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Earth, 2000 years after the holocaust which drove man deep underground; a ghostly, deserted planet peopled only by the diligent robots who, century after century, silently harvest grain which no man will eat. Up into this eerie world comes Mel, a questioning young Roamer who has disobeyed the Law which says he must never venture into or beyond the Lost Levels. Together with three companions, and a companion not of this earth, Mel takes on the awesome task of freeing human beings from the tyranny imposed upon them by their remote ancestors; of justifying the agonized cry of Barney as he died in a Forbidden Level; ‘I am a man! Everything is for Man!’

Telling the story of a dying Earth, The Night Land begins with a man from the 17th century who, mourning the death of his true love, is given a vision through the eyes his future incarnation. In that distant time Earth is only dimly lit by the remaining glow of the dead Sun. The last millions of the human race cluster together inside the Last Redoubt, a huge metal pyramid, and are set upon by mysterious forces from the dark outside. Leaving the protection of their refuge means certain death, but our narrator makes mind contact with a survivor in a forgotten Lesser Redoubt. He must journey alone through the evil darkness to find her, knowing that she is the reincarnation of his past precious love.

The logical outcome of the space race, and the preliminary step towards the Moo, was the manned satellite, the Big Wheel moving in a stable orbit about the Earth, integrating the data necessary for a landing on the Moon, and eventually acting as a fuelling station for the Lunar rockets.

After several failures, the station is ready, but even there, danger exists, unseen, unheard, invisible and terrible. Forced to exist in the belt of cosmic radiation surrounding the planet, men die within weeks from aplastic anemia. Seeking a solution to the problem, Doctor Paul Russell is sent up to the satellite and here learns of the two men fro the previous crew who vanished without a trace after spotting an unidentified spaceship in orbit further out from Earth than themselves.

He was a mysterious cosmic presence who came out of nowhere with the incredible promise to free the dying planet.

Earth’s future is one of peace. There are no more wars, nuclear weapons are outlawed, and technology is raising mankind to new heights. Many cities are now underground. Alain von Bek is a bastard of distinguished lineage working an unassuming job with city administration in the underground city of Switzerland. But with the appearance of a massive clownish figure calling himself the Fireclown, Alain’s life and the course of Earth’s future are both about to change.

The Fireclown claims to hold the keys to mankind’s salvation. He carries an undeniable charisma that is winning him followers, chief among them Helen Curtis, Alain’s cousin and former lover, not to mention serious candidate in the next presidential election. But there are also those who mistrust the Fireclown. At the forefront of this opposition is Minister Simon von Bek, Alain’s grandfather, and Helen’s chief competition in the forthcoming election.

Gradually, Alain finds himself sucked into a game of chess between these three polarizing forces, but each new revelation raises new questions, about his past and that of the world’s future. He will have to put his trust in someone, and time is running out-for him and the world.

Hour by hour, the computers produce the names of those to die. Simple. Neat. Ruthless.

In a world where human feelings seem frozen, one spirit flares with defiance and hope . . . while two powerful brothers fight their old blood feud to a brutal climax.

And hurtling through space . . . a lost explorer desperately tries to reach earth with word of a new paradise for man beyond the stars . . .




(First published 1957)

How are thing on Rockamorra? Bad, very. Earth Ambassador Pinchbottle has contracted to fight a dinosaur, and it’s up to troubleshooter Jame Retief to keep him from being stomped, mangled, or eaten.

Things are tough on other planets, too, with a civil war on Skweem, a dying race om Sulinore, and mudstorms on Schweinhund’s World.

These seven stories show the Galaxy’s hippest diplomat at his unexpected and jaunty best.

The engines died first, then the ship. Hope died. Men lived on. Then men died one by one… Accidents… quarrels… illness… age. One man remained. One man sat in the quietness of the drifting ship and wondered why Death didn’t want him.
The Others found the incredible derelict and approached her cautiously. The last spaceman watched them come and went to greet them. He was too old and tired to have any emotions left. Then they went to work on him. One by one his feelings came to life again. He took an interest in the New World on which he found himself. There was something strangely worrying about the planet. Things looked vaguely reminiscent of other things from long ago… A mountain range reminded him of Earth. A vast stretch of water looked like an ocean he had once crossed. Could the impossible have happened?
Could the incredible be reality?

From the depths of space the Seeker had come, to make the Solar system her nest. The invader was defeated, but not before the Earth was ravaged, its technology destroyed and its inhabitants reduced to barbarism. Mankind’s only chance for salvation lay with the alien Eldren – but the Eldren considered humanity primitive and savage, and so they withheld their help.

