Ralphy is the story of a typical Midwestern U.S. family into whose lives is thrust a misfit, a boy who was born flat and resembles a fish. Ralphy is a throwback to the time when human beings made a wrong turn and separated themselves from the other animals. In Breakthrough, Arthur M. Raintree, Ph.D., achieves his lifelong desire to become a research scientist, but discovers that his work is of far less importance than living in peace and love with his family. In the year 2020, the government has become a wasteland of military and religious righteousness. There is only one person who can save us from self-destruction before it is too late, a genius who is prepared to die in order to accomplish this revolution.

At the beginning of his career, Philip K. Dick, whose later work won him widespread acclaim as the world's greatest science fiction writer, wrote a number of short novels which were published as paperback originals back-to-back in dual volumes with works by writers who were then more famous. Considerably more straightforward than his later novels, these stories are nevertheless unmistakably the work of the author of DO ANDOIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? and UBIK in their quirky exuberance and originality. THE MAN WHO JAPED: Following a devastating nuclear war, the Moral Reclamation government took over the world and forced its citizens to live by strictly puritanical rules - no premarital sex, drunkenness, or displaying of neon signs - all of which are reinforced through a constant barrage of messaging to the public. The chief purveyor of these messages is Alan Purcell, next in line to become head of the propaganda bureau. But there is just one problem: a statue of the government's founder has been vandalized and the head is hidden in Purcell's closet. VULCAN'S HAMMER: After the 20th century's devastating series of wars, the world's governments banded together into one globe-spanning entity, committed to peace at all costs. Ensuring that peace is the Vulcan supercomputer, responsible for all major decisions. But some people don't like being taken out of the equation. And others resent the idea that the Vulcan is taking the place of God. As the world grows ever closer to all-out war, one functionary frantically tries to prevent it. But the Vulcan computer has its own plans, plans that might not include humanity at all. DR. FUTURITY: When Dr Jim Parsons wakes up from a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But to keep the world run by the young, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and outcast. But for one revolutionary group, he may be just the saviour they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader. And when he and the group journey to 1500s California, what they find causes them to question what they know about history and the underpinnings of their society.

"In an important literary discovery, Macdonald biographer, Tom Nolan, unearthed three previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. 'Death by Water, ' written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, 'Strangers in Town' and 'The Angry Man, ' are detailed cases of Lew Archer."--

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was one of the most important political figures in 19th century Britain. However, before rising to political prominence he had established himself as a major literary figure. This set takes a critical look at Disraeli's early work. Volume 3 includes Contarini Fleming (1832).

The Deep In a twilight land, two warring powers -- the Reds and the Blacks -- play out an ancient game of murder and betrayal. Then a Visitor from beyond the sky arrives to play a part in this dark and bloody pageant. From the moment he is found by two women who tend to the dead in the wake of battles, it is clear that the great game is to change at last. Beasts It is the day after tomorrow, and society has been altered dramatically by experimentation that enables scientists to combine the genetic material of different species, mixing DNA of humans with animals. Loren Casaubon is an ethologist drawn into the political and social vortex that results with Leo -- a creature both man and lion -- at its center. Engine Summer A young man named Rush That Speaks is growing up in a far distant world -- one that only dimly remembers our own age, the wondrous age of the Angels, when men could fly. Now it is the "engine summer of the world," and Rush goes in search of the Saints who can teach him to speak truthfully, and be immortal in the stories he tells. The immortality that awaits him, though, is one he could not have imagined.

A collection of articles, sketches, and letters spanning 33 years in Fyodor Dostoevsky's writing career, from 1847, just after the successful publication of his first novel, until 1880, a year before his death. This volume allows the reader to measure the broad scope of his artistic development and the changes that occurred as a result of such cataclysmic events as Dostoevsky's arrest and trial for treason and his subsequent imprisonment and exile in Siberia.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was one of the most important political figures in 19th century Britain. However, before rising to political prominence he had established himself as a major literary figure. This set takes a critical look at Disraeli's early work.

Mary Shelley's Early Novels seeks to redress the commonly held view that Mary Shelley was simply another mouthpiece for her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her most challenging and ambitious novels; Frankenstein, Valperga, and The Last Man, are examined in the light of her intellectual relationship with Percy Shelley. We see the way in which these novels reflect her gradual rejection of his radical tenets in an assertion of her own intellectual and ideological independence.

In The Chill a distraught young man hires private investigator Lew Archer to track down his runaway bride. But no sooner has he found Dolly Kincaid than Archer finds himself entangled in two murders, one twenty years old, the other so recent that the blood is still wet. What ensues is a detective novel of nerve-racking suspense, desperately believable characters, and one of the most intricate plots ever spun by an American crime writer.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was one of the most important political figures in 19th century Britain. However, before rising to political prominence he had established himself as a major literary figure. This set takes a critical look at Disraeli's early work. Volume 6 includes Venetia (1837).