Search Results for: city-of-no-return

For countless years the enigmatic city of Klagan had rested beneath the racing moons of ancient Mars. Forbidden, guarded, sheltered in the cup of the Blue Mountains and surrounded by waterless desert. It rested there, a place of a thousand rumours and whispered fantasies, and gave birth to muttered tales of incredible wealth and riches.

To this city came Halmar, the guide; Lorna, the dancer from Venus; and the man called Smith. Defying the ban of the Terran Authorities, the fanatical Drylanders, and the harsh desert, they reached the crystal walls of the strange city. There they found a tremendous mystery, the deserted artefacts of a vanquished civilisation – and found themselves snared in an incredible trap.

For Klagan was more than a city. It was. . .
What it was and how the intrepid adventurers solved the incredible secret of the mysterious city makes this an exciting tale of science and plausible speculation, action and human motivations.

Tarzan had renounced his right to the woman he loved, and civilisation held no pleasure for him. After a brief and harrowing period among men, he turned back to the African jungle where he had grown to manhood. It was there he first heard of Opar, the city of gold, left over from fabled Atlantis. It was a city of hideous men – and of beautiful, savage women, over whom reigned La, high priestess of the Flaming God. Its altars were stained with the blood of many sacrifices. Unheeding of the dangers, Tarzan led a band of savage warriors toward the ancient crypts and the more ancient evil of Opar.

Tiger Clinton, Rex and the Professor are back!

In the new, bigger Spacemaster II, and with experience under their belt from before, they’re ready to tackle whatever the stars have to throw at them. First stop: Mars.

When previously they had found the remains of a civilisation and desolation, this time they find a man – alive, but desperately ill. Can they save him? And can he tell what happened to the Martian cities that lie in ruins around them?

Captain W.E. Johns continues his adventures in space with book two of the Tiger Clinton series, a roaring pulp SF romp, perfect for fans of Star Trek and vintage science fiction!

Landing on a new planet is a danger every time, and Selm II is no exception.

The specialist didn’t like it. There were no cities visable from space, no broadcasts or transmissions on the airwaves – yet the wrecked war machines of an advanced technology littered the rich pastures of the planet. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crumpled and gigantic weapons of war, a graveyard of destruction stretching almost to the lifeless horizon. But the war wasn’t over…and they weren’t all wrecks.

It’s an emergency. It’s a job for Brian Brand, the mightiest weightlifter in the galaxy. With the brilliant, sensuous Dr Lea Morees at his side he plunges into the war zone, into the steel jaws of…the Planet of No Return!

Life on the moon under anything less than optimal conditions had always been a nightmare, and as Joe Kenmore and his colleague, Moreau, drove back to the City On The Moon on that day the Earth shuttle was due to land, the nearby mountain supporting critical elements of the shuttle’s landing mechanisms crumbled causing an avalanche and resulting in chaos.

Optimal conditions were no where in sight that day and as Kenmore and Moreau’s investigations lead to their conclusion that explosions had been responsible for the avalanche. Now they realized that they were in a race against the clock to restore the landing beam before the shuttle had reached it’s point of no return prior to landing.

Kenmore had more than strictly humanitarian reasons for wanting to prevent a mishap aboard the shuttle that day, because on this particular mission, Arlene Gray was aboard. Kenmore had been anxiously awaiting her arrival, and now his love’s life might hang in the balance.

After a meteor explosion, Rikardon wakes in a new body-and in a strange desert land named Gandalara, where a sacred gem known as the Ra’ira grants its owner the power to rule-or to destroy…

Victory is sweet-but for Rikardon and Tarani, it is all too brief. Although they have retrieved the sword of the Kings from the lost city of Kä, a savage battle with the vineh mars their journey back to Raithskar. These ape-like creatures were once controlled through the power of the Ra’ira. Now they pose a threat both to the cat-like sha’um and humanoid Gandalarans.

To restore order, Rikardon and Tarani must travel to Eddarta, where Tarani can use the Ra’ira against the increasingly vicious vineh. First she must face her treacherous brother, Indomel, and convince the Council to name her High Lord in his place. Indomel will not take such betrayal lightly, but another danger is about to reveal itself-a sinister and ambitious traitor who has been hiding in plain sight all along.

Walled off from a world it no longer remembers, the city of Thryn decays in arrogant isolation. Its ancient scriptures tell of the god,Gomath, who will one day return to perfect his city. But his return has been long awaited.

In a bizarre coincidence of events, Lupio, a cynical and decadent young aristocrat, is unwillingly entangled in the prophecy. Appalled, he decides to break ancient law and flee the city. He joins up with Dubilier, a failed poet and dreamer, who is trying to escape from the death of inspiration and love. Together they travel through uncharted lands in search of the lost god. One of them wants to find him. The other certainly does not…

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities.

Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.




(First published 1965)

Prince Zarkon’s arch-enemy, Dr Zanfor Sinestro, returns for a second match in the fourth novel in Lin Carter’s fantastic Zarkon series, hoping to extort millions of dollars by targeting the banks of Knickerbocker City by targeting them with artificially generated earthquakes.

Under Eddie Burton’s management the ambitious starlet Lorna Maxwell seemed headed for the top of Broadway’s glamorous world of make-believe. And then she vanished – through a wall where there was no door. Eddie found himself plunging after her into a city beyond reality.

In that weird twin city to New York, Eddie became a hunted fugitive while his girl friend turned up as an ever-present face and all-pervading voice that awed and mystified the inhabitants. And Eddie learned that between him and return to his natural home stood her new manager, a mysterious figure who ruled by a tyrannical combination of super-scientific miracle and brute force.

Leaving the Rise, Claidi anticipates a joyful reunion with her beloved Argul.

Instead, her return to the Hulta people meets only mistrust, fury and betrayal. Determined to unravel the lies and deceit which haunt her past and threaten her future, she journeys northward.

But in the strange cities-and even stranger people-she finds, Claidi sees only more mystery and deeper secrets.

2650 AD

The Earth has been buried beneath a sheet of ice for 300 years. In cities miles beneath the surface humanity huddles, waiting for release.
Dr. Raymond Barnes waits with passion, and listens daily for evidence of life on the still Earth. Finally, a voice from across the void hails his open frequency . . . the surface awaits mankind.
But not all men are anxious to return to what was . . . those in power are determined to keep man in his new place, to retain their order of fear and oppression. Barnes and his courageous group of scientists and adventurers are arrested for possession of forbidden technology; the radio is destroyed! Their punishment is swift ejection from the underground city, their only hope is to reach London – 3000 desolate miles across a frozen wasteland!

Edward Davis was a promising rookie in the Time Service. He had made jumps into the past – two, three, even six centuries – but nothing could prepare him for a leap of thirty-five centuries, all the way back to Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt.

In the blink of an eye, he found himself in a world of temples and tombs, pharaohs and pyramids, jackal-headed gods, mummies and talking beetles. In the ancient city of Thebes, Davis must rescue two members of the Service lost in time.

Taken in by a mysterious temple priestess and befriended by a beautiful Egyptian slave girl, Davis is sent to the City of the Dead to learn the trade of embalming. But as the hour of his scheduled return to his own time approaches, Edward Davis must come to grips with the truth behind the fate of his comrades – and the seductive allure of ancient Egypt.

Jack Chatwin has visions, which leave tangible evidence – sounds and smells, which linger afterwards. What he sees are two primitive figures, with painted faces – Greyface and Greenface, a brother and sister. He calls them bullrunners.
John Garth is a city dowser, searching for the mythical pre-Roman city of Glanum. He hopes to find an entryway to the elusive city beneath Exburgh, Jack’s home town. And he thinks Jack’s bullrunners may be connected to Glanum . . .
Years later, Jack, now grown up, agrees to take part in experiments to investigate his bullrunners – until Greyface, the male, breaks free of Jack and takes corporeal form. The bullrunner kidnaps Jack’s young daughter so Jack will force Greenface to follow her brother-husband, even against her own wishes. Though Greyface returns the daughter, he keeps a shadow of her, which takes on a life of its own. If Jack refuses to co-operate, the shadow will drain his daughter’s vitality and personality – and her very future.

The story of Jack’s search for Greenface is interwoven with the connections between the bullrunners and the mystical city of Glanum in this resonant tale of ancient mythic wonder.

In search of the Aureate Cities, Captain Rovic had brought the Golden Leaper halfway round the World. Weathering hurricanes and mutiny, he meant to do what no other ship’s master had done: circulate the globe and return to riches and glory. Then, on a distant barbarous island, Rovic met a shipwrecked traveler who claimed to have come on an even longer voyage. But who could believe his tale – of a ship that sailed between the stars?

In the great battle which had returned control of Morvannec, the legendary city, to mankind, Elof the Smith had saved Kara, his love, from the immortal Power which ruled her. But in the seven years since, the Smith has grown fearful that Kara, herself no mortal, will one day leave him. In his fear, Elof makes the mistake of drawing on his own uncanny powers to bind Kara closer to him; he only succeeds in driving her away.

Haunted, guilt-ridden, Elof can do nothing but follow his love eastwards, across the Seas of Sunrise, towards the city of Kerys in which Kermorvan of Kerbryhaine’s people had originated. In the myth-filled lands of the East, where the Powers of the Ice contemplate the total extinction of life, Elof must face his past, his future and his destiny.

