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Showing 13801 - 13820 of 28676 items
By Paul Williams, Theodore Sturgeon, David Crosby. 1999
The early 1950s, during which this material was written, was the beginning of Sturgeon's greatest creative period. The title story…
for this collection was later expanded into the International Fantasy Award winning novel More Than Human. Sturgeon's whimsical, sardonic sense of humor lifts his work out of the mundane realm of genre science fiction. This wide-ranging collection shows precisely why he has been cited as a primary influence by authors as varied as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Carl Sagan. Includes extensive notes and background information on each story by editor Paul Williams.By Tanith Lee. 1979
Shon knew that the Taken must die. Death had touched them, and the evil spirits which issued from Death's Place…
to the east beyond the valley Took away the souls of the living. It was the law of Shon's people, who seldom ventured far from their simple huthouses in Pine Walk, except to hunt boar in the forest. And even the forest was not completely safe, for across the river at its eastern edge lay Crow Mork, Death's Place, and in the stories Crow himself, who was Death, rode there with Crow's People, Death's children, on strange four-legged beasts shod with white metal and swift as the wind.Lost in the dark forest, Shon encountered Death's Children. 'Don't go home,' the dead girl told him - he was almost sure it was a girl, though her face was a black void in the night. But there was nowhere else to go. They would kill him, of course; being Taken, they would have to.Yet Shon escaped that death - though he was to meet Death in Death's Place, and learn the extraordinary truth about it.By Damon Knight. 1977
Culled from the most imaginative and provocative minds of the pas thirty years, these pieces demonstrate the vitality and diversity,…
the excitement and commitment of the writers who helped make science fiction what it is today.By Phillip Mann. 2014
Six stories from Phillip Mann, taken from his long and varied career. Includes stories from the Out of Time Cafe,…
a very unusual refuge from reality. It attracts people afflicted with a deep malaise. It offers what seems from the outside to be sanctuary, but it can be subversive too, for on entering the cafe, one gives up a certain amount of independence, and before one knows it one is trapped. There is no escape... save one: the lift which services the cellars descends... but no one who has used the lift has ever returned. On a brighter note, the cafe has a will of its own, and travels different dimensions with ease and every journey is a new beginning.Also featured are The Gospel According to Mickey Mouse, originally produced as a hugely successful radio play; Maestro;Lux in Tenebris, a cautionary tale about a medieval stonemason's encounter with an anachronism and the effect it has on his culture; and An Old Fashioned Story, wherein Jody is having problems with his Sythno companion Elizabeth, who head butted him without warning. He is attempting to repair her. Then Elizabeth and her Sythno Joseph from next door drop in...By Tanith Lee. 1998
Orphan-slave Claidi knows only the mindless rituals and cruelties of the House and the Garden, where the ruling families wallow…
in lavish extravagance. Then a golden stranger promises freedom if she will journey with him through the savage Waste.Mad tribes and strange cities, enemies and friends where she least expects them, above all the Wolf Tower that broods over the grim stone city of her destiny; nothing - and no one - is as it seems.If she is to survive, Claidi must learn fast - hone her wits, sharpen her instinct for danger...Freedom demands that she confront the Law - once and for all...By Edgar Rice Burroughs. 2014
The son of a Civil War veteran, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific writer for the early pulp magazines. Famous…
the world over as the creator of Tarzan - and in SF circles for his Martian tales featuring John Carter - Burroughs is a household name. But John Carter wasn't the only Earthman to champion another world. This omnibus collects PIRATES OF VENUS, LOST ON VENUS and CARSON OF VENUS - the first three of Burroughs' classic pulp tales of Carson Napier on the waterworld of Amtor - better known to us as Venus.PIRATES OF VENUS: The shimmering, cloud-covered planet of Venus conceals a wondrous secret: the strikingly beautiful yet deadly world of Amtor. In Amtor, cities of immortal beings flourish in giant trees reaching thousands of feet into the sky; ferocious beasts stalk the wilderness below; rare flashes of sunlight precipitate devastating storms; and the inhabitants believe their world is saucer-shaped with a fiery center and icy rim. Stranded on Amtor after his spaceship crashes, astronaut Carson Napier is swept into a world where revolution is ripe, the love of a princess comes at a dear price, and death can come as easily from the blade of a sword as from the ray of a futuristic gun. LOST ON VENUS: Napier's adventures continue in this pulse-pounding sequel to PIRATES OF VENUS. Here the intrepid and wry explorer takes on a savage world in order to rescue the princess from her sworn enemies. Napier's epic quest for Duare takes him through the streets of the City of the Dead, into the terrifying Room of the Seven Doors, and face to face with fantastic and perilous creatures. LOST ON VENUS brims with the action, suspense and wit unique to the Master of Adventure.CARSON OF VENUS: Carson Napier, first Earthman to reach Venus, had to keep alert every instant of his stay on that world of mist and mystery. For its lands were unmapped, its inhabitants many, varied and strange, and he had taken an obligation to restore a native princess to her lost homeland. On terrible oceans where dreaded sea-monsters dwelled, in deep forests where terror haunted every branch, and behind the walls of eerie cities where power-mad chieftains plotted uncanny schemes, CARSON OF VENUS is fast-paced science fiction adventure.By Paul McAuley. 1999
