Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

This is such a lovely series. Miss Wrede has a great talent for creating fun, witty characters that are instantly likeable. Humor is abundant and the story is delightful!

I loved this set. It wasn't like I thought it would be from what I read about it, it was better! This is a very unique set and I must say that if all of Patricia Wrede's books are as surprising as this one, I would love to get more of her books. This is definitely a fairy tale, but it has so much comedy mixed in with it, plus there's the romance and all the other good stuff you want in a book. Buy this set, and you won't be sorry. Unless, of course you're the type of person that just wants the same boring fairy tale stuff.

This series is one of my oldest favorites. I first read them in elementary school and now in college I still love them. They are classics that you will go back to again and again. Short and sweet I turn to them if I need that fantastical escape.

This is a fun series for young girls, starring a self-sufficient princess and a coven of dragons of a variety of temperaments. Superficial, fluffy reading, but still fun and relaxing to read. The last book in the series kind of annoyed me because I hate it when there are characters who are in the dark about their history and they just bumble around trying to figure out what's going on. Still, there was a happy ending, of course, and it all turned out in the end.

One of the best series I have ever read. I personally place it next to Harry Potter. They teach that manners are important and it's okay to be different. Great gift for Good readers around 9 and older, if they don't mind a bit of a challange with the length.

Books like this - Wizardology, Dragonology, The Wandmaker's Guidebook, and other "ology" books are the very thing a young person just starting to learn about magick and paganism needs to get started. Even a young adult (age 16-24) who is just getting their first lessons could benefit from books like these. They are very practical and well-written - much too well-written to be simply dismissed as books only suitable for children. I recommend all the books in this series to kids and adults alike!!

My grandson is an avid book reader but this book makes you slow down and check out all of the envelopes and hidden agenda within the book. Fun to read and watch the children read.

The book is veeery good, just like all the others in the '...ology' series, perfect gift for anyone. I love it! Lots of windows, and stuff to explore inside! GREAT!

I ordered this book as a Christmas gift for my mother, she is into all the fantasy type reads and such and it seems like a pretty good book for just some fun reading.

I love this book in fact my kids and I have read it together many times since it has arrived. I like that this book is easy to read so that my children can read it themselves if they want. Its also very interesting the way all the information is presented to the reader it almost makes you think you really can be merlins apprentice. Anyone who likes the medievel era would like this book, especially if you have children.

I've just finished DISCIPLINE, which along with my beloved SIDDARTHA, engages both my brain and my emotions, and titillates my endless curiosity about how things really are and what might happen "if."

DISCIPLINE was a challenging book to read in some aspects, because it amalgamates physics, chess, music, eastern philosophies, and high finance. I know nothing about the first two and a modicum of the last three. If the story of Douglas Cole's unfoldment and the suspense surrounding Jefferson and Jackson had not been so engaging, I might have given up as my seventy-one year old brain sloughed through uncharted seas of subjects beyond my reading experience.

As I read this astonishing boook by a fledgling writer, I was at first impressed by his excellent vocabulary and fresh metaphors. Then I became amazed at the way Ahlgren effortlessly wove complex and difficult subjects into an intriguing story.

But what really kept me reading was the recognition of states of mind/emotion that ring true in Ahlgren's descripition of multiple universes. And the tantalizing realization that he is not depicting science fiction, but rather the true state of mankind.

I suspect that each person, according to his/her experiences, will come away with a different perception of this extraordinary book, so unlike anything else in popular fiction.

Paco, I eagerly await your next book. May it be even more astounding so that your readers will stretch their perceptions far beyond what we think we know.

This is a book that all should read. I love supporting new authors, although most first time novelest leave wondering why. This was not the case with Discipline!

Paco takes physics, chess, and philosophical thoughts and turns them in to an adventure. I couldn't put the book down once I started, and am eagerly anticipating the follow up novel.

This book has changed my perspective on life forever...I've read thousands of books and not one has touched the core of my inner being as this one has.

Paco combines eastern philosophies, quantum physics, spirituality, and financial analysis in a way that everyone can understand. The fluidity and movement keep you sucked in up to the last page and then starving for more..

Discipline accentuates what Faith really is and has left me with an inner peace that I didn't have before. I can't wait to see what Paco brings to the table next!!!

