Yes, we have achieved much. Have we destroyed even more? In the name of Rome, Scipio Africanus systematically destroyed the hard-won empires of Hannibal and Alexander the Great. With breathtaking battle scenes and a tale of violent passions, "Scipio" is a stunning sequel to "Hannibal", Ross Leckie's acclaimed bestselling historical novel. This insp...more

A battle is like lust. The frenzy passes. Consequence remains.Hannibal is an epic vision of one of history's greatest adventurers, the almost mythical man who most famously led his soldiers on elephants over the Alps. In Ross Leckie's unforgettable re-creation of the Punic wars, it is Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, who narrates the story, and ...more

Codes have decided the fates of empires, countries, and monarchies throughout recorded history. Mary, Queen of Scots was put to death by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, for the high crime of treason after spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham cracked the secret code she used to communicate with her conspirators. And thus the course of British history was a...more

Thirty-year old predictions have a habit of going stale, but not John Brunner's startling panoramic view of the year 2010. Even where he got the future we almost inhabit wrong, he understood where things were oing--"Conincidence You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on"--and his world of Artificial Intelligence, gene-e...more

In the year 1678, Joshua Wagstaffe discovered aether, and the Industrial Revolution began. Not the Industrial Revolution of our world; but one fuelled by magic. Aether, its secrets jealously guarded by the Guilds, became the glue that bound English society together. Now, after three hundred years, change is finally in the air. The talk on the stree...more

Has any comic been as lauded as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but Watchmen remains the critics' favourite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for ma...more