Simon Thorn has only recently discovered that he's an Animalgam, a member of a secret race of people who can shift into animals, and found a home where he truly belongs at the Animalgam academy. But not everything is as good as it seems. Simon's evil grandfather, Orion, is bent on taking over the entire animal kingdom, and to do so, he'll need to gather the pieces of a terrible weapon--one that could shred the very foundations of the Animalgams' world. . . unless Simon can gather the pieces first. And that's not all. Orion has kidnapped Simon's mother, and if Simon has any hope of rescuing her, he'll need to head cross-country with his friends, battling rogue Animalgams and their own doubts along the way. With dangers around every corner, it will be harder and harder for Simon to keep Orion from succeeding in his plot before it's too late. This exhilarating story is packed with action, adventure, and characters full of heart, making it perfect for fans of Rick Riordan and Brandon Mull.

Sent to England for a summer with relatives, twins Zac and Lu learn that their recently-deceased mother's tales of mythical creatures are true, and they must find a phoenix to break a curse.

Twelve-year-old Simon Thorn's life has never been normal--especially since he's been keeping a big secret: he can talk to animals. But when his mom is suddenly kidnapped by a herd of New York City rats, Simon finds out that he, his mom, and his uncle are all Animalgams--someone born with the ability to change into an animal at will--and suddenly talking to animals doesn't seem so crazy after all. In search of his mom, Simon discovers that Animalgams belong to an ancient world made up of Five Animal Kingdoms (Mammals, Birds, Insects, Reptiles, and Underwater) which are now under attack . . . and Simon just may be the only one who can save them all. Imaginative and vivid with themes of bravery, loyalty, and finding one's true self, this exciting, five-book adventure series is perfect for fans of the Spirit Animals and The School of Good and Evil series.

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A book about metals, plants, animals, and planets.

Presented at a symposium held in 1990 to celebrate the Getty Museum's acquisition of the only known illuminated copy of The Visions of Tondal, twenty essays address the celebrated bibliophilic activity of Margaret of York; the career of Simon Marmion, a favorite artist of the Burgundian court; and The Visions of Tondal in relation to illustrated visions of the Middle Ages. Contributors include Maryan Ainsworth, Wim Blockmans, Walter Cahn, Albert Derolez, Peter Dinzelbacher, Rainald Grosshans, Sandra Hindman, Martin Lowry, Nigel Morgan, and Nigel Palmer.