Fellowship of the Ring Book I: The Ring Sets Out. The first chapter in the book begins in a light vein, following the tone of The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins celebrates his 111th (or eleventy-first, as it is called in Hobbiton) birthday on the same day, September 22, that his relative and adopted heir Frodo Baggins celebrates his coming of age at 33. At the birthday party, Bilbo departs from the Shire, the land of the Hobbits, for what he calls a permanent holiday. He leaves Frodo his remaining...

He was called Damiano Delstrego: wizard's son, alchemist, heir to dark magics. Yet he was also an innocent, a young scholar and musician befriended by the Archangel Raphael, who instructed him in the lute. To save his beloved city from war, Damiano left his cloistered life and set out on a pilgrimage, seeking the aid of the powerful sorceress Saara. But his road was filled with betrayal, disillusionment and death, and Damiano was forced to confront his dark heritage, unleashing the hellish...

They are called the Dreamers. They look like sleeping children. They are, in fact, Gods. There are eight elder Gods, four awake, four asleep, by turns. When they sleep, they sleep for eons. The only time the Gods are vulnerable is when the sleepers awake. Knowing this, the Ruler of the Wasteland, ambitious to become a God by destroying Gods, watches and waits, marshalling troops for war. So it is that the coming of the Dreamers passes unnoticed in the Wasteland. But the world is soon out of...

Inner Eclipse. On the planet Nightshade, anyone can buy or sell Flex, the death-dealing drug, to take offworld but no one is supposed to use it. Nonetheless, Flex addicts are a common sight in Riotmark, the planet's largest city. No one comes to Nightshade for anything but Flex - no one except Benedict and his travelling companions, who believe there may be something even more interesting in the jungle - something Benedict has been searching for all his life.