Francis Spufford

"New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan island, 1746. One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat arrives at a countinghouse door on Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion shimmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge sum, and he won't explain why, or where he comes from, or what he is planning to do...

A novel set in 1944 London imagines the lives of five children who perished during a bombing at a local store, tracing their everyday dramas as they live through the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of twentieth-century London.

"Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, with each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. Before Kim Stanley Robinson published the international bestsellers Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, he made his reputation as one of SF's most trenchant thinkers with his Three Californias trilogy: three science fiction novels set in three different possible futures of Orange...