The immense popularity of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is due in largepart to the development of his characters. In The Doll's House, the second book of the Sandman magnum opus, Gaiman continues to build the foundation for the larger story, introducing us to more of the Dream King's family of the Endless.The Sandman returns to his kingdom of the Dreaming after nearly a century of imprisonment, finding several things out of place; most importantly, an anomaly called a dream vortex has manifested itself in the form of a young girl who unknowingly threatens to rip apart the Dreaming. And there's the smaller matter of a few nightmares having escaped. Among them is Gaiman's creepiest creation: the Corinthian, a serial killer with a miniature set of teeth in each eye socket. Because later volumes concentrate so much on human relationships with Gaiman's signature fair for fantasy and mythology, it is sometimes easy to forget that the Sandman series started out as a horror comic. This book grabs you and doesn't let you forget that so easily. —Jim Pascoe

In many ways, Season of Mists is the pinnacle of the Sandman experience. After a brief intermission of four short stories (collected as Dream Country) Gaiman continued the story of the Dream King that he began in the first two volumes. Here in volume 4, we find out about the rest of Dream's Endless family (Desire, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Death, and a seventh missing sibling). We find out the story behind Nada, Dream's first love, whom we met only in passing during Dream's visit to hell in the first book. When Dream goes back to hell to resolve unfinished business with Nada, he finds her missing along with all of the other dead souls. The answer to this mystery lies in Lucifer's most uncharacteristic decision—a delicious surprise.

There is something grandiose about this story, in which each chapter ends with such suspense and drive to read the next. This book is best summed up by a toast taken from the second chapter: "To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." —Jim Pascoe

The third book of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. What's remarkable here (considering the publisher and the time that this was originally published) is that the main character of the book—the Sandman, King of Dreams—serves only as a minor character in each of these otherwise unrelated stories. (Actually, he's not even in the last story.) This signaled a couple of important things in the development of what is considered one of the great comics of the second half of the century. First, it marked a distinct move away from the horror genre and into a more fantasy-rich, classical mythology-laden environment. And secondly, it solidly cemented Neil Gaiman as a storyteller. One of the stories here, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," took home the World Fantasy Award for best short story—the first time a comic was given that honor. But for my money, another story in Dream Country has it beat hands down. "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" has such hope, beauty, and good old-fashioned chills that rereading it becomes a welcome pleasure. —Jim Pascoe

"Wake up, sir. We're here." It's a simple enough opening line—although not many would have guessed back in 1991 that this would lead to one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comics of the second half of the century.

In Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman weaves the story of a man interested in capturing the physical manifestation of Death but who instead captures the King of Dreams. By Gaiman's own admission there's a lot in this first collection that is awkward and ungainly—which is not to say there are not frequent moments of greatness here. The chapter "24 Hours" is worth the price of the book alone; it stands as one of the most chilling examples of horror in comics. And let's not underestimate Gaiman's achievement of personifying Death as a perky, overly cheery, cute goth girl! All in all, I greatly prefer the roguish breaking of new ground in this book to the often dull precision of the concluding volumes of the Sandman series. —Jim Pascoe

Now in paperback the biggest names in fantasy and horror take on The Sandman.

Neil Caiman's The Sandman is the most successful adult comic of all time and the first ever to win a World Fantasy Award. Gaiman's moody, twisted tales made Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, an icon recognized across the globe. Now millions of new readers can appreciate Neil Caiman's award-winning creation as interpreted by some of the most imaginative minds in modern literature and one of the most breathtaking assemblies of talent in publishing history:

Clive Barker * Tad Williams * Barbara Hambly * Gene Wotfe * Nancy A. Collins * Tori Amos * Steven Brust and others

