Books published by publisher Spectra

Classics of high fantasy, Ursula K. Le Guin's three previous Earthsea novels--A W izard Of Earthsea, The Tombs Of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore--have been compared with J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and C.S Lewis' Narnia stories as being among the genre's greatest creations. Now the fourth and final volume, Tehanu, brings to a conclusion the remarkable Earthsea cycle with a revelation of wisdom, wonder, and literary wizardry. Once she'd been a priestess, quest-companion to a powerful mage, a student of high magic. Then she gave it all up to be a farmer's wife on Gont, content to lead a simple life. But Tenar was not born to live her days in peace, away from great events. A dying wizard and an abused child were the first to call her back to the path she had abandoned. For the end of the adventure beckoned and Tenar would be there along with the dragons, mages, and the young king himself to share in the unforgettable fate of the kingdom known as Earthsea.

Somewhere beyond the northern mists lies a land where dreams live and dragons are real. This is the tale of the twilight of the dragons, of two nations plunged into war by a tragic misunderstanding, of a shy dreamer's incredible voyage of peace to a long forgotten land where nightmares are born. . 'Until now, there have been only two real grandmasters of modern epic fantasy-J.R.R. Tolkien and Ann McCaffrey. With the team of Preiss and Reaves, there are three, and may they write and write and write?." -United Press International. You can share your thoughts about Dragonworld, and its authors, in the new ibooks virtual readers' group at www.ibooksinc.com.

The center of our galaxy is magnificant, wondrous - and utterly deadly. Located there is an enormous black hole, a pit into which a million suns have fallen. Against this haunting starscape, a small human band flees from an enemy it cannot hope to combat - enormously superior artificial minds embodied in great insectlike machines. This last remnant of humanity is led by Killeen, a man elevated to command in desperate times by his luck and daring. He manages to reach a new planet, where he encounters vast wonders - a planet-coring cosmic string, an organic life-form the size of an entire world, and another group of humans led by a strange messianic ruler - and he faces even greater dangers from the most awesome beings the band has yet to confront. Their battle for survival reaches overwhelming dimensions. But they will gain an un expected ally. And they will figure in the new order of life developing at the Galactic Center.

The tattooed man moves, and in the arcane designs scrawled upon his skin swirled tales beyond imagining: tales of love and laughter darkness and death, of mankind’s glowing, golden past and its dim, haunted future. Here are eighteen incomparable stories that blend magic and truth in a kaleidoscope tapestry of wonder–woven by the matchless imagination of Ray Bradbury.