Rudolf Lidl This is a survey, accessible to junior/senior undergraduate students and containing many examples, solved exercises, and sets of problems, of some parts of abstract algebra that are of use in many other areas of discrete mathematics. Three major themes are particularly relevant to computer science, Boolean algebras and switching circuits, finite fields and algebraic coding, and semigroups and automata. The topics of the book can be studied independently of each other, although the book is a mathematics book, the authors have made great efforts to address the needs of the users of the techniques that are being discussed. There is a special emphasis on fully worked out computational examples. More than 500 exercises accompany the 40 sections. This new edition includes major changes to the first edition: corrections and improvements to the first four chapters, a new chapter on Cryptology, and an enlarged chapter on Applications of Groups. An extensive chapter has been added to survey other (mostly recent) applications, many of which were not included in the first edition, nor are commonly found in undergraduate texts. The book assumes knowledge of the material covered in a course on linear algebra and, preferably, a first course in (abstract) algebra covering the basics of groups, rings, and fields.

M. John Harrison In M. John Harrison’s dangerously illuminating new novel, three quantum outlaws face a universe of their own creation, a universe where you make up the rules as you go along and break them just as fast, where there’s only one thing more mysterious than darkness.

In contemporary London, Michael Kearney is a serial killer on the run from the entity that drives him to kill. He is seeking escape in a future that doesn’t yet exist—a quantum world that he and his physicist partner hope to access through a breach of time and space itself. In this future, Seria Mau Genlicher has already sacrificed her body to merge into the systems of her starship, the White Cat. But the “inhuman” K-ship captain has gone rogue, pirating the galaxy while playing cat and mouse with the authorities who made her what she is. In this future, Ed Chianese, a drifter and adventurer, has ridden dynaflow ships, run old alien mazes, surfed stellar envelopes. He “went deep”—and lived to tell about it. Once crazy for life, he’s now just a twink on New Venusport, addicted to the bizarre alternate realities found in the tanks—and in debt to all the wrong people.

Haunting them all through this maze of menace and mystery is the shadowy presence of the Shrander—and three enigmatic clues left on the barren surface of an asteroid under an ocean of light known as the Kefahuchi Tract: a deserted spaceship, a pair of bone dice, and a human skeleton.

Tom Stoppard

Brian Greenstone

Richard P. Feynman This set couples a book containing the six easiest chapters from Richard Feynman's landmark work, Lectures on Physics—specifically designed for the general, non-scientist reader—with the actual recordings of the late, great physicist delivering the lectures on which the chapters are based. The six compact discs are "music" CDs, not CD-ROMs. Nobel Laureate and genius-at-large Richard Feynman gave these lectures just once, to a group of Caltech undergraduates in 1961 and 1962. He is a startlingly lucid, agile, contagiously enthusiastic communicator, and hearing him deliver these lectures himself in his broad New York accent is a great experience.

Matt Groening Find out the astonishing answer in...

Work Is Hell

Another Mini-Jumbo Compendium of Hellish Cartons by That Darn Matt Groening

This Massive Behemoth Of A Book Contains Dozens Of Peculiar Yet Insightful Comic Strips — many of which will make you laugh out loud no matter how lousy your job is.

Work is Hell contains a full 48 of the funniest, side-splittingest, tickle-boniest cartoons from Matt Groaning's "Life in Hell""RM" comic strip (seen weekly in newspapers from coast to coast), printed in a deluxe. easy-to-read, 9-inch-by-9-inch format. Not only do you get all 10 chapters of the overstuffed "Work is Hell" miniseries, you also get more than 3 dozen bonus cartoons — at no additional cost. Act now. This offer may not be repeated. Work is Hell is presented in stunning, unpretentious black-and-white, and will make you look hip if you leave it lying around casually on the coffee table. Act now. This offer may not be repeated. Act now.

Olaudah Equiano More than just a fascinating story, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography — the first slave narrative to be widely read — reveals many aspects of the eighteenth-century Western world through the experiences of one individual. This edition is the first in more than twenty-five years to offer the complete text of the Lifetogether with a comprehensive twenty-page introduction and useful editorial apparatus designed to help students get the most out of this important work. Also included are illustrations, a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index.

Steve Moore

Alan Axelrod Charles Phillips If you've ever thought American history was as dry as the dust on an old battlefield, guess again. This engaging collection of 200 bite-sized-yet-satisfying descriptions of pivotal events includes "Leif Ericson Explores Vinland,""The American Revolution Begins,""Montgomery Ward Starts a Mail-order Business,"&quotBetty Friedan Publishes The Feminine Mystique," and "The Cold War Ends." As Axelrod and Phillips state in their introduction, "all are events any American should know about and appreciate to understand fully his or her own pursuit of happiness, the foundation of that elusive American dream so often celebrated in our literature and so seldom fulfilled in our history." And what about the 201st event? The afterword offers the Gulf War, the Rodney King trial, and even Johnny Carson's retirement from the Tonight Showas candidates. As the authors explain, "Significant events are more often like good wines; they age well and taste better later."

Jon Pertwee

Stephan Korner Lucid and comprehensive essay surveys the views of Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant on the nature of mathematics; examines the propositions and theories of the schools these philosophers inspired; and concludes with a discussion on the relation between mathematical theories, empirical data and philosophical presuppositions.

Matt Boyd Ian McConville Six young men live in Mac Hall, a high-occupancy dormitory on an unnamed college campus. Packed like sardines in a can, they have little comfort or privacy, let alone dignity. Still, they deal as best they can with class, life, and the occasional reality warp... when they manage to get off the couch.

Mike Sharples Computers and Thought: A Practical Introduction to Artificial Intelligenceis one of the few artificial intelligence textbooks that describes cognitive models in detail. However, one of the book's shortcomings is that it uses POP-11, an obscure Lisp-like programming language, to create the example programs. To read the example programs, you will first have to slog through a tutorial on POP-11 and, because you will probably not have a POP-11 compiler, you will not be able to try out the examples. The bulk of the book is dedicated to describing standard artificial intelligence topics, such as search and knowledge representation.

Alan Moore David Lloyd V for Vendettais, like its author's later Watchmen, a landmark in comic-book writing. Alan Moore has led the field in intelligent, politically astute (if slightly paranoid), complex adult comic-book writing since the early 1980s. He began Vback in 1981 and it constituted one of his first attempts (along with the criminally neglected but equally superb Miracleman) at writing an ongoing series. It is 1998 (which was the future back then!) and a Fascist government has taken over the U.K. The only blot on its particular landscape is a lone terrorist who is systematically killing all the government personnel associated with a now destroyed secret concentration camp. Codename V is out for vengeance ... and an awful lot more. Vfeels slightly dated like all past premonitions do. The original series was black and white and that added to the grittiness of the feel while the coloring here in the graphic novel sometimes blurs David Lloyd's fine drawing. But theseare small concerns. Skillfully plotted, Vis an essential read for all those who love comics and the freedom, as a medium, they allow a writer as skilled as Moore. —Mark Thwaite

Dan Brown With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.

A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown (Angels and Demons) has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries—from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. —Jeremy Pugh

Leo Tolstoy

Al Franken Having previously dissected the factual inaccuracies of a single bellicose talk show host in Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Al Franken takes his fight to a larger foe: President George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, Ann Coulter, Bill O‚ÄôReilly, and scores of other conservatives whom, he says, are playing loose with the facts. It's a lot of ground to cover, as evidenced by the 43 chapters in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, but the results are often entertaining and insightful. Franken occupies a unique place in the modern political dialogue as perhaps the media's only comedy writer and performer who is also a Harvard fellow as well as a liberal political commentator. This unique and vaguely lonely position lends a charming quixotic quality to adventures such as a tense encounter with the Fox News staff at the National Press Club, a challenge to fisticuffs with National Review Editor Rich Lowry, and an oddly sweet admissions visit to ultra-conservative Bob Jones University (with a young research assistant posing as his son when Franken's real-life son refuses to participate in the charade). Less useful are comic book dramatizations of "Supply Side Jesus" and a fictitious Vietnam War story featuring the numerous righties who, Franken intimates, improperly avoided service. And Franken's criticisms of conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity, O‚ÄôReilly, and columnist Coulter, while admirable in their attention to detail, fail to shed much new light on people who have built careers on broad arguments and relentless self-aggrandizement. But Franken is at his best, and most compellingly readable, when he backs off the wackiness and the personal grudges and writes about more personal matters such as the political circus surrounding the memorial service of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. But even on these more serious topics, Franken's wit is still present and, in fact, grows sharper. In a time when much political discourse is composed of rage and shouting, it's refreshing that Al Franken is able to shout in a witty manner. —John Moe

C.S. Forester Captain Hornblower, after two hard years on blockade at Brest, has relinquished the helm of the Hotspur. He has no ship, only the promise of one. Meanwhile there are battles to be fought.

This reading of HORNBLOWER DURING THE CRISIS includes two other stories, "Hornblower's Temptation" and "The Last Encounter," all published after C.S. Forester's death in 1966.

"Because Forester died before completing this novel, the reader is left with a summary sketch and his own imagination for final details of the plot. For Forester devotees, this will not detract from the essential verve and dash of Hornblower's last chase." (The Christian Science Monitor)

Tom Stoppard

BILLY COLLINS

Neal Stephenson

PHILIP PULLMAN Some books improve with age—the age of the reader, that is. Such is certainly the case with Philip Pullman's heroic, at times heart-wrenching novel, The Golden Compass, a story ostensibly for children but one perhaps even better appreciated by adults. The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own—nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal d√¶mon, the manifestation of their soul in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied:

As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them.

Not that Lyra spends much time worrying about it; what she likes best is "clambering over the College roofs with Roger the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war." But Lyra's carefree existence changes forever when she and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey dæmon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from "gyptians" to witches to an armor-clad polar bear.

In The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman has written a masterpiece that transcends genre. It is a children's book that will appeal to adults, a fantasy novel that will charm even the most hardened realist. Best of all, the author doesn't speak down to his audience, nor does he pull his punches; there is genuine terror in this book, and heartbreak, betrayal, and loss. There is also love, loyalty, and an abiding morality that infuses the story but never overwhelms it. This is one of those rare novels that one wishes would never end. Fortunately, its sequel, The Subtle Knife, will help put off that inevitability for a while longer. —Alix Wilber

Justin Richards

Yann Martel Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

An award winner in Canada, Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish—other than salvation—was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. —Brad Thomas Parsons

JAMES CLAVELL

Christopher Paolini Here's a great big fantasy that you can pull over your head like a comfy old sweater and disappear into for a whole weekend. Christopher Paolini began Eragonwhen he was just 15, and the book shows the influence of Tolkien, of course, but also Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and perhaps even Wagner in its traditional quest structure and the generally agreed-upon nature of dwarves, elves, dragons, and heroic warfare with magic swords.

Eragon, a young farm boy, finds a marvelous blue stone in a mystical mountain place. Before he can trade it for food to get his family through the hard winter, it hatches a beautiful sapphire-blue dragon, a race thought to be extinct. Eragon bonds with the dragon, and when his family is killed by the marauding Ra'zac, he discovers that he is the last of the Dragon Riders, fated to play a decisive part in the coming war between the human but hidden Varden, dwarves, elves, the diabolical Shades and their neanderthal Urgalls, all pitted against and allied with each other and the evil King Galbatorix. Eragon and his dragon Saphira set out to find their role, growing in magic power and understanding of the complex political situation as they endure perilous travels and sudden battles, dire wounds, capture and escape.

In spite of the engrossing action, this is not a book for the casual fantasy reader. There are 65 names of people, horses, and dragons to be remembered and lots of pseudo-Celtic places, magic words, and phrases in the Ancient Language as well as the speech of the dwarfs and the Urgalls. But the maps and glossaries help, and by the end, readers will be utterly dedicated and eager for the next book, Eldest. (Ages 10 to 14) —Patty Campbell

Joe Haldeman With prose "as clear and engaging as his ideas" (New York Times Book Review), award-winning author Joe Haldeman blends scientific fact and far-seeing fiction as he pulls readers into a mind-shattering undersea mystery-from outer space... 

An unidentified artifact, found seven miles below the surface of the sea, stumps the scientists examining it. 

But it calls out to the two immortal creatures who have wandered the Earth for centuries. Two creatures who have never crossed paths-until now...

Peter F. Hamilton Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such sf giants as Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. But Hamilton’s bestselling fiction—powered by a fearless imagination and world-class storytelling skills—has also earned him comparison to Tolstoy and Dickens. Hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, philosophically stimulating: the novels of Peter F. Hamilton will change the way you think about science fiction. Now, with Pandora’s Star, he begins a new multivolume adventure, one that promises to be his most mind-blowing yet. 

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some four hundred light-years in diameter, contains more than six hundred worlds, interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears. Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot whose glory days are centuries behind him.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they call the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship’s mission for its own ends,.

Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted. Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated. Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself. 

Could it be that Johansson was right?

From the Hardcover edition.

Orson Scott Card Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.

For Earth was at war - a terrible war with an inscrutable alien enemy. A war that humanity was near to losing. But the long distances of interstellar space has given hope to the defenders of Earth - they had time to train military geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high-orbital facility called the Battle School. That story is told in two books, the beloved classic ENDER'S GAME, and its parallel, ENDER'S SHADOW.

Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School, but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand, Since then he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family - something he has never known - but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies - old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth. To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.

Peter F. Hamilton Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such sf giants as Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. But Hamilton’s bestselling fiction—powered by a fearless imagination and world-class storytelling skills—has also earned him comparison to Tolstoy and Dickens. Hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, philosophically stimulating: the novels of Peter F. Hamilton will change the way you think about science fiction. Now, with Pandora’s Star, he begins a new multivolume adventure, one that promises to be his most mind-blowing yet. 

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some four hundred light-years in diameter, contains more than six hundred worlds, interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears. Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot whose glory days are centuries behind him.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they call the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship’s mission for its own ends,.

Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted. Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated. Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself. 

Could it be that Johansson was right?

From the Hardcover edition.

Neal Stephenson In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-—all before the year 1700.

In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel.

The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. —Patrick O'Kelley

Thomas H. Cormen Charles E. Leiserson Ronald L. Rivest If you had to buy just one text on algorithms, Introduction to Algorithms is a magnificent choice. The book begins by considering the mathematical foundations of the analysis of algorithms and maintains this mathematical rigor throughout the work. The tools developed in these opening sections are then applied to sorting, data structures, graphs, and a variety of selected algorithms including computational geometry, string algorithms, parallel models of computation, fast Fourier transforms (FFTs), and more.

This book's strength lies in its encyclopedic range, clear exposition, and powerful analysis. Pseudo-code explanation of the algorithms coupled with proof of their accuracy makes this book is a great resource on the basic tools used to analyze the performance of algorithms.

JAMES JOYCE

Garrison Keillor

Chuck Palahniuk The only person who gets called Ballardesque more often than Chuck Palahniuk is, well... J.G. Ballard. So, does Portland, Oregon's "torchbearer for the nihilistic generation" deserve that kind of treatment? Yes and no. There is a resemblance between Fight Club and works such as Crash and Cocaine Nights in that both see the innocuous mundanities of everyday life as nothing more than the severely loosened cap on a seething underworld cauldron of unchecked impulse and social atrocity. Welcome to the present-day U.S. of A. As Ballard's characters get their jollies from staging automobile accidents, Palahniuk's yuppies unwind from a day at the office by organizing bloodsport rings and selling soap to fund anarchist overthrows. Let's just say that neither of these guys are going to be called in to do a Full House script rewrite any time soon.

But while the ingredients are the same, Ballard and Palahniuk bake at completely different temperatures. Unlike his British counterpart, who tends to cast his American protagonists in a chilly light, holding them close enough to dissect but far enough away to eliminate any possibility of kinship, Palahniuk isn't happy unless he's first-person front and center, completely entangled in the whole sordid mess.An intensely psychological novel that never runs the risk of becoming clinical, Fight Club is about both the dangers of loyalty and the dreaded weight of leadership, the desire to band together and the compulsion to head for the hills. In short, it's about the pride and horror of being an American, rendered in lethally swift prose. Fight Club's protagonist might occasionally become foggy about who he truly is (you'll see what I mean), but one thing is for certain: you're not likely to forget the book's author. Never mind Ballardesque. Palahniukian here we come! —Bob Michaels

Neal Stephenson

Eve Ensler "I say vagina because I want people to respond," says playwright Eve Ensler, creator of the hilarious, disturbing soliloquies in The Vagina Monologues, a book based on her one-woman play. And respond they do—with horror, anger, censure, and sparks of wonder and pleasure. Ensler is on a fervent mission to elevate and celebrate this much mumbled-about body part. She asked hundreds of women of all ages a series of questions about their vaginas (What do you call it? How would you dress it?) that prompt some wondrous answers. Standouts among the euphemisms are tamale, split knish, choochi snorcher, Gladys Siegelman—Gladys Siegelman?—and, of course, that old standby "down there.""Down there?" asks a composite character springing from several older women. "I haven't been down there since 1953. No, it had nothing to do with [American president] Eisenhower." Two of the most powerful pieces include a jagged poem stitched together from the memories of a Bosnian woman raped by soldiers and an American woman sexually abused as a child who reclaims her vagina as a place of wild joy.

KAREN MCCOSKER NICHOLAS ALBERY

the writers of The Daily Show Jon Stewart

Mike Richardson Randy Stradley Paul Gulacy Randy Emberlin

Neil Gaiman

Lois McMaster Bujold

NEAL STEPHENSON From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet—incarnate as the Metaverse—looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist—hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.

NEAL STEPHENSON John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change.

Douglas Hofstadter A lucid, highly readable exploration of the computer models of discovery, creation, and analogical thought developed by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bachand the Fluid Analogies Research Group. The book features anagram and number puzzles, analogy puzzles involving letter strings or tabletop objects, and fanciful alphabetic styles.

"A remarkable book. At first I said 'too technical and specialized,' but hours later I found I couldn't stop reading.... A marvelous book, illuminating oddities of thought and raising them to profound insights into the nature of human creativity."—Donald A. Norman, Apple Fellow; Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego

MICHAEL MALONE Apple Computer has made for good copy over the years. From its beginnings in the garage owned by Steve Jobs's parents and the launch of the Macintosh to the regimes of John Scully and Gil Amelio, Apple's story is irresistible and has been captured in books such as The Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz, The Macintosh Way by Guy Kawasaki, Insanely Great by Steven Levy, and Apple by Jim Carlton. Now in Infinite Loop, Michael S. Malone offers what may be the best rendition yet of Apple's storied past.

Malone's account begins deep in the heart of Santa Clara Valley and the early lives of Apple's two founders, Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Malone seamlessly interlaces his accounts of the forces that shaped the two Steves—from the nascent electronics industry of the '60s and companies such as Sylvania and Hewlett Packard to Jobs's work at Atari and his repeated, and often deceitful, manipulation of his genius friend, the Woz. From these early beginnings, Malone takes the reader through the life of Apple Computer: its founding and launch of the Apple I, the return of Steve Jobs, the rollout of the iMac. In the end, Malone, a journalist who grew up in Silicon Valley and first covered Apple in 1979, writes that Apple was a company with lots of attitude but one that was bereft of character, and only when that fact was laid bare "did the essential hollowness of the enterprise stand exposed." Infinite Loop is a wonderfully written, even gripping, corporate biography that anyone who has fallen under Apple's spell will enjoy. Recommended. —Harry C. Edwards

Markos Kounalakis Doug Menuez

Brian Jepson Ernest E. Rothman It's about time: Mac OS X for Unix Geeksarrives on the scene none too soon for UNIX aficionados who, having heard that the latest editions of Mac OS are based on a UNIX variant, want to see how the platform compares to more venerable versions of the eminently configurable operating system. This book highlights some key differences between the Darwin environment and more conventional UNIXs, enabling people with UNIX experience to take advantage of it as they learn the Mac OS X way of doing things at the command line.

This skinny volume neither aims to teach its readers UNIX nor introduce them to the Mac, but rather to show how Apple has implemented UNIX. It's a fast read that assumes—as the title implies—rather a lot of UNIX knowledge. With that requirement satisfied and this book in hand, you're likely to discover aspects of Aqua more quickly than you otherwise would have.

The authors spend lots of time explaining how administrative tasks—such as managing groups, users, and passwords—are handled in the Mac OS environment. They document netinfofully, and call attention to its limitations (like its inability to create home directories for users) by explaining how to do the job on the command line. They also cover C programming in the Darwin universe at greater length than any other book does, providing explicit instructions for such important tasks as creating header files and linking static libraries. A guide to the command line (they call the reference section—groan——"The Missing Manpages") provides good value at this book's conclusion. —David Wall

Topics covered:How to get around in Darwin, the UNIX implementation built into Mac OS X. Sections deal with basic maneuvering at the command line, LDAP services, C programming, and graphical user interfaces under Aqua. There's a short section on building the kernel itself, but it's limited in scope.

Julie McKeehan Neil Rhodes

Apple Computer Inc

Jim Carlton Jim Apple Carlton Computer users who favor Macintosh products are truly enthralled with their machines. But after reading Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders, even the most zealous may be hard-pressed to defend the company that produces them. Here, Wall Street Journal technology reporter Jim Carlton chronicles the missteps that have befuddled the fallen giant of Cupertino between the initial and current regimes of cofounder Steve Jobs. Carlton combines a keen sense of observation with a slew of previously undisclosed facts to produce a damning history that will leave many wondering how the firm has managed to survive.

Frank Rose

Andrew Leonard Andrew Leonard Cyberspace is now heavily populated with non-human residents known as bots. Bots are software robots that facilitate e-mail, entertain visitors, fight for control of IRC chat rooms or flood your e- mail box with spam. Andrew Leonard is the Charles Darwin of bots, chronicling their rise from the primordial cyber-ooze to their becoming major players as both drudge workers and nuisances of the computerized world.

The world of bots and their creators is filled with serious issues pertaining to online freedom, and is sometimes downright disturbing, but it is also often hilariously funny. The author takes us from the problems of recognizing artificial intelligence to the almost slapstick comedy of programming bungles. Leonard deftly reveals it all in a book that's extremely hard to put down.

Harry Y., Jr. McSween

Stephen William Hawking Stephen Hawking, science's first real rock star, may be the least-read bestselling author in history—it—it's no secret that many people who own A Brief History of Timehave never finished it. Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshellaims to remedy the situation, with a plethora of friendly illustrations to help readers grok some of the most brain-bending ideas ever conceived.

Does it succeed? Yes and no. While Hawking offers genuinely accessible context for such complexities as string theory and the nature of time, it's when he must translate equations to sentences that the limits of language get in the way. But Hawking has simplified the origin of the universe, the nature of space and time, and what holds it all together to an unprecedented degree, inviting nonscientists to share his obvious awe and love of the unseen forces that shape it all.

Yes, it's difficult reading, but it's worth it. Hawking is one of the great geniuses of our time, a man whose life has been devoted to thinking in the abstract about the universe. With his help, and pictures—lots of pictures—we can seek to understand a bit more of the cosmos. —Therese Littleton

Margaret Atwood

Chuck Palahniuk Chuck Palahniuk’s world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. In his first collection of nonfiction, Chuck Palahniuk brings us into this world, and gives us a glimpse of what inspires his fiction.

At the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival in Missoula, Montana, average people perform public sex acts on an outdoor stage. In a mansion once occupied by The Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson reads his own Tarot cards and talks sweetly to his beautiful actress girlfriend. Across the country, men build their own full-size castles and rocketships that will send them into space. Palahniuk himself experiments with steroids, works on an assembly line by day and as a hospice volunteer by night, and experiences the brutal murder of his father by a white supremacist. With this new direction, Chuck Palahniuk has proven he can do anything.

Spider Robinson This omnibus edition collects Spider Robinson's first three books about the Long Island bar that attracts the weirdest clientele and the tallest tales in the known universe. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Time Travelers Strictly Cash, and Callahan's Secret are playful, pun-filled delights from the pen of a truly inimitable writer, winner of the Skylark and John W. Campbell awards.