Young Benn Dain hoped to prove humanity’s worth on Mazeway, a planetary doublet whose twin worlds, Blade and Stone, were a testing ground for Eldren young. For Roxane Kwan and Diego Bolivar, Mazeway was a path to control of the dying Earth, and Dain’s quest was not part of their plans. But the Game of Blade and Stone was not designed for humans, and to survive, they would have to work together to fathom the depths of alien minds and the subtle traps of Eldren way…

That a planetoid of solid gold might exist in the Solar System is not beyond scientific possibility, insofar that our own Earth is basic nickel-iron, so might another world – of smaller size perhaps – be of basic god. Such a world is ZK/70, a planetoid in the region of the Asteroidal Belt.

Why, when he discovered the golden planetoid, did not Professor Brailsford bring back with him enough of the precious metal or gold dust to make himself financial dictator of the Earth? Why? That is the question. Instead, he dies without explaining and leaves his space machine and the course to ZK/70 to his daughter, step-daughter and their respective partners.

Out to ZK/70 travel the intrepid quartet, each one quite sure what will be one with unlimited gold once they have their hands on it…

There is a citywide epidemic of arson in San Francisco, and Detective Dave Peters and his partner, Danny, are on the case.

But their routine investigation becomes more and more bizarre as the fires seem more and more spontaneous and impossible. An astonishing scenario emerges: the War in Heaven, which takes place outside of time, is still being fought. Sometimes a minor demon drops out of that war and into time, on Earth, to hide – masquerading as a human. Sometimes an angel is sent to Earth to destroy these evil beings. But an angel on such an errand may care nothing for human life.

Those who die go to heaven, or elsewhere – not the angel’s concern.


Such an angel now stalks its prey in San Francisco – but it is newly fallen because it has begun to enjoy destruction. Dave and Danny, the only ones who believe in the angel, must track it down and, with the help of the Church, exorcise it.

A secret research station near the Cornish fishing village of Falcombe has discovered the existence of an apparently infinite series of parallel worlds, each a slightly distorted reflection of our own. It has also developed a technique for investigating these worlds; but the only person who can possibly visit and explore a parallel world is the rare individual whose counterpart has lately died there and whose place he can therefore take – which in turn presages his own death on his version of Earth.

THE TALES OF HENGHIS HAPTHORN

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn’s existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

In MAJESTRUM, Hapthorn is on the trail of an unknown killer who collects body parts from his victims. The search leads him off-planet, into the Ten Thousand Worlds of The Spray, then turns in an unexpected direction as the freelance discriminator learns that an ancient and evil power is plotting to reassert its dominion over Old Earth.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

A man from Earth’s distant past is humanity’s only hope for a future…Drake Merlin’s wife, the love of his life, is dying of a rare, fatal disease for which there is no cure. Not now, in the 21st century. But surely in the future…For Drake there is only one solution: have Ana’s body frozen until she can be cured. And he will go with her into the cryowomb. It is a desperate gamble born of folly, obsession…and love.Thus begins an epic journey across eons, as Drake is revived again and again, only to find that Ana is beyond help. Millions of years past his first sleep, he learns there is hope for her restoration – at the Omega Point, where the universe collapses, merging past and present. But first he will be awakened to become humanity’s unwilling savior. For an alien menace is laying the solar system to waste, and only an anachronism from the days of human barbarism can save an enlightened race…

The ancient starship La Chasse Gallerie is found drifting perilously in space. Despite heavy damage from alien Laagi warships, incredibly the ship is till intact and the voice of its pilot, Raoul Penard, comes through loud and clear.

But Petard died over one hundred years ago.

On Earth, frantic investigation reveals that Petard may be dead but his mind is very much alive, merged with the ship itself. The staggering potential of this evolutionary breakthrough compels the scientists to embark on a technological journey of astonishing discovery.

THE TALES OF HENGHIS HAPTHORN

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn’s existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

HESPIRA

Hapthorn decides to leave Old Earth, seeking to solve the mystery of Hespira, an ungainly off-world woman who has lost her memory. The investigation takes him down The Spray to the rank-obsessed world of Ikkibal and the rustic Shannery, where he unravels Hespira’s role in a deadly feud between aristocrats. But behind the scenes an unseen antagonist is plotting the discriminator’s destruction.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

Given: Earth 400 years from now – a rotten society which mankind is doomed to die out.

A solution to the problem – an ultra-intelligent computer to govern humanity.

One man of seemingly average intelligence, but with incredible I.Q. potential.