As I hungrily browse the new release aisles I usually find nothing but detective/murder stories, political/terrorist thrillers, or stories of love lost, yawn! I'm always looking for great new novels but rarely find any that offer new ideas, life lessons, and philosophy. This book was exactly what I was looking for. It's thought provoking, challenges beliefs, and it empowered me to learn more about the economic and spiritual concepts in the book. I want to be inspired when I finished reading a book, and that's what happened when I read Discipline, thanks Paco. I can't wait for a sequel, but until then, I'll just keep rereading and rereading this one and it'll be time well spent, thanks!

The book opened really well, and beyond the opening were some really engaging scenes. Unfortunately they were intermixed with flat introspection, plot points that could have been much more deftly handled, two-dimensional-to-the-point-of-caricature supporting characters, five pages of a family friend explaining quantum physics, and a narrative voice that was too often intrusive.

A major tragedy early on in the book failed to reach me on an emotional level. How could that happen? I was interested in those characters--I cared about them, or thought I did until the tragedy happened and I had no response to it. I read on for a while after that, but the antagonistic characters became overdone to the point of making me say, "Okay, I'm just not interested in this anymore." A little subtlety (or finesse) would have done a world of good.

The most disappointing thing is that the good stuff in this novel was GOOD and showed that Ahlgren had the potential to make this a fantastic book, but it's not a fantastic book; it's an uneven book that failed to hold my interest.

I can't believe I missed out on this one as a child... but it's just as good coming to it as an adult. The perfect lazy Sunday afternoon book to read. Adults can also escape to the wilds of Lake Windemere (Lake District), to sail up the Amazon, do battle with pirates and search for buried treasure on Cormorant Island.

The year is 1929 and story is about four children - John, Susan, Titty and Roger (in age order) - who are holidaying on the shores of Lake Windemere with their mum and baby sister, Vicky. The children are an adventurous lot and love sailing in their boat, the Swallow. Towards the end of their holiday they persuade their mum to allow them on an adventure for a week. They're allowed to sail across to the island not far away and make camp there by themselves.

This is a great adventure for these intrepid explorers. They discover a retired pirate, camp, bathe in the lake, fish and cook for themselves, and are threatened by a rival group of bandits, the Amazons (otherwise known as Nancy and Peggy). All in all a great week of fun and adventure is had by all - brilliant to read about, although there are very few children who'd be allowed to do this now! Inspired by the author's own childhood holidays at the south end of Coniston in the Lake District.

This wonderful book was written about 75 years ago, but is still extremely popular today. It is ageless. I first read it as a nine or ten year old and have read it several times since then. The last time I read it I was in my late 50s or early 60s. Every young person should enjoy it immensely as a fictional story. But there are many moral and ethical issues that are slyly inserted into this novel. The biography of the author and how he came to write this book, which was the first in a series of 9 or 10 novels, is a fascinating story in itself.

The Swallows and Amazons series was one of my favorites when I was a child. The story, set in the Lake District of England where Wordsworth and other great poets grew up, is a gentle adventure tale about children camping out on an island and rigging a little sailboat. It is slower paced than children are used to today. But I think a sensitive boy or girl would find it reassuring that the children solve their own problems of navigation etc.

While it didn't bother me as a child that the language was distinctly British, as I'd been prepared by the Winnie the Pooh stories, and Wind in the Willows, I would recommend Swallows and Amazons as a bedtime story to be read aloud by an adult reader. The reader could then explain the language. A map of the UK would help too, as the story is set in the Lake District.

An adult storyteller might be interested in a biography of the series author, Arthur Ransome, who led an adventurous life - including work in the Soviet Union and marriage to a Russian woman.

Enchanting
It's hard to explain what makes this book so charming: The writing, the way the children and their relationships with each other are shown so clearly and believably, the very real adventures they have, the sense of place....but listing those traits doesn't do the book justice. It's also really funny in places! Ransome creates a world that is clearer and lighter and more enchanting than the one most of us live in -- but he's also written a realistic book. The Lake District DOES look the way he describes it, and there could be children like the Swallows and their friends the Amazon pirates.