Grant Morrison

Christopher Moore While the Bible may be the word of God, transcribed by divinely inspired men, it does not provide a full (or even partial) account of the life of Jesus Christ. Lucky for us that Christopher Moore presents a funny, lighthearted satire of the life of Christ—from his childhood days up to his crucifixion—in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. This clever novel is surely blasphemy to some, but to others it's a coming-of-age story of the highest order.

Joshua (a.k.a. Jesus) knows he is unique and quite alone in his calling, but what exactly does his Father want of him? Taking liberties with ancient history, Moore works up an adventure tale as Biff and Joshua seek out the three wise men so that Joshua can better understand what he is supposed to do as Messiah. Biff, a capable sinner, tags along and gives Joshua ample opportunities to know the failings and weaknesses of being truly human. With a wit similar to Douglas Adams, Moore pulls no punches: a young Biff has the hots for Joshua's mom, Mary, which doesn't amuse Josh much: "Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Prince of Peace never struck anyone." And the origin of the Easter Bunny is explained as a drunken Jesus gushes his affection for bunnies, declaring, "Henceforth and from now on, I decree that whenever something bad happens to me, there shall be bunnies around."

One small problem with the narrative is that Biff and Joshua often do not have distinct voices. A larger difficulty is that as the tone becomes more somber with Joshua's life drawing to its inevitable close, the one-liners, though not as numerous, seem forced. True to form, Lamb keeps the story of Joshua light, even after its darkest moments. —Michael Ferch

Robert M. Pirsig In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details—be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century—why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. —Brian Bruya

Albert Einstein Alice Calaprice The Quotable Einstein is a complete compendium of quotes from the great physicist, organized thematically, usefully indexed, and thorough in its inclusion and documentation of attributed material, sources, and dates. As a resource for the Einstein scholar or hardcore fan, The Quotable Einstein will prove invaluable. As a book for browsing, it puts the profound thoughts of Einstein on topics scientific and spiritual beside the mundane mutterings of any normal biped. This juxtaposition emphasizes both the man's unique genius and his common humanity.

John Keats 'I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epic Hyperion. Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as 'one of the half dozen greatest English writers,' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats's greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats's magnificent verse: 'Lamia,''Isabella,' and 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary 'The Eve of Saint Mark' and the great 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. 'No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,' said Matthew Arnold. 'In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.'

C. S. Forester A shy and lonely seventeen-year-old, Horatio Hornblower embarks on a memorable career in Nelson's navy as a midshipman on board H.M.S. Justinian. In action adventure and battle he is forged into one of the most formidable junior officers in the service.

C.S. Forester "In this, the tenth volume in C.S. Forester's series of classic naval adventure tales, Horatio Hornblower must rescue a man he knows to be a tyrant from the mutiny of his crew—a dubious chore, but one that leads Hornblower, with the aid of his old love, Marie, to the glorious conclusion of his own battle with Napoleon."

Peter F. Hamilton Peter Hamilton's space opera saga, which began with the Reality Dysfunction, Part 1: Emergenceand Part 2: Expansion, continues in The Neutronium Alchemist, another two-volume novel. Now the battle lines are clearly drawn, and more than half a dozen plot lines are charging ahead as humanity's galaxy-spanning culture faces a terrifying revelation: souls of the dead are returning from the beyond to possess the living. The living, though competent and brave in the best science fiction tradition, must contend with history's greatest generals and leaders, as well as some unexpected champions. Al Capone, it seems, makes an excellent interstellar emperor. How do you fight an enemy whose every soldier is also a hostage and who, if killed, will simply return to possess someone else? The dilemmas are not just technical, but moral, as people face the first real proof of life after death.

This conflict is far broader, though, than a simple apocalyptic battle of good versus evil. Among the possessors are some good souls who fight the risen dead even though it's against their best interest. Conversely, plenty of the living see siding with the dead as an opportunity to further their own interests. Action, wonders, and mystery continue to characterize this high-quality series. —Brooks Peck

Jeanette Winterson The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. "At once a love story and a philosophical meditation."—New York Times Book Review.

Hugh Aldersey-Williams

ALAN DEUTSCHMAN For the legions who revere Apple Computer's high-profile cofounder as a godlike figure, the aptly titled Second Coming of Steve Jobs will prove an intriguing picture of a seminal time in their deity's roller-coaster life. It should emphatically vindicate their deeply held faith in the man and his ideas. But even for those with a lesser opinion, Alan Deutschman offers an interesting and enlightening look at the crucial period from Jobs's unceremonious Apple exit through his triumphant return. Deutschman, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine and longtime Silicon Valley correspondent, interviewed nearly 100 colleagues and friends to draw this portrait of a bewilderingly complex and notoriously private man—albeit one whose talents, personality traits, and idiosyncrasies have long been on public display. "He succeeded in becoming the Jackie Kennedy Onassis of business and technology," Deutschman writes, "a figure who was ubiquitous as a symbol of his times but little known as a human being." To change that, he looks into Jobs's ill-fated first post-Apple endeavor at the Next computer company, his return to undeniable respectability with Pixar and the two Toy Story movies, and finally, his ultimate absolution with a very successful reclamation of the Apple crown. It's a revealing account of a singular individual during a remarkable time. —Howard Rothman

William Gibson Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace—and science fiction has never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway—jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way—and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance—and a cure—for a price....

David Berlinski Were it not for the calculus, mathematicians would have no way to describe the acceleration of a motorcycle or the effect of gravity on thrown balls and distant planets, or to prove that a man could cross a room and eventually touch the opposite wall. Just how calculus makes these things possible and in doing so finds a correspondence between real numbers and the real world is the subject of this dazzling book by a writer of extraordinary clarity and stylistic brio. Even as he initiates us into the mysteries of real numbers, functions, and limits, Berlinski explores the furthest implications of his subject, revealing how the calculus reconciles the precision of numbers with the fluidity of the changing universe. 

"An odd and tantalizing book by a writer who takes immense pleasure in this great mathematical tool, and tries to create it in others."—New York Times Book Review

Aimed at serious outdoor lovers, the described routes assume some familiarity with backpacking. The trips range from one night to two weeks, and cover the Coast Ranges from Mexico to Oregon, the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and the Warner Mountains, including portions of the Pacific Crest Trail, the High Sierra Trail, and the John Muir Trail. Some are old favorites, others are published here for the first time.

Brief biographies introduce you to the venerable Wilderness Press authors who will be your guides. Their unique and personable styles reflect a labor of love, and their helpful tips reveal extensive backpacking expertise.

Edited by Paul Backhurst, trail descriptions are arranged in a clear and readable format. Each trip includes a trail map showing the trailhead, route, and terminus; campsites; mileage; and an at-a-glance hiking difficulty chart.

Bill Watterson The week it hit the stores, Weirdos from Another Planet! touched down at No. 1 on Walden's and B. Dalton's bestseller lists and No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. How do you top such success? With The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, a large-format treasury of the cartoons from Yukon Ho! and Weirdos from Another Planet! (including full-color Sunday cartoons) plus a full-color original story unique to this collection. Its reservation on the top of the national bestseller lists is already confirmed! Millions of readers have responded ot the tremendous talent of Bill Watterson. His skill as both artist and writer brings to life a boy, his tiger, and the imagination and memories of his ardent readers. After five years of syndication and six bestselling collections, The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes picks up where The Essential Calvin and Hobbes left off - bringing more of the irresistible antics of Calvin and his magical sidekick Hobbes to millions of eager fans around the globe. As the strip's phenomenal success witnesses, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes is the authority on humor.

Richard McMahon Detailed information on 800 public campgrounds in Northern California accessible by car. Guide for everyone from tenters to RVers.

Frank Miller Sin Citylaunched the long-running, critically acclaimed series of comics novels by Frank Miller. Having worked on some of the most important comic books in the 1980s, including Marvel Comics's Daredeviland the influential Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, Miller was already a heavy-weight cartoonist, but he hit his stride with Sin City. It gave him the freedom that doesn't come when working on someone else's characters. While the art isn't as polished as in later books, it is in many ways the quintessential Sin City story: tough-guy Marv finds the girl of his dreams, an incredible beauty named Goldie. But when Goldie is murdered on their first night together, Marv scours the bars and back alleys of Sin City to find her killer in hopes of avenging her death.

Makoto Yukimura Anna Wenger

James Gleick Few writers distinguish themselves by their ability to write about complicated, even obscure topics clearly and engagingly. James Gleick, a former science writer for the New York Times, resides in this exclusive category. In Chaos, he takes on the job of depicting the first years of the study of chaos—the seemingly random patterns that characterize many natural phenomena.

This is not a purely technical book. Instead, it focuses as much on the scientists studying chaos as on the chaos itself. In the pages of Gleick's book, the reader meets dozens of extraordinary and eccentric people. For instance, Mitchell Feigenbaum, who constructed and regulated his life by a 26-hour clock and watched his waking hours come in and out of phase with those of his coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As for chaos itself, Gleick does an outstanding job of explaining the thought processes and investigative techniques that researchers bring to bear on chaos problems. Rather than attempt to explain Julia sets, Lorenz attractors, and the Mandelbrot Set with gigantically complicated equations, Chaosrelies on sketches, photographs, and Gleick's wonderful descriptive prose.

Makoto Yukimura

Makoto Yukimura

J. K. Rowling Mary GrandPré As his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry approaches, 15-year-old Harry Potter is in full-blown adolescence, complete with regular outbursts of rage, a nearly debilitating crush, and the blooming of a powerful sense of rebellion. It's been yet another infuriating and boring summer with the despicable Dursleys, this time with minimal contact from our hero's non-Muggle friends from school. Harry is feeling especially edgy at the lack of news from the magic world, wondering when the freshly revived evil Lord Voldemort will strike. Returning to Hogwarts will be a relief... or will it?

The fifth book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series follows the darkest year yet for our young wizard, who finds himself knocked down a peg or three after the events of last year. Somehow, over the summer, gossip (usually traced back to the magic world's newspaper, the Daily Prophet) has turned Harry's tragic and heroic encounter with Voldemort at the Triwizard Tournament into an excuse to ridicule and discount the teen. Even Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of the school, has come under scrutiny by the Ministry of Magic, which refuses to officially acknowledge the terrifying truth that Voldemort is back. Enter a particularly loathsome new character: the toadlike and simpering ("hem, hem") Dolores Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, who takes over the vacant position of Defense Against Dark Arts teacher—and in no time manages to become the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, as well. Life isn't getting any easier for Harry Potter. With an overwhelming course load as the fifth years prepare for their Ordinary Wizarding Levels examinations (O.W.Ls), devastating changes in the Gryffindor Quidditch team lineup, vivid dreams about long hallways and closed doors, and increasing pain in his lightning-shaped scar, Harry's resilience is sorely tested.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, more than any of the four previous novels in the series, is a coming-of-age story. Harry faces the thorny transition into adulthood, when adult heroes are revealed to be fallible, and matters that seemed black-and-white suddenly come out in shades of gray. Gone is the wide-eyed innocent, the whiz kid of Sorcerer's Stone. Here we have an adolescent who's sometimes sullen, often confused (especially about girls), and always self-questioning. Confronting death again, as well as a startling prophecy, Harry ends his year at Hogwarts exhausted and pensive. Readers, on the other hand, will be energized as they enter yet again the long waiting period for the next title in the marvelous, magical series. (Ages 9 and older) —Emilie Coulter

J. K. Rowling Mary GrandPré Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the nonmagic human world—the world of "Muggles"—Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is famous as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities, and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoiled, piglike cousin Dudley.

A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig... and that's where the real adventure—humorous, haunting, and suspenseful—begins. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, first published in England as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, continues to win major awards in England. So far it has won the National Book Award, the Smarties Prize, the Children's Book Award, and is short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, the U.K. version of the Newbery Medal. This magical, gripping, brilliant book—a future classic to be sure—will leave kids clamoring for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (Ages 8 to 13) —Karin Snelson

J. K. Rowling Mary GrandPré For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.

As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black—an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban—is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) —Karin Snelson

J. K. Rowling Mary GrandPré In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling offers up equal parts danger and delight—and any number of dragons, house-elves, and death-defying challenges. Now 14, her orphan hero has only two more weeks with his Muggle relatives before returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yet one night a vision harrowing enough to make his lightning-bolt-shaped scar burn has Harry on edge and contacting his godfather-in-hiding, Sirius Black. Happily, the prospect of attending the season's premier sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, is enough to make Harry momentarily forget that Lord Voldemort and his sinister familiars—the Death Eaters—are out for murder.

