Search Results for: captain,-the

‘We won’t be landing anywhere just yet’, Waters said to the other passengers on the spaceship Fulmar. ‘I was pretty mystified by this story of mechanical breakdown, so I’ve been checking up.’ He hefted his little box. ‘I’ve spent the past half hour successfully tapping your subspace circuits, Captain, so I know the truth and I propose to share it with everyone. We’re not to land. We’re to orbit in space, indefinitely.’

Beloved Sister Dorcas’s screams pierced the quiet.

‘You see,’ Waters continued, holding up his hand for silence, ‘this is being done on the direct orders of Master Brand . . . you don’t know the name?’ He glanced inquiringly around. ‘No? Well, he happens to be one of the powers of Earth, and there is nobody in the galaxy to overrule him.’



(First published 1965)

Tom Jones is naïve, impressionable and very, very willing. His chief talent is conversing with dolphins in the Aquatic Mammals Division of HMS Profundis, a gargantuan submarine destined to roam the ocean depths for a century following the nuclear holocaust.

Years pass and mad captain succeeds mad captain. Eventually the ship falls under the command of one Admiral Prood, a kind, understanding man who finally comes to a startling conclusion. He is God the Father. The Almighty Himself. And all he needs now is a son to sit at his right hand.

Enter the innocent Tom Jones.

Hugo and Nebula award winner Anderson incorporates two stories he wrote for the Asimov’s Universe series into this absorbing posthumous novel, a fast-paced space opera that never lets the reader forget that aliens are alien. At a time when nearly immortal humans have colonized the galaxy, various space-faring species commingle freely and the residents of Earth have become as alien to other humans as true ETs, an astronomical event that may affect all existence is about to take place. Unfortunately, only one set of aliens knows what that event is and their ruling dictatorship is hell-bent on keeping it that way. Lissa Windholm, an Earth woman with a spirit of adventure men find attractive, is determined to uncover the mystery and share the knowledge with everyone. Lissa and her partner Karl, a tyrannosaurus-like scientist, make some startling archaeological discoveries on the planet Jonna about beings known as the Forerunners, but a psychologically scarred starship captain and an impressively ancient and profit-minded human rogue have other plans for the relics.

Earthmen and Aleriona have met in space and neither side can afford to let the other get too strong. The Aleriona have captured the human outpost, New Europe, and claim that all the inhabitants were killed. The World Federation on Earth seems committed to peace at any price, but there are those, and ex-navy Captain Gunnar Heim is one of them, who know that appeasement will only lead to further Alerion encroachment, and he passionately believes that there must be a showdown now, before it is too late.

Heim and his crew of volunteers take off from Earth in the Star Fox and start to fit out for their hit-and-run battle.

A dozen years had passed since Mark Fraser and his family had fled to Ganymede, hoping to find the peace and freedom which had eluded them on Earth. Now violence and terror had pursued them to their new-found home: Captain Swayne and his battleship Vega had made landfall on Ganymede and were using its resources to build missiles with which to hold Planet Earth to ransom. For the second time, Mark Fraser was a marked man, running for his life. His only chance of escape was to a third planet: Jupiter. But as Fraser knew only too well, Jupiter itself was the scene of conflict and carnage. And so far no human being had ever breathed its atmosphere and lived to tell the tale!

You can’t go home again. For home is not merely a place, but a situation and when that situation changes, home is no more. Captain Edward Langely of the experimental starship Explorer was to learn this the hard way…

Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was a top man in the Intelligence Corps of the Imperial Terrestrial Navy. He knew that on the outer edges of the empire, civilisation was spread hideously thin. The stars faded towards barbarism, with the great evil Empire of Merseia beyond.

But there were times when Flandry abandoned his senior position of command to go out into the field. Then he operated like the cool and brilliant agent he was, a ruthless, highly-trained professional. And in these three fast-moving adventures Captain Dominic Flandry shows that a space-age secret agent has to stay on top of the job – or succumb to nameless horrors.

Earl Dumarest, now a vanquished and captive mercenary, is offered the choice of surrender to the fearsome Cyclan or the chance of freedom by the beautiful and ruthless Lady Delphine. The risks are terrifying – but has Dumarest a choice?

Intent on finding the legendary world of Terra – Earth – the planet of his birth; pursued by the brilliant and ruthless megalomaniac race, the Cyclan, whose secret key to Galactic domination only he possesses; trapped on a plague ship hurtling through a universe determined to destroy it, and captained by a madman – Earl Dumarest is tempted by the irresistible but fatal promise of Delphine.

The choice is simple – to abandon his dreams or perish by them, just as they promise fulfilment.



(First published 1976)

FREE ACTING TERRAN ENVOY
F.A.T.E.

Seetee is the most dangerous substance in the universe – bring it into contact with the most stable of normal material and it explodes with enormous energy and destruction.

When Captain Kennedy and his crew, the top men of F.A.T.E. – Free Acting Terran Envoys – accidentally brush against some Seetee they not only thank their lucky stars for their escape, but realise it signals an emergency of the highest order.

Because such a swarm as they have encountered could cause the destruction of an entire solar system. And thy have reason to believe it is directed at out Sun – including particularly the Earth!

FREE ACTING TERRAN ENVOY
F.A.T.E.

Captain Kennedy lay between life and death after his mind had been hurled a million years into the past.

To break the spell of the Jewel of Jarhen which held the Captain in its thrall, three members of FATE had to pit all their formidable skills against a terrible enemy.

The danger to Captain Kennedy’s life was matched by the peril to an entire world. It was an inexorable race against time for the FATE team as they tried to break the mystery of the pre-galactic artifact on which all the horror hinged.

FREE ACTING TERRAN ENVOY
F.A.T.E.

Alien scientists had learned how to release the ravening beast-instincts buried in the recesses of the human brain from the far distant past.

Now they were willing to sell their knowledge to the highest bidder in exchange for an alliance against Terra. And they had many willing to bargain with them.

Captain Kennedy, the top man of the Free Acting Terran Envoys – FATE – was assigned to stop this terrifying menace. But he knew immediately that his greatest danger lay within himself – and that by challenging the alien scientists he could turn himself and his friends into beasts beyond imagining!

FREE ACTING TERRAN ENVOY
F.A.T.E.

Captain Kennedy, Earth’s trouble shooter carries the Banner of Terran against the unknown sciences and alien psychologies of a thousand worlds.

The crack in the cosmos that has to be sealed!

FATE is the space hero series that has become a must wherever Science Fiction is read. A solid space adventure more exciting than “Startrek” and far more real than “Perry Rhodan”. Look out for further titles in this exciting series.

Travel at light speeds is common, and Earth – the first in the universe to discover it – now reigns over many worlds.

But in order to rule effectively, Captain Robin Weinbaum, head of Security, needs an extremely advanced communications system. He gets it with the Dirac transmitter, the first machine capable of sending instantaneous messages anywhere in the universe. The only problem is that someone called J. Shelby Stevens has a machine that can do the impossible – tap the transmissions before they are even made! It is Weinbaum’s job to find Stevens. And unless he does, time will be abolished and the universe closed to Earth forever . . .

The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire’s thousand-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-travelling civilisations far into the future.

Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruellest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising timeships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him.

To be allowed to die.

The return of Barlennan

Dhrawn was a giant rockball, more than 3,000 times the mass of Earth. Perhaps a planet, perhaps a nearly dead star, the 17 billion square miles of mystery cried out for investigation. But its corrosive atmosphere and crushing gravity assured that no human would ever set foot on its surface.

Those hardy, caterpillar-like Mesklinites, on the other hand, were ideally suited to explore Dhrawn, and their leader certainly knew a good deal when he saw one. So Barlennan, a shrewd sea captain if ever there was one, struck a sharp bargain with the Earthmen for his services in leading the expedition.

But the humans might not have been so pleased with their side of the bargain, if they had known that Barlennan had plans of his own for Dhrawn . . .

The stunning sequel to the classic SF novel Mission of Gravity.

Welcome aboard the sex-drive void ship . . .

Captain Genro commands the giant spaceship Dragon Zephyr – on board are ten thousand passengers in electrocoma, a smaller number of conscious passengers eagerly utilising the ship’s dream chambers – and a Pilot.

In the context of space travel, the Pilot is merely a biological component in the machine. Always a woman, her function is to launch the ship into the Jump by means of a cosmic orgasm. She is a pariah, shunned by all.

Void Captain Genro should never even have spoken to his Pilot, let alone tried to embark on a relationship with her. When he did so, the result was every space traveller’s nightmare.

A Blind Jump into the Void . . .

The Nightingale was the most advanced craft in the entire fleet of Mercy ships belonging to the Gentle Order of St Francis Dionysos. On its maiden voyage, its life bays packed with refugees, the Nightingale disappeared. Despite strenuous efforts no trace of it could be found.

Then, a year later, a distress signal was heard and the Nightingale reappeared. It was damaged in ways that meant its survival in space was a miracle. But of its previous cargo of life-forms there was no sign. Only one creature remained alive within the ship, and that was its captain, Jon Wilberfoss.