When Brant and Charlene wreck their car in a horrible snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, the only place they can find shelter is a mysterious little inn called World's End. Here they wait out the storm and listen to stories from the many travelers also stuck at this tavern. These tales exemplify Neil Gaiman's gift for storytelling—and his love for the very telling of them. This volume has almost nothing to do with the larger story of the Sandman, except for a brief foreshadowing nod. It's a nice companion to the best Sandman short story collection, Dream Country, (and it's much better than the hodgepodge Fables and Reflections). World's End works best as a collection—it—it's a story about a story about stories—all wrapped up in a structure that's clever without being cute, and which features an ending nothing short of spectacular. —Jim Pascoe

Build Your World. Invent Your Weapons. Create Your Adventure.
·Tips on navigating the dungeons
·Detailed walkthrough with valuable maps
·Complete training section
·Strategies for fishing, creating a Georama, and using the camera effectively
·Monster stats and tables

251 PAGES/ 21 Dirty Tricks at Work is about lies. The type of underhand, pernicious and downright Machiavellian scheming that goes on in business every day. An estimated £7.8bn is lost each year in the UK alone though unnecessary and counter-productive office politicking. But 21 Dirty Tricks at Work is also a book of hope. It exposes the classic manoeuvres and gives practical advice on dealing with them to the vast majority who just want to do a good day's work. 21 Dirty Tricks at Work provides you with all the information you need to spot negative tactics and self-interested strategies. It shows you how to spot the games frequently being played and how to come out with your credibility intact and your sanity preserved. So, if you are fed-up of being on the receiving end of constant backbiting and skulduggery from workmates, join hands with the authors and get Machiavelli on the run!

William Gibson, who predicted the Internet with Neuromancer, takes us into the millennium with a brilliant new novel about the moments in history when futures are born.

"Gibson remains, like Raymond Chandler, an intoxicating stylist."—The New York Times Book Review

All Tomorrow's Parties is the perfect novel to publish at the end of 1999. It brings back Colin Laney, one of the most popular characters from Idoru, the man whose special sensitivities about people and events let him predict certain aspects of the future. Laney has realized that the disruptions everyone expected to happen at the beginning of the year 2000, which in fact did not happen, are still to come. Though down-and-out in Tokyo, his sense of what is to come tells him that the big event, whatever it is, will happen in San Francisco. He decides to head back to the United States—to San Francisco—to meet the future.

The Washington Post praised Idoru as "beautifully written, dense with metaphors that open the eyes to the new, dreamlike, intensely imagined, deeply plausible." A bestseller across the country (it reached #1 in Los Angeles and San Francisco), and a major critical success, it confirmed William Gibson's position as "the premier visionary working in SF today" (Publishers Weekly). All Tomorrow's Parties is his next brilliant achievement.

The New York Times bestselling author takes readers to 21st-century Tokyo after the millennial quake—where something violently new is about to erupt...

2005: Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy  sister-states of what used to be California. Here the  millenium has come and gone, leaving in its wake  only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry  Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working  for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a  bicycle messenger turned pickpocket who impulsively  snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But  these are no ordinary shades. What you can see  through these high-tech specs can make you rich—or  get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the  run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of  DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high.  And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash...

From the Paperback edition.

Few writers distinguish themselves by their ability to write about complicated, even obscure topics clearly and engagingly. James Gleick, a former science writer for the New York Times, resides in this exclusive category. In Chaos, he takes on the job of depicting the first years of the study of chaos—the seemingly random patterns that characterize many natural phenomena.

This is not a purely technical book. Instead, it focuses as much on the scientists studying chaos as on the chaos itself. In the pages of Gleick's book, the reader meets dozens of extraordinary and eccentric people. For instance, Mitchell Feigenbaum, who constructed and regulated his life by a 26-hour clock and watched his waking hours come in and out of phase with those of his coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As for chaos itself, Gleick does an outstanding job of explaining the thought processes and investigative techniques that researchers bring to bear on chaos problems. Rather than attempt to explain Julia sets, Lorenz attractors, and the Mandelbrot Set with gigantically complicated equations, Chaos relies on sketches, photographs, and Gleick's wonderful descriptive prose.