Orion Books

GRRM: A RRETROSPECTIVE is a massive collection of the best of George R.R. Martin's short fiction, containing 32 short stories and novellas, including the Hugo-winning 'A Song for Lya', the Bram Stoker-winning 'The Pear-Shaped Man' and 'The Skin Trade', which won the World Fantasy Award and is generally acclaimed as the finest werewolf story of our time. As well as the stories themselves, which span Martin's multi-faceted career, there are two television scripts, voluminous author commentary, an introduction by award-winning editor and writer Gardner Dozois and a comprehensive bibliography. This must-have volume by one of the brightest stars in the field of imaginative fiction.

September and already she has performance anxiety. Not surprising when she has agreed to lay on the annual Christmas Eve village bash — the piece de resistance of her husband's former wife — not to mention having to host Christmas for his difficult offspring. New to this frenzied build-up to the festivities, Beth begins to lose sight of what it all means. To her the Christmas lights are looking more like the headlamps of an oncoming train. Carol: glamorous magazine editor, who put her aspirational Christmas issue to bed sometime in July and is so involved in finding a scoop to save her ailing magazine that she fails to notice the impending festive rush. Panicked and wracked with guilt, she is determined to make it a picture perfect time for her little boy and, opting for convenience, books a lovely-sounding cottage in a quaint village. Even the best laid plans have a habit of unravelling — and no plan at all is a recipe for disaster. So when these two Christmases collide, it looks like it's going to be anything but goodwill towards men...

The 5th century has dawned in blood. The young boy exiled thirty years ago has grown into a man. One stormy autumn day, a mysterious rider is seen out on the plains. Attila has returned, his sentence served, to claim his kingdom. He will ride out at the head of no more than one hundred chosen men, driven by the ambition to unite all the feuding Hunnish and Scythian tribes under single banner and a single king. An impossible ambition. For Attila and his chosen men must triumph over blizzards and deserts, bandit kings and hidden mountain kingdoms, and furious battle with the terrible Kutrigur Huns. But all will flock to his banner, answer his call. His power is mysterious and inexpressible, his strength of character and iron will cannot be opposed. And far to the west lies a promised empire both fabulously wealthy and tottering to its knees. An empire full of gold and silver and dark-eyed slavegirls... the Empire of Rome. And this strange horde from out of the Scythian wilderness will bring a night to fall on that Empire like no other...

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.

The new China, the nation that in 25 years has changed beyond all recognition is becoming an industrial powerhouse for the world. James Kynge shows not only the extraordinary rise of the Chinese economy, but what the future holds as China begins to influence the world. On the eve of the British industrial revolution some 230 years ago, China accounted for one third of the global economy. In 1979, after 30 years of Communism, its economy contributed only two per cent to global GDP. Now it is back up to five per cent, and rising. Although China is already a palpable force in the world, its re-emergence is only just starting to be felt. Kynge shows China's weaknesses — its environmental pollution, its crisis in social trust, its weak financial system and the faltering institutions of its governments — which are poised to have disruptive effects on the world. The fall-out from any failure in China's rush to modernity or simply from a temporary economic crash in the Chinese economy would be felt around the world.

It all starts with a cat-and-mouse chase to the death in a Baltimore funfair: the Jackal, Bourne's age-old antagonist, is back and Bourne is forced from his idyllic retirement with his wife and children to confront his enemy. In Europe, Russia and America there are men and women whose lust for power is disguised by their positions and respectability. Their aim: to gain control at the highest level, to avenge, to destroy. Jason Bourne has been the assassin before: now he longs for peace with his family, but the threat of the Jackal puts in jeopardy all possibility of peace...

Annabelle has had many names in her life — Sally, Cindy, Lucille. Every few months she had to pack a single bag, as her father moved the family from city to city, changing names, houses, careers and histories. But Annabelle never knew what they were running from. Now in her thirties, with both parents dead, she's settled in Boston. But old habits die hard and she still looks over her shoulder when she leaves her apartment, still blends in with the crowd on the subway. Then at the Boston State Mental Hospital a multiple grave is discovered. Six young girls were left to die in an underground chamber decades ago, while their captor looked on. When her original name appears in the paper, wrongly identifying her as one of the dead girls, Annabelle finally knows why her father kept running. But the killer is still on the loose. And he's been looking for her for a very long time. Bobby Dodge has been haunted by the Catherine Gagnon case for years. It nearly cost him his job and his sanity. As a child, Catherine was also held prisoner underground, like the victims in this latest case. But Catherine's captor was in prison when these girls were taken. Yet the similarities are too numerous to be just coincidence...

