It is the greatest bounty hunt in history. There are 15 targets, the finest warriors in the world, commandos, spies, terrorists, and they must all be dead by noon, today. The price on their heads: almost $20 million each.

The New York Public Library: a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and long hallways. For one night this building is to be the venue for a contest. The rules are simple: seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Stephen Swain is plunged into a fight for survival. In this contest, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all.

The Golden Capstone atop the Great Pyramid at Giza offered protection from the global flooding and scorching sun that occurs every 4,500 years due to the Tartarus Rotation solar event. But Alexander the Great broke the Capstone into seven pieces and hid them in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now, in 2006, another Tartarus Rotation is due, and whoever places the reconstructed Capstone on the pyramid in time will gain absolute earthly power.

A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth. But Jack and his team might be able to ward off the coming Armageddon if they can find the fabled Six Sacred Stones.

The year is 1546, and Suleiman the Magnificent, the powerful and feared sultan of the Ottoman Empire, issues an invitation to every king in Europe: You are invited to send your finest player to compete in a chess tournament to determine the champion of the known world. Thousands converge on Constantinople, including the English court's champion and his guide, the esteemed scholar Roger Ascham.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.