Orion Plain & Simple: Wicca

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A practical beginner’s guide to Wicca, its traditions, spells and rituals.

An accessible, contemporary approach to Wicca, also known as witchcraft, this book shows you how to use it as a healing and positive force. Practice magic with tarot cards, agents, and pendulums; cast love, health, wealth, family happiness, and career spells; and discover which herbs are beneficial when conducting spells and rituals.

Leanna Greenaway and Judika Illes make these life-affirming, ancient Wiccan traditions meaningful and accessible to us today by providing a basic understanding of the key elements of Wiccan practice, including:

· Lunar magic
· Initiation
· Herbs and gardens
· Pendulum power
· Animal magic

Wicca, Orion Plain and Simple also includes over 25 spells for beginners that range from fertility spells and money spells, to love spells and much more.

Orion Plain & Simple: Crystals

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A practical guide on how crystals can heal, divine the future and enhance psychic powers.

From time immemorial, crystals have been used for healing, and legend has it that people long ago knew how to store information inside these precious stones. How does their incredible magic work? Through this clear, practical guide, discover the many ways crystals can cure physical, emotional, and spiritual problems, divine the future, and enhance psychic powers. See which ones work best to aid meditation and visualisation, clear a room of negative energy, promote creativity, or foresee the future. There’s advice on buying, purifying, and charging the stones, crystal folklore, and a breathtaking gallery full of information.

Other topics covered include:

· Crystal legends and folklore
· Healing with crystals
· Crystals, colours, and chakras
· Birthstones
· Growing your own crystals
· Crystals through the zodiac
· Crystals for anniversaries

A splendid book for the curious and for beginners on the crystal path, Crystals, Orion Plain and Simple is a book that entertains, enlightens and informs.

Orion Plain & Simple: Runes

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A practical guide on how to make your own set of runes and how to interpret them.

Runes are alphabet letters or characters that have been used for thousands of years as a form of communication and divination. This book, written by an authority on divination systems, shows readers how to make their own set of runes and how to interpret them.

Topics covered include:

· A brief overview of runes, from Etruscan times to the present
· A summary of the myths and lore that inform runic wisdom
· Definitions of the basic rune symbols
· Instructions on how to read the runes and rune spreads
· An introduction to runic magic

In the past 25 years using runes as a divination tool has become increasingly popular. This accessible guide presents each letter of the runic alphabet in detail with its origins and magical uses and helps seekers tap into their energy. From making your own runes (and a bag to protect them) to reading the ancient alphabet, casting the runes and interpreting the spread, all the basics are laid out in a clear, easy-to-follow and superbly illustrated fashion which is perfect for beginners.

Hell’s Angels

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In September 1964 a cavalcade of motorbikes ripped through the city of Monterey, California. It was a trip destined to make Hell’s Angels household names across America, infamous for their violent, drunken rampages and feared for the destruction left in their wake.

Enter Hunter S. Thompson, the master of counterculture journalism who alone had the ability and stature to ride with the Angels on their terms. In this brilliant and hair-raising expose, he journeys with the last outlaws of the American Frontier.

A mixture of journalism, storytelling and sheer bravado, Hell’s Angels is Hunter S. Thompson at full throttle.

Moby: Then It Fell Apart

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What do you do when you realise you have everything you think you’ve ever wanted but still feel completely empty? What do you do when it all starts to fall apart? The second volume of Moby’s extraordinary life story is a journey into the dark heart of fame and the demons that lurk just beneath the bling and bluster of the celebrity lifestyle.

In summer 1999, Moby released the album that defined the millennium, PLAY. Like generation-defining albums before it, PLAY was ubiquitous, and catapulted Moby to superstardom. Suddenly he was hanging out with David Bowie and Lou Reed, Christina Ricci and Madonna, taking esctasy for breakfast (most days), drinking litres of vodka (every day), and sleeping with super models (infrequently). It was a diet that couldn’t last. And then it fell apart.

The second volume of Moby’s memoir is a classic about the banality of fame. It is shocking, riotously entertaining, extreme, and unforgiving. It is unedifying, but you can never tear your eyes away from the page.

Mysteries of Cinema: Movies & Imagination

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Ranging from the late nineteenth century to the present day, this exhilarating survey by cultural critic Peter Conrad explores the ways film has changed how we see the world.