The last survivor of the end days of Hitler's bunker tells his story publicly for the first time. Von Loringhoven was aide-de-camp to Hitler's last two chiefs of staff, Guderian and Krebs, and the link between the armies at the fronts and Hitler in his Berlin bunker. For the last nine months of the Third Reich he was present at the daily military briefings between Hitler and Marshals Keital and Goring, General Jodl and Admiral Donitz, along with Goebbels, Bormann, Ribbentrop, Himmler and Fegelein. Von Lorninghoven was witness to the ever-growing gap between the reality of reports outside the bunker and Hitler's misunderstanding of the calamity that was encircling the regime. As the Third Reich spiralled downwards, he watched and recorded Hitler's catastrophic strategic mistakes and the paralysis in which he held his generals. Hitler's reason was twisted by his need for vengeance after the assissination attempt; he was searching for an impossible theatrical victory from an empire in total ruin. The final week of the regime saw Loringhoven living wholly in the bunker, watching the deteriorating relations among the inmates, military and civilian, as the atmosphere poisoned to an inevitable end. When radio-telephone communications finally broke down on 29 April he escaped the bunker — amazingly with Hitler's blessing — crossed the Russian lines and was picked up and taken prisoner by the Americans. He was released in January 1948.

The novel traces the events of Jane Austen's well-loved Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of Mr Darcy. It reveals his reactions to Elizabeth, his gradual falling in love and the process by which he painfully gains self-knowledge, and it brings to life all the off-stage events that are only referred to in Austen's novel. We learn of Darcy's life in London, of his dangerous friendship with Byron, of the responsibilities that come with running Pemberley, and the terrible guilt he feels at not protecting his sister well enough from the dastardly Wickham. We also see Miss Bingley's increasingly desperate attempts to woo Darcy, and his own part in bringing about the separation between Elizabeth's sister and his own best friend. But above all, we come to know Fitzwilliam Darcy as a fully-rounded character, with all his flaws and all his attractions, and we learn that the story told from his point of view is as enchanting, gripping and unforgettable as Jane Austen's original.

Meet Chloe Zhivago, 43 and definitely not counting. Married for what feels like all eternity to Greg who tests his memory in infuriating ways, for example hiding the kettle from himself in the drum of the washing machine, Chloe is a successful psychotherapist with two children and a Famous Friend from hell. She's got it all. So why does she want to rub her life out and start again? Is this it? She asks herself. Will I never sleep with another man again? When Chloe meets temptation in the shape of Ivan, does she dare risk a passionate Russian romance before gravity wins the battle with her face and figure? Can she get away with one glorious, final fling? Dr Zhivago didn't. And just look what happened to Anna Karenina...This is a razor sharp, wonderfully funny, sexy novel that asks a serious question — how do you keep love alive during a long marriage? — and answers it with poignancy and pure delicious comedy.

man is chained inside a tunnel and then dismembered and scattered along the tracks by the early morning train from Portsmouth to London. The beginning of DI Joe Faraday's most gruesome case yet, but is it a bizarre suicide or the cruellest of murders? Checking the list of missing persons as the police attempt to identify the body DC Winter comes across a missing man, someone who stepped out of his ordered life with no hint of leaving. He's not the man in the tunnel, he's simply disappeared. The only person he can find who knew him works in the city morgue...ONE UNDER: two crimes, two tangles of emotions and thwarted love, one brilliant microcosm of Britain today.

Just as the dust from the case of the white Bulldog begins to settle in the small Russian town of Zavolzhsk, its sleepy rural existence is shaken up by the arrival of a desperately frightened monk who seeks the help of the bishop, Mitrofanii...

In the dying days of the nineteenth century, the small Russian town of Zavolzhsk is shaken out of its sleepy rural existence by the arrival from St Petersburg of a Synodical Inspector with a hidden agenda and a dangerously persuasive manner. Meanwhile, in the nearby country estate of Drozdovka, one of the prized white Bulldogs — prized because of its one brown ear, and its propensity to drool — belonging to the cantankerous lady of the house has been poisoned. The old widow has taken to her bed, sick with fear that her two remaining dogs may face a similar fate, and the many potential beneficiaries of her will wait fretfully to see whether or not she will recover. Sister Pelagia: bespectacled, freckled, woefully clumsy and astonishingly resourceful is summoned by the Bishop of Zavolzhsk to investigate the bulldog's death. But her investigation soon takes a far more sinister turn when two headless bodies are pulled out of the river on the edge of the estate.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits who are compelled by some unknown force to venture illegally into the Zone and, in spite of the extreme danger, collect the mysterious artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the Zone and the thriving black market in the alien products. Even the nature of his daughter has been determined by the Zone. And it is for her that Red makes his last, tragic foray into the hazardous and hostile depths.

Russia, 1854: the Crimean War grinds on, and as the bitter winter draws near, the battlefield hospitals fill with dying men. In defiance of Florence Nightingale, Rosa Barr — young, headstrong and beautiful — travels to Balaklava, determined to save as many of the wounded as she can. For Mariella Lingwood, Rosa's cousin, the war is contained within the pages of her scrapbook, in her London sewing circle, and in the letters she receives from Henry, her fiancé, a celebrated surgeon who has also volunteered to work within the shadow of the guns. When Henry falls ill and is sent to recuperate in Italy, Mariella impulsively decides she must go to him. But upon their arrival at his lodgings, she and her maid make a heartbreaking discovery: Rosa has disappeared. Following the trail of her elusive and captivating cousin, Mariella's epic journey takes her from the domestic restraint of Victorian London to the ravaged landscape of the Crimea and the tragic city of Sebastopol. As she ventures deeper into the dark heart of the conflict, Mariella's ordered world begins to crumble and she finds she has much to learn about secrecy, faithfulness and love.

