Max A. Collins, Sr.- who served in the Pacific　"This week a high officer of the U.S. Army remarked that he knows of no place under the American flag safer than Hawaii-more secure from the onslaught of actual war."　Honolulu Star Bulletin, May 1941　"There is no chivalry in plete war."　 Edgar Rice Burroughs　ONE:　December 5, 1941　　ONE　Boat Day　　In less than forty-eight hours, six Japanese aircraft carriers-220 miles north of the island of Oahu-would launch 350 warplanes in an attack not preceded by any formal declaration of war. Every significant Naval and air installation would feel the brunt of the surprise raid, which lasted less than two hours and cost the United States military three dest　

　Our specific charge in this unofficial mission has been to search the uninhabited worlds to find another source of the precious spice melange, upon which so much of the Imperium depends. We have documented the journeys of many of our Navigators and Steersmen, searching hundreds of planets. To date, however, we have had no success. The only source of melange in the Known Universe remains the desert world of Arrakis. The Guild, CHOAM, and all other dependents must continue in thrall of the Harkonnen monopoly.　However, the value of exploring outlying territories for new planetary systems and new resources bears its own fruit. The detailed surveys and orbital maps on the attached sheets of rid　

1 - The Slow Fuse 32 - Odd Man In 83 - Correlation of Forces 244 - Maskirovka 325 - Sailors and Spooks 386 - The Watchers 477 - Initial Observations 528 - Further Observations 619 - A Final Look 6410 - Remember, Remember 6911 - Order of Battle 7712 - Funeral Arrangements 8213. - The Strangers Arrive and Depart 8614 - Gas 9815 - The Bastion Gambit 10816 - Last Moves/First Moves 12117 - The Frisbees of Dreamland 12618 - Polar Glory 13419 - Journeys End/Journeys Begin 15120 - The Dance of the Vampires 16721 - Nordic Hammer 18822- Ripostes 20723 - Returns 21824 - Rape 23125 - Treks 25026 - Impressions 26027 - Casualties 27828 - Breakthroughs 290...　

　　is a windbag and a liar,　　Prophesying a future of wine and spirits.　　　　 - The Book of Micah　　　　　　ONE　　　　The leggy girl was both alpha and omega: the two embodied in the same pact bundle. The operation began when she confronted him on a Florida beach, breaking his euphoria; it ended when he found her sign on a grave marker, hard by a Nabataean cistern. The leap between those two points was enormous.　　Brian Chaney was aware of only a third symbol when he discovered her: she was wearing a hip-length summer blouse over delta pants. No more than that-and a faint expression of disapproval-was evident.　　Chaney intended to make short work of her.　　When he realized the girl was ing at him, ing for　

JACK LIGHTS OUTCHAPTER 1The Alhambra Inn and Gardens1　　　　On September 15th, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and land e together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Atlantic. He was twelve years old and tall for his age. The sea-breeze swept back his brown hair, probably too long, from a fine, clear brow. He stood there, filled with the confused and painful emotions he had lived with for the last three months-since the time when his mother had closed their house on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and, in a flurry of furniture, checks, and real-estate agents, rented an apartment on Central Park West. From that apartment they had fled to this quiet res　

　Aletheia Vaune Preston　And　Isaac Jerome Preston　　Acknowledgements　There is one person above all others who must be thanked for the existence of this novel, and that is my good friend the inestimable Forrest Fenn-collector, scholar, and publisher. I will never forget that lunch of ours, many years ago in the Dragon Room of the Pink Adobe, when you told me a curious story-and thereby gave me the idea for this novel. I hope you feel I have done the idea justice.　Having mentioned Forrest, I feel it necessary to make one thing clear: My character Maxwell Broadbent is a plete and total fictional creation. In terms of personality, ethics, character, and family values, the two men could not be mor　

Chapter One: THE PLAIN OF FEARThe still desert air had a lens-like quality. The riders seemed frozen in time, moving without drawing closer. We took turns counting. I could not get the same number twice running.A breath of a breeze whined in the coral, stirred the leaves of Old Father Tree. They tinkled off one another with the song of wind chimes. To the north, the glimmer of change lightning limned the horizon like the far clash of warring gods.A foot crunched sand. I turned. Silent gawked at a talking menhir. It had appeared in the past few seconds, startling him. Sneaky rocks. Like to play games."There are strangers on the Plain," it said.I jumped. It chuckled. Menhirs have the most 　

　　The story is based on a screen treatment by K. McClory, J. Whittingham, and the author.　　1. "Take It Easy, Mr. Bond"　　It was one of those days when it seemed to James Bond that all life, as someone put it, was nothing but a heap of six to four against.　　To begin with he was ashamed of himself-a rare state of mind. He had a hangover, a bad one, with an aching head and stiff joints. When he coughed-smoking too much goes with drinking too much and doubles the hangover-a cloud of small luminous black spots swam across his vision like amoebae in pond water. The one drink too many signals itself unmistakably. His final whisky and soda in the luxurious flat in Park Lane had been no different fro　

　　The eyes behind the wide black rubber goggles were cold as flint. In the howling speed-turmoil of a BSA M20 doing seventy, they were the only quiet things in the hurtling flesh and metal. Protected by the glass of the goggles, they stared fixedly ahead from just above the centre of the handlebars, and their dark unwavering focus was that of gun muzzles. Below the goggles, the wind had got into the face through the mouth and had wrenched the lips back into a square grin that showed big tombstone teeth and strips of whitish gum. On both sides of the grin the cheeks had been blown out by the wind into pouches that fluttered slightly. To right and left of the hurtling face under the crash hel　

　Up at the unpeopled borderland of cloudy heaven, where unending wind drove eternal snow between and over high gray rocks, the gods and goddesses were gathering.　In the grayness just before dawn, their tall forms came like smoke out of the gray and smoking wind, to take on solidity and detail. Unperturbed by wind or weather, their garments flapping in the shrieking howl of air, they stood upon the rooftop of the world and waited as their numbers grew. Steadily more powers streaked across the sky, bringing reinforcement.　The shortest of the standing figures was taller than humanity, but from the shortest to tallest, all were indisputably of human shape. The dress of most members of the assem　

Anne McCaffreyIntroductionOurs not to ponder what were fair in Life,But, finding what may be,Make it fair up to our means.　　When mankind first discovered Pern, third planet of the sun Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, they paid little attention to the eccentric orbit of another satellite in the system.　　Settling the new planet, adjusting to its differences, the colonists spread out across the southern, most hospitable continent. Then disaster struck in the form of a rain of mycorrhizoid organisms, which voraciously devoured all but stone, metal, and water. The initial losses were staggering. But fortunately for the young colony, "Thread," as the settlers called the devastating showers, was　

Dudley DementedThe hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing -for the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their usual car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a nonexistent breeze. The only person left outdoors was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four.He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacl