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The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you these classic stories. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

Convicted of a series of horrific crimes against young women in the up-market California town of Santa Barbara, wealthy playboy Charlie Mendez has fled across the US border into Mexico. As one bounty hunter after another meets a grisly end at the hands of the murderous drug cartel his family have hired to keep him safe, it seems that Mendez is one fugitive destined to remain beyond the reach of the law. Or at least that's how it looks until one determined victim persuades high-end security specialist Ryan Lock and his partner, retired Marine Ty Johnson, to take on the case.

Four friends, caught in a terrible job market, joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it’s no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise works like a charm – until they kidnap the wrong man. Now two groups are after them – the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organised crime outfit looking for payback.

Adult movie actress, Raven Lane, is one of the most lusted after women in America, with millions of fans to prove it. But when a headless corpse turns up in the trunk of her car, she realises that fame carries a terrible price. Fearing for her life, and with the LAPD seemingly unable to protect her, Raven turns to elite bodyguard, Ryan Lock for help. Lock stops bad things happening to good people, but can he stop the tidal wave of violence now threatening the city of Los Angeles as Raven's predator targets - and kills - those closest to her?

It’s not unusual for ships to vanish, lost to bad weather, but what isn’t so easy to explain are the abandoned ships, left floating on the waves, eerily silent with no sign of attack or destruction. In this short story, our unnamed protagonist recalls his experience aboard the Robert Sutter, an abandoned ship he was forced to take charge of during his journey from Sydney to Callao.

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly, and cautiously, in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean, a former soldier, becomes a hero when he stops a man with a gun at the mall. His newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought were safely in his past. Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength, and devotion to each other, to manage to elude their enemies.

Nine hundred and seventy-three days. Thinking. Planning. Waiting for the perfect moment. Former Marine James Bishop will only have one opportunity to make his prison break. And one chance to prove that he isn't responsible for the murders that put him inside. Three years ago Bishop was the leader of an elite close protection team hired to protect a millionaire and his daughter.

When the Cutter family's next-door-neighbours, the Langleys, are gunned down in their house one hot August night, the Cutters' world is turned upside down. That violent death should have come so close to them is shocking enough in suburban Promise Falls, but at least the Cutters can console themselves with the thought that lightning is unlikely to strike twice in the same place. Unless, of course, the killers went to the wrong house.

At 1 a.m. in a deserted Pennsylvania library, Nat Turnbull's cell phone rings. His former mentor, Professor Gordon Wolfe, has been arrested by the FBI for stealing top-secret archive documents dating back to the Second World War.

Coerced by the FBI into examining the archives, Nat finds intriguing references both to Wolfe's activities in an Allied intelligence office during the war and to a mysterious student resistance group in Berlin known as the White Rose.

When an old crony of Van Shaw's late grandfather calls in a favour, he treks deep into the remote forest of the Olympic Mountains in search of a missing girl. Discovering a brutal murder scene, Van finds himself caught between a billionaire businessman on the one side and vicious gangsters on the other. In an attempt to survive, a desperate Van may just need every ally he can get, especially as someone prepares to unleash a firestorm on Seattle that could burn them all to ashes.

Some secrets should stay buried. The number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Inner Circle delivers the third novel in the blockbuster Culper Ring Trilogy. Beecher White, a humble archivist at the US National Archives by day, has a secret: he belongs to the Culper Ring, a network of spies founded by George Washington during the American Revolution. Over the course of his time working for the Culper Ring, White has discovered countless secrets....

On a beautiful Saturday in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, state investigator Kirk Stevens and FBI special agent Carla Windermere witness the assassination of one of the state’s wealthiest men. The shooter is a young man, utterly unremarkable...except for the dead look in his eyes. The events of that sunny springtime day will lead Stevens and Windermere to a flourishing 21st-century enterprise: a high-tech murder-for-hire social media website.

It's 1945. The Red Army tears through Europe towards Berlin, exacting vengeance, while the British and the Americans close in from the west. Victory over Hitler seems certain. But inside the Kremlin, Stalin worries about a new enemy. When the war is over, how will the Soviet Union protect itself against the American behemoth? Meanwhile Hitler knows he needs a miracle to avoid an humiliating defeat. For both, the atom bomb is the answer....

Danny can't afford the private school his teenage daughter, Abby, adores, and he can't bear to tell his daughter he has failed her. By a stroke of brilliant luck, Danny meets Thomas Galvin, one of the richest men in Boston. When Danny accepts a loan from Thomas, the authorities turn up at his door. Now he has a choice: face prison or become part of a sting operation to bring down his extremely dangerous new best friend...

A smoking cigar is seen in the fog, but not the man behind it. Could it be the final smoke of Charlie Devereux? The crew aboard the Königen Teresa recall this ghostly story as they themselves plough into fog across the Mid-Atlantic.

Emma Vane blurs the line between human and plant in this short story featuring a lily that has developed a mouth and can moan. Concern is soon raised for the safety of the central protagonist, botanist Carl Brense.

From the Links is a golf hall of fame, shame, and the arcane. Collected here are more than 100 of golf's greatest moments: from the famous to the long forgotten; from the links of Scotland in the 1800s to the 1938 US Open; from the 1954 US Women's Open to the 2010 Masters, and even to the little known Martini Invitational in 1971 and starring the giants of the game down to the struggling pros and amateurs.

In Western Union: The year is 1861, and the nation is at war. The Western Union Telegraph Company intends to connect East with West as never before but is beset by enemies. Wires are cut and telegraph poles burned, and then matters take a darker turn when a repair crew is massacred. The question is, who might be responsible? Could it be embittered Indians, belligerent Confederates, or even the Pony Express, which will surely go out of business as soon as the transcontinental telegraph is completed?

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you this final instalment from their über-guide to exploring the fourth dimension. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

Having escaped the Island - a wasteland that housed those no longer able to contribute to society - Clancy thought his fight was over. But they have returned to the mainland to find that it is not the haven they anticipated. With the punishment satellites that kept them on the Island gone, hell has been unleashed. Clancy is about to discover that his work is far from over. The fires of hell don't burn much hotter than this.