Search Results for: masters-of-space

Jarvis Hilton is in charge of a handpicked team of scientists – and a navy warship on a deep space mission, dubbed Project Theta Orionis. On the outbound journey, automatic sensors drop their ship – the Perseus – into normal space for an encounter with a mysterious skeletal object. The encounter leaves them baffled, and leads them to a view an epic space battle. But strange as that is, it’s nowhere near as mysterious as finding a planet covered in radioactive fuel ore – and populated with humanoid robots who have been expecting their arrival and greet them as returning masters. . . !

As Kartin says, ‘You can’t have houses in space.’ What then are those mysterious objects that have suddenly appeared far out on the planet routes? What connection do they have with ‘the Shy Six Hundred’, as Kemlo calls them, those strange, Earth-born visitors to Satellite K who are so chary of having their photographs taken?

Kemlo and his Space Scouts decide that the time has come for a little detective work and the boys are soon hot on the trail – a trail which is to lead them from the comfort and security of the satellite to a battle to the death twenty million miles out into the void.

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)

Capturing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of science fiction, this unique autobiography by Robert Silverberg shows how famous stories in this genre were conceived and written. Chronicling his career as one of the most important American science fiction writers of the 20th century, this account reveals how he rose to prominence as the pulp era was ending-and the genre was beginning to take on a more sophisticated tone-to eventually be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Dudley Carnforth, gifted beyond the average with the ‘gift of the gab’, and also a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ scientific and master of none, decides that the time has come to end his grasshopper leaping from one job to another and do something really arresting which will put him on top of the world. Born in an age where space travel is just around the corner but not yet accomplished, he conceives the notion of pooling the many sciences he almost understands and producing therefrom a master plan for the conquest of space…

In luck and out of luck, John Grimes was a living legend of the spaceways. He had been an officer of the service, he had been the victim of a mutiny, he had discovered lost worlds, he had served under strange masters and on strange ships, but he had never turned space pirate. Until this adventure.

How it happened was a complex story to begin with, but typical Grimes luck. How he became the terror of the star lanes developed, as usual, from his own efforts to make an honest living and other’s efforts to use him for devious diversions.

This is a story of the loot of the stars, of how Grimes graduated from operator of a space courier ship to master of a fleet of dreaded carriers of the skull and crossbones!

All the creative energies of the West have been directed into space exploration and development – dozens of new worlds are being opened up. Left behind on Earth are the sluggish remnants of former greatness.

But in the East, a mighty dictatorship has arisen – a single absolute monarch rules: The Nameless One of the East. What follows is a raging conflict, on Earth and in space – conflict as only master pulp storyteller E.E. “Doc” Smith can write it.

Kemlo, captain of Space scouts, and his young friend Krillie receive a visit from two Earth children, Dane and Lesa, Krillie’s cousins. Lesa is quite prepared to be thrilled by all that she sees on Satellite Belt K, but Dane sneers at everything – especially at the mechanical horse in the games-room. he boasts of his own prowess, and is heard by their science engineering master from Earth, who determines to teach him a lesson and at the same time to evolve, with the help of Kemlo and the other troop leaders, a new mechanical wonder, a New World Pegasus, a horse that can gallop in Space…

To see the stars.

This was the great and paradoxical dream. To stand and look upward into space, at the myriad pin-points of light, forever out of reach, just as their forebears on Earth had in the long gone days before the building of the planetary shells.

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn… Shell had succeeded shell, each studded with its captive caged worlds, each progressively populated by men who could look up only into a sky of artificial luminaries and space debris.

Always Zeus, man-created prime mover, was at work beyond them, the giant space machines forming and working the next shell.

Uranus, Neptune, Pluto…The last shell.

Again they journeyed: Maq Ancor, Master Assassin, Magician Cherry and Sine Anura, Mistress of the Erotic, to reach the outer shell, to return to the past when Man could see the stars.

Even before the renegade pirates of the giant spaceship Thunder had collected all five of the rings that would eliminate the threat of Master System forever, Hawks knew that they still faced even greater problems.

The shapechanger, Vulture, was lost on the watery planet of Chanchuk, his fate unknown. Master System’s space fleet dogged the renegade’s every step. Hawks suspected that the group was harbouring a traitor, but he was powerless to act. And, most important, the rebels had not yet figured out how the rings were used – a riddle that seemed to have no solution!