Readers, we will cast a giant invisibility cloak over any more plot and reveal only that You-Know-Who is very much after Harry and that this year there will be no Quidditch matches between Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Instead, Hogwarts will vie with two other magicians' schools, the stylish Beauxbatons and the icy Durmstrang, in a Triwizard Tournament. Those chosen to compete will undergo three supreme tests. Could Harry be one of the lucky contenders?

But Quidditch buffs need not go into mourning: we get our share of this great game at the World Cup. Attempting to go incognito as Muggles, 100,000 witches and wizards converge on a "nice deserted moor." As ever, Rowling magicks up the details that make her world so vivid, and so comic. Several spectators' tents, for instance, are entirely unquotidian. One is a minipalace, complete with live peacocks; another has three floors and multiple turrets. And the sports paraphernalia on offer includes rosettes "squealing the names of the players" as well as "tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectible figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening themselves." Needless to say, the two teams are decidedly different, down to their mascots. Bulgaria is supported by the beautiful veela, who instantly enchant everyone—including Ireland's supporters—over to their side. Until, that is, thousands of tiny cheerleaders engage in some pyrotechnics of their own: "The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field."

Long before her fourth installment appeared, Rowling warned that it would be darker, and it's true that every exhilaration is equaled by a moment that has us fearing for Harry's life, the book's emotions running as deep as its dangers. Along the way, though, she conjures up such new characters as Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a Dark Wizard catcher who may or may not be getting paranoid in his old age, and Rita Skeeter, who beetles around Hogwarts in search of stories. (This Daily Prophet scoop artist has a Quick-Quotes Quill that turns even the most innocent assertion into tabloid innuendo.) And at her bedazzling close, Rowling leaves several plot strands open, awaiting book 5. This fan is ready to wager that the author herself is part veela—her pen her wand, her commitment to her world complete. (Ages 9 and older) —Kerry Fried

J. K. Rowling Mary GrandPré It's hard to fall in love with an earnest, appealing young hero like Harry Potter and then to watch helplessly as he steps into terrible danger! And in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the much anticipated sequel to the award-winning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he is in terrible danger indeed. As if it's not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts.

Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it's not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware." But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible—including risking their own lives—to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns—fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors—seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment. (Ages 9 and older) —Karin Snelson

Yukito Kishiro

Neil Gaiman Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house—a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored—so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that—sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks—opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"—people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) —Karin Snelson

Judd Winick Meet Barry Ween, the smartest living human. What does a ten-year-old boy do with a 350 I.Q.? Any thing he wants. Cranky, egotistical, arrogant and foul-mouthed, Barry in general wants to conduct his experiments and be left alone, but it never seems to work out. Hurdles that Barry must outmaneuver range from time warps, to art thieves, to accidentally turning his best friend into a dinosaur.

Timothy Zahn Michael A. Stackpole Carlos Ezquerra

Fred Gallagher Rodney Caston Dominic Nguyen

Aldous Huxley "Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today—let—let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.

John Steinbeck Robert J. Demott When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations—the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions—in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.

The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."

The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom—us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people—we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon—Rosasharn, as they call her—the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. —Melanie Rehak

Harper Lee "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus—three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well—in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often. —Alix Wilber

Harper Lee "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus—three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well—in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often. —Alix Wilber

Robert A. Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.

The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the 60's to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, provocative as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? —Brooks Peck

S. T. Joshi Howard Phillips Lovecraft

F. Scott Fitzgerald In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's—and his country's—most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning——" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means—and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

George Orwell "Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere."

The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One.

Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime—in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. —Daniel Hintzsche

Stephen Crane

Fyodor Dostoevsky The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.

Ernest Hemingway As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corps instead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he became the first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingway came out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealth of experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold with A Farewell to Arms. This is the story of Lieutenant Henry, an American, and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. The two meet in Italy, and almost immediately Hemingway sets up the central tension of the novel: the tenuous nature of love in a time of war. During their first encounter, Catherine tells Henry about her fiancé of eight years who had been killed the year before in the Somme. Explaining why she hadn't married him, she says she was afraid marriage would be bad for him, then admits:

I wanted to do something for him. You see, I didn't care about the other thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted if I would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all about it now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn't know.

The two begin an affair, with Henry quite convinced that he "did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards." Soon enough, however, the game turns serious for both of them and ultimately Henry ends up deserting to be with Catherine.

Hemingway was not known for either unbridled optimism or happy endings, and A Farewell to Arms, like his other novels (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and To Have and Have Not), offers neither. What it does provide is an unblinking portrayal of men and women behaving with grace under pressure, both physical and psychological, and somehow finding the courage to go on in the face of certain loss. —Alix Wilber

Hermann Hesse Hilda Rosner In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. In this translation Sherab Chodzin Kohn captures the slow, spare lyricism of Siddhartha's search, putting her version on par with Hilda Rosner's standard edition. —Brian Bruya

Christopher Moore In his entertaining adventure-in-whale-researching, Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, Nathan Quinn, a prominent marine biologist, has been conducting studies in Hawaii for years trying to unravel the secret of why humpback whales sing. During a typical day of data gathering, Nate believes his mind is failing: the subject whale has "Bite Me" scrawled across its tail. Events become even stranger as the self-proclaimed "action nerds," Nate, photographer Clay, their research assistant Amy, and Kona, a white Rasta (a Jewish kid from New Jersey), encounter sabotage to their data and equipment. They also observe increasingly bizarre whale behavior, including a phone call from the whale to their wealthy sponsor to ask that Nate bring it a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye, and discover both a thriving underwater city and the secret to what happened to Amelia Earhart.

Thoughtful, irreverent, and often hilarious, Moore has crafted a tale that contains a bit of the saga of declining whale populations due to hunting and habitat destruction, as well as his over-the-top, decadent wit as applied to scientific methodology and professional jealousies. Moore notes a pasty, rival scientist "looked like Death out for his after-dinner stroll before a busy night of e-mailing heart attacks and tumors to a few million lucky winners," and that killer whales (which are all named Kevin), are "just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car." Smart, sincere, and a whale of a story, Flukeis terrific. —Michael Ferch

Brian K. Vaughan Yorick Brown, the last man on Earth, finally makes it to San Francisco where his unbalanced sister, Hero, finds him seemingly succumbing to the male-killing plague after losing his still-unused engagement ring to the burqa-clad agents of the Setauket Ring. But is the ring really the key to his survival? And what does it have to do with the mysterious Amulet of Helene, which the Setauket leader is determined to take from Agent 355 by any means necessary.

Brian K. Vaughan The saga of Yorick Brown, the last man on Earth, continues in PAPER DOLLS, writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Pia Guerra's award-winning VERTIGO series. In addition to catching up on the adventures of Yorick's monkey Ampersand (whose body holds the key to stopping the male-killing plague) and telling the origin of Agent 355, PAPER DOLLS chronicles Yorick and 355's search for Yorick's fiancee Beth in Australia — a search that yields a large dose ofunwanted publicity for the Last Man, and deadly consequences for those he cares for!

Fred Gallagher Rodney Caston

Shirow Masamune Frederik L. Schodt Toren Smith

Jhonen Vasquez

Michael Avon Oeming Heroes glide through the sky on lightning bolts and fire. Flamboyant villains attempt daring daylight robberies. God-like alien creatures clash in epic battle over the night-time sky. And on the dirty city streets below, homicide detective Christian Walker does his job. He has to investigate the shocking murder of one of the world`s most popular superheroes, Retro Girl. Walker has teamed up with spunky rookie, Deena Pilgrim, as the murder investigation takes them from the seediest underbelly the city has to offer to the gleaming towers that are home to immortal beings. As hidden truths about Retro Girl come to light, Walker finds that to solve this crime, he may have to reveal a dark secret.

Bill Willingham

Bill Willingham

Alan Moore

Robert Kirkman Tony Moore An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.

Brian Michael Bendis Powers features one of the most awarded and acclaimed teams of the last several years and winners of the 2001 Eisner award for best new series. Detectives Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim work out of the special homicide office in charge of cases that involve Powers, those that have talents and abilities far beyond those of normal men. This graphic novel details one of the most disturbing cases of their careers. A group of college kids who role play their favorite super-heroes are being murdered one-by-one, and unless Walker and Pilgrim can stop the killer, more kids will die.

Frank Miller Lynn Varley 300 is a story of war and defiance as only Frank Miller can tell. Featuring the watercolor talents of painter Lynn Varley, 300 marks the first collaboration for these two creators since 1990's Elektra Lives Again. The five-part series is collected into a beautiful, 88-page hardcover volume, with each two-page spread from the comic presented as it was originally intended - as a single undivided page, greatly enhancing the graphic and narrative power of this immortal tale of heroic sacrifice. Make sure to check out the online preview of 300 here. And watch for news of this soon to be made major motion picture.

Bill Willingham

Warren Ellis Are we ready for yet another take on superhero morality?Let's hope so, because The Authority: Relentless retools old ideas for a new century. Warren Ellis has his heroes think globally as they kick butt locally, stopping or slowing down to consider how they can use their powers to "make the world a better place."How he can pull this off in our oh-so-ironic age is an artistic mystery, but the results are clear: superheroes with believable personalities and community spirit. Two story arcs, each encompassing terror and evil on a global scale, pit the group of seven against armies of superhumans dispatched in scenes reminiscent of the best action movies. Many of the characters from the older Stormwatch series reappear here, and fans will be pleased to learn that Ellis has, if anything, improved his depth and storytelling prowess.Bryan Hitch's penciling, Paul Neary's inking, and Laura Depuy's coloring are all equally responsible for the gloriously lovely artwork—from interdimensional spaceships to dismembered spinal cords, they make saving the world beautiful. —Rob Lightner

Warren Ellis

Alan Moore David Lloyd V for Vendettais, like its author's later Watchmen, a landmark in comic-book writing. Alan Moore has led the field in intelligent, politically astute (if slightly paranoid), complex adult comic-book writing since the early 1980s. He began Vback in 1981 and it constituted one of his first attempts (along with the criminally neglected but equally superb Miracleman) at writing an ongoing series. It is 1998 (which was the future back then!) and a Fascist government has taken over the U.K. The only blot on its particular landscape is a lone terrorist who is systematically killing all the government personnel associated with a now destroyed secret concentration camp. Codename V is out for vengeance ... and an awful lot more. Vfeels slightly dated like all past premonitions do. The original series was black and white and that added to the grittiness of the feel while the coloring here in the graphic novel sometimes blurs David Lloyd's fine drawing. But theseare small concerns. Skillfully plotted, Vis an essential read for all those who love comics and the freedom, as a medium, they allow a writer as skilled as Moore. —Mark Thwaite

Alan Moore

Warren Ellis John Cassaday Warren Ellis improves on his already outstanding stories and characters in the second collection of Planetary: The Fourth Man.While scraping their way through their investigations, the three archaeologists of mystery, enigmatic themselves, deal with their own past and learn more about the creepy metahumans lurking behind practically every oddity on the planet.Ellis seems to take pleasure in turning superheroic icons inside out. Fans will find references and deconstructions from the Golden Age to the post-postmodern comics world.John Cassaday's penciling adapts itself well to the stories, giving intimate barroom chats and epic battles against giant ants equal credibility.While reading Planetary, one gets the sense that superhero comics really do have somewhere to go after being so thoroughly demolished in the '80s and '90s—and that we'd do well to keep reading. —Rob Lightner

Mick Austen

Scott Kelby An irreverent, off-the-wall, PC-slammin', totally-biased look at Apple, and what it's like to be a Mac user stuck in a Windows dominated world. Macintosh...The Naked Truthis definitely not another Mac how-to book; it's a mass-market, personality book about a computer platform and the people who love it, and the love/hate relationship they have with Apple. It's about what you feel, how you're treated (and mistreated), and what it's really like living life in the computing minority.The book, based upon the author's hugely popular magazine column, takes a humorous, evangelical look at Apple Computer and what it's like to be a Macintosh user living in a PC-dominated world. The success of Kelby's column lies in the fact that although it makes serious points about Apple's shortcomings, and what it's really like being a Mac user, it presents them in a humorous, often sarcastic, and occasionally sophomoric way that Mac users love. It's brash, unapologetic, insightful, controversial, outspoken, and often hilarious, peppered with 100% Macintosh attitude. Although it pokes light-hearted fun at everyone from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to the PC users manning the Apple section of CompUSA, each chapter contains an underlying message of Apple evangelism, and it can often be as inspiring as it is funny.