Ruth has fallen madly in love with Ned and he with her. They are taking the plunge and marriage is a few short months away. But the problem with true love is that it doesn't involve just two people. There's a whole new family of in-laws to meet, get to know and get on with. And then there are the friends… Ruth has enough problems learning to understand her unpredictable mother-in-law, let alone like her. Is the woman merely difficult, or is there something more dangerous here? Then she meets Ned's close-knit circle of friends whose past relationships seem more tangled than most. And without the friends' approval, it could be a short engagement. At a time when she should be looking forward to a happy future, Ruth begins to get caught up in the past, and all the things that happened to Ned and his friends years before. Is she imagining things? Has Ned really changed? Or are the friends still bound up by the complex, shifting balances that have the power to tear people apart?

Milly Lockwood Groves is stuck at her parents' racing stables and stud farm outside Newmarket, her dreams of making it as a champion jockey in tatters. Her father has forbidden her to ride after a fall left her hospitalised — and there's no arguing with him. As a millionaire racehorse breeder and bastion of the male dominated racing fraternity, he would prefer Milly took up more ladylike pursuits, and left the riding to her brother, Jasper. Although Milly has more talent in her left riding boot than the poisonous Jasper will ever have, her family are determined to fill Milly's life with cookery courses and debs' balls in London. But Milly's life is about to change with the arrival of Bobby Cameron, the most skilled horse-breaker in America. Milly, who previously has had no interest in males of the two-legged variety, develops a passionate crush on the blond, beautiful Bobby. When Bobby offers her the chance to spend a year on his Californian ranch, it's just too good an opportunity to refuse…

brilliant and vigorous observer of both French and British societies, which she knows intimately, 32-year-old Agnes Catherine Poirier has spent the last ten years explaining the peculiarities of France to the British and of Britain to the French. Not an easy job. Having studied both in Paris and London, writing in both languages for the French and British press, Agnes Catherine Poirier plays with national stereotypes, which are both stupid and dangerous, with dexterity and savoir faire. She goes beneath the surface to explain why France and Britain keep arguing and competing endlessly, why they are so different and why they do things in almost opposite ways. Covering the worlds of art, politics, action, food, institutions, sex, history, media, society and philosophy, she tells us as much about us as why France is a nation apart. Revenge for tabloid attacks on France or for British expats' invasions of Brittany and the Dordogne? You decide. But this will entertain and educate all readers about their own country and whether its 'entente' with La Belle France is 'cordiale' or not. You may disagree with her but you may never see yourself in the same way again.

A woman gives birth to her child in a village in Northern England, the cold northern edge of the Roman Empire. As she struggles through a painful labour she begins to scream out a series of words in Latin. A language she has never heard before, much less spoken. One of the family recognises the words for what they are. Only later does it become clear that the women has spoken a prophecy. A prophecy that relates to the death of the Emperor Constantine/ A prophecy that if enacted will change the fate of the Roman Empire and all of the future beyond it. Stephen Baxter's new series takes ordinary individuals living at history's tipping points and presents them with a prophecy that challenges everything they believe about their world and prompts them to take action that could change it forever. The fourth volume reveals the nature of the prophecies and reveals a battle that has been fought through the ages.

Harper Connelly had a lucky escape when she was hit by lightning: she didn't die. But sometimes she wishes she had died, because the lightning strike left her with an unusual talent: she can find dead people — and that's not always comfortable. Everyone wants to know how she does it: it's a little like hearing a bee droning inside her head, or maybe the pop of a Geiger counter, a persistent, irregular noise that increases in strength as she gets closer. It's almost electric: a buzzing all through her body, and the fresher the corpse, the more intense the buzz. Harper and her brother Tolliver make their living from finding the dead, for desperate parents, worried friends... and police departments who have nowhere else to look. They may not believe in her abilities, but sometimes the proof is just too much for even the most sceptical of police chiefs to deny. But it's not always easy for someone like Harper, for the dead *want* to be found — and too often, finding the body doesn't bring closure; it opens a whole new can of worms.

Somewhere over the rainbow and just off the Yellow Brick Road stands Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And things are not going well for the city's inhabitants. There have been outbreaks of STC — Spontaneous Toy Combustion — and there are strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Preachers of Toy City's many religions are predicting that the End Times are approaching and that a Toy City Apocalypse will soon come to pass. But can this possibly be true, or is there a simple explanation — an alien invasion, for instance. With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, it is the time for a hero to step forward and attempt to save the day. Well, two heroes actually, Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye and his loyal sidekick, Jack: our courageous twosome are about to face their biggest challenge yet, to save not only toykind, but the world of mankind too. Which should keep them out of the pub for a while.