Stephen Davies

Hilda encounters her very first troll, negotiates with some very persnickety elves, and seeks to discover the mystery behind the giant who only appears at midnight as she faces the prospect of leaving her beloved wilderness home with her mom for Trolberg City.

Kadija is the music-loving daughter of a guardian of the library in the ancient city of Timbuktu, Ali is a former shepherd boy, trained by Islamist militants--and both are caught up in the war in Mali and on opposite sides of the struggle to save the sacred Sufi manuscripts that the militants want to destroy.

Hilda and her mom have settled into their new home in the city of Trolberg. Pining for her magical friends and the wonder-filled wilderness, Hilda is finding it hard to fit in, especially at school. But when Hilda makes a new friend she soon begins to uncover some surprising secrets... Perhaps this concrete labyrinth is a place where wonderful and magical things can happen too?

"A tragicomic novel of a fame-obsessed American society yet again on the brink. Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust, William Giraldi's About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the...

Pleasure and guilt make mischievous bedfellows in Stephen McCauley's witty send-up of modern love, sex, and real estate. Boston real estate agent William Collins knows that his habits are slipping out of control. Due to obsessive-compulsive daily cleaning binges and a penchant for nightly online cruising for hookups, he finds his sales figures slipping despite a booming market. There's also his ongoing struggle to collect the rent from his passive-aggressive...

Ten stories of wonder and imagination by an author named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America   In the collection's title story, Frederick Gray is closing in on seventy and has outlived his usefulness as a professor of law. He has no family; his best friend, fellow faculty member Ben Lovell, has recently died. Before Gray moves into a retirement home, he takes a final canoe trip to a favorite fishing spot he and Lovell...

From tales of alien invasions and intergalactic war to visions of dystopian tomorrows, an astonishing collection from one of literary science fiction's all-time greats, Hugo Award winner Clifford D. Simak. The twentieth century's so-called golden age of science fiction produced many great writers-including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein-yet none is greater than Clifford D. Simak, named Grand Master by the Science...

Strange, poignant tales of life on tomorrow's Earth and in outer space from multiple Hugo Award–winning Grand Master of Science Fiction Clifford D. Simak. Virtually every major author from science fiction's fabled golden age-including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein-agreed that Clifford D. Simak was one of the greatest among them. Named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the award-winning author created enduring...

Collected tales of wonder, danger, and the future, including the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning title story This volume contains ten stellar short stories by science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak. In "Grotto of the Dancing Deer," a man carrying an ancient secret finally speaks up, unable to bear any longer the loneliness he has experienced for millennia. In "Over the River," which Simak wrote in memory of his beloved grandmother Ellen, children...

Billionaires in World Politics shows how the privatization of politics assumes a new dimension when billionaires wield power in world politics, which requires a rethinking of individual agency in international relations. Structural changes have generated new opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics across borders. The political agency of billionaires is being conceptualized in terms of capacities, goals, and...