Sci-Fi & Fantasy

In this and indeed other lives there are givers and takers. It's safe to say that vampires are very much in the latter camp. They don't have much time for the givers of this world - except perhaps mealtimes - and even less for priests. Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be a priest. Lancre's newest residents are a thoroughly modern, sophisticated vampire family. They've got style and fancy waistcoats. They're out of the casket and want a bite of the future. But they haven't met the n...

It all starts on the morning the letter D disappears from the language. First, it vanishes from her parents' conversation at breakfast, then from the road signs outside. Soon the local dentist and the neighbour's Dalmatian are missing, and even the Donkey Derby has been called off. Though she doesn't know why, Dhikilo is summoned to the home of her old history teacher Professor Dodderfield and his faithful Labrador, Nelly Robinson. And this is where our story begins. Set between England and t...

Illustrated by Paul Kidby As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone - or something - is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root. Aided by the tiny-but-tough Wee Free Men, Tiffany faces a dire challenge, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her... Hardback: 432 PagesProduct Dimensions: 135 x 205 mmISBN: 9...

This book contains a story and several other things. The other things might be connected with the story, or they might not; they might be connected to stories that haven't appeared yet... Two years after the conclusion of The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon sit high on the roof of Jordan College, gazing down on the streets of Oxford. But their peace is shattered by a flock of enraged starlings, who seem intent on knocking another bird out of the sky - a bird that Lyra and Pan ...

Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time... And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother. But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them. Hardback: 480 PagesProduct Dimensions: 135 x 205 mmISBN: 9780857525055 Published by Do...

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he's back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck... Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion. There's a problem:if he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future... H...

A mesmerising episode from the universe of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust, giving us an extraordinary insight into this world and its characters. When Lyra is studying at Oxford University, she comes across the story of Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnisson's first meeting, many years ago, along with much evidence of the adventure that brought them together. She discovers that when a young Texan balloonist Lee came down to earth in the harbour of an Arctic town in the North, little did he...

A brand new short story set in the world of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust by master storyteller, Philip Pullman. Serpentine is a perfect gift for every Pullman fan, new and old. 'Lyra Silvertongue, you're very welcome... Yes, I know your new name. Serafina Pekkala told me everything about your exploits' Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon have left the events of His Dark Materials far behind. In this snapshot of their forever-changed lives they return to the North to visit an old friend...

Maurice, a streetwise tomcat, has the perfect money-making scam. Everyone knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice has a stupid-looking kid with a pipe, and his very own plague of rats - strangely educated rats... But in Bad Blintz, the little con suddenly goes down the drain. For someone there is playing a different tune and now the rats must learn a new word. EVIL. It's not a game any more. It's a rat-eat-rat world. And that might only be the start... Hardback: 304 PagesProduct ...

They say that diplomacy is a gentle art. That mastering it is a lifetime's work. But you do need a certain inclination in that direction. It's not something you can just pick up on the job. A few days ago Sam Vimes was a copper - an important copper, true - chief of police - but still, at his core, a policeman. But today he is an ambassador - to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Today, Sam Vimes is also a man on the run. He has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of...

There's nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Even if their field of expertise is magic rather than biology. With the best and most interfering minds of Unseen University somehow left in charge at a critical evolutionary turning point, the Discworld's last continent needs a saviour... Who is this hero striding across the red desert? Sheep shearer, beer drinker, bush ranger, and someone who'll even eat a Meat Pie Floater when he's sober. In fact, it's Rincewin...

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad. As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land. There will be a reckoning... Ha...

Imagination is an amazing thing. It can take you to the top of the highest mountain, or down to the bottom of the deepest depths of the sea. This is where it took Doggins on his Awfully Big Adventure: a quest full of magic and flying machines. (And the world's best joke - trust me, it's hilarious.) It took three young inventors to the moon (where they may or may not have left a bottle of lemonade) and a caveman on a trip to the dentist. You can join them on these adventures, and many more, in...

William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. New printing technology means that words just won't obediently stay nailed down like usual. There's a very real threat of news getting out there. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalist's life - people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to...

A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality... Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men. Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen ...

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater - how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time. But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone'...