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Just because you can't explain it, doesn't mean it's a miracle.' Religion is a controversial business in the Discworld. Everyone has their own opinion, and indeed their own gods. Who come in all shapes and sizes. In such a competitive environment, there is a pressing need to make one's presence felt. And it's certainly not remotely helpful to be reduced to be appearing in the form of a tortoise, a manifestation far below god-like status in anyone's book. In such instances, you need an acolyte, and fast. Preferably one who won't ask too many questions...

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass are available together in one volume perfect for any fan or newcomer to this modern fantasy classic series.These thrilling adventures tell the story of Lyra and Will—two ordinary children on a perilous journey through shimmering haunted otherworlds. They will meet witches and armored bears, fallen angels and soul-eating specters. And in the end, the fate of both the living—and the dead—will rely on them.Phillip Pullman’s spellbinding His Dark Materials trilogy has captivated readers for over twenty years and won acclaim at every turn. It will have you questioning everything you know about your world and wondering what really lies just out of reach.

I had removed this review, which violates Article 2 of the Terms of Use:You agree not to post User Content that: (i) may create a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to you, to any other person, or to any animal.Looking at the comment thread, it is abundantly clear that the review not only may, but indeed has caused emotional distress to several Potter fans. I would like to offer my apologies to these unfortunate people, who had every right to expect better service from Goodreads. But, despite the above, I have decided on mature consideration that I will attempt an experiment: I am reinstating the original review, hiding the dangerous and inflammatory content inside a spoiler tag. If you are a person easily offended by negative comments about Harry Potter and still decide to click it, then you have only yourself to blame. You have been warned.(view spoiler)[I got into an argument the other day with an articulate 17 year old Harry Potter fan - let's call him D - who wanted to know why I was being so nasty in my review of Deathly Hallows. What was wrong with it? I offered various structural criticisms: the ending is abrupt and unconvincing, the subplot with the Horcruxes has not been adequately foreshadowed in the earlier volumes, and the book as a whole is overlong and boring. D expressed surprise that I could call Deathly Hallows boring, when I'd given five stars to Madame Bovary and Animal Farm, both of which he considered far duller. The discussion continued for some time. In the end, I said I would write a review summarising my objections to the series as a whole. Here it is.As I said to D, it's not the books or the author. The early Potter books are cute and entertaining, and J.K. Rowling seems like a nice person - if someone's going to scoop the literary Powerball jackpot, why not her? What I very strongly object to is the way the books have been marketed. About 10 years ago, it seems to me, some clever people figured out a new marketing strategy, which they first applied to Potter; when that came to an end, the same methods were used for Twilight. Both series have enjoyed a level of success which is utterly disproportionate to their quality, and which is also unprecedented in literary history. Twilight clearly follows Potter; I've had several discussions about what preceded Potter, and the answer, everyone seems to agree, is that there was no earlier success story of this kind. Before Potter, there was no YA series of dubious merit that absolutely everyone read. I think it's uncontroversial that Potter, in terms of literary quality, is better than Twilight, but Twilight has been even more successful. At one point, the four volumes occupied the top four spots in the New York Times bestseller list. On Goodreads, nearly half of the top 50 reviews are of Twilight books. This is an absurd and unnatural state of affairs. Even though Twilight may not be quite as bad as is sometimes made out - I'm one of many people who have tried to defend it - there's no way it deserves this level of attention.So why is everyone reading it, and why, before that, was everyone reading Potter? As I said, I think it's primarily about the marketing, though I wish I was more sure about the details. Here, at any rate, are some thoughts. First, the publishers are aggressively using economies of scale and deals with third parties. They print very large numbers of copies, and they work together with movie studios, game companies and merchandisers to cross-promote them. I think it's particularly important that a large proportion of the books are sold, not at bookstores, but at normal supermarkets. It's well known that the cover price is usually marked down to the point where the supermarket is not in fact making any profit; they have discovered that they can successfully treat it as a loss leader. This is causing great pain to independent bookstores. Some of them, I have read, have adopted the desperate expedient of buying copies at supermarkets and then reselling them. Second, let's look at the content and style. Even though Potter and Twilight are fairly different in some ways, they also have many strong similarities. Above all, they are extremely easy to read, at every level. The vocabulary is unchallenging; the sentences are short and simple; most characters are one-dimensional stereotypes; the story is uncomplicatedly plot-driven; there are few references to other works of literature. You can read these books if you're tired, if you're sleepy, if you have poor reading skills, if you've never read anything else. They consequently have a very large potential audience.Third, they describe a comforting, emasculated world in which most of the things that make our own world so difficult and unpleasant have been removed. Most strikingly, there is no sex; in Harry Potter, which is supposed to be about fairly normal teens, no one masturbates, no girls get pregnant, none of them are labelled sluts because they've had sex with more than one boy (sometimes one is enough, for that matter), no one gets their heart broken and drops out of school or starts taking drugs as a result, no one is stuck in a dead-end relationship that they wish they could escape from, but can't. The worst thing that happens in either series is the sequence in New Moon where Edward temporarily leaves Bella. Meyer notoriously doesn't describe Bella's feelings at all, but just leaves several pages blank. Once, in fact not so long ago, most adults would have been embarrassed to be seen reading YA literature of this kind; to start with, the comforting word "YA" hadn't been invented yet, and they would have been reading children's books. Somehow, there's been a shift in standards. You look around you on a bus to see what people are reading, and you can be pretty sure you'll see at least a couple of people over 20 engrossed in Potter or Twilight. It's odd that this has happened, and I wish I understood why.In conclusion, I couldn't help being struck by the two books D chose to contrast against Potter. D, Madame Bovary is going to outlast both of these authors because Emma is a real person who experiences the crazy and contradictory emotions that real people experience when they are very unhappy, and as a result she behaves in a crazy and contradictory way; also, Flaubert, unlike Rowling and Meyer, took a great deal of trouble over his prose, and created some of the most beautiful and ironic passages in world literature. There aren't many books I'd call masterpieces, but this is one of them. And finally, Animal Farm is indeed an allegory of the Russian Revolution. More importantly, though, it's about how smart, unscrupulous people manipulate trusting, weak people. Tens of millions of people are reading Potter and Twilight, not because the books are well-written or interesting, but because the readers have been manipulated into buying them by the Napoleons and Squealers of this world. That's what I'm objecting to. Think about it for a moment. (hide spoiler)]