Kenneth C. Louden Compiler Construction: Principles and Practice features a comprehensive, hands-on case study project for constructing an actual, working compiler.

Harold Abelson Gerald Sussman Julie Sussman Julie Sussman Harold Abelson Abelson and Sussman's classic Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs teaches readers how to program by employing the tools of abstraction and modularity. The authors' central philosophy is that programming is the task of breaking large problems into small ones. The book spends a great deal of time considering both this decomposition and the process of knitting the smaller pieces back together.

The authors employ this philosophy in their writing technique. The text asks the broad question "What is programming?" Having come to the conclusion that programming consists of procedures and data, the authors set off to explore the related questions of "What is data?" and "What is a procedure?"

The authors build up the simple notion of a procedure to dizzying complexity. The discussion culminates in the description of the code behind the programming language Scheme. The authors finish with examples of how to implement some of the book's concepts on a register machine. Through this journey, the reader not only learns how to program, but also how to think about programming.

Steven Levy Back in the early 1980s, word spread about an inviting little personal computer that used something called a mouse and smiled at you when you turned it on. Steven Levy relates his first encounter with the pre-released Mac and goes on to chronicle the machine that Apple developers hoped would "make a dent in the universe." A wonderful story told by a terrific writer (Levy was the longtime writer of the popular "Iconoclast" column in MacWorld; he's now a columnist with Newsweek, the birth and first ten years of the Macintosh is a great read.

Martin Davis Computers rely on such things as semiconductors, memory chips, and electricity. But they also rely on a hard-won body of scientific knowledge that has enabled the now-ubiquitous devices to perform complex calculations, multitask, and even play a game of solitaire.

Martin Davis, a fluent interpreter of mathematics and philosophy, locates the source of this knowledge in the work of the remarkable German thinker G. W. Leibniz, who, among other accomplishments, was a distinguished jurist, mining engineer, and diplomat but found time to invent a contraption called the "Leibniz wheel," a sort of calculator that could carry out the four basic operations of arithmetic. Leibniz subsequently developed a method of calculation called the calculus raciocinator, an innovation his successor George Boole extended by, in Davis's words, "turning logic into algebra." (Boole emerges as a deeply sympathetic character in Davis's pages, rather than as the dry-as-dust figure of other histories. He explained, Davis reports, that he had turned to mathematics because he had so little money as a student to buy books, and mathematics books provided more value for the money because they took so long to work through.) Davis traces the development of this logic, essential to the advent of "thinking machines," through the workshops and studies of such thinkers as Georg Cantor, Kurt G√∂del, and Alan Turing, each of whom puzzled out just a little bit more of the workings of the world—and who, in the bargain, made the present possible. —Gregory McNamee

Ken Arnold James Gosling David Holmes Written by several of Java's inventors, The Java Programming Language, Third Editionprovides a nearly indispensable guide to basic and advanced features in today's hottest programming language. Perfect for the intermediate or advanced developer, this book delivers a wealth of information on how to do more with Java. The first sections provide a nicely compact tour of Java basics. If you're a beginner, you'll get a glimpse of the fundamentals of Java quickly. (Most of this new edition has the more experienced reader in mind.) Subsequent chapters delve into basic and advanced language features of what can be done with classes, interfaces, and other design features in Java. The authors' explanations are notably clear and never pedantic. Many examples are illustrated by using simple mathematical problems, and the class-design samples for inheritance and interfaces all use comprehensible class names and concepts.

This title is outstanding when it comes to class design. It will definitely let any reader do more with classes, whether you want to make use of such features as "anonymous inner classes" and reflection (for loading classes dynamically), or do more with interfaces (including extending interfaces and tricks on changing data members in interfaces).

Prominent sections here include a complete guide to Java language statements, including keywords, literals, and support for Unicode. Later sections feature a nice, clear explanation of Java's complicated I/O classes, a fine tutorial on threading, and a solid introduction to using Java's collection classes. The book closes with a tour of some additional "core" Java packages that are available in the language.

In all, this up-to-the-minute guide to some of the more complex features in today's Java fills a valuable niche for any Java developer. Besides providing a glimpse into what the Java team at Sun is up to, this authoritative resource can help you master the finer points of class design, as well as make the most out of newly added features in the new JDK 1.3 standard. —Richard Dragan

Topics covered:QuickStart overview of Java, class and object design in Java, access control, construction and initialization, static methods, method overloading, class inheritance, redefining members, the protectedkeyword, the strictfpkeyword and floating-point processing, cloning objects, interfaces (constants, methods, and modifiers), extending interfaces, marker interfaces, nested classes and interfaces (including static nested types, inner classes, and anonymous inner classes), tokens, operators, and expressions in Java, literals, keywords, operator precedence, control flow, Java exception handling, exception classes, the Stringand StringBufferclasses, threads, synchronization APIs and techniques (scheduling, thread groups, and thread local storage), the wrapper classes for Number types, Java reflection, loading classes, garbage collection (GC algorithms, finalization and reachability states), packages, JavaDoc documentation tags, tour of Java I/O stream classes, serialization techniques, new and legacy Java collections, miscellaneous utility classes, system programming with properties, processes and JVM shutdown; internationalization and localization techniques, and tour of additional Java "core" packages.

Bruce Tognazzini

Daniel Selman

Neal Stephenson Neal Stephenson, author of the sprawling and engaging Cryptonomicon, has written a manifesto that could be spoken by a character from that brilliant book. Primarily, In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line discusses the past and future of personal computer operating systems. "It is the fate of manufactured goods to slowly and gently depreciate as they get old," he writes, "but it is the fate of operating systems to become free." While others in the computer industry express similarly dogmatic statements, Stephenson charms the reader into his way of thinking, providing anecdotes and examples that turn the pages for you.

Stephenson is a techie, and he's writing for an audience of coders and hackers in Command Line. The idea for this essay began online, when a shortened version of it was posted on Slashdot.org. The book still holds some marks of an e-mail flame gone awry, and some tangents should have been edited to hone his formidable arguments. But unlike similar writers who also discuss technical topics, he doesn't write to exclude; readers who appreciate computing history (like Dealers of Lightning or Fire in the Valley) can easily step into this book.

Stephenson tackles many myths about industry giants in this volume, specifically Apple and Microsoft. By now, every newspaper reader has heard of Microsoft's overbearing business practices, but Stephenson cuts to the heart of new issues for the software giant with a finely sharpened steel blade. Apple fares only a little better as Stephenson (a former Mac user himself) highlights the early steps the company took to prepare for a monopoly within the computer market—and its surprise when this didn't materialize. Linux culture gets a thorough—but fair—skewering, and the strengths of BeOS are touted (although no operating system is nearly close enough to perfection in Stephenson's eyes).

As for the rest of us, who have gladly traded free will and an intellectual understanding of computers for a clutter-free, graphically pleasing interface, Stephenson has thoughts to offer as well. He fully understands the limits nonprogrammers feel in the face of technology (an example being the "blinking 12" problem when your VCR resets itself). Even so, within Command Line he convincingly encourages us as a society to examine the metaphors of technology—simplifications that aren't really much simpler—that we greedily accept. —Jennifer Buckendorff

David A. Patterson John L. Hennessy An excellent successor to Hennessy and Patterson's Computer Organization and Design, this book presents computer architecture and design as something quantitative that can be studied in the context of real running systems rather than in an abstract format. The concepts are again grounded in real machine architectures and many of the examples are contemporary architectures, such as PowerPC chips and Intel 80x86. Computer Architecturefollows the same outline as its predecessor, but covers information in more depth, moving rapidly from introductory discussions to issues just shy of computer design research. The format again includes an excellent mix of exercises and historical background. This book is recommended for people with some experience in digital design—or people who have read and understood the authors' first text.

Neil Gaiman One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Neil Gaimannow gives us a mythology for a modern age — complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime.

Anansi Boys
God is dead. Meet the kids.

When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed — before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life.

Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie.

Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself.

Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Timesbestseller, American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaimanoffers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny — a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him."

Neil Gaiman A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night, taking one of the spectators along with it . . .

In a novella set two years after the events of American Gods, Shadow pays a visit to an ancient Scottish mansion, and finds himself trapped in a game of murder and monsters . . .

In a Hugo Award-winning short story set in a strangely altered Victorian England, the great detective Sherlock Holmes must solve a most unsettling royal murder . . .

Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams—and nightmares . . .

In a Locus Award-winning tale, the members of an excusive epicurean club lament that they've eaten everything that can be eaten, with the exception of a legendary, rare, and exceedingly dangerous Egyptian bird . . .

Such marvelous creations and more—including a short story set in the world of The Matrix, and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction—can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his terrifyingly entertaining dark sense of humor. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Thingsis a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most unique writers of our time.

Nick Sagan Now in paperback: the follow-up to Idlewild,. 

A microbial apocalypse called Black Ep has virtually wiped humanity from the globe. The few to survive the epidemic are now committed to the task of rebuilding a peaceful society, but not everyone shares this idyllic vision. And as the two factions clash, a new biological threat moves against them to finish what Black Ep began.

Kurt Vonnegut "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." So reads the tombstone of downtrodden writer Kilgore Trout, but we have no doubt who's really talking: his alter ego Kurt Vonnegut. Health versus sickness, humanity versus inhumanity—both sets of ideas bounce through this challenging and funny book. As with the rest of Vonnegut's pure fantasy, it lacks the shimmering, fact-fueled rage that illuminates Slaughterhouse-Five. At the same time, that makes this book perhaps more enjoyable to read.

Breakfast of Championsis a slippery, lucid, bleakly humorous jaunt through (sick? inhumane?) America circa 1973, with Vonnegut acting as our Virgil-like companion. The book follows its main character, auto-dealing solid-citizen Dwayne Hoover, down into madness, a condition brought on by the work of the aforementioned Kilgore Trout. As Dwayne cracks, then crumbles, Breakfast of Championscoolly shows the effects his dementia has on the web of characters surrounding him. It's not much of a plot, but it's enough for Vonnegut to air unique opinions on America, sex, war, love, and all of his other pet topics—you know, the only ones that really count.

Gregory Maguire When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wickedis about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Arturo Perez-Reverte Julia, a young Madrid art restorer, is pulled into a shadowy world of metaphor when she discovers a long-covered inscription on a Flemish painting: Who killed the knight?Art, chess and murder are intertwined in this elegant, seductive mystery in the manner of The Name of the Rose.

Warren Ellis Michael McGill is a burned-out private detective who suddenly becomes enlisted by an army of presidential goons to retrieve the Constitution of the United States, but not the one we all know about. This would be the real Constitution (the one with invisible amendments) created by some of the Founding Fathers as a fallback for their great experiment. Along the way, McGill gains a polyamorous sidekick named Trix, gets scared to death by what men do with warm salty water, and descends into a world where crime, sex, and madness all seem to be the same thing.

Full of mind-bending style and packed with a wild cast of characters, Crooked Little Veininfuses Robert B. Parker with Kurt Vonnegut and the madness of the graphic-novel world. A surprisingly surreal treat, it will appeal to hardcore comic fans, mystery aficionados, and all readers looking for a riotous summer reading adventure.

Sample Chapter One of Crooked Little Vein

"Chapter One. I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug. It was a huge brown bastard; had a body like a turd with legs and beady black eyes full of secret rat knowledge."

Crooked Little Veinputs you right in the gutter from the first sentence and doesn't let up. Sample the goods with a look at the complete first chapter, and see if you don't get hooked.

