'Assured, witty and inventive. This debut has "future classic" written all over it.' - The Guardian Pack your suitcase for a magical adventure! Perfect for fans of The Train to Impossible Places and The Polar Bear Explorers' Club. At the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, each suitcase transports you to a different world. All you have to do is step inside . . . When 12-year-old Flick Hudson accidentally ends up in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, she uncovers a fantastic secret: there are hundreds of other worlds just steps away from ours. All you have to do to visit them is jump into the right suitcase. Then Flick gets the invitation of a lifetime: join Strangeworlds' magical travel society and explore other worlds. But, unknown to Flick, the world at the very centre of it all, a city called Five Lights, is in danger. Buildings and even streets are mysteriously disappearing. Once Flick realizes what's happening she must race against time, travelling through unchartered worlds, seeking a way to fix Five Lights before it collapses into nothingness - and takes our world with it. A magical adventure for 9+ readers that will take you to whole new worlds.

Based on authenticated incidents, gathered from around the world, this look at the supernatural argues that human beings live in circumstances beyond rational or scientific explanation. Reprint.

Don’t Miss Poorly Drawn Lines on Cake, airing on FX and streaming on FX on Hulu! Absurd comics for our absurd times, from the artist behind the wildly popular webcomic Poorly Drawn Lines—the perfect gift for comic book fans! In his follow up to the New York Times bestselling Poorly Drawn Lines, beloved webcomic artist Reza Farazmand returns with a collection of comics that hilariously skewers our modern age. Comics for a Strange World takes readers through time, space, and alternate realities, reuniting fans with favorite characters and presenting them with even more bizarre scenarios. A child is arrested for plagiarism. A squirrel adapts to human society by purchasing a cell phone—and a gun. And an old man shares memories of the Internet with his granddaughter (“A vast network of millions of idiots. Together, the idiots created endless shitty ideas. It was a true renaissance of shit.”). In the world of Poorly Drawn Lines, nothing is too weird or too outlandish for parody.

Slip into fifteen dark tales that show the world through a strange new perspective. Take your imagination on a journey that begins before birth and continues long after death, stopping off to marvel, tremble and wonder at the strange worlds in between.Meet zombies, vampires, leprechauns, even a genie, as you have never seen them before. Ponder what the world feels like for a child as yet unborn, spend a sleepless night with a would-be murderer, and see what becomes of the angel who trades places with one of the most vulnerable in our society. Find out what life feels like when you can no longer rely on your senses, when you have no-one left to trust, not even yourself...If you like your short fiction shrouded in darkness and sprinkled with the strange, then this is the collection for you.Leap into the unknown, and see the world through someone else's mind...

Flick tries to save a watery world from total destruction in this magical, “fantastic, from start to (the zinger of a) finish” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) second book in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency series. Flick is now a badge-wearing member of the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, so when an urgent summons arrives at from Pirate Queen Nyfe, she and Strangeworlds Society guardian Jonathan immediately pack their bags for an adventure to The Break, a world of magic and piracy. Nyfe’s world is falling apart. The Break is used to having ships vanish without a trace, but there has been a sudden increase that can’t be explained by giant squid or merpeople. The edge of their flat world is coming ever closer to them and they need to escape before it collapses entirely. But how do you sail a ship through a suitcase? Or fit in a mer-queen the size of a whale? Flick and Jonathan must find a way to transport the inhabitants of the Break to another world before theirs disappears forever.

A novelist's candid and affectionate record of her life with the author of "The Magic Island" and "Asylum".

Flick journeys to a dangerous new world in this magical third book in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency series that’s a “moving conclusion to a delightful trilogy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Flick and Jonathan have faced countless dangers as members of the Strangeworlds Society and come out alive on the other side. But what do they really know about the society they are risking their lives for? Why does it exist? Who is Strangeworlds there to protect? And what in the worlds is happening to the multiverse now? With worlds everywhere under threat of collapse and mysteries abounding, it’s up to Flick and Jonathan to discover the answers to these questions. And only if they can uncover the secrets of Strangeworlds, and the secrets of a mysterious new world called The Stormforest, will they have any hope of defending their world—and others—from the threat that is facing them all.

Describes the science of planet hunters, the prospects for the discovery of alien life, and discusses the controversies surrounding extrasolar-planet research.

In 1948 a young Al Williamson accepted his first commercial assignment--for an issue of Famous Funnies comics, which launched his career as a professional in the field. Developing an elegant and illustrative style, he soon gained prominence in the highly influential EC Comics line of the 1950s. Over the next few decades, his exquisite art also illuminated many Atlas comics, various incarnations of Flash Gordon and the comic strips Secret Agent Corrigan and Star Wars, as well as a host of other titles and properties. This extraordinary body of superior work cemented Williamson's longstanding popularity. By the end of his career in the early 2000s, he had become one of the most highly regarded comic and strip artists in the industry, especially noted for the graceful ink line that he spent a lifetime pursuing. This first compendium in a new series is the perfect introduction to Al Williamson's work. You will find samples that span his fifty-year career along with anecdotes and historical details salted throughout. Cover art, interior pages, drawings and sketches--plus photographs of Al and his friends posing as reference for his sequential art--are included. This volume contains a mixture of both his most-obscure and best-known works, all meticulously reproduced from the original art. Until now, this captivating original artwork has only been seen by those fortunate enough to visit the Williamson studio in person. For the first time, readers will be able to view the artist's most-cherished works. Williamson's love of 1920s and 1930s adventure, fantasy and science-fiction pop culture--and his admiration of artists such as Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond--grounded his drawing technique and storytelling, which evolved throughout his life. He was able to take these inspirations and carry on the legacy of the past masters while becoming a unique icon in the industry. In this collection, readers will be able to witness Williamson's development as an artist.

“It is the bitter lesson of history that society cannot rely on the scruples of a powerful ruler to restrain him from exercising his power over the lives of his subjects. The only safeguard of liberty is the restraint of power itself.”~G. Warren Nutter Economist G. Warren Nutter provided one of the lone dissenting voices to challenge what had become a matter of conventional wisdom among Sovietologists. Whereas others perceived vibrancy and vitality in the socialist society’s industrial growth, Nutter recognized its long-term economic decline concealed behind a politically crafted veneer of propaganda about socialist industrial prowess. From 1956 until its first publication in 1969, he labored on providing a statistical corrective that painted a picture of a society gradually succumbing to the weight of its own central planning in The Strange World of Ivan Ivanov. Though generally well-received in the Cold War environment of its publication, Ivan Ivanov, drifted from memory along with its own Soviet subject matter. In this new edition, the text is accessible again—both as a record of the daily personal hardships experienced under an actual Marxian-socialist state and a warning for a time when socialism’s reputation has become detached from its own track record. The poverty, fear, and coerced subordination of Ivan Ivanov’s life were not aberrations of a socialist revolution gone astray—they were the entirely predictable results of that same socialist system. And as its human toll stretches from the Eastern Bloc to China to Cuba to Venezuela, they continue to repeat with alarming certainty whenever and wherever socialism is attempted. The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity.