'Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I say: this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature of my own!' declares Doctor Moreau to hapless narrator Edward Prendick. Moreau's highly controversial methods and ambitions conflict with the religious, moral and scientific norms of his day and Wells later called The Island of Doctor Moreau 'a youthful exercise in blasphemy'. Today his vivid depictions of the Beast People still strike modern readers with an uncanny glimpse of the animal in the human, while the behaviour of humans leave us wondering who is the most monstrous after all. This volume unites four of Wells' liveliest and most engaging tales of the strange evolution and behaviour of animals - including human beings. The Island of Doctor Moreau is followed by three fantastic yet chillingly plausible short stories of human-animal encounters. The Empire of the Ants is a darkly humorous account of intelligent Amazonian ants threatening to displace humans as 'the lords of the future and masters of the earth'. In The Sea Raiders, the south coast of England is terrorized by an unwelcome visit from deep-sea predator Haploteuthis ferox, while Æpyornis Island provides a marooned egg collector with an unusual companion. 192 page paperback.

At the end of the 19th century a stranger arrives in the Sussex countryside and mayhem ensues; in the sleepy county of Kent a miracle food brings biological chaos that engulfs and threatens the entire planet. H. G. Wells's fertile and mercurial imagination never brought us more bizarre and unsettling stories than those revealed in The Invisible Man (1897) and The Food of the Gods, and How It Came to Earth (1904). These are stories of extraordinary physical transformations and are at once extremely funny and richly imaginative. At the same time, Wells poses some very probing questions about the ethical dimensions to science and the human capacity for both pity and cruelty. Brought together for the first time in this new Wordsworth edition, The Invisible Man and The Food of the Gods are two of Wells's most entertaining and thought-provoking works. 352 page paperback.

In these two compelling novels H.G. Wells imagines terrifying futures in which civilisation itself is threatened. The narrator of The War of the Worlds is quick to discover that what appeared to be a falling star was, in fact, a metallic cylinder landing from Mars. Six million people begin to flee London in panic as tentacled invaders emerge and overpower the city. With their heat-ray, killing machines, black gas, and a taste for fresh human blood, is there anything that can be done to stop the Martians? In The War in the Air, naive but resourceful Bert Smallways is thrilled by speed and fascinated by the new flying machines. His curiosity sweeps him away by accident into a German plan to conquer America, beginning with the destruction of New York. The ease of movement in aerial warfare means that nothing and nobody is safe as Total War erupts, civilisation crumbles, and Bert's hopes of getting back to London to marry his love seem impossibly distant. 432 pages. Paperback.

When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to Kent to write a play, he encounters Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist who has invented a material that counteracts gravity. This discovery enables the two men to set off on a fantastic journey to the Moon. But they are not prepared for what they find there - a world of freezing nights, boiling days and danger from a sinister alien life form, the selenites, creatures who have developed an intricate hierarchical society beneath the lunar surface. The First Men in the Moon ignited speculation in 19th century society concerning what lies on and beneath the surface of the Moon. By turns amusing, thrilling and stimulating, the novel is a classic of its genre. This volume also contains another of Wells's fascinating thought-provoking fantasies: A Modern Utopia in which two travellers fall into a space-warp and find themselves upon a Utopian Earth controlled by a single World Government. 416 page paperback.

The science fiction stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stand alongside those of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The protagonist, the 'cave-man in a lounge suit', is the maddening, irascible and fascinating Professor George Edward Challenger. In these collected tales he faces adventures such as that high above the Amazon rain forest in The Lost World and the challenges of The Land of Mist. 480pp Paperback

A thrilling, high-octane adventure actually written for young adults, the story is as relentless as The Hunger Games and a rule-breaking reimagining of the zombie novel. 'It's never really been my thing to be the brave one ? that's always been my older brother, Patrick, but something world-changing is happening in our small town of Creek's Cause. Parasites have infected everyone over the age of 18, making them violent, and if they even sniff a kid they either bash our brains in or take us back to their creepy lair. We are trapped at the school with the other remaining survivors, including Patrick's girlfriend Alex, and we don't know how long we'll last. The school is surrounded by infected adults, and we are sure that there is something else out there, something controlling the people that used to be our parents, our guardians. But here's the real problem, Patrick is turning 18 in a few days, so it's up to me - Chance Rain - to find a way to save him and maybe, just maybe, if we survive the next few weeks, then we can help save humanity.' For ages 11 and up. 387pp in paperback.

A triumph of the imagination in which gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods, and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking fantasy masterpiece. There are echoes of Shakespeare and Le Guin in this one part new history of the world and one part intricate fantasy. A usurper has claimed the throne. Invaders amass at the borders and they have made their alliances with enemy gods. For centuries the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by a god known as the Raven, but in their hour of need, the Raven speaks nothing to its people. It is into this unrest that the warrior Eolo, aide to the true heir to the throne, arrives. In seeking to help his master reclaim his city, Eolo discovers that the Raven's Tower holds a secret. Its foundations conceal a dark history that has been waiting to reveal itself and to set in motion a chain of events that could destroy Iraden forever. 407pp, paperback, cast of characters and silhouette art.

Jules Verne's third great science fiction novel describes the discovery and exploration of a secret tunnel which leads through a volcano to the centre of the Earth. The leader of the expedition is an archetypal comic and eccentric boffin, and together with his ward, his nephew Axel (who is in love with the ward), and an estimable Icelandic guide, the journey is made. 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' achieved instant and enduring popularity on publication in 1874. Together with 'Around the World in Eighty Days', 'Five Weeks in a Balloon' and 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea', it established Verne as an author of high adventure who filled his stories with a wealth of technical detail, and the energy and freshness of an extraordinary inventive imagination. 192pp. Paperback.

The Deadmen are back, but so are the demons who have broken free from their eternal prison, bent on mankind's destruction. The worst of the lot is Vine, determined to claim their lives for taking hers. She will see the world burn and has the perfect lure to destroy them all. One of their own. Kalder Dupree has never known a day of mercy. Born to the cruellest of mer-races, he sacrificed himself for his crew and is in Vine's hands. He expects no mercy or rescue. Yet Cameron Jack is determined to set Kalder free. As a Hellchaser, it's her calling, and she cannot allow even a not-so-innocent to be tortured for an act of kindness that spared her damnation. To defeat evil it sometimes takes an even worse evil, and Cameron is willing to do whatever she must to make this right. If Vine thought she had her hands full before she hasn't seen anything nearly as powerful as Cameron's resolve. No one does sexy, tormented heroes better than this popular fantasy writer and her Deadman's Cross historical fantasy series with a dark edge and dangerous powers. 331pp, paperback.

In From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, Jules Verne turned the ancient fantasy of space flight into a believable technological possibility - an engineering dream for the industrial age. Directly inspired by Verne’s story, enthusiasts worked successfully at overcoming the practical difficulties, and within a century, human beings did indeed fly to the Moon. Curiously, however, Verne is unlikely to have thought it possible that a manned projectile could actually be fired out of a giant cannon, rising higher than the Moon, swinging around it, and then landing safely back on Earth. He had used the science of the day to construct a literary conjuring trick, a hoax, one of the most successful in all history. By skilful misdirection he drew the attention of readers away from weaknesses in the project. Read the book and you, too, will be fooled into accepting the realistic possibility in Verne’s time of that dream of flying to the Moon. 424 page paperback. New from Wordsworth.