The books are for all ages, and I think they are also inspiring and a good influence! They make me want to have adventures -- and they encourage parents by example to let their children have them. The parents in the books are responsible, teach their children well -- and allow them to adventure on their own. They can do that because they've taught the children to have good judgment and be responsible.

Arthur Ransome's own favorite in the series was WINTER HOLIDAY, which I also loved. Once the original characters leave the series, it loses its interest (for me, anyway) -- children who enjoyed the first books will also probably like Blow Out the Moon by Libby Koponen and all the E.Nesbit books.

About 60 years ago I read as many books from this series that I could find in my local public library. I had passed through a phase of devouring the Dr. Doolittle fantasy series (so damaged by the motion pictures using that title - how could they cast tall lanky Rex Harrison in the role of a short cuddly grandfather-like figure?) Another series in which, as an American boy fascinated by warplanes during the Worl War II era - I went on to become an aerospace engineer - I was enthralled, was "A Yank in the RAF", which I don't think would translate to the 21st Century very well. But the series that made the most impact on me was Ransome's Swallow family. As with Hugh Lofting's Doolittle, the author's drawings enhanced the books.

I have not visited there yet but I plan on touring Britain's Lake District (I don't think I was cognizant of where the tales took place, except I knew the children were British. They liked to drink ginger beer; in the US we had a ginger ale drink, but not ginger beer and I was curious to have some.) I have long wanted to live somewhere that would allow me to experience the thrill of mastering the small sailing boats of the story. The closest I came was living near the Pacific in California and near the Potomac River. But the boats in those regions were larger and not terribly accessible. I did go sailing with friends and tried to sail on my own in a marina with a rented boat (a too narrow and crowded venue for a novice just learning to tack and unfamiliar with how to dump wind from the sail when being carried in the wrong direction.) I have gotten to taste ginger beer. I have also used the children's means of including coded messages in their letters in the form of dancing stick figures around the page's margin (the secret was to ignore other parts of the figures and concentrate on the positions of the arms, which were standard semaphore code.) I introduced the code to one of my daughters when we were in the "Indian Princesses" organization. (Is the name and programs of that organization offensive to American Indians? I'm sure its founders weren't sensitive to the fact that American Indians still existed.)

I will introduce this series to my precocius 6 year old grand daughter when I think she is ready.

It was a good action book, alot of unexpected things happend to the Animorphs, another good into to the Animorphs series.

This book is interesting for kids that like their mind wonder and imagine how it feels transform into an animal. Also, this book is for kids that like to read adventure. This book is about a group of kid that can transform into diffrent kind of animals, but they cant stay to long into an animal or they will stay stuck into that animal and they cant go back into being a human and they have to act like an animal and think like an animal so that they can survive and live long. Also they have to to eat real live animals, and watch out for predetors that will eat them. It also lets know kids that its ok to be diffrent than others that every kid is unique in thier own way.

In this book, Tobias has been trapped in hawk morph since book 1. He dicovers that the Blade ship needs to refuel with water and air every so often, so the other Animorphs morph Trout and try to destroy the ship. This is a great book.

Tobias isn't like the other Animorphs. When they're done fighting Yeerks or flying through the sky, they just morph back from their animal bodies to their regular bodies. But Tobias stayed in hawk morph for longer than two hours. Now, he's going to be stuck as a hawk forever. Tobias is trying to deal with this pain, but nothing can make him feel better about it. Especially when he starts to feel attracted to a female hawk--even though he's a human on the inside.

Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco are trying to help him get used to life as a hawk. But they're busy worrying about a gigantic Yeerk ship, and a new secret discovered--the Yeerks need lots of water from Earth for them all to survive. The kids use this information to morph fish and get inside the Yeerk ship. But when they get trapped, it's up to Tobias to save them--even though he's not human.

THE ENCOUNTER is the first Tobias book, and Tobias books are one of the best of the Animorphs. I thought that K.A. Applegate described Tobias's struggle through life as a hawk very well. The only problem that I had with this book was that it was a little boring. The only real action of the book was towards the end. But it's a good-read for Animorphs fans, and a must-read for all Tobias fans.

