Science Mysteries

Christmas in Winterspell means ice skating, hot cocoa by the barrel, and frosted gingerbread houses. I was almost looking forward to it. The merriment screeches to a halt when two elves show up, claiming to have been sent by Santa himself, on a mission to track down an ancient grimoire. A grimoire with the power of Christmas itself woven through the pages. Without it, Christmas isn't happening, and Santa himself is in grave danger. Could Winterspell hold the key to saving Christmas?

After finding a compass and clues left by Kallista's father, Leo Babbage, Trenton and Kallista head west aboard their homemade mechanical dragon to search for the missing inventor. The two teenagers hope to find answers about their mountain city of Cove, but instead, they find only a blackened forest, ruined buildings, and a small underground city. Almost immediately, Trenton and Kallista get caught up in a civil war between a clan of scavengers called Whipjacks and the Order of the Beast.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

From a remote corner of the galaxy, a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular, and artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican.

Ellis Rogers is an ordinary man who is about to embark on an extraordinary journey. All his life he has played it safe and done the right thing. But when he is faced with a terminal illness, Ellis is willing to take an insane gamble. He's built a time machine in his garage, and if it works, he'll face a world that challenges his understanding of what it means to be human, what it takes to love, and the cost of paradise. Ellis could find more than a cure for his disease; he might find what everyone has been searching for since time has begun.

Lena, Flint and their unique family have discovered what created their extrasensory abilities and hidden memories. When a new opportunity arises to give them answers to a past they thought was lost, an entire world is reopened. Now, stronger than they were before, they venture to the heart of what created them knowing they may not all return.

The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Following a trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical secret-keeping that began with the handling of evidence in the JFK assassination and continued apace....

Victoria can't wait to start college, but there's a hitch - she can't remember anything before arriving on campus. Her memories finally spark when she sees her ruggedly handsome math professor, but she senses something terrible happened. The shock on his face affirms her fears. Toby is an alpha wolf who never thought he'd see his true love again - not after she died in his arms. Nothing could have prepared him for her walking into his class. But to his dismay, not only has she forgotten the past, she doesn't even know who she is.

When the Lords of the Icelandic Elves summon me to use my talents to find a lost dragon's egg, I find it hard to say no. I've seen what a dragon can do, and a young, just-hatched dragon is a being of pure destruction. But word of the egg gets out, and the race to find it begins. Mages from many realms are on the hunt - including a dragon - and they don't always play well together. Unless I want to join the casualties, I need to find that egg and return it to where it belongs. Luckily, I have help, but I wish that damned golden-winged Nephilim would keep his shirt on.

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

Chicago, 1932. Mick Oberon may look like just another private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand.

The evening begins like many others. Lionel falls asleep while listening to his uncle tell stories. Ryan stays up reading and listening to music. Vicki goes out smoking pot with her friends. And Judd, tired of being told what to do, takes his father’s credit card and heads to the airport in search of freedom. But in one shocking moment, everything changes. All over the world, millions of people suddenly vanish. Driverless cars crash on the highways, and planes fall through the sky without pilots.

A battle for the underworld is brewing. Taking the throne might be close to impossible between having a goddess and a secretive human organization bent on the domination of all the realms on her tail. How can Poppy, her hellhounds, and her judges defend it? It doesn't help when one of her judges goes missing while she sleeps. When they fall under attack Poppy must choose between fighting, staying safe, and searching for her missing man.

In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic - when a healthy baby wouldn’t take a breath at birth - the country has been thrown into turmoil. The government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens. And several young pregnant women have vanished without trace. As a midwife, Lainey’s mum, Emma, is determined to be there for those who need her. But when 17-year-old Lainey finds herself in trouble, this dangerous new world becomes very real.

Sigrud je Harkvaldsson has nothing left to live for. He is a fugitive and an exile, wanted for murder throughout the empire of Saypur. His entire existence has seemed only to visit suffering and death upon those he wants most to protect - while he himself has emerged from each battle cruelly unscathed, inexplicably immune to forces both natural and divine. Then his closest friend and ally, former prime minister Shara Komayd, is assassinated.

Life as Aileen knew it ended when she woke up in a morgue sporting a new set of fangs after a wild night out. Now, as a courier for the supernatural world, she balances figuring out this whole vampire thing with making enough to support her ice cream habit. When a job goes disastrously awry and ends with a body on the ground, Aileen finds herself in over her head as she draws the attention of a powerful creature intent on her death.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

Meg Cabot is the New York Times best-selling author of The Princess Diaries series. Susannah Simon is a teenager who can see ghosts. As a bridge between the living and the dead, she gets called on to help ghosts take care of unfinished business. After she and her mother move from New York City to sunny California, Suze meets the sexiest boy she's ever seen, too bad he's a ghost, too.

The three friends trapped in their Minecraft game have never been closer to escaping the Overworld, and they can't wait to return home after being trapped on the server for so long. But then a vicious horde of creepers attacks, delaying their escape. Soon the gang learns that there's a new villain behind the attack: a griefer so twisted that he'd rather stay trapped in the Overworld than live a mundane life in the real world - and he has no qualms about keeping every other player trapped on the server with him.

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.