Chorus Skating

A middle-aged, out-of-shape spellsinger yearns for one last great adventure, in this rollicking fantasy by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author. Jon-Tom and Mudge are bored. Their adventuring days long behind them, the spellsinger and his once-thieving otter sidekick have settled into a life of tepid domesticity, and they are sick of it. They hunger for an old-fashioned adventure, but there are no more great evils to combat. And so they decide to follow the music. Literally. A drifting cloud of lost chords has taken to floating around Jon-Tom, and following it puts them on the trail of an evil that terrifies the spellsinger. Something is stealing music. Finding out who, and why, is responsible for the silencing of the instruments will put Jon-Tom and Mudge into great peril, at the hands of a selfish elephant, a greedy black bear, and a whirlpool with a filthy sense of humor. Seeking adventure, they’ve stumbled into one turn that may turn out to be their last.

A new fantasy featuring the Spellsinger and his otter friend who discover a lost chord. But when the lost chord leads them into deadly danger, the world could be plunged into discord and chaos unless the Spellsinger can work his magic. Follows SON OF SPELLSINGER.

Harry B. Smith was the most prolific writer for the American musical theatre in history, working with every major American composer between 1880 and 1920. This examination of his work is thus highly instructive of the history of the American musical.

The attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships set the stage for a Winter Olympics spectacle: Tonya versus Nancy. Women on Ice collects the writings of a diverse group of feminists who address and question our national obsession with Tonya and Nancy and what this tells us about perceptions of women in twentieth century America.

Technology becomes self-aware—and goes haywire—in this comedic science fiction adventure by New York Times–bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. Without warning, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, and every other electronic gadget humans came to depend upon ceased to perform the tasks they were manufactured to do. Ignoring their programming, these devices now sought the meaning of life from an intelligence nonhuman in origin. Their quest ends in the most unexpected of places. Beneath the grounds of an upstate New York retirement community lies an alien spaceship. Inert for millennia, the machines have awakened the ancient intelligence within it. Programmed to wage war against an enemy race, the spaceship threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. And now the fate of all organic andinorganic life lies with five senior citizens—and a food processor . . .

A musician is transported into a land of magic—from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Trek Into Darkness. Jonathan Thomas Meriweather is a typical college student, interested in girls, music, and an occasional taste of reefer. But when a journey through an interdimensional portal lands him in a world of talking animals and ominous sorcery, he finds he is on a very different trip indeed. Here, when he plays a strange instrument called a duar, peculiar things happen: powerful magic that may be the only way to stop a dark force that threatens his new world—and his old one. Reluctantly, he finds himself teaming up with a semi-senile turtle wizard; a thieving, backstabbing otter; and a bewildered Marxist dragon to rally an army for the war about to come. Spellsinger, the first in Alan Dean Foster’s eight-book Spellsinger series, introduces a world of magic and mayhem, where animals are people and plunging ahead no matter what the consequences may be the only way to survive.

Rabbitlike aliens from outer space colonize Earth during humankind’s Second World War in a delightfully funny and thought-provoking science fiction adventure The Quozl just need somewhere to call home. A gentle race of extraterrestrial rabbits, they have a propensity for reproduction that has left their home planet, Quozlene, dangerously overpopulated, and in their search for greener and less-crowded pastures, they have discovered the perfect place to start over: the third planet away from a healthy, warming sun. What they don’t realize is that this world they call Shiraz is already inhabited by a species of violent sentient creatures known as humans. But there’s no going back now. In the midst of the brutal and helpfully distracting global conflict the Shirazians call World War II, the colony ship lands undetected, and the space rabbits immediately go into hiding. But a secret like the Quozl can be concealed for only so long, especially when their numbers start to increase and certain rebellious members of the long-eared society decide the time is ripe to claim their place in a world they believe is rightfully theirs. One of the most admired and prolific authors in the science fiction arena, Alan Dean Foster will delight readers who hunger for something different with this funny, thoughtful, and wildly inventive novel of first contact and coexistence. Once you meet the Quozl, you will never forget them.

When Gordon Crossland was growing up in the 1940’s in Orillia, Ontario, the town was not about to embrace a boy wanting to be a figure skater or ballet dancer. Male figure skaters were so rare that boys’ figures skates were hard to come by. However, Gordon had a dream and luckily, he also had supportive parents who would dye girls’ skates black for him. All he had to do was learn to skate faster than the bullies who tried to trip him on the ice. From these humble beginnings, Gordon, an ever-evolving, passionately committed artist became a top skater with the Ice Follies. He transitioned into highly successful careers of dancing with the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera Ballet Companies in England, as well as choreographing and skating in popular productions world–wide. It’s a journey spotted with moments of hilarity, high drama and occasional deep sorrow. A Nobody’s Dream Came True is a case study of a life in the Arts. It makes no attempt to sugar-coat the demands, difficulties and disappointments.... while fully revelling in the joys and deep fulfillment achieved through perseverance. Gordon’s story captures his dreams and gives readers profound insight into artistic temperament and the ever-burning passion that fuel’s artists’ choices.

Detective Angel Cardenas polices the crime-ridden US-Mexico borderlands in five futuristic stories from the New York Times–bestselling author. A century in the future, greed flourishes on the Montezuma Strip, a string of high-tech that follows the old and frayed USA-Mexico border stretching from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. First World technology meets Third World cheap labor, while both the rich and the poor fall into the widening chasm between them. In five stories set among the chaos, Tex-Mex cop Angel Cardenas puts his intuit ability to good use as a living lie-detector. After being blinded on the job and then having his sight restored with an optic nerve transplant, Cardenas uses his heightened intuition to get to the truth, whether it’s figuring out how two genius software designers were killed—with no visible causes of death—in “Sanctuary” or stopping a deadly heavenly vision (that could be a military-ware tactile projection) in “Our Lady of the Machine.” In three more stories—“Heartwired,” “Gagrito,” and “Hellado”—Cardenas learns that in a land where everything and everyone can be bought and sold, even justice has a price. Praise for Alan Dean Foster “A master storyteller.” —SF Site “One of the most consistently and fertile writers of science fiction and fantasy.” —The Times (London)