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A sourcerer is born - a wizard so powerful that by comparison all other magic is just mucking around in pointy hats.

And his very existence brings the Discworld, which is of course flat and rides through space on the back of an enormous turtle, to the very verge of all-out thaumaturgical war*.

All that stands in the way is Rincewind, the failed magician, who wants to save the world, or at least that part of it which contains him. More new characters join the Discworld adventure: Conina the barbarian hairdresser, Nijel the Destroyer (whose mother still makes him wear woolly underwear) and possibly the first yuppie genie, who's into lamps as a growth area.

This time the adventure goes east, or hubwards, or whatever. It doesn't simply draw heavily on "Omar Khayyam", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the "1001 Nights" and every Arabian B-movie ever made, it scribbles on them as well. . .

Some night-time prowler is turning the citizens of Ankh-Morpork, greatest city of the fantasy Discworld, into something resembling small charcoal biscuits.

And that's a real problem for Captain Vimes of the City Watch, who must tramp the mean streets of the city searching for a seventy-foot-long fire-breathing dragon which, he believes, can help him with their enquiries.

In a city thrown into turmoil by magic, charcoal biscuits, secret societies and mad lady dragon breeders ("Just tell him 'sit' if he'sothering you"), he's just looking for the facts.

Who would want to harm Discworld's most beloved icon? Very few things are held sacred in this twisted, corrupt, heartless - and oddly familiar - universe, but the Hogfather is one of them. Yet here it is, Hogswatchnight, that most joyous and acquisitive of times, and the jolly old, red-suited gift-giver has vanished without a trace. And there's something shady going on involving an uncommonly psychotic member of the Assassins' Guild and certain representatives of Ankh-Morpork's rather extensive criminal element. Suddenly Discworld's entire myth system is unraveling at an alarming rate. Drastic measures must be taken, which is why Death himself is taking up the reins of the fat man's vacated sleigh... which, in turn, has Death's level-headed granddaughter, Susan, racing to unravel the nasty, humbuggian mess before the holiday season goes straight to hell and takes everyone along with it.<

With Roth leaps back again, to Newark in 1944, in the summer, polio season — but this year, the worst outbreak of polio in a lifetime, and long before there was even a glimpse of a vaccine. The fact of the eradication of polio, an affliction unknown in the lifetime of most Americans now, only makes Roth's recreation of the disease all but horror-movie immediate: unstoppable, unpredictable, unknowable, evading diagnosis until it is too late, with cases spreading through a neighborhood by the hour and children dead overnight or consigned to an iron lung for the rest of their lives (and what is an iron lung, any reader might have to ask, only to find out, and then be horrified at how polio could redefine everyday life?).<

The Unadulterated Cat is becoming an endangered species as more and more of us settle for those boring mass-produced cats the ad-men sell us—the pussies that purr into their gold-plated food bowls on the telly. But the Campaign for Real Cats sets out to change all that by helping us to recognise a true, unadulterated cat when we see one.

For example: real cats have ears that look like they've been trimmed with pinking shears; real cats never wear flea collars… or appear on Christmas cards… or chase anything with a bell in it; real cats do eat quiche. And giblets. And butter. And anything else left on the table, if they think they can get away with it. Real cats can hear a fridge door opening two rooms away…

Corsarios de levante es el sexto libro de la serie `Las aventuras de El Capitán Alatriste`, que Arturo Pérez Reverte comenzó a escribir allá por el año de nuestro señor de 1996. Pardiez como pasa el tiempo.

Como los anteriores Libros, Corsarios de Levante pretende hacernos vivir uno mas de los aspectos de la vida del siglo XVII. Y en esta ocasión Arturito nos lleva por las aguas del Mediterráneo, Donde Turcos, Españoles, Venecianos, Franceses, Ingleses y demás se pasaban el día comerciándo y degollándose. Para ello nos embarca con Alatriste y el ya crecidito Iñigo en una galera, ` La Mulata `, y nos lleva de paseo en plan barquita de recreo. No cuento más, que no es menester de estas líneas, pero decir que el que no quiera ver tripas, oler mal y pasar miedo entre deguellos y voto a tales, mejor lea otra cosa.