Penguin Worlds

Before she became a world-famous children's author E. Nesbit wrote for adults. She penned a great many ghost and horror stories, of which the very best are gathered here. These tales of terror feature sinister activities on All Hallow's Eve, church hauntings and apparitions from beyond the grave. But they also beautifully portray scenes of idyllic domesticity and love, which dark and horrific elements gradually and even brutally undermine...

Read them and shiver.

Mr Slippery is an illegal computer hacker - a Warlock - and an expert in a new virtual reality technology called the Other Plane. Arrested by the US government and forced to work for them, he finds himself pitted against a new and frightening international cybercriminal: the Mailman.

The Mailman is building a network of Warlocks, promising them wealth and power, causing chaos around the globe - but noone has ever met him in person. As Mr Slippery and his sidekick Erythrina drain the world's power to track down their formidable adversary, they begin to wonder if they are chasing a ghost. Is the Mailman a man at all? Is he even human?

Eddi McCandry sings rock and roll. But her boyfriend just dumped her, her band just broke up, and life could hardly be worse. Then, walking home through downtown Minneapolis on a dark night, she finds herself drafted into an invisible war between the faerie folk. Now, more than her own survival is at risk-and her own preferences, musical and personal, are very much beside the point.

War for the Oaks is a brilliantly entertaining fantasy novel that's as much about this world as about the imagined one.

'Civilization must be preserved,' says he.
'Civilization's doing fine,' I said. 'We just don't happen to be where it is.”

After an accident destroys their starship and leaves them stranded on an uncharted but apparently hospitable planet – crewless, with few supplies and without tools – the five female and three male passengers debate how to survive. When it is decided that it is their human duty to colonize and populate their new home, one woman resists. But on an alien world where survival dictates conformity, her rebellion is seen as the worst kind of betrayal . . .

Joanna Russ offers an electrifying, original and unflinching exploration of individual freedom, power, and the reality of living in the 'hostile environment'.