Showing results by narrator "Michael Fenton Stevens" in All Categories

The Western Front, 1916. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? Madison, Wisconsin, 2015. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some said mad, others dangerous - scientist when she finds a curious gadget: a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a potato. It is the prototype of a life-changing invention....

Bored and frustrated with her life in 50th-century leisure-ghetto housing estate 'The Hoop', 18-year-old everywoman Halo Jones yearns for the infinite sights and sounds of the universe. Pledging to escape on a fantastic voyage, she sets in motion events unimaginable; a spell on a luxury space-liner, a brush with an interstellar war - Halo Jones faces hardship and adventure in the name of freedom in the limitless cosmos.

In the 'fantasy' universe of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense. The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of finding out what those rules are. The appeal of Discworld is that it mostly makes sense, in a way that particle physics does not.

Authorised by Mr Lipwig of the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway himself, Mrs Georgina Bradshaw’s invaluable guide to the destinations and diversions of the railway deserves a place in the luggage of any traveller, or indeed armchair traveller, upon the Disc.

A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth - but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind...

In celebration of Sir David Jason’s 80th year, A Del of a Life: Lessons I've Learned relives Jason’s extraordinary life and career from more than 50 years in entertainment. From a trainee electrician to one of Britain’s most revered and loved actors, Jason shares heartfelt and hilarious wisdom with listeners on subjects ranging from family to work, resilience to ebullience. Told with his characteristic warmth and wit, Jason shines a wonderful new light on the characters and shows that fans have come to love him for, from Del Boy to Granville, Larkin to Frost.

The acclaimed Science of Discworld centred on an original Pratchett story about the Wizards of Discworld. In it they accidentally witnessed the creation and evolution of our universe, a plot which was interleaved with a Cohen & Stewart non-fiction narrative about Big Science. In The Science of Discworld II our authors join forces again to see just what happens when the wizards meddle with history in a battle against the elves for the future of humanity on Earth. London is replaced by a dozy Neanderthal village.

It's 2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day, and in the Long Earth the new Next posthuman society continues to evolve. For Joshua Valienté, now in his late 60s, it is time to take one last solo journey into the High Meggers: an adventure that turns into a disaster. Alone and facing death, his only hope of salvation lies with a group of trolls. But as Joshua confronts his mortality, the Long Earth receives a signal from the stars.

Most of us grow up having always known to touch wood or cross our fingers, and what happens when a princess kisses a frog or a boy pulls a sword from a stone, yet sadly, some of these things are now beginning to be forgotten. Legends, myths, and fairy tales: our world is made up of the stories we told ourselves about where we came from and how we got there. It is the same on Discworld, except that beings which on Earth are creatures of the imagination - like vampires, trolls, witches, and possibly, gods - are real, alive and in some cases kicking on the Disc.

In his first book, David Jason told us about himself from his early years training as an electrician through to making it as one of Britain's actors. This autumn, in a follow-up autobiography, he tells us about the many other lives he has lived - his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career. And in the process he reflects on how those characters changed his life, too.

It's 2045-2059. After the cataclysmic upheavals of Step Day and the Yellowstone eruption humanity is spreading farther into the Long Earth, and society, on a battered Datum Earth and beyond, continues to evolve. Now an elderly and cantankerous AI, Lobsang, lives in disguise with Agnes in an exotic, far-distant world. He’s convinced they’re leading a normal life in New Springfield - they even adopt a child - but it seems they have been guided there for a reason.

In Francis Rossi's explosive new memoir, I Talk Too Much, the Status Quo main man reveals for the first time the true-life stories behind the life and times of one of the best-selling rock singers in the world. With over 100 million records sold worldwide in a career that mirrors the evolution of rock music, from the flower power '60s, with hits like 'Pictures of Matchstick Men', through the denim-clad '70s and classic Quo-tastic anthems such as 'Down Down', 'Rocking All over the World' and 'Whatever You Want', through the turbulent '80s, when they famously opened Live Aid....

From modest beginnings as an unlicensed promoter for his second cousin, Lenny 'The Guv'nor' Maclean, Frank has become one of the most influential figures in global boxing. An International Hall of Fame boxing promoter and manager, he has had a ringside seat to the action and has manged and worked with many of the most iconic names in British boxing history: Hamed, Bruno, Tyson, Calzaghe, Benn, Collins, Eubank, Khan and Hatton to name but a few.

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created. 

The years 2040 - 2045: After the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption, there is massive economic dislocation as populations flee Datum Earth to myriad Long Earth worlds. Sally, Joshua, and Lobsang are all involved in this perilous work when, out of the blue, Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father and inventor of the original Stepper device, Willis Linsay. He tells her he is planning a fantastic voyage across the Long Mars and wants her to accompany him. But Sally soon learns that Willis has ulterior motives....

In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett’s long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press, and the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the Discworld series.

The long-awaited autobiography of one of Britain’s best-loved actors. Born the son of a Billingsgate market porter at the height of the Second World War, David Jason spent his early life dodging bombs and bullies, both with impish good timing.

Roundworld is in trouble again, and this time it looks fatal. Having created it in the first place, the wizards of Unseen University feel vaguely responsible for its safety. They know the creatures who lived there escaped the impending Big Freeze by inventing the space elevator - they even intervened to rid the planet of a plague of elves, who attempted to divert humanity onto a different time track. But now it's all gone wrong - Victorian England has stagnated and the pace of progress would embarrass a limping snail.

 Paperback Hell takes a wry look at well-known genres riding high in the publishing charts and mercilessly lampoons them to hilarious effect. Featuring choice chapters culled from titles that bear a striking resemblance to something you've read before, it's the book show that seems determined to destroy the good name of literature. 

It's competition time at Hyperspace High as the students build robots to compete in the annual Robot Warriors contest. John and Kaal are in with a chance of winning, but will competition get in the way of friendship?