WAS is the story of Dorothy. Orphaned as a child in the 1870s, she goes to live in Kansas with her Aunty Em and Uncle Henry. They face drought and poverty. They face each other. Alone, abused, Dorothy meets an itinerant actor called Frank and inspires a masterpiece. From the settling of the West and the heyday of the Hollwywood studios to the glittering megalopolis of modern Los Angeles, WAS is the story of all our childhoods.

An Englishman's home is his castle. Or at least it should be. But as Anthony Anscombe surveys Winchford Priory, his beautiful Elizabethan house in Oxfordshire, lurking in the village are more than one or two reminders of a life well-lived. His first wife was the hauntingly beautiful girl he married in an impulsive rush of hedonism. Amanda was never going to live up to her role as the wife of a country squire, so why does she still cast such a long shadow in Anthony's life? Sandra, the second wife, came to Anthony's rescue. Sturdy, dependable and relentlessly practical, Sandra had plans to turn the Priory into a proper family home, until that summer when it all went horribly wrong... And then there's Dita, a force of nature. Effortlessly glamorous and achingly wealthy, Dita storms through Anthony's life, organising and rearranging — particularly when it comes to previous Mrs Anscombes and their children. With the entire cast of his life roosting in the village, it's no wonder Anthony doesn't have a minute's peace.

The Duke of Atreides has been manoeuvred by his arch-enemy, Baron Harkonnen, into administering the desert planet of Dune. Although it is almost completely without water, Dune is a planet of fabulous wealth, for it is the only source of a drug prized throughout the Galactic Empire. The Duke and his son, Paul, are expecting treachery, and it duly comes — but from a shockingly unexpected place. Then Paul succeeds his father, and he becomes a catalyst for the native people of Dune, whose knowledge of the ecology of the planet gives them vast power. They have been waiting for a leader like Paul Atreides, a leader who can harness that force... DUNE: one of the most brilliantr science fiction novels ever written, as engrossing and heart-rending today as it was when it was first published half a century ago.

The little Gaulish village where Asterix and Obelix live has just one drawback — its bard is the worst musician in the entire ancient world. When Cacofonix strikes up, his singing sends the sun behind clouds and makes rain begin to fall. But that's just what they want in the distant Eastern kingdom of Rajah Watzit, where the guru Hoodunnit, with his sidekick Owzat, is threatening to end a terrible drought by sacrificing the lovely Princess Orinjade. The fakir Watziznehm arrives by flying carpet to ask the Gauls for help and just for once, after many adventures, Cacofonix can feel that his talents are properly appreciated.

When Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons during an archaeological dig in southern France, she unearths a link with a horrific and brutal past. But it's not just the sight of the shattered bones that makes her uneasy; there's an overwhelming sense of evil in the tomb that Alice finds hard to shake off, even in the bright French sunshine. Puzzled by the words carved inside the chamber, Alice has an uneasy feeling that she has disturbed something which was meant to remain hidden... Eight hundred years ago, on the night before a brutal civil war ripped apart Languedoc, a book was entrusted to Alais, a young herbalist and healer. Although she cannot understand the symbols and diagrams the book contains, Alais knows her destiny lies in protecting their secret, at all costs. Skilfully blending the lives of two women divided by centuries but united by a common destiny, LABYRINTH is a powerful story steeped in the atmosphere and history of southern France.

Peter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagined, world, whose insidious attraction draws him even further in... TheAffirmation is at once an original thriller and a haunting study of schizophrenia; it has a compulsive, dream-like quality.

The Stasi was among the most sophisticated intelligence organisations in the world, but by the end of the 1980s the Orwellian state of East Germany was collapsing around it. The special squads of armed officers, the torture chambers in the Stasi jail, the hundreds of thousands of informers could do nothing to prevent the rebellion that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is in the context of these last few paranoid weeks of the Communist world, when a population that had been oppressed for nearly sixty years found the will to rise up, that this outstanding thriller is set. Its hero is Dr Rudolf Rosenharte, an academic from Dresden and agent for MI6; his controller is Robert Harland, from A SPY'S LIFE and EMPIRE STATE. When Rosenharte's security is compromised he is faced with a stark choice: to defect to the West, leaving his beloved family to the mercies of the Stasi, or return to East Germany to carry out a dangerous assignment under the Stasi's suspicious eye... When Rosenharte's security is compromised he is faced with a stark choice: to defect to the West, leaving his beloved family to the mercies of the Stasi, or return to East Germany to carry out a dangerous assignment under the Stasi's suspicious eye...

Who, among you, deserves eternal life? Daniel is a highly successful stand-up comedian who has made a career out of playing outrageously on the prejudices of his public. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, he has begun to detest laughter in particular and mankind in general. Despite this, Daniel is unable to stop himself believing in the possibility of love. A thousand years on, war, drought and earthquakes have decimated the earth and Daniel24 lives alone in a secure compound — his only companion, a cloned dog named Fox. Outside, the remnants of the human race roam in packs, while Daniel24 attempts to decipher his predecessor's history. In a nightmarish vision of the implosion of the modern world, he, like his predecessor attempts to fathom the meaning of love, sex, suffering and regret.

Pel Dalton leads an uneventful life. His days are spent bluffing his way through an IT job in the university library, pillow-fighting with his two sons, surviving family outings to the supermarket, and finding new things to argue about with Ursula, his German girlfriend. But things are about to change... In this funny tale of love, fatherhood and Anglo-German relations Pel discovers that sometimes the things that drive you crazy can be the only things that can keep you sane.

Yielding to a compulsion he can't explain, Ted Barton interrupts his vacation in order to visit the town of his birth, Millgate, Virginia. But upon entering the sleepy, isolated little hamlet, Ted is distraught to find that the place bears no resemblance to the one he left behind—and never did. He also discovers that in this Millgate Ted Barton died of scarlet fever when he was nine years old. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is literally impossible to escape. Unable to leave, Ted struggles to find the reason for such disturbing incongruities, but before long, he finds himself in the midst of a struggle between good and evil that stretches far beyond the confines of the valley. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.

Miami's best-dressed serial killer is back and on the prowl, at least he would be if he could shake off his permanent shadow. Ever since their paths first crossed, Sergeant Doakes hasn't let Dexter Morgan out of his sight. Dexter may well be the Miami PD's blood-spatter analyst, but Sgt. Doakes has a pretty good idea of how Dex likes to spend his free time and he's determined to catch him in the act. Dex hasn't killed in months and is getting twitchy. To throw Doakes off his scent, he's spending more time with Rita, his girlfriend. But no matter how many cosy nights they spend in front of the TV, Doakes is still watching. Then a body turns up, horribly mutilated and barely alive. To trap the torturer, Doakes and Dexter will have to work together, if they can trust each other. It's a devil's pact and one of them will have to be the bait...

Four fabulously funny stories that will invoke every family's worst Christmas nightmares, as Horrid Henry sabotages the school play, tries to do his Christmas shopping without spending his pocket money, ambushes Father Christmas with some serious accusations, and endures Christmas dinner with the guests from hell.

Robert Rankin's THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY — seven books and counting — catapulted him into the dizzy heights of cult success, but over the years that cult following has grown and Robert Rankin is now the second best-selling writer of comic fantasy in Britain, after Terry He Always Makes Me Laugh Pratchett. Were you aware that there are, hidden in the streets of Brighton, twelve ancient constellations, like the Hangleton Hound and the Bevendean Bat... well, there are: and on each one hangs a tale, a tale so strange that only The Lad Himself, that inveterate spinner of tales and talker of the toot, Hugo Rune, can get to the bottom of them. And he'd better do it quickly, because if he doesn't solve the dozen mysteries before the year is out, that'll be the end of the world as we know it. And everything.

In 2756 AC (2003 AD in Christian terms), magnetic railways span Roman territory from Persia to Terranova, and mechanised crucifixes are ranked along the banks of the Thames. As volume one of ROMANITAS opens, Marcus Novius Faustus Leo, heir apparent to the Imperial throne, is mourning the death of his parents following a tragic accident. However, as information about the last days of his father's life becomes known to him, Marcus realises that his father's death was no accident and that his own life is in danger. Meanwhile, an escaped slave girl called Una, who possesses the power to look inside others' minds, struggles to save her brother, Sulien, from a London prison ship. In a fortune teller's stall in a Gallic flea-market, Marcus, Una and Sulien's paths cross, and the fate of the Empire rests on their shoulders...