Brian Greene As a boy, Brian Greene read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and was transformed. Camus, in Greene's paraphrase, insisted that the hero triumphs "by relinquishing everything beyond immediate experience." After wrestling with this idea, however, Greene rejected Camus and realized that his true idols were physicists; scientists who struggled "to assess life and to experience the universe at all possible levels, not just those that happened to be accessible to our frail human senses." His driving question in The Fabric of the Cosmos, then, is fundamental: "What is reality?" Over sixteen chapters, he traces the evolving human understanding of the substrate of the universe, from classical physics to ten-dimensional M-Theory.

Assuming an audience of non-specialists, Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. For the most part, he succeeds. His language reflects a deep passion for science and a gift for translating concepts into poetic images. When explaining, for example, the inability to see the higher dimensions inherent in string theory, Greene writes: "We don't see them because of the way we see…like an ant walking along a lily pad…we could be floating within a grand, expansive, higher-dimensional space."

For Greene, Rhodes Scholar and professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, speculative science is not always as thorough and successful. His discussion of teleportation, for example, introduces and then quickly tables a valuable philosophical probing of identity. The paradoxes of time travel, however, are treated with greater depth, and his vision of life in a three-brane universe is compelling and—to use his description for quantum reality——"weird.—"weird."

In the final pages Greene turns from science fiction back to the fringes of science fact, and he returns with rigor to frame discoveries likely to be made in the coming decades. "We are, most definitely, still wandering in the jungle," he concludes. Thanks to Greene, though, some of the underbrush has been cleared. —Patrick O'Kelley

Michio Kaku Robert O'Keefe How many dimensions do you live in? Three? Maybe that's all your commonsense sense perception perceives, but there is growing and compelling evidence to suggest that we actually live in a universe of ten real dimensions. Kaku has written an extraordinarily lucid and thought-provoking exploration of the theoretical and empirical bases of a ten-dimensional universe and even goes so far as to discuss possible practical implications—such as being able to escape the collapse of the universe. Yikes. Highly Recommended.

Brian Greene There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything.

Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties——"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"—Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate.

Though Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study is in many ways the human hero of The Elegant Universe, it is not a human-side-of-physics story. Greene's focus throughout is the science, and he gives the nonspecialist at least an illusion of understanding—or the sense of knowing what it is that you don't know. And that is traditionally the first step on the road to knowledge. —Mary Ellen Curtin

Steven R. Holtzman A fascinating commentary on the integration of computers into the creative process. Drawing examples from the history of the use of structure in fields as diverse as the development of ancient languages, the philosophy of a Buddhist monk, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, the music of Arnold Schoenberg, and the grammar of Noam Chomsky, in conjunction with examples of the implementation of computers in recent creative work in language, music, art, and virtual reality, Holtzman presents a new philosophy of creativity in the digital age.

Jean-Louis Gassee

Masamune Shirow The island state of Olympus was established after WWIII as a utopia; their slogan: "functional simplicity, structural complexity, the best life for all." But things are rarely that simple, as ESWAT operatives Deunan Knute and Briareos have found out. Mostly a collection of side stories, this volume of the acclaimed science fiction comics epic moves away from the main story line of the first two books to focus on the minor characters in this detailed fictional world. Book Three of Appleseed Book Threemarks the beginning of Masamune Shirow's handling of all the artwork without the aid of art assistants: from the layouts to the inking to the halftone screens, it all comes from the hand of Shirow.

Masamune Shirow "The adventure continues as ESWAT operative Deunan and her cybernetic companion Briareos work to stabilize the uneasy worldwide peace they fought so hard to establish." One of the quintessential Japanese science fiction comics, Appleseed—like the other work of writer/artist Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell, for example)—combines interesting philosophic cyberpunk themes with dynamite action. The artwork is slightly more confident than that of the first volume of Appleseed, and the pacing is even more masterful. Witness the first action scene: the first 15 pages are told almost entirely without words.

Kohta Hirano A secret war brews in the night - a war where humanity is only a pawn. The Hellsing Organization deploys in the shadows to protect the mortal world. But now, artificially spawned vampires have appeared, forcing Hellsing to call in their ultimate weapon - the rogue vampire, Alucard! We present Hellsing: Impure Souls Anime Manga, adapted from the popular anime series, now in book form for your sustained joy and dread.

Neil Gaiman Chris Bachalo Mark Pennington Mark Buckingham Clare Danes

Lance Parkin The Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey has been destroyed. The Time Lords are dead, their TARDISes annihilated. The man responsible has been tracked down and lured to Earth in the year 2005, where there will be no escape. But Earth has its hands full - a mystery signal is being received from a radio telescope, there's a second moon in the sky, and a primordial alien menace has been unleashed. The stage is set for the ultimate confrontation. Now, the last of the Time Lords must ensure that justice is done. The Doctor and his companions Fitz and Trix will meet their destiny. And this time, the Doctor isn't going to be able to save everybody. This is the last in the continuing series of original adventures of the Eighth Doctor.

Pat Mills John Wagner

Warren Ellis Layers of mystery wrap Planetary: All over the World like rice candy.Follow the enigmatic heroes Jakita Wagner, Elijah Snow, and the Drummer as they excavate the secret history of the world from its wealth of bizarre happenings. Though the characterization isn't sparklingly brilliant—the "insane" Drummer behaves more like the A-Team's Murdock than a believable madman—the stories are both broad and deep, exploring a web of conspiracies and shadowy superheroes that manipulate and "protect" our world. Clever retellings of primal comics myths are interlaced with X-Files-esque secret government tales, and they drive the reader back and forth to collate evidence; the characters can't do all the work. Illustrator John Cassaday mirrors Warren Ellis's script from circumspect to sublime, befitting the best successor yet to the pulp comics of the 1940s. —Rob Lightner

Sunzi Ralph D. Sawyer Sun-Tzu Mei-Chun Sawyer

Walter W. Skeat Walter Skeat (1835-1912) was one of the greatest investigators of the roots of the English language, and his remarkable scholarship was instrumental in the revival of the great works of early English Literature. His astonishing detective work into the origins and developement of the world's most widely used language provides an unsurpassed guide to its flexibility and richness.

Lian Hearn The debut novel of Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori series, Across the Nightingale Floor, is set in a feudal Japan on the edge of the imagination. The tale begins with young Takeo, a member of a subversive and persecuted religious group, who returns home to find his village in flames. He is saved, not by coincidence, by the swords of Lord Otori Shigeru and thrust into a world of warlords, feuding clans, and political scheming. As Lord Otori's ward, he discovers he is a member by birth of the shadowy "Tribe," a mysterious group of assassins with supernatural abilities.

Hearn sets his tale in an imaginary realm that is and isn't feudal Japan. This device serves the author well as he is able to play with familiar archetypes—samurai, Shogun, and ninja—without falling prey to the pitfalls of history. The novel fills a unique niche that is at once period piece and fantasy novel. Hearn unfolds the tale of Takeo and the conflicting forces around him in a deliberate manner that leads to a satisfying conclusion and sets the stage for the rest of the series. —Jeremy Pugh

Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde Penzler Pick, January 2002: When I first heard the premise of this unique mystery, I doubted that a first-time author could pull off a complicated caper involving so many assumptions, not the least of which is a complete suspension of disbelief. Jasper Fforde is not only up to the task, he exceeds all expectations.

Imagine this. Great Britain in 1985 is close to being a police state. The Crimean War has dragged on for more than 130 years and Wales is self-governing. The only recognizable thing about this England is her citizens' enduring love of literature. And the Third Most Wanted criminal, Acheron Hades, is stealing characters from England's cherished literary heritage and holding them for ransom.

Bibliophiles will be enchanted, but not surprised, to learn that stealing a character from a book only changes that one book, but Hades has escalated his thievery. He has begun attacking the original manuscripts, thus changing all copies in print and enraging the reading public. That's why Special Operations Network has a Literary Division, and it is why one of its operatives, Thursday Next, is on the case.

Thursday is utterly delightful. She is vulnerable, smart, and, above all, literate. She has been trying to trace Hades ever since he stole Mr. Quaverley from the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and killed him. You will only remember Mr. Quaverley if you read Martin Chuzzlewit prior to 1985. But now Hades has set his sights on one of the plums of literature, Jane Eyre, and he must be stopped.

How Thursday achieves this and manages to preserve one of the great books of the Western canon makes for delightfully hilarious reading. You do not have to be an English major to be pulled into this story. You'll be rooting for Thursday, Jane, Mr. Rochester—and a familiar ending. —Otto Penzler

Kate Orman

Jim Mortimore

David Banks

Paul Leonard

David A. McIntee

Kate Orman

Jim Mortimore Andy Lane

Andrew Cartmel

Justin Richards

Christopher Bulis

Daniel Blythe

Gareth Roberts

Nigel Robinson

Daniel Blythe

Andy Lane

Paul Cornell

Tom Stoppard

Frederic Raphael Hurriedly published to coincide with the July 1999 release of Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, this slim, rather obviously titled volume by the film's distinguished screenwriter offers considerably less than its cover copy leads you to expect. But for avid followers of Kubrick's career, even a cursory glimpse of the late director's lifestyle and creative methods will prove to be fascinating. And while Frederic Raphael instantly drew criticism and controversy from Kubrick's family and friends for describing Kubrick as "the sedentary wandering Jew, rootlessly rooted within his own defenses," this and other remarks must be considered in context. Eyes Wide Openmust ultimately be seen to reflect Raphael's conflicting emotions about a filmmaker he clearly admires and respects, even if their collaboration resulted in equal parts elation, exasperation, and hard-won rewards.

Using notebook entries, vivid recollection, and re-created scenes in screenplay format, Raphael paints a portrait as revealing of himself (if not more so) than of Kubrick, and neither man comes across without blemish. Simultaneously self-indulgent, frustrating, and fascinating in its attempt to probe Kubrick's closely guarded psyche (a mission Raphael ultimately fails to accomplish), the book finally reveals—in fragments of sensitive insight—that Kubrick's reputation as a reclusive genius did in fact hide a very complex, intensely intelligent, and surprisingly humanbeing. In one passage Raphael observes that "Stanley was so determined to be aloof and unfeeling that my heart went out to him. Somewhere along the line he was still the kid in the playground who had been no one's first choice to play with." Whether such observations are an accurate representation of Kubrick's personality is beside the point; that Raphael made the observation speaks volumes of both men, and this book is filled with similar revelations.

In addition to offering a privileged look at Kubrick's collaborative process, the book also reveals elusive details about Kubrick the man—pet lover, intellectual challenger, gracious host—and the result is a warmer image of him than that afforded by decades of distant speculation by journalists too willing to perpetuate the "myth" of Kubrick as omnipotent genius. If Raphael's book invites criticism and charges of blatant opportunism (with Kubrick unable to defend himself), it also provides a rare and often fascinating look at an artist who constantly eluded the gaze of outsiders. Raphael takes us inside Kubrick's gated domain, and we're grateful for the visit. If the truth resides somewhere between the protest of Kubrick's family and the insights presented here, we can at least use this book as a guide through previously uncharted territory. —Jeff Shannon

Michael Swanwick This collection of short-short fiction by Michael Swanwick contains more than 70 stories in fewer than 100 pages. Often humorous, sometimes chilling, always entertaining, these are prime examples of a recently resurrected literary form. The title piece is a five-minute condensation of a classic of Western literature, featuring a cigar-cutter as Mephistopheles, a box of matches in the roles of Helen of Troy, an Angel of the Lord, the Light of Ontology, and a cigar as Faust himself. Swanwick's bravura imagination has resulted in a separate story for every letter of the alphabet and another set of tales for every planet in the solar system. Additionally, there is a clutch of alternate autobiographies, a novella of decadence and corporate politics in a future Venice that has been boiled down to 416 words, Picasso and Philip K. Dick as existential heroes, and a rhyme for orange.

Neal Stephenson Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series—for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods—World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty—we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes—inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe—team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto—all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). —Therese Littleton

STEPHEN BURY A biochip in presidential candidate William Cozzano's brain hardwires him to a computerized polling system that channels the mood of the electorate directly into his brain. Neal Stephenson fans should note (if they don't already know) that Stephen Bury is his pen name.

Tom Clancy The bestselling author of Red Storm Rising and The Sum of All Fears brings Jack Ryan back in his to fight his deadliest battle yet.