Ethshar, or “the World” as its inhabitants call it, is the setting for almost a dozen novels by Lawrence Watt-Evans. The dominant nation on the World is the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, while the largest, richest city, where most of the stories are set, is Ethshar of the Spices. The name itself comes from words meaning “safe harbor.” You don’t need to have read any of the novels to enjoy the stories herein; each one should stand alone. And if you’ve read the novels, you will enjoy this return to the world of Ethshar with 11 stories…

Following the development of massive airships, naïve Londoner Bert Smallways becomes accidentally involved in a German plot to invade America by air and reduce New York to rubble. But although bombers devastate the city, they cannot overwhelm the country, and their attack leads not to victory but to the beginning of a new and horrific age for humanity. And so dawns the era of Total War, in which brutal aerial bombardments reduce the great cultures of the twentieth century to nothing. As civilization collapses around the Englishman, now stranded in a ruined America, he clings to only one hope – that he might return to London, and marry the woman he loves.

After the death of her father – a former royal adviser – Zoe Ardelay has little time to grieve before she receives astonishing news: she has been chosen to become the king’s fifth wife.

Zoe accompanies an ambassador to the royal city, but once there she slips away and hides among those who live along the shores of the mighty river. For Zoe is coru: ruled by the elemental sign of water.

Gradually she discovers that she is, in fact, the coru prime. Which means she must return to the palace, not as an unwilling bride for the king but as a woman with power in her own right . . .

Beneath the vast and trackless Sahara there lies a cavern so immense the whole nations could be swallowed up within it. There reside in the eternal subterranean glow the last of the Cro-Magnons and their rivals the Neanderthals, lost remnants of ancient surface empires, and hordes of beasts and beings from all the ages of prehistory.

Into this world, Zanthodon, penetrated the soldier-of-fortune Eric Carstairs – and immediately became embroiled in tremendous adventures!

Hurok the Neanderthal had learned the meaning of friendship from Carstairs and in return would lead an expedition of cavemen to the dinosaur-guarded city of Zar where Carstairs had fallen captive to a sadistic queen and her scheming advisors.

Since the Roman legion had been mysteriously transported to a world of magic, tribune Marcus Scaurus had served the rulers of war-torn Videssos well. He had ousted the Pretender and put Thorisin Gavras on the throne. That made him a hero.

But in Rome or Videssos, Fortune was a fickle goddess.

Now he and the legion were returning in triumph to the city of Videssos after defeating a powerful army of rebel mercenaries. But Marcus, betrayed by the one closest to him, was seized, dragged before the Emperor and questioned under the truth drug like a traitor.

In court, only Alypia Gavra stuck by him – but consorting with the Emperor’s niece was dangerous. It could lead to exile – or death!

Yet Alypia was beautiful. And Marcus was lonely…

In the forgotten city of Opar, the bloodied sacrificial altar of the Flaming God stood above vaults piled high with the gold destined for fabled, lost Atlantis. There La, the beautiful high priestess, still dreamed of Tarzan, who had escaped her knife before. Around her, the hideous priests vowed that he should never escape again. For now Tarzan was returning, and they were waiting for him. Tarzan planned to avoid La and the priests. But he could not avoid the earthquake that struck him down in the vaults and left him without memory of his wife or home – only with what memory he had had as a child among the savage apes who reared him.

Silverberg returns to the world of his greatest triumph – Majipoor – to tell the thrilling story of a young man’s quest into the unknown!

For young Prince Harpirias, the journey into the tundra beyond Majipoor might as well be a death sentence. But it is the only way to escape his dull job in a provincial city. The mission: to rescue a lost party of palaeontologists searching for the remains of a fabled species of dragons. With only a small band of soldiers and one wily Shapeshifter for company, Harpirias must endure blizzards, ice storms, privation and strange beasts.

But when they reach their destination, they discover a shockingly barbaric culture. One mistake, one minor violation of custom, and the prince and his retinue will face endless captivity – or endless death!

In the year 25,000 AD
When John Martels returned to consciousness he found himself the Delphic Oracle of a world far different from the Twentieth Century. Humanity has risen and fallen three times and was back once again in a semi-primative state.

He shared his oracular powers with a mind and a device left over from the last Rebirth, but the real problem was not rebuilding civilization, it was that another genus of creatures had arisen to claim inheritance of the world – the evolved. Strangely intelligent birds, whose priority was the elimination of the world’s former masters.

The problem of man versus bird, complicated by the question of John’s personal survival, presents a canvas worthy of the diverse talents of the author of A Case of Conscience and Cities in Flight.