Who would lay time to rest, or raise it up from its tomb?The Ancients of Days - humans returned from…
a long exile in the depths of time and space and history - brought heresy and doubt to the artificial world of Confluence, and ignited a terrible civil war, of all the varied creatures of Confluence's ten thousand genetically manipulated bloodlines, only young Yama holds the power to end the conflict, for who ever controls him controls the myriad machines of the world. Though now a helpless captive being forged intoa weapon of horrific consequence, Yama must win the struggle to reclaim his soul, and complete his search for the true story of his origin - a story mapped eons before his birth.By David G. Hartwell, Paul Williams, Theodore Sturgeon. 2003
Written between 1955 and 1957, the 15 stories in And Now the News ... include five previously uncollected stories along…
with five well-known works, two cowritten with genre legend Robert Heinlein. Spanning his most creative period, these tales show why Sturgeon won every science fiction award given.By Chad Oliver. 1952
By Lucius Shepard. 2003
The itinerant gun show draws together many subcultures from the margins of society: survivalists, Aryan brotherhoods, and the team of…
Rita Whitelaw and Jimmy Roy Guy, dealers in collectible arms. Rita has made Jimmy an exception to her general disdain for whites - "not your typical Caucasian," as she describes him - for Jimmy's got a storytelling ability that borders on mystic vision. When Jimmy makes an agreement with the widow of Aryan martyr Bob Champion to broker her husband's infamous Colt .45, he and Rita run afoul of "the Major," Champion's spiritual successor. However, they're not intimidated by the Major's veiled threats. The gun has launched a story, and when Jimmy begins a story, one way or another, he's bound to see it through.By Phillip Mann. 2014
Long before Paradise was properly colonised and investigated, one young woman was sent to explore the strange new world. Her…
mission - to find and rescue the discoverer of the planet, a young man obsessed with finding alien species and protecting them from rapacious humanity.Crispin's initial reports were positive, but became increasingly infrequent and jumbled. And then they stopped altogether. But his life support systems show green, and his hard-earned knowledge is needed. Hetty must explore this new idyllic land, learn what she can about its tricks and dangers, and track down someone who may not want to be found, almost certainly doesn't want help, and might even be dead.But something is alive on Paradise...By Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter. 2008
With this epic tale of altered histories and different earths, a universe where Alexander's empire prompted a different past, a…
world where strange alien 'eyes' gaze upon a fractured reality, a time when man is looking to colonise the red planet Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter scale new heights of ambition and sheer story telling brio. This is classic SF adventure from two of the biggest names in the genre. A heady combination of high concept SF, big engineering projects and human drama.By Hannu Rajaniemi. 2014
With his infectious love of storytelling in all its forms, his rich characterisation and his unrivalled grasp of thrillingly bizarre…
cutting-edge science Hannu Rajaniemi has swiftly set a new benchmark for SF in the 21st century. And now with his third novel he completes the tale of his gentleman rogue, the many lives and minds of Jean de Flambeur.Influenced as much by the fin de siecle novels of Maurice leBlanc as he is by the greats of SF Rajaniemi weaves, intricate, warm capers through dazzling science, extraordinary visions of wild future and deep conjecture on the nature of reality and story.And now we find out what will happen to Jean, his employer Miele, the independently minded ship Perhonnen and the rest of a fractured and diverse humanity flung through the solar system.By Gavin Deas. 2014
Set in the world of bestselling computer game ELITE, and launched to tie in with the latest version, ELITE: DANGEROUS…
- a game almost 20 years in the making. One of three very distinct - but subtly linked - novels written by major authors who are fans of the game, this novel will be a must-buy not only for the 25,000+ people who funded the new game on kickstarter, but also for all of those fans of the original game.When a routine bit of piracy goes wrong, the crew of the Song of Stone realise that there's a bounty hunter on their tail. One who might, finally, be able to outclass them. The Dragon Queen is feared across space, and for good reason. But even the bounty hunter doesn't realise what she's been hired to do. Or what is in the container she's been sent to retrieve.And she's not the only hunter in the game...Gavin Deas is the pseudonym used by Stephen Deas and Gavin Smith when writing together.By Alan Dean Foster. 1993