Somewhere back on Earth lay the original computer interface, and somewhere in the distant past lay the secret to Master System’s demise. As a historian, Hawks had the knowledge to solve the riddle; yet he had to be absolutely sure – for one misstep would destroy them all.

A mothballed space fleet, the great ships were silent and shut down. Each up to fourteen kilometres long, they had been circling Jupiter in their hundreds for nearly a millennium.
To the little band of fugitives, they were both their hope for the future and a terrible reminder of the past. Once they had been the slave ships of their time, transporting whole populations of unwilling humans to the star colonies at the behest of the Master System.
Now, reactivated, one might not only help them escape the Master System but take them in search of the five gold rings that were the key to its control and their freedom.
Cautiously, nervously, their craft edged towards the huge empty hull that loomed in the sky before them…

When the Inter-Planetary Corporation’s crack spaceliner Arturus took off on a routine flight to Mars, it turned out to be the beginning of a most unexpected trip to the unexplored moons of distant Jupiter.

For once wreaked on Ganymede, the survivors had first to master that world’s primeval terrors, then reconstruct a new spacecraft, and finally find a way out of the problems presented by the warring intelligence of the Jovian system.

SPACEHOUNDS OF ICP is justly considered to be on of Edward E. Smith’s finest novels – a standalone classic of exciting space adventure.

Bursting right through the four-dimensional travel zone of subspace, Tellurian psiontists make an amazing discovery on the other side.

Beyond the bounds of subspace, a parallel universe is cruelly ruled by a violent, murderous empire, the Justiciate, where psiontists are ruthlessly hunted down and fed to giant eagles.

And within the Justiciate are lodged spies and traitors, dedicated to its overthrow – evil agents of the proud Garshan ‘master race’.

The arrival of the psiontists from Tellus triggers off a truly spectacular space adventure…

Only one thing could lure Hal Mayne away from his research aboard the Final Encyclopedia. It was the shattering news of the Younger Worlds’ oncoming defeat – an inevitable triumph for the cross-cultural hybrids known as the Others.

To save Earth’s future in space, Hal must journey to the planet Kultis, where the powerful alternate forces have been mastered by the top secret Chantry Guild. There, Hal Mayne will meet his greatest challenge and ultimate fate – one that will alter mankind’s destiny forever.

There was a name, but the name was a myth. The myth rode the tongues of ten billion men – and ten times ten billion not-men – on ten thousand worlds, and wherever the name was spoken, it was with awe and respect.

Citadel!

The secret name for the masters of space, the creatures who ruled without office, who served without reward.

Citadel!

The deepest mystery and the greatest power of all the myriad stars. Wherever two creatures met in fear of oppression, a silent cry to the men of that code-named organization rose in the birth of a new hope. For the galaxy was Citadel… and the Citadel was the galaxy!

Smoothly, remorselessly, inhumanly, the controlled flow of people continued. As each of the great planetary shells approached population maximum, the surplus of mass of humanity was transported out: Mars shell, Asteroid, Jupiter. Inexorably they filled the space made ready for them by Zeus, the master-minding intelligence.
Jupiter shell, Saturn, Uranus…
But at Uranus shell the ordered, ever-outward flow stopped and the pressure of the countless billions had pushed the shell to the very edge of catastrophic breakdown.
Beyond Uranus lay ready Neptune shell. Zeus-designed, Zeus-built but no longer Zeus-controlled. Another giant intelligence had usurped all power, was refusing to operate the system that alone gave any future to Solaria.
And so it was that Maq Ancor, Master Assassin, Magician Cherry and Sine Anura became the eyes of Zeus as they journeyed to the place where all systems failed, where chaos and the Tyrant of Hades ruled.

Without setting foot on another planet, people like Shep Blaine were reaching out to the stars with their minds, telepathically contacting strange beings on other worlds. But even Blaine was unprepared for what happened when he communed with the soul of an utterly alien being light years from Earth. After recovering from his experience, he becomes a dangerous man: not only has he gained startling new powers – but he now understands that humankind must share the stars.

