Search Results for: death-into-life

“The Eternal Footman” completes Morrow’s darkly comic trilogy about God’s untimely demise. With God’s skull in orbit, competing with the moon, a plague of “death awareness” spreads across the Western hemisphere. As the United States sinks into apocalypse, two people fight to preserve life and sanity. One is Nora Burkhart, a schoolteacher who will stop at nothing to save her only son, Kevin. The other is the genius sculptor Gerard Korty, who struggles to create a masterwork that will heal the metaphysical wounds of the age.

In the 22nd century biofeedback techniques to control by will the processes of one’s own body have reached their ultimate expression: the ability to transform the body into virtually any viable form whatsoever. What began as an innocent technique to reduce anxiety without recourse to drugs has raised fundamental questions about what it is to be human, since form is no longer sufficient nor even relevant.

Enter the Humanity Test: in a future when other techniques can change the forms of animals, so far it has been a guaranteed one hundred percent successful means of determining whether a life form started out as human. But now strange life forms, vicious and bestial, are proliferating throughout the Solar System. They are clearly not human, and clearly their nervous systems are too underdeveloped for them to have been human. But though the beasts threaten havoc and death to all the far flung isolated stations, the simple solution of shooting the varmints is impossible: for life forms that according to the Humanity Test started out human the law is very clear: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Two monstrous armies stand opposed: Vormulac Unsleep’s undead legions out of Turgosheim, and Wratha the Risen’s Renegades, masters of the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. The spoils of war will be revenge, territory, and human flesh! And blood, of course – the sweet blood of Sunside’s Szgany. For the blood is the life, and when life or land are threatened there’s only one course of action for a vampire: battle to the death!

Trapped in the middle: Nathan Keogh, Necroscope. And the espers of Earth’s E-Branch, Trask and Zek, Goodly and Chung: Guardians of the Gate against a vampire invasion of Earth! The Necroscope holds the keys; he is the only one who can close the Gates to end the crimson carnage of the Bloodwars!

But the past holds many a secret, and the future was ever a devious thing!

This collection of fact and fiction was inspired by the time science fiction writer Lucius Shepard spent with Missoula Mike, Madcat, and other members of a controversial brotherhood known as the Freight Train Riders of America. Shepard rode the rails throughout the western half of the United States with the disenfranchised, the homeless, the punks, the gangs, and the joy riders for the magazine article ‘The FTRA Story’. ‘Over Yonder’ and ‘Jailbait’. In ‘Over Yonder’, alcoholic Billy Long Gone finds himself on an unusual train. As Billy travels his health improves and his thinking clears, and he arrives in Yonder – an unlikely paradise where a few hundred hobos live in apparent peace and tranquillity. But every paradise has its price, and in Yonder, peace and tranquillity breed complacency and startling deaths. ‘Jailbait’ is a hardcore tale of deception, lust, revenge, and murder in the seedy underbelly of rail yards and train hopping. Madcat, who functions best in a whiskey-induced haze, must decide between solitude and companionship when he meets up with Grace, an underaged runaway. Grace, in turn, seeks the security of an older man and the life about which only young girls can dream.

‘War, albeit with the Dark Empire, was clean compared to this…’

Years after the defeat of the evil empire of Granbretan, Duke Dorian Hawkmoon and his beloved Yisselda have rebuilt the Kamarg, the land once ruled by Yisselda’s father, the late Count Brass. But their lives are turned upside down when the spectre of the dead count returns, possessed of the belief that he can return to life if he slays the one who led him to his death in the Battle of Londra: his former ally – and now son-in-law – Dorian Hawkmoon.

FLETCHER HAD TO DIE.
And so he did; and found himself in a place – in a state of mind – that he could not tolerate. And so he had to die again. And then again. Until, soon enough, it became clear that death did not want him.
It became his challenge to die into life!

Utopia had been completely separated from the rest of the galaxy for 300 years. It had taken six decades to finalise the agreement and conditions that would permit a visitor from the Other Worlds to come there. Hardy Cronyn from Washington IV was the first arrival.

The sensuous, young beauty who was to be his guide greeted him with a kiss. But it only took moments for Cronyn to learn the rules: no marriage. It was illegal. The two million inhabitants of Utopia were immortal. If there were marriage, there would be the desire for children, and that was seldom allowed.

The only deaths were accidental; petty crime was non-existent. Cronyn believed Utopia was paradise – until he discovered one paralyzing fear that consumed them all – PAIN! For if life was eternal pain would last a long, long, time…

The Gene Wars have turned Earth into a blighted wasteland. Mile-long airships patrol the skies, exacting crippling tribute from the scattered ground communities. Threatened by mutant vegetation and predatory creatures, forced to the brink of starvation by the Sky Lords, Minerva – a former feminist utopia – has had enough.

Its rebellion is swiftly crushed and Jan Dorvin, a Minervan warrior, is winched aboard a Sky Lord; towards a fate worse than death. For as a ground dweller and slave – but above all, as a woman – she is now regarded as the lowest form of humanity and is consigned to a life spent serving the sexual appetites of male slaves.

But no Minervan could be kept slave for very long…..

After The Knights of the Limits, here is a second collection of endlessly inventive stories by Barrington J. Bayley; dark fables resounding with sombre undertones – love used as a weapon, God assassinated by the ingenuity of man, the secret of death revealed, the inexplicable explained! Tales which will be pondered on, and remembered.
Contains the following:
Sporting with the Chid
The God-Gun
The Ship that Sailed the Ocean of Space
The Radius RidersMan in Transit
Wizard Wazo’s Revenge
The Infinite Searchlight
Integrity
Perfect Love
The Countenance
Life Trap
Farewell Dear Brother
The Seed of Evil

There are too many men in a world governed by women. They’re bored and disillusioned and often resort to ‘suicide missions’ – jobs in experimental space research. Jorn applies for such a job, is selected and trained as a navigator for the huge ship Javelin, the first to implement the recently discovered faster-than-light Evrak Effect.

Before the Effect is tested, however, it is discovered that life will be extinct within nine years; the sun is burning up, preparing to explode. The Evrak Effect will save a small percentage of mankind, take civilisation to a yet unknown planet. Production on new ships is given priority, the ruthless selection of passengers begins. Twenty-five billion people will be left behind.

Led by Javelin, thirty ships wander in space through many light years of promises, lost hope and death for the original crew and passengers. But life does survive, children grow and learn, to inherit the beginning of another world, another promise.

James Blish has written a compelling novel of gigantic moral problems and of people who learn to cope with their own limitations in order to deal with them.

The inhabitants of Terra nicknamed them “Angels”. They were exquisitely beautiful, these shimmering, fiery creatures , highly intelligent and playful. Yet they were awesome, too, considering that the youngest were four million years old, and the oldest had probably participated in the First Cause, which had given birth to the whole universe. To young space cadet Jack Loftus fell the overwhelming responsibility of negotiating a treaty with them – a treaty which could mean the life or death of earth and mankind.

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)

Earthman Roy Crawford is framed for murder on the planet Velliran. He has two choices. He must escape from the planet within three days or go to prison for life.

But the only spaceship leaving the planet within three days belongs to the Exploration Corps. This is a group of scientists which investigates new planets. They are about to leave for World Seven on the Star System Z-16. With help from his friends, the dazed Crawford finds himself in the ship. The scientists, of course, think he is one of them.

But World Seven is no escape for Roy. It is a planet of death. The team of scientists find themselves in a world where even the trees are killers. And one more killer is on the spaceship – the real murderer who framed Crawford!

It will be the greatest voyage of exploration in human history. Fifty men and women are chosen to crew the Wotan. Their mission: to travel deep into the unknown galaxy in search of habitable worlds, to rekindle the dying human spirit. Their only contact with Earth is the telepathic link between one of the crew members and her sister back home. But when the mind-link with Earth is abruptly broken the Wotan is lost in the pearl-gray twilight of nospace. Then just as all seems lost, the Wotan encounters a massive alien presence. Suddenly the crew is forced to realise that their every assumption about life and death, humanity and the universe, may be dead wrong.

It was the last planet left for men to conquer – a planet rich in priceless urillium ore, yet no man laid a finger on this wealth that was for the taking.

For the planet Vendor could not be conquered. Space-men tried time and time again, but always the Voices drove them mad and destroyed them. Some intangible power kept men away from that taunting prize – until a scientist on Deneb IV perfected a blanketing device to protect his shop through the barrier. It took him twenty years to do it and every penny he possessed, but at last his voyage to Vendor began.

It was the voyage of a gambler who knew that only two alternatives faced him…illimitable wealth and glory, or failure and death.

But the journey to Vendor brought hazards that neither he nor his crew had foreseen, and before its conclusion a force was unwittingly released that could have swept life from the Universe – the indestructible and horrifying force of THE METAL EATER.

Far from Earth, on a ship carrying the 13th and 14th generations of descendants from the original crew, life is short. You are born, learn the tasks needed to keep the ship running, help breed and train the next crew – and your death is ordered by the computer in charge.

Gregson, chief of the psych-police, makes sure the computer’s death-sentences are carried out quickly and painlessly. His duty is a sacred trust. He knows the intricacies of the system, how it works . . . and how it can be subverted.

He is growing old. Rebellious.

He also knows his name will soon come up in the computer for elimination.

And he has no intention of carrying out his own death-sentence!

Leon Vardis’ whole life was keyed to revenge.

If it couldn’t be wreaked on the peasants who had burned his mother as a witch on the primitive planet of Rhome, then it could, most gloriously could, be let loose on the contemptuous sophisticates who rescued him from certain death, toyed with him for their own amusement and then, uncaring, cast him aside on the metropolitan planet of Joslen.

But first his apprenticeship – as peasant farmer on Pharos, as space mercenary on more planets then you’d care to name. Then independence, as a stellar trader. And at last an opportunity to act as Fate, slowly, and with ironically sophisticated enjoyment, For in the hypnotic jewels of far Shergol lay the seeds of a truly cosmic vengeance.

Leon’s saga was complete. The ultimate leveller had been unleashed on the galaxy.

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.

Science fiction begins, wrote Algis J. Budrys, where unreality leaves off. In these unforgettable stories Budrys creates an alien but familiar world stripped of the lies of everyday life: a world where cannibalism is a medical, not an ethical problem; where “not-dying” is the alternative to both life and death; where the last man on Earth dances in hideous and exquisite joy.

The city of Clarges is a near-utopia, surrounded by barbarism throughout the rest of the world. Abundant resources and the absence of political conflict lead to a pleasant life that should be stress-free. However, nearly everyone is obsessed with a perpetual scramble for status, called slope. Medical technology has led to a great lengthening of the human lifespan, but, in order to prevent the Malthusian horrors of over-population, it is awarded only to those citizens who have made notable contributions.
The Grayven Warlock was one of those accomplished few, but he has become a fugitive after a feud with another Amaranth resulted in the latter’s death. Masquerading as his own relict, using the name Gavin Waylock, he lives in obscurity, looking for the accomplishment that will reinstate him among the immortals. However, Waylock’s dramatic stratagems may result in changes to society far beyond anything he had intended…

About two centuries from now, the human race on Earth is in trouble, perhaps even facing extinction, because of the rapid evolution of diseases.

A crew of young men and women travel to the moons of Saturn, to Titan, to investigate the biochemistry of the pre-life conditions there in the slim hope of discovering something that might save Earth. Nearly half of the crew die on the way. They have to do most of their exploration in virtual-reality machinery. The whole story runs at high speed, as they race to find answers across the surface of an alien landscape with death close behind, and gaining.

The conquest of a galaxy is relatively easy providing the aggressor has the necessary technology and, more important, a safe method of overcoming possible opposition without bleeding to death in the process. The Asdrake employed mutated micro-organisms which directly attacked the brain of the planet’s intelligent life – they liked this method. They could fight if they had to but were inherently lazy. This method had worked successfully on twenty-two occasions – why should it fail on planet 5/6/9. Sector 88. Sun System 46. “Tseudec” (Native name: “Earth”).

Casualties from the epidemic were astronomical yet, in complete paradox, failed to kill a single human being – the side effects took care of that. And those side effects were beyond even the Asdrake’s imagination. The survivors on Earth found undreamed complications in rebuilding the world with the use of their new psychic powers – and perhaps more important, were they new powers at all, and if not who had removed them thousands of years ago?

For ‘refusing to co-operate’ the Emm Luther Special Police took out Earth agent Sam Tallon’s eyes and imprisoned him on a dark and eerie swamp from which nobody ever escaped.

But then Tallon invented a way of seeing – ludicrous, agonizing, yet still a way to make escape possible. He ‘saw’ through the eyes of a bird. A dog, a woman guard and, later, even saw himself through the eyes of his enraged Lutheran pursuers. Madness and death were his constant companions as he schemed and fought and struggled for his life. Any other man would have gladly given up, but then, Sam Tallon had no choice, for he was the unfortunate possessor of the single most important secret in the universe – a secret which had to be returned to Earth, somehow.

The twentieth century lies hundreds of years in humanity’s past. But the near-immortal citizens of the future yearn for the good old days – when people’s bodies were susceptible to death through disease and old age. Now, they immerse themselves in virtual reality time machines to explore the life-to-death arc that defined existence so long ago.

Jacob Brewer is a virtual reality engineer overseeing the time machine’s operation aboard the starship Aspera. But on the thousand-year voyage to Beta Hydrii, the eight-hundred-member crew gets more reality than they expect when people entering the machine start to die.

The time machine has become sentient. Obsessed with humanity, it wants John Brewer to enter its confines – and discuss this fragile state of being called life…