But after he purchased it for a million dollars, Ben Holiday discovered that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention. Such as the fact that the kingdom was falling into ruin. The barons refused to recognize a king and taxes hadn't been collected for years. The dragon, Strabo, was laying waste to the countryside, while the evil witch, Nightshade, was plotting to destroy no less than everything. And if that weren't enough for a prospective king to deal with, Ben soon learned that the Iron Mark, terrible lord of the demons, challenged all pretenders to the throne of Landover to a duel to the death - a duel no mere mortal could hope to win. But Ben Holiday had one human trait that even magic couldn't overcome. Ben Holiday was stubborn.

    Smart, dedicated, gorgeous, and, thanks to her last movie before she hung up on Hollywood, rich, she's a pleasure to oblige when she says Rob has to witness this channeler Ariaura's act--on her, not the Eye's, nickel--despite channelers being so last year. It's quite a show, all right, for in the midst of Ariaura's particular ancient wise guy's basso spiel, a gravelly baritone interrupts (both voices emanate from the channeler's female mouth) to berate the audience as "yaps" and the act as "claptrap." Why is Ariaura undermining herself? Or is she? After all, she angrily accuses Rob and Kildy of scheming to destroy her. Could the baritone belong to a genuine channeled spirit? Willis, one of sf's most spirited writers, rounds on the New Age; pays tribute to a great, skeptical journalist; and affectionately parodies pulp fiction at its best in this irresistible entertainment.

    The owner and monitor of the site disappears, leaving Claire stuck managing the place until the problem is solved. Her new employee, Dean McIssac, is a gorgeous Newfie who cooks, cleans, and lives the Boy Scout oath. Then there's Jacques Labaet: very French Canadian, very sexy, very dead. Jacques is a ghost who wants to be the man in Claire's life. Oh yeah, and there's Austin, a talking cat with attitude: "I barely know you, but I'm assuming you're human. I'm not saying this is a good thing, it's just the way it is."

    The seamless and seemingly effortless blend of action and humour, the wonderful characters, the rich settings, the brilliant plot - all of it is perfect' James P. Blaylock

    Heather and Morag just want to start the first radical fairy punk rock band, but first they’ll have make a match between two highly unlikely sweethearts, start a street brawl between rival gangs of Italian, Chinese, and African fairies, help the ghost of a dead rocker track down his lost guitar, reclaim a rare triple-bloomed Welsh poppy from a bag lady with delusions of grandeur, disrupt a local community performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and somehow manage to stay sober enough to save all of New York from an invasion of evil Cornish fairies.If they can stop feuding with each other, that is.

    Tolkien, beloved author of THE HOBBIT. In SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR, Tolkien explores the gift of fantasy, and what it means to the life and character of the man who receives it. And FARMER GILES OF HAM tells a delightfully ribald mock-heroic tale, where a dragon who invades a town refuses to fight, and a farmer is chosen to slay him.Farmer Giles of Ham first published in 1949. Smith of Wootton Major was first published in November 1965.

    That is, until she meets Mercury, an anti-establishment angel who's frittering his time away whipping up batches of Rice Krispy Treats and perfecting his ping-pong backhand instead of doing his job: helping to orchestrate Armageddon. With the end near and angels and demons debating the finer political points of the Apocalypse, Christine and Mercury accidentally foil an attempt to assassinate one Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven-year-old film school dropout about to make his big break as the Antichrist. Now, to save the world, she must negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the obnoxious mouth-breathing Antichrist.

    See also "Monster."Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also "idiot."Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...

    Jim Pike, the disillusioned manager of a hotel that is hosting a Star Trek convention, finds himself leading a ragtag crew of survivors as a strange virus turns the convention-goers into zombies...

    And the late, great Allen Carpentier begins his one-way journey into the dim nether regions where flame-colored demons wield diabolically sharp pitchforks and tormented vixens reign forever in a pond of sheer ice. Here, in this land of torment and terror, he discovers the amazing truth of the ultimate adventure that lies beyond the grave.Frank Herbert -"The somber beauty of INFERNO brought up to the twentieth century with care and humor and with some sins Dante didn't even suspect."

    Now, in the face of impending climatic disaster, the Ring has uncovered a conspiracy potentially more destructive than any it has ever had to contend with. For eons, the mages of a neighboring universe have been looting the Earth of ideas, innovations and technologies - all the while manipulating events and creating devastating catastrophes for their own edification. And unless the brazen piracy is halted, our planet is certainly doomed. Aboard a modified city omnibus, a raiding party of adepts is dispatched to Arth, the stronghold of the interfering Pentarchy - a world ruled by magic, ritual and unbending tradition. And while the Inner Ring on Earth battles spies, traitors and the terrifying sendings of an evil, would-be queen, a motley group of commandoes launches a cynical attack on the virtue of the great citadel of Arth - determined to conquer the mighty fortress through internal dissension, psychological sabotage and kamikaze sex. But ultimately the destiny of two separate universes is in the hands of a trio of unlikely champions: a dotty old Earth woman, caretaker to many cats and a bizarre, simianlike familiar...a rebellious heir to the Pentarchy, whose birthright enables him to perform astonishing feats...and Zillah, a beautiful but troubled young mother who unknowingly possesses the wildest, strangest, and most powerful magic of all. A Sudden Wild Magic is a breathtakingly original, consistently delightful blend of fantasy and SF - a surprising, funny and warmly human adventure of wars, worlds and otherworlds that signals the dazzling emergence of a major new talent in the literary field of the fantastic.

    When troubled musician Alex Rossiter relocates to the Big Easy, he soon finds his rock star mojo working again. Not only is his new band attracting notice, he's also having affairs with two gorgeous women: the sexy voodoo queen Ti Alice, and beautiful businesswoman Charlotte "Charlie" Calder. But when Rossiter stumbles across a long-lost book of ancient spells, he unwittingly invites the evil spirit known as Tempter into his dreams--and, soon, his waking hours as well. Tempter is eager to escape his other-dimensional prison so he can once more slake his perverted lusts on the flesh of the living, starting with Charlie. It's up to Jerry Sloan--Rossiter's boyhood friend and Charlie's not-so-secret admirer--and the one-eyed hoodoo woman known as Mad Aggie to stop Tempter's evil plans before he destroys not Charlie but the descendants of the voodoo priestess who imprisoned him over a century ago. Together this unlikely duo must travel to the abandoned plantation deep in Louisiana's haunted bayou country, and face the dark secret that lies waiting for them, locked inside its rotting heart.

    He also knows that his meager psychic abilities aren't enough to identify the killers, much less stop them.Luckily, Mark has an ace up his sleeve: an attractive young romance novelist who happens to be a practicing witch. And not just any witch, either-Diana Tregarde is a Guardian, charged with protecting the Earth and all its creatures. Using modern science and ancient magics, Diana and Mark discover that they are tailing no ordinary serial killer but the awakened avatar of an Aztec god. Tezcatlipoca and his four beautiful handmaidens are preparing for a great sacrifice that will transform North America into a new Aztec realm.Diana isn't sure her powers are strong enough to take on those of a risen Aztec god, but she has no choice. As a Guardian, she is sworn to protect mankind, even at the cost of her own life. Luckily, she does not stand alone. Mark Valdez is more than just a cop. And Tezcatlipoca is not the only Aztec god walking in the world.

    The new Thanatos is superbly competent, ends pain when he ends lives. But Satan is forging a trap for Luna, the woman Death loves.

    A talented, elite cadre, they stepped out of the everyday human race...to enter their own!