All the mammoths have fled Old Mouse City! It's a total cat-astrophe! Not only because mammoths are valuable allies of the cavemice, but also because without them, the cavemice can't make mammoth milkshakes, their delicious national drink. Geronimo Stiltonoot must embark on a daring journey to find the mammoths...and avoid going extinct before he gets back!

Pulp fiction has been looked down on as a guilty pleasure, but it offers the perfect form of entertainment: the very best storytelling filled with action, surprises, sound and fury. In short, all the exhiliration of a roller-coaster ride. The 1920s in America saw the proliferation of hundreds of dubiously named but thrillingly entertaining pulp magazines in America – Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces. It was in these luridly-coloured publications, printed on the cheapest pulp paper, that the first gems began to appear. The one golden rule for writers of pulp fiction was to adhere to the art of storytelling. Each story had to have a beginning, an end, economically-etched characters, but plenty going on, both in terms of action and emotions. Pulp magazines were the TV of their day, plucking readers from drab lives and planting them firmly in thrilling make-believe, successors to the Victorian penny dreadfuls of writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. These stories exemplify the best of crime and mystery pulp fiction – its zest, speed, rhythm, verve and commitment to straightforward storytelling – spanning seven decades of popular writing.

This collection of criminal conundrums are more than whodunits, they're howdunits and are intended to stretch your powers of deduction to the limits.

After Arthur Conan Doyle created the detective, Sherlock Holmes, many writers borrowed him to be the hero of their stories. The anthology offers a selection, old and new.

Who were the first humans to reach North America? When and how did they arrive? Noted author David L. Harrison explores the various theories of North America's first people: Some evidence suggests that they walked across the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska. Elsewhere, a growing number of archaeologists believe that at least some, if not most, of our forefathers arrived by boat along North America's northwest coast, possibly from Southeast Asia or Japan. Other archeologists speculate that humans reached the continent by boat, crossing the frigid North Atlantic waters from Europe. With archeological field photographs and realistic illustrations by Richard Hilliard, the author demonstrates how scientists are like detectives, investigating mysteries that took place more than one hundred centuries ago. Includes maps, glossary, sources, index.

Here are 25 stories of science fiction that push the envelope, by the biggest names in an emerging new crop of high-tech futuristic SF - including Charles Stross, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton and Neal Asher. High-tech SF has made a significant comeback in the last decade, as bestselling authors successfully blend the super-science of 'hard science fiction' with real characters in an understandable scenario. It is perhaps a reflection of how technologically controlled our world is that readers increasingly look for science fiction that considers the fates of mankind as a result of increasing scientific domination. This anthology brings together the most extreme examples of the new high-tech, far-future science fiction, pushing the limits way beyond normal boundaries. The stories include: "A Perpetual War Fought Within a Cosmic String", "A Weapon That Could Destroy the Universe", "A Machine That Detects Alternate Worlds and Creates a Choice of Christs", "An Immortal Dead Man Sent To The End of the Universe", "Murder in Virtual Reality", "A Spaceship So Large That There is An Entire Planetary System Within It", and "An Analytical Engine At The End of Time", and "Encountering the Untouchable."