands that she and her friends must find him before it's too late. Clouded and perverted though his mind may be, she knows her brother all too well. Jacob, tormented and driven beyond rationality, is prepared to sacrifice everything to find the lost orb. Including his life...

    Then, the Coalition invaded, smashed the fleet and conquered the homeworld. The battered Dark Star barely escaped to wander the stars, helping its centurion eke out a living as a bounty hunter. Now, bad luck dogs Centurion Tanner. On Calisto Grandee, officials jail his crew and impound his ship, demanding fees he cannot pay. Rich strangers offer to hire him…maybe because he’s the only one desperate enough to accept their deal. They’ll pay to fix his ship and promise him a weapon to help him free his world. First, he must race to the galactic rim while there’s time and sneak into the most heavily fortified star system in the galaxy. There, they must destroy an extinction level threat before it can spread like a cancer against humanity. Tanner agrees. Now, the fate of the galaxy rests on one man and one ship to do the impossible before the clock strikes zero.

    Patrick is a struggling restaurateur who wishes he could spend more time with his wife. As they drift apart, Jane decides she wants more from her relationship than friendship, and so at age thirty-six she sets off on a journey to find what it takes to complete her life. She travels to India where she falls rapturously in lust with her tour guide, Rajiv. Meanwhile Patrick falls for baby-faced American food critic Stella, who could lose him more than his peace of mind; she could lose him his restaurant. Both affairs are disastrous and as their lives spiral toward disaster, Patrick and Jane reassess the decisions they’ve made. Has Jane thrown away true love with both hands?Prue Leith, one of England’s top chefs, displays her expertise in her insider’s details of the restaurant business and the breathtaking food of India. In Leaving Patrick, Leith has created a well-written and moving story with wry humor and intelligence about the real choices adults have to make once they start taking stock of their lives.

    Without the National Grid, Britain is in left in the dark - no lights, no heat, no electricity...Three months later, from among the British refugees now scattered across northern France, a nation itself rocked by the crisis, a young soldier is recruited for a mission that takes him back home.This is his story, as he ventures back to find his homeland ravaged, its population scattered, and civilisation on the brink. This is a tale of an alternative future, set in a Britain at once recognisable and massively altered.