This is a thematic roller-coaster ride through cinema history, with film expert Peter Conrad in the seat beside you. Thoroughly international, this book ranges from Fay Wray to Satyajit Ray, from Buster Keaton to Kurosawa, from westerns to nouvelle vague. Conrad explores the medium’s relationship to speed, technology, fantasy, horror, dream, color, sound, light, and shadow with reference to scores of films, from the earliest nineteenth-century silent experiments to the latest multisensory Hollywood blockbusters.

The author’s insights are amplified by voices from inside and outside the industry: directors and critics are included alongside artists, writers, philosophers, and historians ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Salvador Dalí, Theodor Adorno to Philip Roth. Arranged by topics, such as “Meta-Movie” and “The Physics of Film,” rather than chronological events, The Mysteries of Cinema focuses on film’s otherworldly, hypnotic, and magical qualities. Perfect for both movie fans who will discover new films and directors, and for students of film who will see familiar classics in a new light, this volume is full of unique insights into the genre. Combining his vast knowledge with a forensic eye for a director’s every quirk and mannerism, Conrad offers a fascinating and thrilling exploration of film

Imagine John Yoko

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Personally compiled and curated by Yoko Ono, Imagine John Yoko is the definitive inside story told in revelatory detail of the making of the legendary album and all that surrounded the locations, the creative team, the artworks and the films, in the words of John & Yoko and the people who were there. Features 80% exclusive, hitherto-unpublished archive photos and footage sequences of all the key players in situ, together with lyric sheets, Yoko s art installations, and exclusive new insights and personal testimonies from Yoko and over forty of the musicians, engineers, staff, celebrities, artists and photographers who were there including Julian Lennon, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Jim Keltner, David Bailey, Dick Cavett and Sir Michael Parkinson. A lot has been written about the creation of the song, the album and the film of Imagine, mainly by people who weren t there, so I m very pleased and grateful that now, for the first time, so many of the participants have kindly given their time to gimme some truth in their own words and pictures Yoko Ono Lennon, 2018 In 1971, John Lennon & Yoko Ono conceived and recorded the critically acclaimed album Imagine at their Georgian country home, Tittenhurst Park, in Berkshire, England, in the state-of-the-art studio they built in the grounds, and at the Record Plant in New York. The lyrics of the title track were inspired by Yoko Ono s event scores in her 1964 book Grapefruit , and she was officially co-credited as writer in June 2017. Imagine John Yoko tells the story of John & Yoko s life, work and relationship during this intensely creative period. It transports readers to home and working environments showcasing Yoko s closely guarded archive of photos and artefacts, using artfully compiled narrative film stills, and featuring digitally rendered maps, floorplans and panoramas that recreate the interiors in evocative detail. John & Yoko introduce each chapter and song; Yoko also provides invaluable additional commentary and a preface. All the minutiae is the locations, the key players, the music and lyrics, the production techniques and the artworks including the creative process behind the double exposure polaroids used on the album cover. With a message as universal and pertinent today as it was when the album was created, this landmark publication is a fitting tribute to John & Yoko and their place in cultural history. Table of Contents Preface 1. Tittenhurst 2. Recording Imagine 3. Album Artwork 4. Filming Imagine 5. This Is Not Here 6. Legacy

Prince- Beautiful Ones

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Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era.The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey.The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images.This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world.

Adventures In The Screen Trade

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As befits more than twenty years in Hollywood, Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman’s sparkling memoir is as entertaining as many of the films he has helped to create. From the writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men and Marathon Man, Adventures in the Screen Trade is an intimate view of movie-making, of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman and Hoffman, and of the trials and rewards of working inside the most exciting business in the world.

Last Train to Memphis- The Rise of Elvis Presley

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LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS is arguably the first serious biography that refuses to dwell on the myth of Elvis. Aiming instead to portray in vivid, dramatic terms the life and career of this outstanding artistic and cultural phenomenon, it draws together a plethora of documentary and interview material to create a superbly coherent and plausible narrative. The first of two volumes, covering Presley’s rise to prominence up to his departure for Germany in 1958, LAST TRAIN to MEMPHIS will undoubtedly become the benchmark by which other biographies of him are judged.

Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir

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They say the Rooster House is the tallest building in Ukraine: even from its basement, you can see all the way to Siberia. Decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the cries of tortured prisoners had long faded, little Victoria watched her great-grandmother take the longest route around the city to avoid walking past its gates, with the giant red sirens – called roosters in Ukrainian – atop its walls.As an adult, Victoria visited her grandmother in 2014, and while the Russian state annexed Crimea, she came across her great-grandfather’s diary, one page scored deep with the single line: ‘Brother Nikodim, vanished in the 1930s fighting for a free Ukraine.’ She had never heard of this uncle and no one – especially her grandmother – could bear to tell her about him. It took years of searching Ukraine’s post-Soviet bureaucracy, travelling to tiny, ruined villages and speaking to survivors of that era, but in the end,Victoria had to face the terrifying Rooster House. It was there she finally found out what happened to her family and how they bore its imprints to this day. The Rooster House is a Ukrainian family history, embroidering its tragic and little understood past with the true colours of human experience: the families torn apart, the traditions that endure and the complex relationship with a Soviet past and children making new lives in the West. Profound, compassionate and threaded with unexpected joy, it is a love letter to a family and their country.

How Psychology Works

50,00 

How far would you go to obey orders? Why do many people – even some scientists – believe in miracles? Find out the answers to these questions and much more in this visual guide to applied psychology.

Lying at the intersection of biology, philosophy, and medicine, psychology is at the heart of what makes us human.

Perfect both for students and people new to the topic, How Psychology Works has a unique graphic approach and uses direct, jargon-free language. It explores various approaches that psychologists use to study how people think and behave, such as behaviorism, cognitive psychology, and humanism.

This indispensable guide describes a wide range of mental health conditions, including bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It then takes you through treatments, from cognitive behavioral therapy and psychoanalysis to group therapy and art therapy. This book also explores the role of psychology in everyday situations. Discover what makes you, you – the unique blend of nature and nurture that makes up your sense of who you are – and psychology’s role in relationships, sport, work, and education.

How Psychology Works is a fascinating read that will quickly hone your emotional intelligence and give you perceptive insights into both your own and other people’s feelings and behavior.

Oxford Italian Mini Dictionary

22,00 

This is the reissued Oxford Italian Mini Dictionary – now in an attractive new format.

This small dictionary offers the most accurate and up-to-date coverage of essential, everyday vocabulary with over 40,000 words and phrases and 60,000 translations. Easy-to-use colour design and a centre section of useful words and expressions listed by topic make this dictionary ideal for travel and quick reference.

Discover more on oxforddictionaries.com, Oxford’s hub for dictionaries and language reference.

Great Ideas- Why I Write

27,00 

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell’s timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today’s era of spin.

Bob Marley: Untold Story

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What was it about Bob Marley that made him so popular in a world dominated by rock ‘n’ roll? How is it that he not only has remained the single most successful reggae artist ever, but also has become a shining beacon of radicalism and peace to generation after generation of fans?

The man who introduced reggae to a worldwide audience, Marley was a hero figure in the classic, mythological sense. From immensely humble beginnings, with talent and religious belief his only weapons, the Jamaican recording artist applied himself with unstinting perseverance to spreading his prophetic musical message across the globe. In 1980, on tour, Bob Marley and the Wailers played to the largest audiences a musical act had ever experienced in Europe. Less than a year later, Marley would die, only thirty-six years old. Sales of Marley’s albums before his death were spectacular; in the years since he died, they have been phenomenal.

Chris Salewicz, the bestselling author of Redemption Song, the classic biography of Joe Strummer, interviewed Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1979. Now, for the first time, in this thorough, detailed account of Marley’s life and the world in which he grew up and which he came to dominate, Salewicz brings to life not only the Rastafari religion and the musical scene in Jamaica, but also the spirit of the man himself. Interviews with dozens of people who knew Marley and have never spoken before are woven through the narrative as Salewicz seeks to explain why Marley has become such an enigmatic and heroic figure, loved by millions all over the world.

ლიბერალიზმის დეკონსტრუქცია

18,00 

ფილოსოფოს ზაზა შათირიშვილის
გამოხმაურება:
გავეცანი გეგი კუხ ლეიშვილის ტექსტს, რომელიც, ჩემი აზრით, ლიტერატურული და თეოლოგიური დისკურსების გადაკვეთის ქრონოტოპოს წარმოადგენს. დღეს ამ მიმართულებით ძალიან საგულისხმოა ინგლისელი თეოლოგის ჯონ მილბანკისა თუ
კომპარატივისტი რელიგიათმცოდნის მაიკლ ვიტცელის ნაშრომები. როგორც ჩანს, თანამედროვე ტრენდი არქაიზმისა და ნოვაციის მყიფე ზღვარზე იმყოფება. რადიკალური მეტაფორიკისა
და სატირული ჟანრის ამგვარი შერწყმა – თანაც აღმოსავლური
თეოლოგიის კონტექსტში – ნამდვილ სიახლეს წარმოადგენს ქართული კულტურისათვის. ამიტომაც, გეგი კუხალეიშვილის ტექსტები, ვფიქრობ, იმსახურებს ყურადღებას და საგულისხმო ნიმუშს წარმოადგენს შემდგომი კულტურული რეფლექსიისათვის.