From England to Ireland to America, an explosive wave of violence sweeps a CIA analyst and his family into the deadliest game of our time: international terrorism. An ultra-left-wing faction fo the IRA has targeted the CIA man for his act of salvation in an assasination attempt. And now he must pay ... with his life.

Umberto Eco Diane Sterling William Weaver

Brian K. Vaughan Pia Guerra Jr. Jose Marzan

Dean Motter Mark Askwith

Neil Gaiman Neverwhere's protagonist, Richard Mayhew, learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. He ceases to exist in the ordinary world of London Above, and joins a quest through the dark and dangerous London Below, a shadow city of lost and forgotten people, places, and times. His companions are Door, who is trying to find out who hired the assassins who murdered her family and why; the Marquis of Carabas, a trickster who trades services for very big favors; and Hunter, a mysterious lady who guards bodies and hunts only the biggest game. London Below is a wonderfully realized shadow world, and the story plunges through it like an express passing local stations, with plenty of action and a satisfying conclusion. The story is reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but Neil Gaiman's humor is much darker and his images sometimes truly horrific. Puns and allusions to everything from Paradise Lost to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz abound, but you can enjoy the book without getting all of them. Gaiman is definitely not just for graphic-novel fans anymore. —Nona Vero

Neil Gaiman American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost—the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book—the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country—our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. —Therese Littleton

Robert A. Heinlein Tom Clancy has said of Robert A. Heinlein, "We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is." Nowhere is this more true than in Heinlein's gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076, where "Loonies" are kept poor and oppressed by an Earth-based Authority that turns huge profits at their expense. A small band of dissidents, including a one-armed computer jock, a radical young woman, a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike, ignite the fires of revolution despite the near certainty of failure and death.

Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time...

Neil Gaiman Jill Thompson Vince Locke Peter Straub One might think that the climax of the 10-volume Sandman series would come in the last book, or even the second to last. But indeed the heart and soul of Neil Gaiman's magnum opus lies here in Brief Lives. It could be because one of the most central mysteries—that of the Sandman's missing brother—is revealed here (in fact, the plot of this volume is the search for this member of the Endless). It could be because everything that comes after this volume, however surprising or unexpected, is inevitable. But it's more because this is a story about mortality and loss, the difficulty of change, the purpose of remembering, the purpose of forgetting, and the importance of humanity. If you have wanted to find out what all the good buzz on this great comic book series is about and haven't read any Gaiman before, don't be turned off by this volume's pivotal position in the larger story of the Sandman series. This book might actually operate better as a stand-alone story, in that its depth and compassion are more condensed, pure, and brief. —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman Stephen King When Brant and Charlene wreck their car in a horrible snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, the only place they can find shelter is a mysterious little inn called World's End. Here they wait out the storm and listen to stories from the many travelers also stuck at this tavern. These tales exemplify Neil Gaiman's gift for storytelling—and his love for the very telling of them. This volume has almost nothing to do with the larger story of the Sandman, except for a brief foreshadowing nod. It's a nice companion to the best Sandman short story collection, Dream Country, (and it's much better than the hodgepodge Fables and Reflections). World's End works best as a collection—it—it's a story about a story about stories—all wrapped up in a structure that's clever without being cute, and which features an ending nothing short of spectacular. —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman

Douglas Adams

Neil Gaiman

George R.R. Martin Readers of epic fantasy series are: (1) patient—they are left in suspense between each volume, (2) persistent—they reread or at least review the previous book(s) when a new installment comes out, (3) strong—these 700-page doorstoppers are heavy, and (4) mentally agile—they follow a host of characters through a myriad of subplots. In A Game of Thrones, the first book of a projected six, George R.R. Martin rewards readers with a vividly real world, well-drawn characters, complex but coherent plotting, and beautifully constructed prose, which Locus called "well above the norms of the genre."

Martin's Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest.

There is much bloodshed, cruelty, and death, but A Game of Thrones is nevertheless compelling; it garnered a Nebula nomination and won the 1996 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. So, on to A Clash of Kings! —Nona Vero

Terry Pratchett The Colour of Magic is Terry Pratchett's maiden voyage through the bizarre land of Discworld. His entertaining and witty series has grown to more than 20 books, and this is where it all starts—with the tourist Twoflower and his hapless wizard guide, Rincewind ("All wizards get like that ... it's the quicksilver fumes. Rots their brains. Mushrooms, too."). Pratchett spoofs fantasy clich√©s—and everything else he can think of—while marshalling a profusion of characters through a madcap adventure. The Colour of Magic is followed by The Light Fantastic. —Blaise Selby

Neil Gaiman Malcolm Jones III Mike Dringenberg Michael Zulli Clive Barker The immense popularity of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is due in large part to the development of his characters. In The Doll's House, the second book of the Sandman magnum opus, Gaiman continues to build the foundation for the larger story, introducing us to more of the Dream King's family of the Endless.

The Sandman returns to his kingdom of the Dreaming after nearly a century of imprisonment, finding several things out of place; most importantly, an anomaly called a dream vortex has manifested itself in the form of a young girl who unknowingly threatens to rip apart the Dreaming. And there's the smaller matter of a few nightmares having escaped. Among them is Gaiman's creepiest creation: the Corinthian, a serial killer with a miniature set of teeth in each eye socket. Because later volumes concentrate so much on human relationships with Gaiman's signature fair for fantasy and mythology, it is sometimes easy to forget that the Sandman series started out as a horror comic. This book grabs you and doesn't let you forget that so easily. —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman Sam Kieth Michael Dringenberg Malcolm Jones III "Wake up, sir. We're here." It's a simple enough opening line—although not many would have guessed back in 1991 that this would lead to one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comics of the second half of the century.

In Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman weaves the story of a man interested in capturing the physical manifestation of Death but who instead captures the King of Dreams. By Gaiman's own admission there's a lot in this first collection that is awkward and ungainly—which is not to say there are not frequent moments of greatness here. The chapter "24 Hours" is worth the price of the book alone; it stands as one of the most chilling examples of horror in comics. And let's not underestimate Gaiman's achievement of personifying Death as a perky, overly cheery, cute goth girl! All in all, I greatly prefer the roguish breaking of new ground in this book to the often dull precision of the concluding volumes of the Sandman series. —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman Frank McConnell

Neil Gaiman Mikal Gilmore Michael Zulli Jon J. Muth Charles Vess This is the conclusion to the much talked about Sandman series. It may be best to start your Sandman acquaintance with earlier episodes, but The Wake stands as one of Neil Gaiman's strongest and most consistent Sandman volumes to date.

Neil Gaiman Malcolm Jones III Colleen Doran Kelley Jones Charles Vess Steve Erickson The third book of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. What's remarkable here (considering the publisher and the time that this was originally published) is that the main character of the book—the Sandman, King of Dreams—serves only as a minor character in each of these otherwise unrelated stories. (Actually, he's not even in the last story.) This signaled a couple of important things in the development of what is considered one of the great comics of the second half of the century. First, it marked a distinct move away from the horror genre and into a more fantasy-rich, classical mythology-laden environment. And secondly, it solidly cemented Neil Gaiman as a storyteller. One of the stories here, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," took home the World Fantasy Award for best short story—the first time a comic was given that honor. But for my money, another story in Dream Country has it beat hands down. "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" has such hope, beauty, and good old-fashioned chills that rereading it becomes a welcome pleasure. —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman Kelley Jones Harlan Ellison Mike Dringenberg In many ways, Season of Mists is the pinnacle of the Sandman experience. After a brief intermission of four short stories (collected as Dream Country) Gaiman continued the story of the Dream King that he began in the first two volumes. Here in volume 4, we find out about the rest of Dream's Endless family (Desire, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Death, and a seventh missing sibling). We find out the story behind Nada, Dream's first love, whom we met only in passing during Dream's visit to hell in the first book. When Dream goes back to hell to resolve unfinished business with Nada, he finds her missing along with all of the other dead souls. The answer to this mystery lies in Lucifer's most uncharacteristic decision—a delicious surprise.

There is something grandiose about this story, in which each chapter ends with such suspense and drive to read the next. This book is best summed up by a toast taken from the second chapter: "To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." —Jim Pascoe

Neil Gaiman Samuel R. Delany Shawn MacManus Colleen Doran Bryan Talbot George Pratt Stan Woch Dick Giordano You may have heard somewhere that Neil Gaiman's Sandman series consisted of cool, hip, edgy, smart comic books. And you may have thought, "What the hell does that mean?" Enter A Game of You to confound the issue even more, while at the same time standing as a fine example of such a description. This is not an easy book. The characters are dense and unique, while their observations are, as always with Gaiman, refreshingly familiar. Then there's the plot, which grinds along like a coffee mill, in the process breaking down the two worlds of this series, that of the dream and that of the dreamer. Gaiman pushes these worlds to their very extremes—one is a fantasy world with talking animals, a missing princess, and a mysterious villain called the Cuckoo; the other is an urban microcosm inhabited by a drag queen, a punk lesbian couple, and a New York doll named Barbie. In almost every way this book sits at 180 degrees from the earlier four volumes of the Sandman series—although the less it seems to belong to the series, the more it shows its heart. —Jim Pascoe

Doug Naylor

Neil Gaiman Yoshitaka Amano Sandman fans should feel lucky that master fantasy writer Neil Gaiman discovered the mythical world of Japanese fables while researching his translation of Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke. At the same time, while preparing for the Sandman 10th anniversary, he met Yoshitaka Amano, his artist for the 11th Sandman book. Amano is the famed designer of the Final Fantasy game series. The product of Gaiman's immersion in Japanese art, culture, and history, Sandman: Dream Hunters is a classic Japanese tale (adapted from "The Fox, the Monk, and the Mikado of All Night's Dreaming") that he has subtly morphed into his Sandman universe.

Like most fables, the story begins with a wager between two jealous animals, a fox and a badger: which of them can drive a young monk from his solitary temple? The winner will make the temple into a new fox or badger home. But as the fox adopts the form of a woman to woo the monk from his hermitage, she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, in far away Kyoto, the wealthy Master of Yin-Yang, the onmyoji, is plagued by his fears and seeks tranquility in his command of sorcery. He learns of the monk and his inner peace; he dispatches demons to plague the monk in his dreams and eventually kill him to bring his peace to the onmyoji. The fox overhears the demons on their way to the monk and begins her struggle to save the man whom at first she so envied.

Dream Hunters is a beautiful package. From the ink-brush painted endpapers to the luminous page layouts—including Amano's gate-fold painting of Morpheus in a sea of reds, oranges, and violets—this book has been crafted for a sensuous reading experience. Gaiman has developed as a prose stylist in the last several years with novels and stories such as Neverwhere and Stardust, and his narrative rings with a sense of timelessness and magic that gently sustains this adult fairy tale. The only disappointment here is that the book is so brief. One could imagine this creative team being even better suited to a longer story of more epic proportions. On the final page of Dream Hunters, in fact, Amano suggest that he will collaborate further with Mr. Gaiman in the future. Readers of Dream Hunters will hope that Amano's dream comes true. —Patrick O'Kelley

Douglas Adams

Jean Rhys Judith Raiskin In 1966 Jean Rhys reemerged after a long silence with a novel called Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys had enjoyed minor literary success in the 1920s and '30s with a series of evocative novels featuring women protagonists adrift in Europe, verging on poverty, hoping to be saved by men. By the '40s, however, her work was out of fashion, too sad for a world at war. And Rhys herself was often too sad for the world—she was suicidal, alcoholic, troubled by a vast loneliness. She was also a great writer, despite her powerful self-destructive impulses.

Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up in the West Indies on a decaying plantation. When she comes of age she is married off to an Englishman, and he takes her away from the only place she has known—a house with a garden where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched."

The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bront√´'s book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell—that of the madwoman in the attic, Rochester's terrible secret. Antoinette is Rhys's imagining of that locked-up woman, who in the end burns up the house and herself. Wide Sargasso Sea follows her voyage into the dark, both from her point of view and Rochester's. It is a voyage charged with soul-destroying lust. "I watched her die many times," observes the new husband. "In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty."