A delightful find. This is the third book in the young adult/teen series "Animorphs" in which the character Tobias permanently becomes a Red-tailed Hawk. The Animorphs story is generally very good and the characters interesting and rich. The author manages to write about the animal aspects in a believable way. I usually find transformation and shapeshifting stories to have story lines that make the whole point of transformation become lost. Applegate keeps the adventure intact by being descriptive, entertaining, and involving. This series is a must-read for those who enjoy animals, shapeshifting, and adventure.

Harlan is a technician and works for a political sort of organisation called The Eternals. They minister to time over tens of thousands of centuries, and try and keep it running with a minimum of adjustments.

People being what they are, Harlan decides to make a minor fiddle because of his feelings for a woman.

I probably first read this classic sometime in the late 1950s; certainly, it's the earliest time travel novel I can remember reading. Andrew Harlan, a native of the 95th century, is a Technician in Eternity, a member of a corps of self-appointed guardians of reality that exists outside of ordinary time. It's a highly stratified society and Harlan is a member of the caste that actually effects changes by making the "Minimum Necessary Change" at the selected point in time and space. Then he meets a woman outside of Eternity with whom he falls in love -- sort of -- and takes it upon himself to protect her from a Change planned for her continuity. Of course, it's a far more complicated matter than that, as Harlan finds out the hard way. In fact, the very existence and survival of Eternity is at stake. But maybe it ought not to survive. The writing seems a bit sappy now, a bit turgid, but styles and tastes change. The basic "time patrol" theme, however, has been riffed on by scores of subsequent novels and short stories. Some points seem rather naive to us now: The enormous size of the "computaplexes," even thousands of years in the future, a voice recording device that's still large enough to require a storage case and a separate microphone, and so on. (It's always surprised me how many Golden Age authors failed to anticipate the minute size of electronic devices so short a distance in their future.) But ignore all that and just enjoy the story for what it is.

Isaac Asimov has written a brilliant glimpse into the fragile psyche of man. In our neverending quest for knowledge and to seek the unknown, we take chances. In Asimov's future we have The Eternals to keep us safe from ourselves. The Eternals manipulate the timeline by altering any dangerous situations that may harm mankind in the long run. This creates a dichotomy as mans adventurous and sometimes self-destructive basic need to break free clashes with our conservative desires to play it safe. Asimov explores the end results of this clash with the central character Andrew Harlen. Harlen is the catylist as he unwittingly is played by both sides in a fascinating chess match of truly epic proportions. Some of the aspects of this story were later explored in Spielberg's "Minority Report", as in preventing future events from happening before they can do harm. The best Science Fiction is the kind that really makes you think and this book most assuredly does that.

Time travel is a great, speculative sub-genre of scifi. Although mildly dated this is book highly worthwhile. Asimov's storytelling and imagination are legendary due to works like this.

The End of Eternity is a brisk and totally satisfying thought experiment that poses the question most other time travel books don't even ask: why would you even want to alter events in time? Asimov concludes, correctly, that the life of a species should unfold the same way an individual life unfolds; without the beneft of hindsight. A decision made in hindsight, it turns out, is not superior to the original - it's just wrong for different reasons.

The Foundation series was just OK, Pebble in the Sky and The Currents of Space were downright boring, but this is the type of story that earned Asimov the title of master. Read this book.

wow! did you ever have the feeling that since you'd never heard anyone else talk about a book (or something else) you loved, you were the only person in the world that loved it? i had always felt this way about this CP book! it is by FAR his best YA book, leaps and bounds above the others. i was way into reading his books when i was about 12 or 13 (a little young for the material but i was an avid reader!) and this is the one that has always stuck in my brain like a piece of bubblegum. it is just everything a good book should be- creepy, imaginative, well-written, descriptive, eerie, memorable. i have looked far and wide for this book and just thought to look here and i ordered it! being 24 now it's been a long time since i've read it and i can't wait for it to get here. please read this book! i would recommend this book to people of all ages, it's that good.

I'm 30 years old now and this book still gives me chills. It is literally a groundbreaking book you will never forget.Pike's master form of writing scares unlike any other.
It is symbolic and creepy at the same time.Quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read~and I have read hundreds!

This was a great book, but not scary. This had an amazing plot, great charecters, and Betty Sue was great. Betty Sue was actually a witch for any one who wants to know. The ending though is confusing, was it a dream, or was it real? Only thing we know is Rox died during the abortion.

