For millions of readers the world over, the name Pern is magical, conjuring up grand vistas of a distant planet whose blue skies are patrolled by brave dragons and their noble riders, a paradise threatened by the periodic fall of deadly Thread. But not all dangers descend from the skies. Now, in their third collaboration, Anne McCaffrey and her son, Todd McCaffrey, spin a tale of a mysterious illness that may succeed in doing what centuries of Threadfall...

"Surviving crash-landings and monsters and island-eaters was only the beginning! The Kimei family and the second group of castaways, led by Sergeant Campbell, had finally joined forces after both had been forced to land on the bizarre planet Lincoln, whose "continents" were huge floating coral colonies, inhabited by even stranger lifeforms. They had survived crash-landings and venom-filled bites and disease, their own despair, and even the destruction...

A group of refugees escapes on a ship into the uncharted reaches of the galaxy, seeking safety with the assistance of Paul Muad'Dib and Lady Jessica, revived with the help of genetic technology, while avoiding the diabolical traps of the Enemy.

Pellar is an orphan taken in by Masterharper Zist. Though born mute, Pellar is a gifted tracker, and when Zist sets off to take over as harper for Natalon's coal-mining camp, Pellar--along with his fire-lizard, Chitter--joins him on a secret mission of his own: to find out if reported thefts of coal are the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship. Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of...

"The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the thirteen hundred solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again. In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight...

Drawing from a lifetime of research and his own experiences, Strieber, author of Communion, offers up a fictional account of the conspiracy behind the alien presence on Earth while also giving us a startling look inside the alien mind. Meet the Three Thieves, a group of Grays assigned to duty in a small Kentucky town. They have been preparing a child for generations. Innocent Conner Callaghan will face the ultimate terror as he struggles to understand...

In a distant part of the galaxy where immense danger threatens, desperate pirates travel to the outer limits of space, doing trade with the star colonies and encountering rivals, aliens, and strange human hybrids, in an omnibus edition that contains the trilogy Igniting the Reaches, Through the Breach, and Fireships.

"Imagine a First Contact without contact, and an alien arrival where no aliens show up. Imagine the sudden appearance of exclusion zones all over the planet, into which no humans are allowed. Imagine an end to all violence, from the schoolyard bully to nations at war. Imagine an end to borders, an end to all crime. Imagine a world where hate has no outlet and the only harm one can do is to oneself. Leaders of governments are not in the loop. Scientists...

"Worlds of Exile and Illusion contains three novels in the Hainish Series from Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained here. These books, Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's groundbreaking classic, The Left Hand of Darkness"--

In the parallel world first introduced in S. M. Stirling's The Sky People, aliens terraformed Mars (and Venus) 200 million years ago, seeding them with life-forms from Earth. Humans didn't suspect this until the twentieth century, but when the first probes landed on our sister worlds and found life-intelligent life, at that-things changed with a vengeance. By the year 2000, America, Russia, and the other great powers of Earth were all contending for...