One day when bullied Florian comes home from school, he finds a visitor in the caravan where he lives with his father. The woman, who looks older than time, tells him that his father is king of Celestia and has seven days to renew the spell of protection over the land. But his father has no interest in going back. So Florian finds himself with a crown on his head, having to complete a task he has no idea how to do, on the way across the sea-bridge to Celestia. He has some companions: his father three motorcycle-riding friends who insist they're elves, and his father's horse, which is a unicorn in disguise. The problem is that the elves haven't been to Celestia for a long time either, and the horse has always hated Florian. An extra problem is that the unofficial queen of Celestia, Florian's mother, doesn't want him back. She is under the control of powerful magical spirits. Did I say Florian knows nothing about Celestia or about magic? And he has only seven days?

After many years in space, Jonathan receives the message he's been dreading: his father has taken a fall. He can no longer live by himself and Jonathan's cousin has managed to get him into a care home. Jonathan is an only child, he is no longer in contact with his mother, and a deep sense of guilt forces him to return to Earth to look after his father's wellbeing. Except his father has a secret. He's in poor health and rather confused, so Jonathan finds it hard to get to the bottom of it. It's not like he has a lot of time, since he has to look for a job, a task which is proving surprisingly hard. No one wants scientists, especially not if they've worked in space. But his father's secret shows how important it is to keep the work going. Not that governments will listen.

A fisherwoman finds a dead man on a tiny offshore island, with no clue about how the man got there. A camel driver deep in the northern desert rescues a man who speaks no known language, but is clearly well-educated. An ancient sect that was considered close to extinct sucks in all the land's young people and creates tension that may well lead to a civil war. And the old astrologer to the court, a weaselly and much-maligned relic of old times, might have hidden, for twenty years, evidence that those things are connected. An epic saga of magic-turned-technology, power and discovery.

Nine novels of Space Adventure: Project Charon 1: Re-entry by Patty Jansen Starship Waking by C. Gockel Star Mage Quest by J.J. Green Children of Darkness by James E. Wisher Faring Soul by Tracy Cooper Posey Spaceberg by M. Pax Ghost by Demelza Carlton Traitor's Code by Jane Killick Derelict by LJ Cohen

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

This is an inspiring, fact-packed book profiling seven everyday 'wonders' - the bicycle, the clothesline, the condom, the ceiling fan, the library book, the garden tomato and the microchip - that can help everyone reduce their carbon footprint.