The long-awaited new novel from Greg Egan! Hugo Award-winning author Egan returns to the field with Incandescence, a new novel of hard SF. The Amalgam spans nearly the entire galaxy, and is composed of innumerable beings from a wild variety of races, some human or near it, some entirely other. The one place that they cannot go is the bulge, the bright, hot center of the galaxy. There dwell the Aloof, who for millions of years have deflected any and all attempts to communicate with or visit them. So when Rakesh is offered an opportunity to travel within their sphere, in search of a lost race, he cannot turn it down. Roi is a member of that lost race, which is not only lost to the Amalgam, but lost to itself. In their world, there is but toil, and history and science are luxuries that they can ill afford. Rakesh's journey will take him across millennia and light years. Roi's will take her across vistas of learning and discovery just as vast.

It causes riots and religions. It has people dancing in the streets and leaping off skyscrapers. And it's all because of the impenetrable gray shield that slid into place around the solar system on the night of November 15, 2034. Some see the bubble as the revenge of an insane God. Some see it as justice. Some even see it as protection. But one thing is for certain -- now there is the universe, and the earth. And never the twain shall meet. Or so it seems. Until a bio-enhanced PI named Nick Stavrianos takes on a job for an anonymous client: find a girl named Laura who disappeared from a mental institution by the most direct possible method -- walking through the walls.

Camille is desperate to escape her home on colonized asteroid Vesta, journeying through space in a small cocoon pod covertly and precariously attached to a cargo ship. Anna is a newly appointed port director on asteroid Ceres, intrigued by the causes that have led so-called riders like Camille to show up at her post in search of asylum. Conditions on Vesta are quickly deteriorating—for one group of people in particular. The original founders agreed to split profits equally, but the Sivadier syndicate contributed intellectual property rather than more valued tangible goods. Now the rest of the populace wants payback. As Camille travels closer to Ceres, it seems ever more likely that Vesta will demand the other asteroid stop harboring its fugitives. With The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred, acclaimed author Greg Egan offers up a stellar, novella-length example of hard science fiction, as human and involving as it is insightful and philosophical.

Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness -- "Distress, " or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He's on his way to the artifical island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy.Chief among the scientists is the brilliant African Nobel laureate, Violet Mosala, the focus of Worth's story, who is the subject of mysterious death threats. Worth begins his own investigation, but it takes on even more urgency when he finds that Distress, the mental plague now affecting millions, is linked somehow to the approaching "Aleph Moment" when the TOE is finalized. The countdown has begun for a disaster that will reach all the way back to the Big Bang. And beyond...

Grand Canary is a novel by author A. J. Cronin, initially published in 1933. It tells the story of Dr. Harvey Leith, an English physician who is wrongfully blamed for the deaths of three patients and leaves his country in disgrace, ultimately finding redemption when thrust into the middle of a yellow fever epidemic in the Canary Islands.

The Green Years is a 1944 novel by A. J. Cronin which traces the formative years of an Irish orphan, Robert Shannon, who is sent to live with his draconian maternal grandparents in Scotland. An introspective child, Robert forms an attachment to his roguish great-grandfather, who draws the youngster out of his shell with his raucous ways.

When Mr Harrington Brande moves himself and his precious young son Nicholas to a grand house in the deserted Spanish town of San Jorge he is planning on a fresh start for the two of them. And only the two of them. For Mr Harrington Brande is a proud man and a jealous man. His beloved wife has recently fled his stifling love and now Brande has transferred all of his adoration onto Nicholas. He monitors his son's every move and is obsessed with ensuring that the bond between them is stronger than ever. But history begins to repeat itself when Nicholas befriends the gardener José. José is like no one Nicholas has ever met before and he instantly holds him in high regard. Brande does not take too kindly to having to vie for his son's attention with the Spanish gardener, and becomes increasingly suspicious of his rival. Encouraged by his butler, Garcia, Brande becomes convinced that José is not the person he pretends to be. Blinded by love...

The autobiography of a general practitioner turned author, who went on to write such famous novels as Hatter's Castle, The Citidel, The Stars Look Down, etc, not forgetting the Dr Finlay series.

Vigil in the Night represents something of an event for fans of A. J. Cronin. Here, published for the first time in book form, is his poignant and moving tale of two nurses—of Anne, who devoted herself to serving others, and of her younger sister, Lucy, who meant to get everything in life for herself. When Lucy’s negligence causes the tragic death of a young patient, Anne takes the blame to protect her young sister—an act that threatens to destroy the brilliant nursing career that lies before her. But then Anne meets an idealistic young surgeon who takes an interest in her, and although one of the oldest and most honored traditions of the medical profession is that the relationship between doctors and nurses remain strictly impersonal, doctors and nurses are, after all, human beings—and sometimes that tradition breaks down.

Over the course of six episodes, the early years of Dr. Finlay are explored, as he gets to grips with the locals in the Scottish Highland town of Levenford. But the new doctor is full of surprises; caring, stub-born, idealistic and clever, but he proves to be more than a match for the local residents. His patients range from the stingiest and most cunning widow in Scotland to a pantomime actress, and from a hen-pecked husband, to the Scobie sisters, who have managed to live together for fifteen years without speaking.

Paul Mathry, a student about to graduate and embark upon a teaching career, finds out that his father was convicted for murder, a secret that his mother had hidden from him since his childhood. Driven by an intense desire to see his father, Paul sets out to visit him in prison, only to find out that visitors are never allowed there. From there, he meets the primary witnesses in the case that convicted his father, not all of whom are supportive to Paul's cause. He encounters several dead ends but he persists, with the help of a store girl named Lena and a news reporter. His persistent campaign finally bears fruit. Rees Mathry, Paul's father, goes on appeal and is vindicated. The novel ends with Paul's father, a hardened, cynical man, seeing a fleeting hope for self-renewal and a purposeful life.

Hatter's Castle (1931) is the first novel of author A. J. Cronin. The story is set in 1879, in the fictional town of Levenford, on the Firth of Clyde. The plot revolves around many characters and has many subplots, all of which relate to the life of the hatter, James Brodie, whose narcissism and cruelty gradually destroy his family and life.

The Stars Look Down was A.J. Cronin's fourth novel, published in 1935, and this tale of a North country mining family was a great favourite with his readers. Robert Fenwick is a miner, and so are his three sons. His wife is proud that all her four men go down the mines. But David, the youngest, is determined that somehow he will educate himself and work to ameliorate the lives of his comrades who ruin their health to dig the nation's coal. It is, perhaps, a typical tale of the era in which it was written --there were many novels about coal mining, But Cronin, a doctor turned author, had a gift for storytelling, and in his time wrote several very popular and successful novels.

After a grave betrayal, a young Princess is sent on a quest to search for a figure of mythic status: The Black Knight. Hailed by some as a hero, by others he is seen as evil incarnate, but the truth is more complex than any could imagine. This young Princess finds herself embroiled in a conflict she thought impossible, entering the front lines of a war fought between the veil of life and death.