Showing results by narrator "Toby Longworth" in All Categories

Terraforming—the megascale-engineering of a planet's surface to one more Earth-like—is now commonplace across the Solar System, and Pluto's is set to be the most ambitious transformation yet. Four billion miles from the Sun and 200 degrees below zero, what this worldlet needs is light and heat. Through captured asteroids and solar mirrors, humanity's finest scientists and engineers are set to deliver them. What nobody factored in was a saboteur—but who, and why?

Extraordinary and diverse people inhabit this rich, ripe, occasionally raucous collection of short stories. Some are based on real people - Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire's handsome and reluctant muse who never asked to be called the Black Venus, trapped in the terminal ennui of the poet's passion, snatching at a little lifesaving respectability against all odds....

'I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.' So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter's first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great 20th-century stylists.

A poignant, funny and engrossing exploration of family life centred around a cataclysmic event and its aftermath, from the author of Night Waking and Signs for Lost Children. Adam is a stay-at-home dad who is also working on a history of the bombing and rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. He is a good man, and he is happy. But one day he receives a call from his daughter's school to inform him that for no apparent reason, 15-year-old Miriam has collapsed and stopped breathing.

Did you know that there are aliens living among us? You might have seen them around - they’ve got fur, whiskers, a fondess for mice... That’s right, cats are bent on world domination! But don’t worry, Earth has the best interplanetary canine defense force in the universe: the Spacemutts! In Attack of the Ninja Kittens!, the gang are eager to overpower the evil Lady Fluffkins, but they fall into a trap and their spaceship is taken over by an army of ninja kittens!

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose meets Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. This brilliant historical epic is inspired by the true story of a man whose crimes were so great he was thought to be a werewolf. In 1563 Paulus Melchior, lawyer, academic and enlightened rationalist, travels with his young assistant Willy Lessinger to the isolated German town of Bideburg where local landowner, Peter Stumpf, is accused of brutally murdering dozens of people.

Previously uncollected and unpublished: new short stories from a master of psychological suspense. New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are 10 (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time.

A Christmas short story about rugby, love, loss, mischief, and friendship. Oh, and maybe Banksy.

Amber Knight is hot property - pop star, film star, front-page gossip. DC Nick Belsey is less celebrated. He can't shake his habit of getting into serious trouble and his career at Hampstead CID is coming to a dishonourable end. He is currently of no fixed address - squatting in a disused police station round the corner from Amber's swanky Primrose Hill mansion. But a knock on the door from a frantic and confused woman looking for her missing son is about to lead Belsey straight into the heart of Amber's glittering life.

London is steaming under a summer of filthy heat and sudden storms - and Detective Nick Belsey, of Hampstead CID, is trying to stay out of trouble. But then somebody sets him a riddle. How does a man walk into a dead-end alley and never come out? And then reappear - to snatch a girl, to dump a body beneath a London skyscraper, to send Belsey a package of human hair? The answer lies underground, where the secrets degenerating beneath the city's sickly glitter are about to see the light of day.

The human race is about to become extinct. Mankind is fighting a long and costly war with its android creations in the Orion System. The deadlock must be broken at all costs. The president of Earth must think the unthinkable.... 'There is nothing to fear'. Written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Drawn into 'the nexus of the primeval cauldron of Space-Time', the Doctor and Peri are somewhat surprised to find themselves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Is it really just chance that has brought them to the funfair? Or is their arrival somehow connected with the sinister presence of a rather familiar Chinese Mandarin?

Max Walker is the golden boy. He's attractive, intelligent, athletic. He's even nice to his little brother. Max is going to pass his exams with flying colours; he’s going to make his parents proud.

Far from the Wardstone, a new darkness is rising . . .Slither is a haizda mage who preys upon humans, drinking their blood to feed his dark urges. So when a local farmer dies, it’s only natural that Slither should want to feast on his lovely daughters.But then the farmer offers him a deal, and extracts from Slither a promise that will take him on a journey to the City of the Petrified Tree, to a fallen star-stone that holds great power, and straight into the path of Grimalkin, the Witch Assassin.

Perfect strangers. A perfect holiday. The perfect murder.... Three couples meet around the pool on their Florida holiday and become fast friends. But on their last night, their perfect holiday takes a tragic twist: the teenage daughter of another holidaymaker goes missing, and her body is later found floating in the mangroves. When the shocked couples return home, they remain in contact, and over the course of three increasingly fraught dinner parties they come to know one another better.

The poetic style and sweeping grandeur of The King of Elfland's Daughter has made it one of the most beloved fantasy novels of our time, a masterpiece that influenced some of the greatest contemporary fantasists. The heartbreaking story of a marriage between a mortal man and an elf princess is a masterful tapestry of the fairy tale following the 'happily ever after'.

There is a conspiracy at the heart of Earth's government. The Orion War situation is worsening by the day. The human race is sleepwalking towards extinction. Now, the time is right for the next phase of the Cyber plan to begin. Written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Max Flash, not your usual undercover agent...Max, explosive escapologist and master magician, is back for his second mission, and it's out of this world! The Department for Extraordinary Activity tells Max that there's a vicious alien race preparing for a revenge attack on Earth, and he must blast off into space to defend the planet. Has Max got what it takes to battle evil aliens and save his fellow humans from slavery?

Joe is just an ordinary boy until he makes a wish on a spooky Egyptian amulet... Now he's the Protector of Undead Pets! In Flight of the Battered Budgie, Buddy the budgie is dead and needs Joe's help. Can Joe prevent his owner falling victim to a devious scheme? Only if Joe succeeds will Buddy fly on to his final destination...

God bless you, England, on this glorious Year of Our Lord, 1145. Don't cross the Templars. Everybody knows that. But Will Scarlet, back from the crusades, hopped up on khat and cider, did. Stabbed thrice in the belly but somehow still alive, he's heading home to Nottingham. And things are not right in Nottingham. It's the wood, you see. Sherwood. Ice-age ancient, impenetrable, hiding a dark and secret heart. As the ancient sages say, If you go into the woods today, you may not come out tomorrow and the person who comes out may not be you.