I read this when I was in middle school and absolutely loved it. I admit I was a little young for the mature subject matter but he wrote it brilliantly. It has been stuck in my head to this day and I am actually buying it to read again.

I would recommend this book.

Whisper of Death has an intriguing premise. What if you woke up and all the people of the world had vanished? That is what happens to eighteen year-old Roxanne (Rox) and her boyfriend Pepper. All the stores are open and stocked with goods, and eventually they find three other teens: jerk Helter, nerd Stan, and beautiful Leslie. The teens soon find that the situation has something to do with Betty Sue, a classmate who killed herself three weeks ago.

The premise was great, and so is the writing in the first third of the book. I keep a journal, and if I see a quote I like from a book, I jot it in my journal for future inspiration. I wrote three sentences from Whisper of Death. The writing was that beautiful.

But as the story progresses, and the true horror of the situation is revealed, the story is too bleak and depressing. I didn't feel the end wrapped things up. I do not agree with the reason for the dead world - Pike said some statements about God that suggest He is not All-Powerful.

Last, there was a lot of sex in the story, and suggestions of incest. I don't think teens should be having sex. However, Pike discusses abortion a bit, which I feel is well-done.

Character development is great here, as well as the eerie setting. I don't feel the plot development built to a strong middle and powerful ending. It just kind of petered out.

The book is cover to cover action, spiced with science, and broiled to perfection with the flames of suspense and horror. Overall, Ancestor is a heaping helping of gory goodness that should sate the homicidal hunger of sci-fi fans as well as the mainstream horror fan.

There's non-stop action, remote islands & bioengineering gone horribly wrong...what more could you want? This one was hard to put down (or turn off if you listen to the pocast) because there was just so much happening all the time. I was riveted throughout the book and I still wonder if the end is really the end. I hope not!

Wonderful tale. great idea who would suspect cows could be so ... gruesome ... well ok mutant cows with human genes. Scott succeeds again in telling a suck you in and gross you out tale.

After my initial confusion sorting out the characters, finding who the protagonists really were and what the antagonists were up to, this book took off like a rocket. Very fast paced, interesting scientific ideas gone awry, believable good guys and gals, awful bad guys. Coupled with monsters loose on a blizzard-buried island, here's a recipe for horror and adventure that is hard to beat. I especially enjoyed the author's ability to sustain suspense right up to the last page, a talent that few possess.

I found the book to be exciting and fun to read. It's a real page turner. I am looking forward to Scott's next book.

This was my favorite book as a child obsessed with unicorns (when even my dance teacher presented me with unicorn-themed because of the hair at the front of my head that refused to lay down). I read it over and over back then, but 20 years later couldn't remember much about it. So I found a copy and re-read it, finding it as charming and captivating as I always had!

It's a fabulous coming-of-age fantasy, complete with the requisite prophecies and dangerous journey for our hero, young Jan, prince of the unicorns.

Even though this is the first book of a trilogy, it stands perfectly well alone - the sequel wasn't released til 7 years later, so, as a child I never even realized there was more to the story. But I have the second in the series, "Dark Moon," at home, ready to be read! :)

I liked this book. It had a wonderfuly diverse vernacular portaying a delightfully detailed world. I read it first when I was 10 and didn't understand any of it and only remembered it vaugley, but it was the book that launched me into the world of fantasy art and writing. After many years I have found it again and it has proven to be everything I'd hoped it would be.

I've read plenty of books with unicorns portrayed as gentle creatures who are ridden by humans. While I have nothing against these types of books and enjoy reading them, this book brings out a different side of the unicorn, along with giving you characters you'll love.

Aljan (or Jan) is the unicorn prince's son. He has a wild, hotheaded streak about him that, unfortunately, gets him in trouble often. However, Jan longs to have his father look upon him with pride and vows to clean up his act.

Jan goes on a journey with other unicorns to the Hallow Hills, a place that belonged to the unicorns before the wyvens drove them out. The unicorns only hope to reclaim the land that was once theirs lie in the belief that a great warrior known as the Firebringer will come and fight the wyvens.