And you have: A corrupt society turned into a world where there is no corruption, because Mother Machine knows what’s best for her human children and does it. Where that same all-powerful computer is rapidly turning men into zombies.

And where the world’s only hope turns out to be one outlawed not-average man.

Can it be that of all the billions of probably planets, revolving around strange suns, in far corners of the Universe, ours is the only home of intelligent life?
If life has managed to come into being elsewhere on some bizarre, grotesque world, just how strange and alien will that life be?
What if its own planet is dying?
It would need a new environment, and the questing ships of its explorers would traverse the void. What if they find Earth and decide that it suits their purpose perfectly… except for man? How would the battle be fought and who would win?

Troubled Martin Clegg has always suffered from dreams which seem intensely real. In them, bizarrely, he’s another person not of this Earth! He’s finally forced to confide in his fiancée, Elsie Barlow, and they consult Martin’s scientifically inclined friend Tom Cavendish. He reveals, astonishingly, that Martin has a cosmic twin on a planet of Betelgeuse to whom he’s mentally linked. Unsuspecting, they are both about to become caught up in the strands of an incredible cosmic mystery in which, to save the universe from destruction, Martin must die–twice!

It was bad enough when Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth’s foremost discriminator and die-hard empiricist, had to accept that the cosmos was shortly to rewrite its basic operating system, replacing rational cause-and-effect with detestable magic. Now he finds himself cast forward several centuries, stranded in a primitive world of contending wizards and hungry dragons, and without his magic-savvy alter ego. Worse, some entity with a will powerful enough to bend space and time is searching for him through the Nine Planes, bellowing “Bring me Apthorn!” in a voice loud enough to frighten demons.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

There were two: Rosslyn, the pilot, and Comain, the dreamer. Rosslyn died in space, frozen, preserved for two centuries until found and resurrected by a miracle of future surgery. Comain . . . ?

Comain remained on Earth and crystallised his dreams, and when Rosslyn returned he found a civilisation beyond his wildest imaginings. Women ruled the planet, guided solely by the automatic and relentless predictions of a tremendous and frightening machine. A machine that foretold the future and determined the actions of an entire world with devastating accuracy. Into this assured and new civilisation Rosslyn came – and the impact of his presence brought near chaos.

He had to be assimilated – or eliminated.

Brinton couldn’t believe the inscription when he read it in the cold white moonlight. He was looking at his own grave. He tried to read the date but the light wasn’t strong enough to be certain. He returned to the graveyard by daylight… but the grave had gone.
He left the town in horror, but the grave followed him. He was drawn to burial grounds like iron to a magnet. It was always the same. By Moonlight he saw the grave, but never the date. By day he saw nothing. One night he saw the month. Then they day; at last he saw the year. He knew he was due to die in one week. What could he do? Can a man forestall his fate? Can a mortal outwit the dark designs of destiny? Was it all in his mind? Perhaps Roger Brinton was mad? The asylum is warmer than the grave. The day before he was due to die he saw the grave again… The earth was newly turned… it was waiting for him!

In the far future Earth is dying. Society has reverted to a more primitive life, much like the Middle Ages. Two men, Matthew and his brother John, who calls himself “Firefly,” set out to find the time traveller, the one person who can give purpose to their existence, the one individual who can still access past technology. The Firefly, he who lights his own way, seeks the age of Man’s greatness, the time when the human race once owned the stars, when great cities stood in places that have now become rust-bowls.

A collection of cutting-edge SF stories from one of the grand masters of science fiction, including:

Rule Golden
To protect the galaxy, Aza-Kra came from a world where violence and cruelty ceased to exist. To him, Earth was a jungle.

The Dying Man
In a century that holds the secret of immortality, Claire and Dio find love impossible – until Dio discovers he is mortal.

Natural State
AD 2064. Were the cities doomed? Were the plants and animals and people who lived outside more efficient than any machine that could be built? Alvah Gustad, actor and patriot, leaves New York for an unusual mission.

Honor White Jackson was a human being. But his planet was not Earth, nor his time Now. His world was dominated by a giant Iron Thorn. Beyond the reach of this tower there was supposedly, nothing – except a frozen, airless desert where huge winged beasts called Amsirs roamed.

The duty of Jackson’s caste was to hunt and kill the Amsir. And it was not until Jackson had made his first kill that he discovered the secret of his world. As the creature lay dying at his feet, Honor White Jackson partook of the fruit of knowledge. Forevermore he was committed to another life – and the bitter discovery of genius, cruelty and the human paradox.