Hunted through time and space by those who he used to trust, Blaine undergoes a unique odyssey that takes him through a nightmarish version of small-town America as he seeks to find others who share his vision of a humane future. Blaine has mastered death and time. Now he must master the fear and ignorance that threatened to destroy him!

He was Clear Blue Lou, perfect master of the Clear Blue Way, at one with the law of muscle, sun, wind and water governing Aquaria. She was Sunshine Sue, always in a hurry in a world that was too slow, Queen of Word of Mouth. Their meeting had been arranged – but by whom? and why? Beyond the beginning of where the world ended, beyond the highest peaks of its primeval majesty, lay a radio active hell and the lairs of the black sorcerers, the Spacers. The black scientists had not forgotten man’s old dream of touching the stars: they wanted the Age of Space reborn. But they needed a little help.

They were three: Maq Ancor, the master assassin, Macician Cherry, space illusionist, Sine Anura, mistress of the erotic.

Chosen for the great quest, the journey into the heart of mankind’s greatest creation: Zeus.

Zeus who made the new worlds for Man, endlessly forming, linking, organising the spread of Man into the new Zeus-created lands. So great was the undertaking that it had passed beyond the control of Man. Zeus, obeying with ruthless logic its original program, was lethal in what it deemed to be its own defence.



For Man to regain control he had to understand what he had created.



This was the great quest, the ultimate journey of discovery.

Donal Graeme set out to re-shape the galaxy, but first he must tear it apart.

Donal Graeme, Dorsai of the Dorsai, was the final link in a long genetic train, the ultimate soldier, whose breadth of vision made him a master of space war and strategy – and something even greater. He was the focus of centuries of evolution, the culmination of planned development, and through him a new force made itself felt.

Dorsai were renowned throughout the galaxy as the finest soldiers ever born, trained from birth to fight and win, no matter what the odds. With Donal at their head they embarked upon the final, impossible venture: they set out to unify the splintered worlds of Mankind.

Because of a twist in the structure of Time, three strangers were brought unexpectedly together: Red Hawkins of California, Chantal Vareze of London and a man from the 41st Century. Their meeting seemed an impossible prank of a universe gone mad – but it turned out to be quite otherwise.

For it seemed there was a war going on throughout space and time. A war fought by men of different epochs, on planets of different cultures, but for a cause that all could acknowledge – the very continued existence of creation itself.

And the coming together of these three very unlikely people – a modern man, a lovely girl and a futurian soldier – was to prove the master stroke of a super-science strategy that had already brought humanity to the THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY.

His wild career as a space pirate ended, Grimes faced his toughest assignment – he was “punished” by being made governor of the anarchists’ own planet! John Grimes, living legend of the spaceways, had been in and out of some cosmic catastrophes but this threatened to reach his luck’s ultimate breaking point!

An influx of planetary refugees had made that world a paradise of cheap labor and the original anarchist colonists had become such masters of wealth that no mere outsider could hope to dictate “law and order” to them. They had their own ideas which included slavery, treachery, and utter villainy.

Grimes’ first task as governor would be simply to stay alive with a whole world plotting his murder!

Mercury Shell, Venus Shell, Earth, Mars, Asteroid, Jupiter, Saturn. Each shell concentric, studded with artificial planets, each planet embedded in its shell, spinning like a ball-bearing. The whole Zeus-created in the service of Man but now beyond his control.
Now mathematics and space physics, converging, suggested another shell, its existence hidden from Man. A shell of utter darkness, cold and silence where only extreme mutants could survive.
To find that shell, the three were journeying again: Maq Ancor, Master Assassin, Magician Cherry and Sine Anura, Mistress of the Erotic. Together, daring the all-seeing, all-sensing hostility of Zeus.

A collection of science fiction short stories from the master author of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS.

In 1941, Roy Sabre’s girlfriend Betty mysteriously disappears.

Ten years later he has constructed a time-machine and his first trip is to go back to find her.

But his arrival is observed and his machine attacked and damaged as it departs – instead of returning to 1951, it travels to the far future where mankind has disappeared and the Earth is under the control of machines controlled by insects.

Roy finds that several other time-travellers, due to damage and malfunction, have been cast forward to the same time . . .

Stories included:
– “Wanderers of Time”
– “Derelict of Space”
– “Child of Power”
– “The Last Lunarians”
– “The Puff-ball Menace”