A few quick last gasp tips to get if you’re playing Santa for a Science Fiction & Fantasy fan, photographed around ABC The Hague’s store by JeroenW:

Rama: The Complete Rama Omnibus by Arthur C. Clarke

If you love space adventure stories such as Larry Niven’s Ringworld or Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, this is the perfect collection. Rama is a huge cylindrical object, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind’s first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams . . . and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits – just behind a Raman airlock door.

Includes Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Northern Lights (published in the US as The Golden Compass) introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra’s search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In The Subtle Knife she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in The Amber Spyglass. The epic story Pullman tells is not only a spellbinding adventure featuring armoured polar bears, magical devices, witches and daemons, it is also an audacious and profound re-imagining of Milton’s Paradise Lost. An utterly entrancing blend of metaphysical speculation and bravura storytelling, His Dark Materials is a monumental and enduring achievement.

A beautiful trilogy, now in a beautiful new collection.  We all covet it at the store, that’s for sure!

The Song of Ice and Fire box set (books 1 through 4) by George R. R. Martin

Does this series need any more introduction?  Surely you’ve seen it come by enough this year?  Is it worth it?  Yes.  Yes, it is.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

This 39th Discworld novel features the popular Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch… According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder. He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment. They say that in the end all sins are forgiven. But not quite all…

The Hobbit + The Lord of the Rings box set by J. R. R. Tolkien

Boxed set comprising the latest paperback editions, housed in a full-colour slipcase, this gift set of Tolkien’s classic masterpieces is fully illustrated throughout in watercolour by the acclaimed and award-winning artist, Alan Lee.

For all of you who are eagerly awaiting the December 2012 theatrical release of The Hobbit.