The end is nigh. It has been nearly 200 years since Hadrian Marlowe assaulted the person of the Emperor and walked away from war. From his Empire. His duty. From the will and service of the eldritch being known only as the Quiet. The galaxy lies in the grip of a terrible plague, and worse, the Cielcin have overrun the realms of men. A messenger has come to Jadd, bearing a summons from the Sollan Emperor for the one-time hero. A summons, a pardon and a plea. HAPSIS, the Emperor’s secret first-contact intelligence organization, has located one of the dreadful Watchers, the immense, powerful beings worshipped by the Pale Cielcin. Called out of retirement and exile, the old hero --- accompanied by his daughter, Cassandra --- must race across the galaxy and against time to accomplish one last, impossible task: To kill a god.

In 991 AD, Vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defense-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of 10th-century England, due to it being immortalized in the poem “The Battle of Maldon.” Written shortly after the battle, the poem would inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to compose his own dramatic verse-dialogue, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which imagines the aftermath of the great battle. Leading Tolkien scholar Peter Grybauskas presents for the very first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of “The Battle of Maldon,” together with the definitive treatment of “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” and its accompanying essays.

With the Cielcin united under one banner, the Sollan Empire stands alone after the betrayal of the Commonwealth. The Prophet-King of the Cielcin has sent its armies to burn the worlds of men. Worse, there are rumors...whispers that Hadrian Marlowe is dead, killed in the fighting. But Hadrian survived with the help of the witch, Valka, and together they escaped the net of the enemy having learned a terrible truth: the gods that the Cielcin worship are real and will not rest until the universe is dark and cold. What is more, the Emperor himself is in danger. The Prophet-King has learned to track his movements as he travels along the borders of Imperial space. Now the Cielcin legions are closing in, their swords poised to strike off the head of all mankind.

The kingdoms of Belleger and Amika had been fighting for generations. But then they learned of a terrible threat moving through them to destroy the Last Repository, an immense hidden library. To face this greater enemy, King Bifalt of Belleger and Queen Estie of Amika allied their lands and prepared for war. Now the time of preparation is over. Black ships and sorcery test the cannon that defend the Bay of Lights. Treachery and betrayal threaten the kingdoms. The priests of the Great God Rile sow dissent. And Estie rides for the Last Repository, desperate to enlist the help of their Magisters --- and to understand the nature of her own magical gift.

The story that began with Duke Leto Atreides' rise to power, then continued with the consequences of Lady Jessica’s betrayal, will now conclude with Paul becoming the leader that he needs to be on the way to his pivotal role as Muad’Dib. Any Dune fan will devour this tale of a legend coming into his own.

J. R. R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a "dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told." And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and its appendices. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published THE SILMARILLION after his father’s death that a fuller story could be told. Now, adhering to the timeline of "The Tale of Years" in the appendices to THE LORD OF THE RINGS, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by Alan Lee.

Destina Rosethorn believes herself to be a favored child of destiny. But when her father dies in the War of the Lance, she watches her carefully constructed world come crashing down. She loses not only her beloved father but also the legacy he has left her: the family lands and castle. To save her father, she hatches a bold plan --- to go back in time and prevent his death. First, she has to secure the Device of Time Journeying. But to change time, she’ll need another magical artifact --- the most powerful and dangerous artifact ever created. Destina’s quest sets in motion a chain of disastrous events that threaten to divert the course of the River of Time, alter the past and forever change the future.

In CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, readers met the optimistic young hero Owen Hardy, as well as the more reluctant adventurer Marinda Peake, in an amazing world of airships and alchemy, fantastic carnivals and lost cities. Now Owen Hardy, retired and content in his quiet, perfect life with the beautiful Francesca, is pulled into one last adventure with his eager grandson, Alain. This final mission for the Watchmaker will take them up to the frozen lands of Ultima Thule and the ends of the Earth. Marinda Peake must undertake a mission of her own, not only to compile the true life story of the mysterious Watchmaker, but also to stop a deadly new group of anarchists.

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen. And the Empire stands alone. Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe, once his favorite knight, one more impossible task: journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war.

THE LAST SHADOW is the long-awaited conclusion to both the original Ender series and the Ender's Shadow series, as the children of Ender and Bean solve the great problem of the Ender Universe --- the deadly virus they call the descolada, which is incurable and will kill all of humanity if it is allowed to escape from Lusitania.