Demolished Man

30,00 

In the year 2301, guns are only museum pieces and benign telepaths sweep the minds of the populace to detect crimes before they happen. In 2301 murder is virtually impossible, but one man is about to change that… Ben Reich, a psychopathic business magnate, has devised the ultimate scheme to eliminate the competition and destroy the order of his society. The Demolished Man is a masterpiece of imaginative suspense, set in a superbly imagined world in which everything has changed except the ancient instinct for murder.

City & the Stars

29,00 

Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, A Unique to break through Diaspar’s stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.

Tales from Earthsea

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These five superlative, evocative and enchanting stories range from a few hundred years before A Wizard of Earthsea to just before The Other Wind, and feature some of Le Guin’s most p[opular characters, including the Wizard Ged himself. The stories are rounded off with an essay about Earthsea’s history and people.No Earthsea fan will want to be without this magical collection.

Disney Princess Mulan: Queen’s Council- Feather & Flame

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She brought honour on the battlefield. Now comes a new kind of war…

Following the war that made her a hero, Mulan spends her days training a militia of female warriors to protect their homes and lands. But when Shang arrives in her village with an invitation to the Imperial City from the Emperor himself, her relatively peaceful life is upended. Upon her arrival at the palace, the aging Emperor decrees that, having proven herself a great leader in battle, Mulan will be his heir and take the throne. Before she can decide whether to accept the responsibility, the Emperor unexpectedly dies.

As soon as Mulan accepts the mantle of Empress, it becomes clear that not everyone is on her side. Her ministers are working against her behind the scenes, and the Huns sense a weakness in the throne. But the Queen’s Council helps Mulan uncover her true destiny. With renewed strength and the wisdom of those that came before her, Mulan will own her power, save her country, and prove once again that, crown or helmet, she was always meant to lead.

The second title in a captivating series that reimagines Disney’s Princesses as rulers in their own right, woven together throughout history by a mystical force known as the Queen’s Council.

Heart Of A Dog

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rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor’s hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. An absurd and superbly comic story, this classic novel can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

A Room Of One’s Own & Three Guineas

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This volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. Together they form a brilliant attack on sexual inequality. A Room of One’s Own, first published in 1929, is a witty, urbane and persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. The sequel, Three Guineas, is a passionate polemic which draws a startling comparison between the tyrannous hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal system and the evils of fascism.

Best of Roger Zelazny

30,00 

One of the most influential SFF writers of modern times, Roger Zelazny wrote across a wide range of subgenres and themes, experimenting with form and story with mastery. He won many awards throughout his lifetime, including six Hugo awards, three Nebula awards and two Locus awards. He has inspired many of today’s great SFF authors. This brand new collection contains some of his short stories and novellas, collected together with a new introduction from acclaimed author Lisa Tuttle. Stories in this collection are: A Rose for Ecclesiastes,The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth (winner of the 1966 Nebula Award for best novelette), Divine Madness, For a Breath I Tarry The Great Slow Kings, He Who Shapes, Permafrost (winner of the 1987 Hugo Award for best novelette), Corrida, The Last Defender of Camelot (winner of the 1980 Balrog Award for short fiction) The Keys to December, LOKI 7281, Damnation Alley, Home is the Hangman (winner of the 1976 Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella)

Time of Changes

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Three thousand years after Earth’s colonisation of the planet Borthan, stories of self-serving hypocrisy that occured among the first arrivals have bred a culture that forbids emotional sharing and denies the naturally human concept of ‘self’. The result is a lasting peace, but at a terrible price. For it is a peace without love, without self, where even the mention of the word ‘I’ is taboo. Spurred on by the arrival of an Earthman with a self-baring drug, Kinnall Darival breaks the strict code of the Covenant to record the sordid details of his rebelious life from the days of his royal youth to self-appointed prophet of love. He begins his account with the greatest of heresies: ‘I am Kinnall Darival and I mean to tell you all about myself.’