The unicorns make the annual trip to intiate new warriors. The road is long, and the dangers are many (gryphons, renegade unicorns, and storms, to name a few). At the end of the trek, Jan finds out that he is the Firebringer that the unicorns have long told of coming.

This book is different than most books about unicorns in that instead of gentle unicorns, they are pictured as great warriors who fight to survive. It is interesting to see them as such.

Overall, a great fantasy with interesting and strong unicorn characters.

Meridith Ann Pierce is Jah-lila.
this author has done what all of those other authors who write for Lewellyn can only hope to attain....she has explained Paganism in its simplicity and all of its mysterious complexity..and aimed the reading for young adults.
How many of us were children when we read the first "Birth of.."?

Now, how many of you feel that not only was it a birth of the firebringer, but also the birth (remembering)of our authentic selves? How many of you readers because of this trilogy can now see yourselves magic and a whole person who remembers their own Divinity?
I think we owe much thanks and gratitude to Meredith for helping us. Not only is she an author, she is a Midwyfe...a Priestess of sort.
Anyone who wants to discuss this more may email me at the_tisher@yahoo.com i welcome your thoughts.
Merry Meet

I've recently been reading a few of the books I really loved as a child, just for the sake of reminiscing and because the stories have stuck with me for years.

The Firebringer trilogy has a particularly important story for me. I first read the first book, The Birth of the Firebringer, when I was about 9 or so--I got it out from the library, and I think it only took me reading it once to get it to embed itself in my mind. I never found the other two, though.

Fast forward to high school. I was talking to a friend of mine, and we somehow got on the subject of unicorn-related kid's books. I had long since forgotten the title of the book, but I remembered the cover, with the multicolored unicorns on it, and that there were some words that had seemed a little odd to me, such as "hale" and "pash". She suddenly remembered "Oh, it's called 'The Birth of the Firebringer'!" and I never forgot again.

Fast forward again to a couple of years ago. The trilogy was still woefully out of print. I managed to find a copy of Birth fo the Firebringer used--I gladly put down $20 for it. A few days later I had the wonderful gratification of re-reading that wonderful story again and revisiting one of the most amazing alternate realities my imagination had ever visited.

Lo and behold, not long after, the series came back into print, and I was able to complete the story!

The Firebringer Trilogy is geared towards young adults, but grown adults who enjoy a good fantasy story will like it as well. It's also very well-developed, with a variety of characters and an interesting storyline. Plus it's nice to see unicorns that aren't all just sugar and spice and everything nice, and that live in herds and have social structures.

Highly recommended for all ages.

This book was not up to the usual quality that I had purchased before. But Amazon fixed the problem so all is well.

Dinotopia was the first book James Gurney wrote in this series. The artwork was what initially drew me into the story and I found sweatshirts, posters, calendars, pins...you name it, with these chaarcters on them. The storyline was easy to follow, as it was written in diary format.

The things I really found interesting were the song (notes and lyrics) and the code for the Dinotopian written language (footprints). My students love writing letters and stories in Dinotopian to each other and for daily assignments. After teaching it for almost 10 years students are as much in love with the story as I am and they want to read it over and over. The artwork makes for great writing prompts and gives kids ideas for sculpture and watercolor pieces.

I remember reading this book as a child and loving it. Today I think I love it even more. The illustrations are so rich and well executed. I'm sad it isn't published in hardcover anymore. Every household should own a copy.

You might just end up with "Dinotopia". That's how good the illustrations and paintings in this book are, and should be the primary reason for purchasing the book. The artwork is absolutely first class, and the book can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. I purchased "Dinotopia" in 1992 when it was first released, and subsequently, picked up its sequel "The World Beneath". They both still hold a special place on my book shelf more than 10 years later. HIGHLY recommended!

This book has a lot about dinosaur names and how the dinosaurs lived, even the plants they eat. There are a lot of pictures that can help you to learn to recognize them. It is all very well drawn.

But it has a different perspective because they think of time differently, not as 1 o'clock but as when to do certain things, such as times to harvest.

It is very good realistic fiction because it makes you feel like you are a part of the story. It is written as a journal, kind of like talking to you, which makes the story seem more real.

The plot is very complicated. So it always keeps your attention and keeps you turning the pages. There is not a lot of action, but when there is it is very realistic because you feel the danger and excitment.