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The computer age has arrived a century ahead of time with Charles Babbage’s perfection of his Analytical Engine. The Industrial Revolution, supercharged by the development of steam-driven cybernetic Engines, is in full and drastic swing. Great Britain, with her calculating-cannons, steam dreamnoughts, machine-guns and information technology, prepares to better the world’s lot . . .

Two of the biggest names in SF together again, with the third of the acclaimed Time’s Odyssey sequence 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.

Full colour three dimensional television is a target at which engineers will soon be aiming. The technical obstacles are bound to be numerous, and it is also possible that other difficulties of an entirely different nature will arise – as Herrick soon finds out. Herrick had already achieved success on a limited scale, but his work led to curious results when the newly-developed receiver started picking up what appeared to be transmissions from an alien world…

The barbarians are coming and what do they bring? A vivid, turbulent novel following the fates of two very different people in a land that is not their own drawn together at The Hour Of The Thin Ox In tranquil, prosperous Bryland, a young heiress learns of a new engine of war which will bring terrible change in its wake. In the distant, arrogant nation of Escaly, the elderly Imperial Geometer is sent upon an unexpected and frightening mission. In the dark, feverish jungles of Belanesi, a strange half-human people wait for a season of rain and the call of a mysterious piper. At the Hour of the Thin Ox three cultures collide, with violent and paradoxical consequences.

In a semi-tropical London, surrounded by paddy-fields, the people feed off the sun like plants, the young are raised in Child Gardens and educated by viruses, and the Consensus oversees the country, ‘treating’ non-conformism. Information, culture, law and politics are biological functions. But Milena is different: she is resistant to viruses and an incredible musician, one of the most extraordinary women of her age. This is her story and that of her friends, like Lucy the immortal tumour and Joseph the Postman whose mind is an information storehouse for others, and Rolfa, genetically engineered as a Polar Bear, whose beautiful singing voice first awakens Milena to the power of music.

Mars is our nearest neighbour in the solar system, with the exception of our own satellite Luna. It will be considerably easier to hit the moon of course, but what will we find when we get there? Plenty to interest the scientist, the mining engineer, and the cosmologist. But the Biologist will find only fossilised traces of Lunar life, if he finds anything at all. On Mars the story will be vastly different. We know that there is vegetation there. We still argue about those enigmatic canals. Are they optical illusion or…? What if…? What if an intelligent civilisation cut those great water courses? What if that civilisation still exists? Is man the only intelligence in God’s great Universe? How will earth’s envoys react when they first encounter non-human intellect for the first time? Will the aliens be friendly, or…?

It is the early summer of 1945, and war reigns in the Pacific Rim with no end in sight. Back in the States, Hollywood B-movie star Syms Thorley lives in a very different world, starring as the Frankenstein-esque Corpuscula, and Kha-Ton-Ra, the living Mummy. But the U.S. Navy has a new role waiting for Thorley, the role of a lifetime. The top secret Knickerbocker Project is putting the finishing touches on the ultimate biological weapon: a breed of gigantic, fire-breathing, proto-Godzillas engineered to stomp and burn cities on the Japanese mainland. The Navy calls upon Thorley to don a rubber suit and become the merciless Gorgantis, starring in a film that simulates the destruction of a miniature Japanese metropolis. If the demonstration succeeds, the Japanese will surrender and many thousands of lives will be spared; if it fails, the horrible mutant lizards must be unleashed. One thing is certain: Syms Thorley must now give the most terrifyingly convincing performance of his life.

The world of 2165 needed co-ordinators to link the liaison officers from different broad fields. Natasha was a trained nexus officer who became curious about Building 297. All her enquiries reached a blank wall . . . literally. Nobody seemed to know what went on inside the tall glass and concrete tower. An important security project of some sort . . . but what? At last she found a way to enter the building nobody understood only to find a project that had gone unbelievably wrong. The original purpose of Building 297 had long since been forgotten. The operators no longer directed the research in the bleak laboratories, they were in the grip of an unknown power. The menace in the sinister tower had reached a crucial stage. It threatened to leak through the concrete and engulf the city . . . perhaps far more than the city. Natasha had to understand the incredible new force, to escape from its citadel and rouse the sceptical, complacent population before it was too late. The arrival of the Stranger offered her a terrible choice. Was he her one hope as a potential ally, or had he in some way engineered the menace in the tower?