October Man

29,00 

Trier is famous for wine, Romans and for being Germany’s oldest city. So when a man is found dead with, his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth. Fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything.Enter Investigator Tobias Winter, whose aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger and paperwork. With the help of frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he’s quick to link the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men – and to realise they may have accidentally reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century. But the rot is still spreading, literally and with the suspect list extending to people born before Frederick the Great solving the case may mean unearthing the city’s secret magical history. . . so long as that history doesn’t kill them first.

Earthlight

28,00 

The time: 200 years after man’s first landing on the Moon. There are permanent populations established on the Moon, Venus and Mars. Outer space inhabitants have formed a new political entity, the Federation, and between the Federation and Earth a growing rivalry has developed. EARTHLIGHT is the story of this emerging conflict.Two centuries from now there may be men who do not owe allegiance to any nation on Earth, or even to Earth itself. This brilliant story tells of a time when man stands upon the moon and the planets, tells of men now divided by the vast stretches of the Solar System but once again torn by jealousy and fear. With vaulting imagination Arthur C. Clarke describes life on the strange, awe-inspiring surface of the moon, scene of a most fantastic and exciting contest of arms.

Against the Fall of Night

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In the year ten billion A.D., Diaspar is the last city on Earth. Agelss and unchanging, the inhabitants see no reason to be curious about the outside world. But one child, Alvin – only seventeen and the last person to be born in Diaspar – finds that he is increasingly drawn to what lies outside the city walls. Even though he knows the Invaders, who devastated the world, may still be out there…Later rewritten, expanded and republished as The City and the Stars, this early novella by one of the greats of science fiction remains a powerful and evocative depiction of the future of humanity…

The Book of the New Sun Volume 2 Sword & Citadel

35,00 

An extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, in the time of a dying sun, when our present culture is no longer even a memory. The torturer’s apprentice, Severian, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his prisoners, is now the Lictor of Thrax, a city far distant from his home. But it is not long before Severian must flee this city, too, and journey again into the world. Embattled by friends and enemies alike, pursued by monstrous creatures, the one-time torturer’s apprentice must overcome hitherto unimagined perils, as he moves closer to fulfilling his ultimate destiny. This edition contains the concluding two volumes of this four-volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.

Medusa Chronicles

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Inspired by Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s short story A Meeting with Medusa, this novel, with permission from the Clarke Estate, continues the story of Commander Howard Falcon over centuries of space-exploration, interaction with AI, first contact and beyond. All brought to life by two of our greatest SF authors, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds.

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident . . . and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. Not as himself, but as an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

The Medusa Chroniclescharts his journey through time, the changing interaction between humanity and our universe, and combined moments of incredible action with unparalleled exploration of and expansion into space. A compelling read from the beginning, this is classic SF which has appeal for readers who like Gravity and The Martian.

Hard To Be A God

30,00 

Anton is an undercover operative from future Earth, who travels to an alien world whose culture has not progressed beyond the Middle Ages. Although in possession of far more advanced knowledge than the society around him, he is forbidden to interfere with the natural progress of history. His place is to observe rather than interfere – but can he remain aloof in the face of so much cruelty and injustice …?

Dr Bloodmoney

30,00 

Seven years after the day of the bombs, Point Reyes was luckier than most places. Its people were reasonably normal – except for the girl with her twin brother growing inside her, and talking to her. Their barter economy was working. Their resident genius could fix almost anything that broke down. But they didn’t know they were harbouring the one man who almost everyone left alive wanted killed…

Imperial Earth

27,00 

Colonists from the entire solar system converge on the mother planet for the 2276 celebrations.

Among the influx of humanity is Duncan Makenzie, scientist-administrator from the underground colony of Titan, one of the outer moons of Saturn. Makenzie is not just on Earth for the celebrations, though; he has a delicate mission to perform – for his world, his family and himself . . .

Tau Zero

28,00 

Fifty men and women set out in the twenty-third century from Earth aboard an interstellar craft to travel to a planet some thirty light-years away. The ship will approach the speed of light and so (as Einstein predicted) subjective time on board will slow and so the journey of several decades will be of much shorter duration for the crew. But the ship’s deceleration system is irreparably damaged when it hits a cloud of interstellar dust and acceleration continues toward light speed, tau zero. Soon the ship is speeding through galaxies and eons are passing on board the ship in the blink of an eye…

Red Scholar’s Wake

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Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself. Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it. But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together… An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.