Rick is a Gamerunner. His job is to test there are no glitches or bugs in The Maze - the computer game that is much more than just a computer game. In The Maze you physically become your avatar. You fight, run and loot, all the time avoiding the deadly slicing traps - whirling blades that appear fromnowhere. Rick has known nothing outside The Maze and his life at the headquarters of Crater, the company that created The Maze.When Rick's father falls out of favour and Rick is ...

Bibi feels out of place everywhere - everywhere that is, except for Tyme's End, the deserted house that she breaks into when she thinks nobody is nearby. There she unexpectedly meets Oliver Gardner, the owner of the house, who's just returned after ten years away. Their story and the story of Oliver's grandfather becomes inextricably entwined, linked as they are by Tyme's End itself. For Tyme's End is more than just a deserted house. It is a house that by turns can be romantic, beguiling, ...

There was a folded bit of A4 paper wedged into the locker. It said MICHAEL THOMPSON*. Michael slid it out, and flipped it open. It said* I KNOW WHERE ARCASTER IS.That was when the bottom dropped out of everything.Michael and Francis are best friends at school, drawn together by their common secret - a complete obsession with creating, crafting, adding to and poring over their joint fantasy world, Evgard. Their friendship is put to the severest test when Mi...

Ario is a Cheat: somebody who designs and sells Cheat Codes to Gamerunners.Rick and Pir are Gamerunners: people who try to win their fortune by playing The Maze, the interactive computer game that is so much more than an ordinary computer game.MazeCheat is set in a futuristic city scape where acid rain permanently falls.But despite the dreary surroundings there is a something that enables everybody to escape their everyday life. And that is The Maze, the interactive...

Esteya is fifteen. As war rumbles closer, Esteya's brother - an important figure in the Revolutionary Communist Party - is able to protect their family from the worst of the privations of war. Then Esteya meets an extraordinary girl, Skizi, an outcast, shunned by all. But Esteya and Skizi are drawn to each other. Slowly and wonderfully love blossoms ... And then Esteya's family are betrayed and forcibly taken away. Skizi disappears.Esteya is left deserted, heartbroken and in terrib...

'There's going to be a crusade. A boy came to the cathedral and preached. He's going to lead a crusade of children. And we'll take Jerusalem because we're innocent, we're closer to God. We'll be soldiers for Christ.'Rufus is an apprentice in his father's goldsmith workshop in Cologne, Gemany. One day he hears a boy, Nick, preach in the city centre. Nick's message and words are mesmerising and Rufus is spellbound. He is overcome with the desire to follow the flawed yet charismatic y...

Zach and his sister Annis have been uprooted by their parents from their comfortable home to a remote and half-built barn in France. Zach is being removed from his 'bad-influence' friends, their parents are trying to salvage their marriage and still remain on speaking terms whilst the bitterness of their father's affair bubbles underneath the surface. And Annis - Annis just keeps going, keeping her head down, trying to keep it together. So far so normal.And then Zach, uncommunicati...

The world's largest urban warfare training compound stands in the desert near Las Vegas. Forty British commandos are being hunted by an entire American battalion.But their commander has an ace up his sleeve: he plans to smuggle in ten CHERUB agents, and fight the best war game ever.CHERUB agents have one crucial advantage: adults never suspect that kids are spying on them.For official purposes, these children do not exist.

Will Stanton must face a powerful agent of the Dark in this Newbery Medal–winning fourth installment of Susan Cooper’s epic The Dark Is Rising Sequence, now with a brand-new look!There is a Welsh legend about a harp of gold, hidden away within a certain hill, that will be found by a boy and a white dog with silver eyes—a dog that can see the wind.Will Stanton knows nothing of this when he comes to Wales to recover from a severe illness. But when he meets th...

Ten years after a terrible accident that stripped the earth with laser burns seven kilometres wide and brought an end to most of human civilisation, patches of settlement still survive. One is the University, which maintains a population and a structure and now has time and resources to find out what happened to some of its students, sold as slaves, while the University was ruled by a despot. Bran assembles a group, including a very cautious thief, twin girls and the strong man Mill the Hi...

A rather silly detective story in the spirit of Jasper Fforde.Harry Pigg, the only surviving brother from the Big Bad Wolf attacks, has set up business as a private detective in Grimmtown, only things aren't going too well. Down on his luck, with bills to pay and no clients in sight the outlook is poor. But then in walks local businessman Aladdin who needs someone to help him track down an old lamp.What follows is a case of nursery rhyme-noir. Funny, thrilling and always en...

A fast paced sci-fi adventure, A Game of War blends dizzying excitement with a whirlpool of emotions to keep you gripped from beginning to end. Like ‘The Hunger Games'? You'll love this. A Game of War so far: Ally flies and dad shoots. She’s got a gift for flying, always has, even before she joined the Game. The Game? A weekly contest between slaves, winner takes all, losers get to walk home, assuming they survive tha...