Wulfsyarn is the story of the Nightingale, and of Jon Wilberfoss. It is told by Wulf, an autoscribe who has the task of observing Wilberfoss in the aftermath of his return. For the captain of the Nightingale is a condemned man: condemned by the Gentle Order, and self-condemned by a burden of guilt so intense his mind refuses to acknowledge it. Over the long period of Wilberfoss’ tortured convalescence in a peaceful monastery garden on the planet Tallin, Wulf watches and waits, recording the mosaic of Wilberfoss’ life: his childhood and adolescence, his entry into the Gentle Order, his marriage (to a native Tallin woman), and the great moment when he was chosen as captain of the Nightingale.

But can Wulf bring Wilberfoss to finally face the truth of what happened on the Nightingale’s fatal first and last journey?

The Whims of Destiny

Jorian, the one-time unbeheaded king, was now safely retired from a long career of getting into trouble. But his younger brother Kerin lacked such wisdom. The outraged father of Adeliza had caught him in compromising circumstances with the maiden. So Kerin had to be sent at once on a mission by sea to the Far East.

But Kerin’s talent for trouble was not to be denied. First came Belinka, a sprite sent by Adeliza to bring him back safe for her. The ship captain believed Kerin was seducing his mistress. Though innocent this time, Kerin left hastily in a rowboat. That got him to a hermit-wizard’s island – and a voyage on a pirate ship, where the kidnapped princess Nogiri was held captive. Kerin was unable to save her – until he gained the help of the hermit-wizard, who then betrayed him by seizing the girl and fleeing with her to be used as a human sacrifice.

From then on, events became hectic as Kerin managed to save Nogiri again, helped by a wizard who was the enemy of the first one. Belinka was much distressed by what happened then between Kerin and Nogiri – with cause – as they set out again, this time to the Emperor of the Farthest East.

There Kerin discovered more magic, and the Emperor learned that no man should be absentminded when using a powerful spell. But it was later that Kerin discovered the limitations of roller skates.

Racing from the certain vengeance of Earth’s tyrant ruler, space captain Vance Garamond flees the Solar System.

And discovers the almost unimaginably vast spherical structure soon to become famous as ‘Orbitsville’ – a new home for Earth’s huddled masses.

Behind Garamond comes Earth’s space fleet…

Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1975

The Magnificent Showboats follows the farcical adventures of Apollon Zamp, owner of the showboat Miraldra’s Enchantment, and his troupe of acrobats, magicians and actors. Zamp is invited by the King of Soyvanesse to travel up the river Vissel to the distant city of Mornune, there to participate in a contest. A rich prize awaits the showboat captain who stages the most spectacular performance and succeeds in entertaining the king.

Before the Glory of Greece, Crete ruled the known world – and kept it enslaved by black magic! The evil of Minos held sway, protected by three unconquerable walls. First is the fleet that they call the wooden wall. Then there is a giant of living brass – he is the second wall. Then there is another barrier about the power of Minos, the Wall of Wizardry. Theseus, the tall Achean, the man they called Captain Firebrand, vowed to scale and destroy all three, and to rid the world of the evil yoke of Crete. But Minos had other defences besides the walls, and many ways to attack as well . . .

Dany Ashton is invited to spend a holiday at her stepfather’s house in Zanzibar – the mysterious ‘House of Shade’, where Captain Rory Frost buried a fortune in gold a hundred years before – but even before her plane takes off there is a stolen passport, a midnight intruder, and a murder.

And it isn’t long before the air of gaiety and nonchalance that opens the tropical house party fades into dawning terror, as Dany and the rest of the house-guests learn that one amongst them is determined to take the hidden treasure – at any cost.

The Middle East. 1941. Captain Oliver Enwin, interpreter for British Intelligence, has gone missing and it is up to one of his fellow officers, the story’s narrator, to track him down. In the course of his investigations of a colonel’s widow and her daughter, Valerie, living a lonely life in a high valley in Lebanon, he comes across the trail of the missing officer.

But the narrator’s life is also threatened, and he must forge a pact with the man he has been sent to find, as well as making both women his allies. But who can be trusted in such uncertain times? And will the two men alone be able to suppress a German-inspired Arab revolt that threatens all their lives?

BILL – the army’s made him what he is today – the perfect Starship Trooper, proud possess of two right arms and a lockerful of feet suitable for every occasion.



BILL – this time he’s really put his foot (the Swiss-Army one with the special attachments, secret compartments, collapsible mess-kit and condom dispenser) right in it.



BILL’s been volunteered to join a suicide squad run by Captain Cadaver to the well-known hell-hole planet of Eyerack. The orders are DEATH OR GLORY – and GLORY made a point of never returning the invitation to the war. So. Can this really be IT? The Long Goodbye? Zero Hour? Harmonicas at dawn? The end of a brilliantly undistinguished career of military mishaps? What can I tell you?



This IS BILL’s final incoherent adventure!