Good job there's lots of wonderful reading this month to tuck in my tuxedo! The hefty Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a stunning and exhaustive compendium of all things Caped Crusader, and the novelizations of The Incredible Hulk movie starring Edward Norton and the hugely popular video game Metal Gear Solid make heroic--or perhaps antiheroic--companion volumes. Del Rey also presents this month the first-ever English translation of the French cyberpunk classic Cosmos Incorporated by Maurice Dantec, hailed as one of France's greatest science fiction authors. And for readers of all ages, there is Tigerheart, the swashbuckling, heart-tugging, spellbinding homage to the story of Peter Pan, featuring a boy named Paul Dear, whose adventures make my own look quite tame. I've already wrapped a few copies in white paper and packed them up with some gilt oyster knives. I'm sure they'll be much appreciated.

Read well and be merry,

Sir Kaitlin
kheller@randomhouse.com

Paul Dear is a good and clever boy, doted on by a father who fills his son's head with tall tales, thrilling legends, and talk of fairy-folk, and by a mother who indulges these fantastic stories and tempers them with common sense. But Paul is special in ways that even his adoring parents could never have imagined: by day, he talks with the pixies and sprites that dwell in London's Kensington Gardens, and at night in his room, a boy much like himself, yet not, beckons to Paul from the mirror to come adventuring. It's a happy life for Paul, made all the more so by the birth of his baby sister. But everything changes when tragedy strikes, and Paul concludes that there's only one course of action he can take to dispel the darkness and make things right again. Thus begins a quest that will lead Paul down the city's bustling streets, to a curio shop where a magical ally awaits him, and launches him into the starry skies, bound for a realm where anything is possible. Far from home, he will run with fierce Indian warriors, cross swords with fearsome pirates, befriend a magnificent white tiger, and soar beside an extraordinary, ageless boy who reigns in a boundless world of imagination.

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Fifty years of warfare, disease, and strife have decimated the world's population. Those who remain are motes in the mind of UniWorld, a superstate that monitors humanity via a vast computer metastructure that catalog everything about everyone on the planet—race, religion, genetic codes, even fantasies. Those who have the means escape UniWorld's tight control through the Orbital Ring. Though his memory has been wiped clean and his history fabricated in order to pass through UniWorld's check points, Sergei Diego Plotkin knows his name. And he knows his mission: to murder a man in the city of Grand Junction, a Vegas-like outpost that is home to the private launching pad to the Ring. But this sense of purpose is compromised by random memories that flash through Plotkin's brain. Now Plotkin is about to meet his maker. As his identity and mission incrementally resurface in his conscious mind, and in the presence of an eerily beautiful woman, Plotkin will soon discover that he has come here not just to kill but to be born...

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The ultimate guide to the man behind the mask . . . and the mythology behind the man.

Batman swooped into popular culture in 1939—and for nearly seventy years has thrilled audiences in countless comics, live-action and animated television programs, and seven feature films. And now, for the first time in more than thirty years, everything there is to know about Batman—from the beginning to the present, and from A to Z—is collected in one comprehensive new sourcebook. More than 500 pages of entries and illustrations include:
* fascinating details and the complete background on Batman's origins
* biographies of every major character in the Batman universe—including his closest allies, from Robin the Boy Wonder and faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth to Commissioner Gordon; and his countless enemies, from the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler to Scarecrow, Two-Face, Ra's al Ghul and Poison Ivy
* classic black-and-white comic book artwork throughout
* two sixteen-page full-color artwork inserts
Even an all-access pass to the Batcave couldn't rival former DC Comics editor and Batman scholar extraordinaire Robert Greenberger's exhaustive ultimate archive. The Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a must for every Batman fan's bookshelf.

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Highly skilled former FOXHOUND agent Solid Snake is called out of retirement to do what he does best—neutralize a crisis of epic proportions. A deadly team of renegade FOXHOUND operatives has taken over the nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island in the icy Aleutians. If their demands aren't met, a powerful, top-secret weapon will be unleashed upon the world. Solid Snake's mission is to breach the heavily fortified base to rescue hostages and to destroy the superweapon. His only obstacles are brainwashed commandos, DNA-enhanced troops, and six first-rate killers with extraordinary abilities. All alone in hostile territory, armed with nothing but his wits, Snake has only a snowball's chance in hell of taking out his target and keeping nuclear nightfall from descending on the earth. But nothing is as it seems. Somebody is hiding something. Somebody has a hidden agenda. And somebody wants Snake to learn secrets about his dark past—secrets that would shake any man to his core.

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Scientist Bruce Banner is desperately researching a tormenting mystery: himself. He must find the cure that will counteract a radioactive element inside his body that causes him to transform, when furious, into that most fearsome and powerful of creatures: The Hulk. While Bruce aims to rid himself of his wild alter ego and live a normal life with the woman he loves, others—namely General Thunderbolt Ross and the shadowy military establishment—seek to trap him and harness the energy he contains. But soon they are all threatened by a new nemesis, one who may be even deadlier than military might or the Hulk himself—a mysterious and terrifying entity correctly called The Abomination.

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Jean Macrae's family is one of the most prominent clans of Guardians, humans whose magical powers come from nature, but Jean considers her skills modest at best. She has never been able to summon the intense, earth-altering ability that has marked the most talented Guardians, and she is content without the adventure that such skill brings... until the day she is confronted by a handsome stranger whose magic imprisons her on his pirate ship. Captain Nikolai Gregorio is convinced that Jean's father abandoned him, as a child, to slavers. Now he seeks vengeance against the Macraes, no matter the cost. But Jean soon finds his untrained magical gifts far more dangerous than his thirst for revenge, especially when they intensify her own powers to an unthinkable—and enticing—degree. And when Jean and Nikolai's irresistible connection summons a woman from the future, they are charged with a formidable task: protect those who will oppose slavery's evil and forever change the future of two nations.

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