Hailed by critic E. F. Bleiler as a "landmark book in the history of fantasy," Mervyn Wall's classic The Unfortunate Fursey (1946) is set in 11th century Ireland, where the forces of evil have launched an assault on the monastery of Clonmacnoise. Their task is made easier by the fact that one hapless monk, the simple-minded Brother Fursey, cannot manage to pronounce the necessary words of exorcism. When the other monks discover this, the unfortunate Fursey is expelled and sets fo...

Having escaped being burnt at the stake, the reluctant sorcerer Fursey is back in this sequel, trying to make a quiet life for himself as a grocer in the realm of King Ethelwulf. But when his old enemies seize his wife, Fursey resolves to embrace evil and return to Ireland to reclaim her. Along the way, he’ll have to contend with bloodthirsty Vikings, a melancholy vampire, an alcoholic wizard, a lovesick cow, and Satan himself, who is more determined than ever to get his hands on Fursey’s ...

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly.Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume:The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for ...

Terry Brooks. David Eddings. George R. R. Martin. Robin Hobb. The top names in modern fantasy all acknowledge J. R. R. Tolkien as their role model, the author whose work inspired them to create their own epics. But what writers influenced Tolkien himself? Here, internationally recognized Tolkien expert Douglas A. Anderson has gathered the fiction of authors who sparked Tolkien’s imagination in a collection destined to become a classic in its own right.Andrew Lang’s...

In the second volume of the Lyonesse trilogy, new threads are woven into the epic tapestry begun in Suldruns Garden. While war rages across the Elder Isles, King Aillass true love, Glyneth, is carried off to a parallel world by an amoral magician in the pay of the wicked King Casmir. Meanwhile, a sorceresss malice, condensed into a green pearl, passes from hand to hand bringing poignant misery to whomever it touches.Jack Vance conjures up a tale of war and politics, magic and derring-do, p...

Wicked King Casmir cannot control Madouc, the wild and willful changeling secretly switched at birth with Prince Dhrun, rightful heir to the throne. So Casmir ordains a quest: whosoever brings him the Holy Grail will have Madouc for his bride. But the fairy-born princess chooses to decide her own fate, and sets out with a stable boy to find the grail herself. Meanwhile, a spiteful wizard seeks to undo the spell that prevents the war-torn Elder Isles from sinking into the sea.The third volu...

One journey. Six stories. Mind-blowing fantasy from the Hugo Award winner, "one of the most important science fiction authors" (SF Site).In The Compleat Traveller in Black, six linked tales, comprising one of Brunner's rare ventures into fantasy, relate the legend of a man with many names, who travels the world with a staff made of light and performs his eternal duty by bringing order to a world filled with chaos. What he dispenses is always asked for but n...

The "irresistible" and "compelling" first novel in the historical mystery series featuring a Welsh Benedictine monk in the twelfth century ( The Washington Post ).Edgar Award and CWA Diamond Dagger Award–Winning AuthorA Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey in western England, Brother Cadfael spends much of his time tending the herbs and vegetables in the garden—but now there's a more p...

Three vintage tales reveal how a former crusader became literature’s greatest mystery-solving monk“Brother Cadfael sprang to life suddenly and unexpectedly when he was already approaching sixty, mature, experienced, fully armed and seventeen years tonsured.” So writes Ellis Peters in her introduction to A Rare Benedictine—three vintage tales of intrigue and treachery featuring the monastic sleuth who has become the best-loved ecclesiastical detective since...

The twelfth-century Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael, must travel to the heart of a leper colony to root out the secret behind a savage murder.Edgar Award and CWA Diamond Dagger Award–Winning AuthorSetting out for the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has more pressing matters on his mind than the grand wedding coming to his abbey. But as fate would have it, Cadfael arrives at Saint Giles just as the nuptial part...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was ranked by Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. It is a semi-autobiographical novel chronicling the spiritual and intellectual awakening and rebellion of Stephen Dedalus against the conventions into which he was born. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero's quest to create his own ch...

"An epic fantasy in the Tolkien tradition, with a strong girl hero. . . . I couldn’t put it down!" – Tamora PierceMaerad is a slave in a desperate and unforgiving settlement, taken there as a child when her family is destroyed in war. She doesn’t yet know she has inherited a powerful gift, one that marks her as a member of the noble School of Pellinor and enables her to see the world as no other can. It is only when she is discovered by Cadvan, one of the ...