Introduction: Halo: First Strike (Halo #3) The Human-Covenant war rages on as the alien juggernaut sweeps inexorably toward its final goal: destruction of all human life! Halo has been destroyed, and the threat it posed to sentient life, neutralized. But victory has come at a terrible cost for the UNSC. Thousands of valiant soldiers fell in the battle to prevent the alien construct from falling into the enemy’s clutches. Now, everything depends on the Spartan known as the “Master Chief.” Yet even with tView Details>

Introduction: Halo: Primordium (Halo #9) "A long time ago, I was a living, breathing human being. I went mad. I served my enemies. They became my only friends." "Since then, I've traveled back and forth across this galaxy, and out to the spaces between galaxies--a greater reach than any human before me. " "You have asked me to tell you about that time. Since you are the last true Reclaimer, I must obey. Are you recording? Good. Because my memory is failing rapidly. I doubt I'llView Details>

Introduction: Halo: Silentium (The Forerunner Saga #3 , Halo #11) In the last years of the Forerunner empire, chaos rules. The Flood—a horrifying shape-changing parasite—has arrived in force, aided by unexpected allies. Internal strife within the ecumene has desperately weakened Forerunner defenses. Only the Ur-Didact and the Librarian—a husband and wife pushed into desperate conflict—hold the keys to salvation. Facing the consequences of a mythic tragedy, one of them must now commit the greatest atrociView Details>

Introduction: Wyrd Sisters (Discworld #6) Witches are not by nature gregarious, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe...View Details>

Introduction: Mort (Discworld #4) Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestseller in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen. In this Discworld installment, Death comes to Mort with an offer he can't refuse -- especially since being, well, dead isn't compulsory.As Death's apprentice, he'll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he wView Details>

Introduction: Unseen Academicals (Discworld #37) The wizards at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University are renowned for many things—wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime—but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. And so when Lord Vetinari, the city's benevolent tyrant, strongly suggests to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team composed of faculty, students, and staff, the wizards of UU find themselves in a quanView Details>

Introduction: "Bread Overhead" is a story Fritz Leiber could have written to send up today's bewildering bread aisle -- all those claims of low-cal and low-low-carb. In fact, the story probably reads better now than it did in 1958, back when the choice came down to white or whole wheat. Leiber slyly imagines a near-future when giant machines not only harvest the wheat field, but grind flour and bake bread on the spot -- the ultimate in big farming. In this toasted tomorrow, the highly-mechanized PuView Details>

Introduction: Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn't seem to recall exactly the same past from one day to the next? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, then you've had hints of the Change War. It's been going on for a billion years and it will last another billion or so. Up and down the timeline, the two sides--"Spiders" and "Snakes"--battle endlessly to change the future and the past. Our lives, our memorieView Details>

Introduction: The fourfold sting of the eye teeth balanced the gut-wretchedness of his looming hangover, so that Spar's mind floated as free as his body in the blackness of Windrush, in which shone only a couple of running lights dim as churning dream-glow and infinitely distant as the Bridge or the Stern.View Details>

Introduction: Mortimer Tate was a recently divorced insurance salesman when he holed up in a cave on top of a mountain in Tennessee and rode out the end of the world. Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse begins nine years later, when he emerges into a bizarre landscape filled with hollow reminders of an America that no longer exists. The highways are lined with abandoned automobiles electricity is generated by indentured servants pedaling stationary bicycles. What little civilization remains revolves around Joey ArmView Details>