Will is the bearer of the knife. Now, accompanied by angels, his task is to deliver that powerful, dangerous weapon to Lord Asriel - by the command of his dying father.But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronlogical order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.

Including everything you wanted to know about the first three books but never thought to ask. "HE LOST ALL FAITH IN THE STRAIGHTFORWARD OPERATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT THE DAY HE GOT UP INTENDING TO CATCH UP WITH SOME READING AND ENDED UP ON A PREHISTORIC EARTH WITH A MAN FROM BETELGEUSE AND A SPACESHIP-LOAD OF ALIEN TELEPHONE SANITISERS...". Left at the end of LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING with the address for God's Final Message To His Creation, Arthur Dent let this crucial information slip his mind. He tries everything to jog his memory - meditation, mind-reading, hitting himself about the head with blunt objects. But none of it works. Of course, as everyone knows, the answer lies in making life flash before your eyes...Source: douglasadams.com

It’s easy to get disheartened when your planet has been blown up, the woman you love has vanished in a misunderstanding about space/time, the spaceship you are on crashes on a remote and Bob-fearing planet, and all you have to fall back on is a few simple sandwich-making skills. However, instead of being disheartened, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life a bit and, immediately, all hell breaks loose.Hell takes a number of forms: there’s the usual Ford Prefect form of hell, fresh hell in the form of an all-new version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a totally unexpected hell in the form of a teenage girl who startles Arthur Dent by being his daughter when he didn’t even know he had one.Can Arthur save the Earth from total multidimensional obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter, Random, from herself? Of course not. He never works out what is going on, exactly. Will you?

An alternate cover for this isbn can be found here.Here is the third volume in George R.R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Together, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. And as opposing forces manoeuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords...

Ender's Game is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with the Formics, an insectoid alien species they dub the "buggers". In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, children, including the novel's protagonist, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, are trained from a very young age by putting them through increasingly difficult games, including some in zero gravity, where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.The book originated as a short story of the same name, published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The novel was published on January 15, 1985. Later, by elaborating on characters and plotlines depicted in the novel, Card was able to write additional books in the Ender's Game series. Card also released an updated version of Ender's Game in 1991, changing some political facts to reflect the times more accurately (e.g., to include the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War). The novel has been translated into 34 languages.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a 1997 fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.

For the first time, all five novels in the epic fantasy series that inspired HBO's "Game of Thrones "are together in one boxed set. An immersive entertainment experience unlike any other, A Song of Ice and Fire has earned George R. R. Martin--dubbed "the American Tolkien" by "Time" magazine--international acclaim and millions of loyal readers. Now here is the entire monumental cycle: A GAME OF THRONESA CLASH OF KINGSA STORM OF SWORDSA FEAST OF CROWSA DANCE WITH DRAGONS Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse--unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season.  Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances. Now Robert is riding north to Winterfell, bringing his queen, the lovely but cold Cersei, his son, the cruel, vainglorious Prince Joffrey, and the queen's brothers Jaime and Tyrion of the powerful and wealthy House Lannister--the first a swordsman without equal, the second a dwarf whose stunted stature belies a brilliant mind. All are heading for Winterfell and a fateful encounter that will change the course of kingdoms.  Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Prince Viserys, heir of the fallen House Targaryen, which once ruled all of Westeros, schemes to reclaim the throne with an army of barbarian Dothraki--whose loyalty he will purchase in the only coin left to him: his beautiful yet innocent sister, Daenerys."

There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it’s haunting Harry Pottter’s dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror?Harry has a lot on his mind for this, his fifth year at Hogwarts: a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with a personality like poisoned honey; a big surprise on the Gryffindor Quidditch team; and the looming terror of the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams. But all these things pale next to the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - a threat that neither the magical government nor the authorities at Hogwarts can stop.As the grasp of darkness tightens, Harry must discover the true depth and strength of his friends, the importance of boundless loyalty, and the shocking price of unbearable sacrifice.His fate depends on them all.

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.And yet . . .As in all wars, life goes on. The Weasley twins expand their business. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate - and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, through Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complete story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort - and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series. It follows Harry Potter, a wizard in his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the mystery surrounding the entry of Harry's name into the Triwizard Tournament, in which he is forced to compete.

For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort.Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts . . . he's at Hogwarts."Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.

The Dursleys were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strikeAnd strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister, Ginny.But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone -- or something -- starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects . . . Harry Potter himself?

Harry Potter is leaving Privet Drive for the last time. But as he climbs into the sidecar of Hagrid’s motorbike and they take to the skies, he knows Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters will not be far behind.The protective charm that has kept him safe until now is broken. But the Dark Lord is breathing fear into everything he loves. And he knows he can’t keep hiding.To stop Voldemort, Harry knows he must find the remaining Horcruxes and destroy them.He will have to face his enemy in one final battle.--jkrowling.com

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in children's literature.The Hobbit is set within Tolkien's fictional universe and follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit, to win a share of the treasure guarded by Smaug the dragon. Bilbo's journey takes him from light-hearted, rural surroundings into more sinister territory.The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature of Tolkien's geography. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict.

Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.Though Harry's first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it's his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.Full of sympathetic characters, wildly imaginative situations, and countless exciting details, the first installment in the series assembles an unforgettable magical world and sets the stage for many high-stakes adventures to come.

The Intercept is an American non-profit news organization founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Laura Poitras, and funded by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its editor is Betsy Reed. It also publishes four podcasts: Intercepted, Deconstructed, Murderville GA, and Somebody.

Marvel's Wolverine is a audio drama podcast series featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine. The show is Marvel's first scripted podcast produced by Marvel New Media and Stitcher. Marvel had previously done some other audio only formats in 1974 with a Fantastic Four radio series and a Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero concept album. It was dubbed one of the Best Podcasts of 2018 by Apple while also winning the 2019 iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast. A comic adaptation was published by Marvel due to the podcast's success.

An astronaut named Gary and his planet-destroying sidekick called Mooncake embark on serialized journeys through space in order to unlock the mystery of where the universe actually ends and if it actually does exist.

adult animated space opera comedy-drama television series

Prequel series to Star Wars' 'Rogue One', following the adventures of Cassian Andor during the formative years of the Rebellion.

An F.B.I. agent is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist and his son in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.

American science fiction television series

A young woman, destined to slay vampires, demons and other infernal creatures, deals with her life fighting evil, with the help of her friends.

1997 American supernatural drama TV series

Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to 

The townspeople who live above "The Loop," a machine built to unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe, experience things previously consigned to the realm of science fiction.

The support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.

Everyone wants something. There is a mysterious figure who sits in the booth at the end, who you make a deal with to get what you want. You do the task or you don't - that is up to you, but there are no rule changes in this captivati

Covert black ops and espionage take a back seat to zany personalities and relationships between secret agents and drones.

The further adventures in time and space of the alien adventurer known as the Doctor and their companions from planet Earth.

When an old enemy, the Cylons, resurface and obliterate the 12 colonies, the crew of the aged Galactica protect a small civilian fleet - the last of humanity - as they journey toward the fabled 13th colony, Earth.

Following the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol by the Cylons, a rag-tag fugitive fleet of the last remnants of mankind flees the pursuing Cylons while simultaneously searching for their true home: Earth.

Four people and their otherworldly frienemy struggle in the afterlife to define what it means to be good.

2016 American fantasy comedy television series

A man is able to choose his own afterlife after his untimely death, by having his consciousness uploaded into a virtual world. As he gets used to his new life and befriends his angel (real world handler), questions about his death ar

The bizarre escapades of pseudo-heroic scientist Dr. Rusty Venture, his competent, high-strung bodyguard, and his two overenthusiastic sons.

Dragon Ball tells the tale of a young warrior by the name of Son Goku, a young peculiar boy with a tail who embarks on a quest to become stronger and learns of the Dragon Balls, when, once all 7 are gathered, grant any wish of choice

1986-1989 Japanese anime television series

After learning that he is from another planet, a warrior named Goku and his friends are prompted to defend it from an onslaught of extraterrestrial enemies.

A teenage boy finds himself recruited as a member of an elite team of pilots by his father.

The futuristic misadventures and tragedies of an easygoing bounty hunter and his partners.

1998-1999 Japanese anime television series

In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

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