After millennia of relentless war, the union of alien races called the Weave was on the verge of winning a…
decisive victory - thanks to their new allies from Earth, who in a mere handful of centuries had proved masters of combat. But then the birdlike Wais scholar Lalelelang found disturbing evidence that Humans might not adapt so easily to peace - that natural Human aggression would next be turned against the Weave, unless they were once again confined to fight amongst themselves.When her field research revealed the existence of a secret group of powerfully telepathic Humans called the Core, it looked as if Lalelelang would be the first victim in a new war between Humans and their allies. But just as her fate was sealed, a lone Core commander took a chance on her intelligence and compassion, gambling the fate of Humanity on the possibility that together they could both find an alternative to a galaxy-wide bloodbath...By Tricia Sullivan. 2005
When shy, psychic bookworm 'Cookie' Orbach watches television, she sees things. But not the things that you or I would…
see. Cookie sees The Grid - a strange, shifting landscape where human forces battle against an enemy they dare not kill. Her employer, the mysterious Dataplex Corporation, pays her well to watch this war, and asks only that she report her observations but take no direct action, which suits her passive demeanour just fine.But Cookie's quiet life is about to be shattered. Her two very different worlds are threatening to merge in a way that shouldn't really be possible. Everything is about to change. And we do mean everything...By Jon Wallace. 2014
Kenstibec was genetically engineered to build a new world, but the apocalypse forced a career change. These days he drives…
a taxi instead.A fast-paced, droll and disturbing novel, BARRICADE is a savage road trip across the dystopian landscape of post-apocalypse Britain; narrated by the cold-blooded yet magnetic antihero, Kenstibec.Kenstibec is a member of the 'Ficial' race, a breed of merciless super-humans. Their war on humanity has left Britain a wasteland, where Ficials hide in barricaded cities, besieged by tribes of human survivors. Originally optimised for construction, Kenstibec earns his keep as a taxi driver, running any Ficial who will pay from one surrounded city to another. The trips are always eventful, but this will be his toughest yet. His fare is a narcissistic journalist who's touchy about her luggage. His human guide is constantly plotting to kill him. And that's just the start of his troubles. On his journey he encounters ten-foot killer rats, a mutant king with a TV fixation, a drug-crazed army, and even the creator of the Ficial race. He also finds time to uncover a terrible plot to destroy his species for good - and humanity too.By Chad Oliver. 1976
Into a world where monsters ruled... To make it his own, he had only the power in his limbs and…
his desire to wrest this primeval land from the beasts. He was Varnum, last vestige of strength in the jaded race of men. Adrift in a land untouched by technology, he found himself with the chance for which all men dream - to shape history!By Paul McAuley. 1997
Confluence - a long, narrow man-made world, half fertile river valley, half crater-strewn desert. It is a world at the…
end of its time, a place of savagery, bureaucracy and war, inhabited by countless flying micro-machines and ten thousand bloodlines ruled by devotion to absent gods. It is the home of a singular young man named Yama. An infant who was discovered in a bier on the river, he was raised by the prelate of Aeolis until it was learned that his ancestry was unique. Yama appeared to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence. Now, awed and fearful of his increasing ability to awaken the machines the Builders left behind, Yama searches for his identity and a history that is both his and his world's.By Harry Turtledove. 2002
In his previous 'Darkness' books - Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, and Through the Darkness - bestselling author Harry Turtledove…
has been telling an epic tale of a world at war; a dark mirror of the terrible wars of our own twentieth century, set in a world where battles are fought with magic rather than technology. Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War in such a place. The death, the destruction, the sheer scale of the horror is the same - but the bullets are beams of eldritch fire, the tanks are great horned and taloned beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. This is the world of the Derlavaian continent, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile after bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian Empire... forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people. In this, the forth volume of the series, following on from Through the Darkness, the war for the future of Derlavai builds towards its crescendo as the mages of Kuusamo, aided by their former rivals from Lagoas, work desperately to create a newer form of magic. Magic of unprecedented destructive power. Magic that will change the course of the future.