Rhys struggled over the book, enduring rejections and revisions, wrestling to bring this ruined woman out of the ashes. The slim volume was finally published when she was 70 years old. The critical adulation that followed, she said, "has come too late." Jean Rhys died a few years later, but with Wide Sargasso Sea she left behind a great legacy, a work of strange, scary loveliness. There has not been a book like it before or since. Believe me, I've been searching. —Emily White

LYNDA LA PLANTE

Terrance Dicks

Andrew Cartmel

Ben Aaronovitch

Lois McMaster Bujold

DOUGLAS ADAMS Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker's Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

Andy Lane Justin Richards

Nigel Robinson

Grant Naylor

Simon Bucher-Jones

Christopher Bulis

Frank Herbert This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. —Brooks Peck

Arthur C. Clarke An all-time science fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama is also one of Clarke's best novels—it won the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards. A huge, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. The citizens of the solar system send a ship to investigate before the enigmatic craft, called Rama, disappears. The astronauts given the task of exploring the hollow cylindrical ship are able to decipher some, but definitely not all, of the extraterrestrial vehicle's puzzles. From the ubiquitous trilateral symmetry of its structures to its cylindrical sea and machine-island, Rama's secrets are strange evidence of an advanced civilization. But who, and where, are the Ramans, and what do they want with humans? Perhaps the answer lies with the busily working biots, or the sealed-off buildings, or the inaccessible "southern" half of the enormous cylinder. Rama's unsolved mysteries are tantalizing indeed. Rendezvous with Rama is fast moving, fascinating, and a must-read for science fiction fans. Clarke collaborated with Gentry Lee in writing several Rama sequels, beginning with Rama II.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

Jim Mortimore

Simon Bucher-Jones

Arthur C. Clarke

ISAAC ASIMOV Foundation marks the first of a series of tales set so far in the future that Earth is all but forgotten by humans who live throughout the galaxy. Yet all is not well with the Galactic Empire. Its vast size is crippling to it. In particular, the administrative planet, honeycombed and tunneled with offices and staff, is vulnerable to attack or breakdown. The only person willing to confront this imminent catastrophe is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian and mathematician. Seldon can scientifically predict the future, and it doesn't look pretty: a new Dark Age is scheduled to send humanity into barbarism in 500 years. He concocts a scheme to save the knowledge of the race in an Encyclopedia Galactica. But this project will take generations to complete, and who will take up the torch after him? The first Foundation trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation) won a Hugo Award in 1965 for "Best All-Time Series." It's science fiction on the grand scale; one of the classics of the field. —Brooks Peck

Kate Orman

Dave Stone

CHARLES SHEFFIELD

DAN SIMMONS

Neil Gaiman John Bolton

Alan Moore Dave Gibbons

Dave McKean Neil Gaiman

DC Comics

JAMES CLAVELL

Douglas Coupland Microserfs is not about Microsoft—it—it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.

" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil."

JAMES CLAVELL

Banana Yoshimoto

TOM ROBBINS

MAX BARRY

Alan Moore

JAMES CLAVELL

JAMES CLAVELL

JAMES CLAVELL

MICHAEL ONDAATJE Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.

LIZA DALBY Liza Dalby's novel is a brilliantly imagined chronicle of the 11th-century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu. As we soon discover, our narrator has a good many doubts about the writing life. "As I pondered this question of how to be a success at court," she muses, "I came to the conclusion that literary ambition was more likely than not to bring a woman to a bad end." Happily, the real-life Murasaki persisted, and went on to become the author of the world's first novel, The Tale of Genji. For The Tale of Murasaki, Dalby draws on this groundbreaking masterpiece and on the surviving fragments of Murasaki's own diary and poetry, along with another masterpiece of the Heian period, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. The result is a vivid and emotionally detailed portrait of an intelligent, sensitive, and complex woman.

In Dalby's novel, Murasaki writes her first stories about Prince Genji's amorous encounters in order to entertain her friends, and to express her own creative temperament. As the stories gain a wider public, however, they are transformed into a conduit for observations on the mores and intrigues of court life. And in the end, as the narrator struggles to stay true to her literary vision, her tales are inflected by Buddhist thought and become parables on the transience and beauty of the world:

I have always felt compelled to set down a vision of things I have heard and seen. Life itself has never been enough. It only became real for me when I fashioned it into stories. Yet, somehow, despite all I've written, the true nature of things I've tried to grasp in my fiction still manages to drift through the words and sit, like little piles of dust, between the lines.

Dalby is an anthropologist by trade, who has produced two previous nonfiction studies: Kimono and Geisha. And given that her research for Geisha gained her the distinction of being the only Westerner ever to have trained in that much misunderstood profession, it's no surprise that she is able to reconstruct 11th-century Japan with meticulous fidelity. It's all there—the political and sexual machinations, the preoccupations with clothing and custom, the difficult and tenuous position of courtiers, the intensity of female friendships in a male-dominated society—and the author shows us precisely how Murasaki's sensibilities were shaped by the culture in which she lived. This is a rich and convincing debut, and another chapter in the current resurrection of the historical novel. —Burhan Tufail

Katsuhiro Otomo

Masamune Shirow Frederik Schodt Toren Smith From acclaimed Japanese writer/artists Masamune Shirow, the creator of Appleseed, Orion, and Dominion: Tank Police comes a new dystopian tale of tough-talking cyborgs, political intrigues, and the kind of actions best left covert! The beautiful and deadly Major Kusanagi and her crack team of internal operatives are sent to investigate a government factory with questionable labor practices. As it turns out, their labor practices aren't the only thing to be questioned when the major and her team are met by a most unwelcoming welcome wagon!

ISAAC ASIMOV

Lance Parkin

Kate Orman Jonathan Blum

Terrance Dicks

Terrance Dicks

Justin Richards

ISAAC ASIMOV In this collection, one of the great classics of science fiction, Asimov set out the principles of robot behavior that we know as the Three Laws of Robotics. Here are stories of robots gone mad, mind-reading robots, robots with a sense of humor, robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world, all told with Asimov's trademark dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction.

John Peel

Justin Richards

Keith Topping Martin Day

DOUGLAS ADAMS

DOUGLAS ADAMS

DOUGLAS ADAMS

Arthur C. Clarke

Alfred Bester Way back in the 1950s, Alfred Bester established himself as one of the greats of SF with a number of dazzling short stories and two major novels: The Demolished Man(1953) and The Stars My Destination(1956, also known as Tiger! Tiger!), both much reprinted. The Deceivers, his final SF novel, appeared in 1981.

It's a colorful, whimsical romp that plays entertainingly with themes from Bester's peak years, though without his old driving, compelling savagery. Hero Rogue Winter is a "Synergist," acutely sensitive to the world's patterns: in one set-piece sequence he follows an intuitive trail from 12 drummers drumming in a street parade to the goal of a (metaphorical) partridge in a pear tree. Winter is also heir-apparent to the Maori Mafia, which controls much of the Solar System's crime, but he must single-handedly battle the dread mammoths of Ganymede to earn his crown. Meanwhile, he has fallen helplessly in love with a sexy nonhuman shapeshifter from Titan, making him vulnerable to minions of the insidious Manchu Duke of Death, who plans to smash the syndicate that's smuggling the priceless miracle fuel Meta from the heavily defended mines of Saturn's Chinese/Japanese-dominated moon Triton.

Bester crams this wild farrago of a narrative with wisecracks, junk science, circus glamor, odd catch phrases, bits of self-conscious cleverness and excess, Chinese esoterica like the Mirror-and-Listen Mystery, and his trademark typographic tricks. Amusing candyfloss nonsense; quite readable, but definitely not in the same league as his 1950s classics. —David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

David Weber

Joe Haldeman In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. —Craig E. Engler

Robert A. Heinlein

Orson Scott Card Ender's Shadow is being dubbed as a parallel novel to Orson Scott Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender's Game. By "parallel," Card means that Shadow begins and ends at roughly the same time as Game, and it chronicles many of the same events. In fact, the two books tell an almost identical story of brilliant children being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity's fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers. The most brilliant of these young recruits is Ender Wiggin, an unparalleled commander and tactician who can surely defeat the Buggers if only he can overcome his own inner turmoil.

Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender's lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students. Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his story when he is just a 2-year-old starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on earth. Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escape—though not unscathed—the streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, however, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more famous and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not understand, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know.

Although it may seem like Shadow is merely an attempt by Card to cash in on the success of his justly famous Ender's Game, that suspicion will dissipate once you turn the first few pages of this engrossing novel. It's clear that Bean has a story worth telling, and that Card (who started the project with a cowriter but later decided he wanted it all to himself) is driven to tell it. And though much of Ender's Game hinges on a surprise ending that Card fans are likely well acquainted with, Shadow manages to capitalize on that same surprise and even turn the table on readers. In the end, it seems a shame that Shadow, like Bean himself, will forever be eclipsed by the myth of Ender, because this is a novel that can easily stand on its own. Luckily for readers, Card has left plenty of room for a sequel, so we may well be seeing more of Bean in the near future. —Craig E. Engler

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card finally explores what happened on earth after the war with the Buggers in the sixth book of his Ender series, Shadow of the Hegemon. This novel is the continuation of the story of Bean, which began with Ender's Shadow, a parallel novel to Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender's Game.

While Ender heads off to a faraway planet, Bean and the other brilliant children who helped Ender save the earth from alien invaders have become war heroes and have finally been sent home to live with their parents. While the children try to fit back in with the family and friends they haven't known for nearly a decade, someone's worried about their safety. Peter Wiggins, Ender's brother, has foreseen that the talented children are in danger of being killed or kidnapped. His fears are quickly realized, and only Bean manages to escape. Bean knows he must save the others and protect humanity from a new evil that has arisen, an evil from his past. But just as he played second to Ender during the Bugger war, Bean must again step into the shadow of another, the one who will be Hegemon.

In Shadow of the Hegemon, Card can't help but fall back into old patterns. But while the theme is the same as in previous books—brilliant, tragic children with the fate of the human race resting on their shoulders—Shadow of the Hegemon does a wonderful job of continuing Bean's tale against a backdrop of the politics and intrigue of a fragile earth. While the novel is accessible, new readers to the series would be wise to begin with Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. —Kathie Huddleston

Joe Haldeman Julian Class is a full-time professor and part-time combat veteran who spends a third of each month virtually wired to a robotic "soldierboy." The soldierboys, along with flyboys and other advanced constructs, allow the U.S. to wage a remotely controlled war against constant uprisings in the Third World. The conflicts are largely driven by the so-called First World countries' access to nanoforges—devices that can almost instantly manufacture any product imaginable, given the proper raw materials—and the Third World countries' lack of access to these devices. But even as Julian learns that the consensual reality shared by soldierboy operators can lead to universal peace, the nanoforges create a way for humanity to utterly destroy itself, and it will be a race against time to see which will happen first. Although Forever Peace bears a title similar to Joe Haldeman's classic novel The Forever War, he says it's not a sequel.

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card's Xenocide is a space opera with verve. In this continuation of Ender Wiggin's story, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to immolate the rebellious planet of Lusitania, home to the alien race of pequeninos, and home to Ender Wiggin and his family. Concealed on Lusitania is the only remaining Hive Queen, who holds a secret that may save or destroy humanity throughout the galaxy. Familiar characters from the previous novels continue to grapple with religious conflicts and family squabbles while inventing faster-than-light travel and miraculous virus treatments. Throw into the mix an entire planet of mad geniuses and a self-aware computer who wants to be a martyr, and it's hard to guess who will topple the first domino. Due to the densely woven and melodramatic nature of the story, newcomers to Ender's tale will want to start reading this series with the first books, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. —Brooks Peck

Orson Scott Card Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses — and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

Orson Scott Card Ender Wiggin, the hero and scapegoat of mass alien destruction in Ender's Game, receives a chance at redemption in this novel. Ender, who proclaimed as a mistake his success in wiping out an alien race, wins the opportunity to cope better with a second race, discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. Orson Scott Card infuses this long, ambitious tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious and cultural contexts. Like its predecessor, this book won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Vernor Vinge In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new cosmology, a galaxy-spanning "Net of a Million Lies," some finely imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense.

Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone—but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike "Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.

Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band—heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates