When the sickness came, every parent, police officer, politician - every adult - fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry. Only children under fourteen remain and they're fighting to survive.
Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city the grown-ups lie in wait.
Years in insurance and marriage to the joyless Hilda have been no more than death in life to George Bowling. This and fear of another war take his mind back to the peace of his childhood in a small country town. But his return journey to Lower Binfield brings complete disillusionment.
Holly Golightly, glittering socialite traveller, generally upwards, sometimes sideways and once in a while down. She's up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She's a shoplifter, a delight, a drifter, a tease. She doesn't want to belong to anything or anyone. Not to 'Rusty' Trawler, the blue-chinned, cuff-shooting millionaire man about women about town. Not to Salvatore 'Sally' Tomato, the Mafia sugar-daddy doing life in Sing Sing. Not to a starving writer. Not even to her one-eyed rag-bag pirate of a cat. One day Holly might find somewhere she belongs. Until then she's travelling.
Former SAS Captain Will Jackson is a man with nothing to lose. A veteran of the most dangerous missions the Regiment could throw at him, his life was torn apart the day a terrorist attack killed his family. Now he leads a life of grief-stricken obscurity, the world of warfare nothing but a distant memory. People higher up the chain of command have other plans, however. They're in a mess of their own making, and unless they sort it out, thousands of innocent people will pay the price. And so they make Jackson an offer he can't refuse.
In SHADOW PUPPETS, the third book in the new series following ENDER'S SHADOW and SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON, he follows the fates of Ender's fellow pupils from Battle School - now facing terrible new challenges, both personal and political. Manoeuvring through international politics and war, Peter Wiggin and Achilles are each determined to defeat the other and become Hegemon. When cloned embryos carrying Bean's brilliant intelligence fall into the hands of Achilles' people, the race to protect the world has only just begun ...
Ender has been sent to the stars as too dangerously charismatic a military leader to keep on Earth. Without the common alien threat, our global alliance is disintegrating. Ender's top strategists like Bean are in demand by would-be conquering countries. Kidnappings rapidly follow.
Ender's brilliant but twisted brother Peter is already manipulating international politics as respected political pundit "Locke", hoping to become world ruler or Hegemon. He needs the genetically enhanced abilities of Bean, who's mainly concerned with the fate of kidnapped Petra--the only girl to reach the top rank at Ender's Battle School. Meanwhile boy serial killer Achille, the villain of Ender's Shadow, has sold his strategic talents to more than one nation, and has scores to settle ...
Bean, Ender Wiggins' former right-hand man, has shed his reputation as the smallest student at Battle School. He has completed his military service for the Hegemon, acting as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire that attacked Earth. Now he and his wife, Petra, yearn for a safe place to build a family - something he has never known. Yet no such place exists on Earth, a world riddled with Bean's enemies from the past. Once again he must follow in Ender's footsteps and look to the stars.
Cadel, the scrawny, nerdy boy from EVIL GENIUS, is back in GENIUS SQUAD, a bit more grown up, a lot more responsible, and trapped in a foster home with a bully and without a computer.
He's miserable as he tries to bide his time until the slow-moving authorities can find out who he is and where he belongs. It is as he is waiting that the Genius Squad approaches him.
Devoted to bringing down one of Dr. Darkkon's operations, GenoME, the Genius Squad wants Cadel to help them. But Cadel is naturally suspicious and paranoid.
Can he really trust the Genius Squad, or is his hesitance to trust them warranted?
The Human-Covenant war rages on as the alien juggernaut sweeps inexorably toward its final goal: destruction of all human life. Halo has been destroyed and the threat it posed to sentient life neutralized. But victory has come at a terrible cost for the UNSC. Thousands of valiant soldiers fell in the battle to prevent the alien construct from falling into the enemy's clutches. Now, everything depends on the Spartan known as the 'Master Chief'. Yet even with the aid of the artificial intelligence Cortana, the Master Chief will be hard-pressed to rescue survivors and evade the Covenant ships patrolling the remains of Halo in debris-strewn space. Ahead lies a dangerous voyage home, through a gauntlet of Covenant forces. For the sake of all, the Master Chief and his war-torn squad must not only survive, but take the fight to the enemy with a decisive first strike.
It is the year 2524. Harvest is a peaceful, prosperous farming colony on the very edge of human-controlled space. But we have trespassed on holy ground – strayed into the path of an aggressive alien empire known as “The Covenant.” What begins as a chance encounter between an alien privateer and a human freighter catapults mankind into a struggle for its very existence.
But humanity is also locked in a bitter civil war known as the “Insurrection.” So the survival of Harvest’s citizens falls to a squad of battle-weary UNSC Marines and their inexperienced colonial militia trainees. In this unlikely group of heroes, one stands above the rest . . . a young Marine staff sergeant named Avery Johnson.
A magisterial new novel that takes us behind the scenes during one of the most formative periods in English history: the reign of Henry VIII. Wolf Hall is told mainly through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, a self-made man who rose from a blacksmith's son in Putney to be the most powerful man in England after the king. It was a time when a half-made society was making itself with great passion and suffering and courage; a time when those involved in the art of the possible were servants to masters only interested in glorious gestures; a time when the very idea of social progress, and of a better world, was fresh, alien and threatening.
Conor thought he was an average teenager. OK, so his father only had one hand, spoke to him in ancient languages and was a bit on the eccentric side but, other than that, life was fairly normal. Until, that is, two Celtic warriors on horseback and wearing full armour appear at his front door and try to kill him. After that, things get pretty weird.
The Hero Foundation is a shadow of its former self and Lord Eon - the most terrible supervillain ever - is still at large. Worse, he has hatched a plan to tear apart time. Toby and his superhero friends should be able to stop him . . . but Pete has woken from his coma a different person and Lorna has disappeared. In the titanic struggle that will follow, friendships will be tested and superhero powers strained to the limit as time runs out for the world . . . literally . . .
Five kids have formed a highly-skilled squad to help in the international fight against evil. Flying to Northern Canada to investigate reports of illegal dumping of toxic waste, they must dive into an icy river, cross the harsh landscape on snowmobiles and mobilise their caving skills to complete the mission. But most of all, they need courage and determination when they come face-to-face with a man who is ready to kill to stop them.
The team face their toughest challenge yet.
