It is the Black Dawn, a time of environmental apocalypse, the earth wracked and dying. It is the Bright Day, a time long generations hence, when a peace has descended across the world. In each era, a child shall be chosen. Their task is to find a dark messiah known only as the Crowman. But is he our savior - or the final incarnation of evil?

Lud-in-the-Mist - a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid. Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past: a secret he refuses even to acknowledge.

Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes.

Joe Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. He reads his comics, collects birds' eggs and treasures his marbles, particularly his prized dobbers. When Treacle Walker appears off the Cheshire moor one day - a wanderer, a healer - an unlikely friendship is forged and the young boy is introduced to a world he could never have imagined. 

Eight of the nine Palm provinces of the Peninsula have been overcome by warrior sorcerers Brandin and Alberico. But the sorcerers don't know that a small band of survivors is plotting their removal. With tensions mounting, the sorcerers become increasingly at odds as each decides where his own path - and that of the land - should truly lie.

Our understanding of the Persian Empire has traditionally come from the histories of Greek writers such as Herodotus—and as such, over many centuries, our perspective has been skewed by ancient political and cultural agendas. Professor Llewellyn-Jones, however, calls upon original Achaemenid sources, including inscriptions, art and recent archaeological discoveries in Iran, to create an authentic 'Persian Version' of this remarkable first great empire of antiquity—the Age of the Great Kings.

King Cador’s children inherit a land abandoned by the Romans, torn by warring tribes. Riva can cure others, but can’t heal her own scars. Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, although born a daughter. And Sinne dreams of love, longing for adventure. All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold, their people’s last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. However, change comes on the day ash falls from the sky – bringing Myrdhin, meddler and magician.

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three-quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago. They were among the very first animals to appear on land and were the first to take to the air. Their total biomass is at least 10 times that of all humans and our livestock combined. 

Patrick Rothfuss narrates The Slow Regard of Silent Things, a companion novella to his bestselling Kingkiller Chronicle novels that shares an enchanting new perspective on the Four Corners realm. Renowned as a bastion of knowledge, the University draws the brightest minds to unravel the mysteries of enlightened sciences, such as artificing and alchemy. Yet deep below its bustling halls lies a complex web of abandoned rooms and ancient passageways.

Susanna Clarke returns with an enchanting collection brimming with all the ingredients of good fairy tales: petulant princesses; vengeful owls; ladies who pass their time by embroidering terrible fates; endless paths in the deep, dark woods; and houses that never appear the same way twice.

When folk musician Janey Little finds a mysterious manuscript in an old trunk in her grandfather’s cottage, she is swept into a dangerous realm both strange and familiar. But true magic lurks within the pages of The Little Country, drawing genuine danger from across the oceans into Janey’s life, impelling her - armed only with her music - toward a terrifying confrontation.

When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the '60s into one enduring archetype.

Deep in the labyrinthine corridors of Gormenghast Castle, a child is born. Titus, 77th Earl of Groan, is heir to arcane and all-embracing rituals that determine the activities of everyone from Lord Sepulchrave, his father, to the vast cook, Swelter, and the irrepressible Dr Prunesquallor. But not the steely and devious Steerpike, who will lie, cheat and even murder to get on. One of the greatest feats of sustained imaginative writing, the world of Gormenghast Castle is brilliantly realised in this darkly fantastic novel.

This is the story that came before, when Britain was just a shadowland. We grow up with the legend of King Arthur, but where did he come from? Who was Merlin? What part did the Druids play in bringing Arthur to his round table? On the night of Midwinter's Eve, a storyteller takes his listeners back to the Dark Ages and a tale from his youth.

Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He's never questioned it; that's just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend, Cade, are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free.... But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie.