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His name was Tharg, but he was not of any life form we know today. He lived so long ago that the planet Earth had not yet shaped itself. Lava seas roiled and churned, volcanoes spouted and grew, and heavy clouds hung in the hydrogen atmosphere, leaving the planet’s surface dark and dangerous.

On that world Tharg met his death, or something very much like it. He became a disembodied, totally nonphysical intelligence, cut off from all contact with the life he had known. He ‘slept’ for hundreds of millions of years, unconnected with the world, unthinking, hardly existing.

But then he began to awake – for there was new life on Earth, creatures called ‘human’, and Tharg, knowing an ancient promise from the stars, had to tell them of it. But . . . how?

Earth was a weird and dire place after the plagues.

The few humans who survived could not bear the touch of each other; they lived in the enormous, endless caverns hacked out of the bowels of the earth for the bombs that never came.

And on one man rested the hopes of the world, though he did not know it. Sam Sewell only knew he had to journey, despite forbidding perils from the darkness of the past, into the ultimate fastnesses of the unknown to rescue the timeless wisdom of the witch Desponia . . .

Grand Master Ursula K. LeGuin has been recognised for almost fifty years as one of the most important writers in the SF field – and is likewise feted beyond the confines of the genre. The Wind’s Twelve Quarters was her first collection and it brings together some of finest short fiction, including the Hugo Award-winning ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’, the Nebula Award-winning ‘The Day Before the Revolution’, and the Hugo-nominated ‘Winter’s King’, which gave readers their first glimpse of the world later made famous in her Hugo- and Nebula-winning masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness.

The dark force known as Shadow had been defeated, but its world-spanning web of power had survived. This incredible magical weapon was now held not by a prince or wizard, but by Pellinore Brown, a marketing consultant from Germantown, Maryland.

Pel Brown wished no one ill; he merely wanted his family back. But the Galactic Empire that had seen Shadow as a threat saw him as Shadow’s heir, a menace to be destroyed as Shadow had been. And when the awesome magical might of Shadow’s legacy was turned against the rayguns and spaceships of the Empire, entire planets were caught in the middle.

Pel Brown wished no one ill – but hundreds would die to put an end to … THE REIGN OF THE BROWN MAGICIAN

Pel Brown has troubles in his basement. But it’s not water leaking in – it’s magic. Sword-carrying barbarians are spilling through, demanding that Pel help them defeat Shadow, a dark force taking over their world.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a spaceship has crashed in Amy Jewell’s backyard, and the aliens want Amy’s help against the Shadow seeking to conquer their world. When Pel and Amy go through the basement portal into the world of magic, the Shadow attacks and traps them inside.

Now Pel and Amy find themselves entangled in escapades that will make them into heroes … or corpses.

It is a time of great darkness, when the sun is in danger of being forever extinguished, and mankind has been divided into two warring factions: the worshipers of the God of Light and the servants of Eternal Night. Now three unsuspecting travelers are called by prophecy to face a legion of the undead and the powers of the Dark Lord in the faint hope of reclaiming the world for the light.

Commodore John Grimes was finally getting his space wings back. On his old ship, Faraway Quest, Grimes was to venture forth to the very Rim of the known worlds, seeing … The Outsider.

“The Outsider’s Ship … is a storehouse of science and technology … we, and the Federation, and the Shaara Empire, and probably quite a few more, have sent expeditions. Every one has ended disastrously.”

So, it is out to the Rim and find The Outsider. But the mystery ship is not always easy to find. And other worlds, too, yearn for the treasures of the alien technology. What Commodore Grimes finds at the Rim, and what finds him there, sends him racing through time tracks, surrounded by enemies and temporary friends, trying endlessly to discover the secret dangers of … The Outsider.

Cameron, a tall, testy, whisky-drinking, nationalist-minded, Scottish physicist, may not have been an astronomer, but he knew the off things in the sky when he saw them. From an Australian mountaintop where he was advising on the location of a radiotelescope he saw what looked like Mars, in the wrong spot in the sky. But it wasn’t Mars at all, it was a supernova … no, not a supernova but a quasar.

Knowing what would happen, Cameron dashed home to Scotland and found himself at a crossroads of his life. In the face of total catastrophe, and of intense heat, darkness and rain, he took over as natural leader with both the north and south of the United Kingdom turning to him for help.

Sir Fred Hoyle, world-renowned astrophysicist, and his son, Geoffrey Hoyle, have set their newest science fiction thriller not only in London and Scotland, but also at the University of Charlottesville, and in Australia as well.

The result is an intriguing, fast-paced novel written with a wry humour and offering some fascinating glimpses of and gibes at astronomy.

Over the long years, ships of the Interplanetary Confederation had scoured the empty wastes surrounding Sol, searching desperately for a sister planet; a companion for the isolated worlds of the Solar System. Of the ships that were sent out, many returned. But always the answer was the same.

There were no planets! The worlds of Sol were alone in the Great Dark that swirled across the boundless heavens.

It was not until Steve Rane and Nick Brodine, in the Exploratory Ship Vega, reached across the yawning gulf of light years to Sirius, that they found the strange planet that rotated in its complicated orbit around the twin sun. It was an event transcending all others.

A discovery that plunged the planets of Sol into the greatest race of all time. For whoever controlled the alien planet, controlled the Solar System. And away from the watchful eye of the IPC it would be possible to build the greatest space armada in history and attack the Interplanetary Confederation without warning.

To Steve Rane, the order came from Earth Central. Zero Point has been set for three months hence. The ship of Jupiter must not reach the new planet first.

When Commander Herries of the Space Line began to sell the water of Mars as a ‘potion’ for lengthening life he had no idea that he was going to create the world’s greatest thirst and produce havoc among the two social grades of Earth – the Inelligentsia and the Normals. But produce it he did.

Among the confusion thus produced one man thinks clearly for his own ends – Vance Unthra, the leading scientist of the world – and he sees in the crisis which has hit Earth a way to be rid of all those who do not measure up to what he thinks as an intellectual standard. By his orders two synthetic worlds are created – Alpha and Omega – and to these are ruthlessly evacuated all the victims of the Martian water, there to rebuild there shattered fortunes and never cross the ‘Dark Boundaries’ which exist between those worlds and Earth.

Despite his careful planning, however, Unthra makes one mistake. In destroying the power of the Martian water over the evacuated thousands he miscalculates the strength of cosmic radiation on Omega with the result that the leader – the Controllix – of this world, Sylvia Grantham, becomes a far greater power in the grand scheme of things than her former lover, Dexter Carfax. Through the machinations of the wily Unthra open hostility breaks out between Dexter Carfax and the girl, and eventually their worlds are destroyed through the influence of a deadly chain reaction ‘disease’ from the Great Red Spot of Jupoter.

Both of them, however, through the various experiences they undergo, hold to one objective – to be avenged on Vance Unthra for his viciousness.

When unworldly fantasist H.P. Lovecraft was approached by crafty fanatic George Sylvester Viereck to write an American Mein Kampf, the bait was almost irresistible.

If Lovecraft would lend his pen and his Anglo-Saxon stock to the fascist cause, Viereck would arrange the publication in proper book form of a volume of his stories, hitherto scattered in pulp magazines.

Whilst the famous horror writer had some pretty obnoxious political opinions, his friends didn’t really believe he knew what deep waters he was getting himself into. And so began a concerted effort to keep H.P. Lovecraft out of the clutches of the forces of darkness that were to plunge the world into war…

Art Blastside in her third daring adventure upon the high seas.

It’s been eighteen months since Art’s baby was born: a pretty child called Africa, with Felix’s dark hair and Art’s grey eyes. Now Art, who dreamed of being like her own loving, wonderful Ma, must face up to the fact that she has absolutely no warm feeling for her child. In fact – Art can’t stand her! What’s wrong with her?

Beyond the family lies an unsettled world too. The French are still waging war, and England has fallen out of love with pirates. Piratomania has been suppressed by the government and Art and Felix are evicted from their cliff-top mansion.

The return of Ebad and the new and improved Unwelcome Stranger prompts Art to regroup her ragtag crew and sail once again across the oceans, through wild weather, bizarre places and riotous sea battles, to return to the Treasured Isle and learn the ultimate true secret behind the treasure and the mystery of why Art can’t love her child.

Although she leads an overprotected life with the two old hags, Lilune knows she possesses a special gift. When she ‘calls’ the musician, Lir, to her prison-like castle, she knows she must avail herself of the opportunity to escape and explore the world. But travelling south of the castle, Lilune and Lir realize that they aren’t alone – for an ancient, infectious evil accompanies them, which instills terror in everyone they meet. Lir dislikes arrogant Lilune, but finds himself intrigued by her and the source of the evil. Is it within Lilune, or does it come from a deeper source? When the pair become separated, he carries on searching for her. Finally, Lilune returns to her castle in despair, believing that she must be imprisoned to protect the world from the evil within her. But Lir follows her, and discovers that the root of the evil lies deep beneath the castle…

The siege was over. The citadel of Avillis had burned, burned through the night, with its terrible Lord and his monstrous children in it. Nothing remained now but broken walls, charred stumps where trees had, grown, tattered lattices open to the sky. But at the heart of the palace the great Cup of Avillis stood untouched: pure gold, crusted with jewels each worth an emperor’s ransom. Small wonder that Kachil, common thief, should covet it. Or Feluce, dapper arrogant climber; riches would mean much to him. But why did Havor of Taon, the hawk, join them to carry the cursed Cup away? For it was Havor who found that the Chalice once stolen could not be lightly cast aside, even in horror and despair. While always, inexorably, half-seen, slipping through shadows, shapes in the mind’s eye, three phantom riders followed after it across the winter-blasted plain.

This chilling tale of flight and inescapable pursuit rises to a confrontation of ghostly powers. Havor thought his story could have only one ending, but the spirit world can summon Forces of Light as well as Dark.

They have lived among us for centuries-distant, separate, just out of sight. They fill our myths, our legends, and the stories we tell our children in the dark of night. They come from the air, from water, from earth, and from fire. What are these creatures that enjoin out imagination? Faeries.

Megan is an artist who draws seascapes. Jonah owns a shop devoted to treasures from the deep. Their lives, so strongly touched by the ocean, become forever intertwined when enchanting people of the sea lure them further into the underwater world-and away from each other.

The firebird came at night – a magnificent creature whose magical cry seemed to transform objects at random. Gifted with powers of her own, Meguet tried to reach out to the bird. But at moonrise, the firebird became human, a prince cursed by dark magic. Meguet bowed to help him. But then the mystery carried her away, on alien winds, to a land far from her home…

At the edge of the world, the Luxor Desert awaits – a barren land where a sorcerer’s war rages. Where invisible dragons cast shadows over ruined castles. And where Meguet’s own fate depends upon a secret locked away in a tower for centuries…

The anatomy of fear is the unknown. The essence of terror is contained in the phrase “What if?” Suppose the dead should return? Are there invisible phychic entities hovering on the fringe of the physical world? Can the power of evil manifest itself in tangible form and launch world shattering violence against humanity?

The most gripping fear lies within the human mind. Lana Davis was a normal, healthy, sane young woman to all outward appearances but the Unknown was laying siege to her mind. By day her work kept the worst of the Terror at bay, but at night it returned. Time passed and Fear grew greater…Fear was embodied in a mysterious effigy which stood beside her bed . . . Fear lurked in a weird voice on the telephone.

Lana Davis ran screaming into the night – unable to face Fear any longer. The stranger who found her apparently knew more about her problems than she did; Lana found herself involved in a macabre new environment where Fear had expelled reality leaving the stranger as the only link with the world she had once known. Dark supernatural powers contended with insanity for Lana’s very soul, as she hovered on the brink of unreality and annihilation.

Beyond the eccentric orbits of Pluto and Neptune lies a vast, empty wilderness. There is nothing but the silence of space between the fringes of the Solar System and our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri. The outer worlds of the Home System were only inhabited by Service and Scientific Personnel. Life for them was a constant routine war against an almost impossibly hostile environment.
Then something in deep space began to affect the fringe of the Solar System. The isolated Observers in their living domes were helpless. They could do nothing except report on the increasingly bewildering phenomena. As the strange effects worsened, several domes were abandoned. The menace from Beyond continued to encroach on the civilised planets as it head steadily earthwards…
What was the rational, scientific explanation for the thing that looked like an eye? Was it merely motiveless and purposeless, or was it guided by something sinister and more dangerous? Were men fighting a Cosmic Accident or an enormous Intelligence from out there…?

Science and technology seem to advance in wild leaps. Something tremendous is discovered, then there is a breathing space. War accelerates the process of discovery. Primitive man discovered the wheel, the lever, fire and language. After the Dark Ages there was a great upsurge of scientific discovery. Amazing new knowledge was added almost daily. Today progress is faster than ever. The Twentieth Century is the Age of the Machine. Men use machines. Tomorrow, machines may use men. Imagine a world where everything is dependent on automatic machinery. Imagine a world where men have forgotten how to service the machines that serve them. Imagine the chaos, the horror and the conflicts when the machines begin to fail. Are flesh and blood superior to metal and plastic?

Man has often wondered about the birth of his world. Our remote ancestors told strange tales of parental deities who gave birth to planets, and people.

Primitive religious thought regarded inanimate Nature as teeming with terrifying psychic life. It is a trend which persists in the dark recesses of the modern mind. There is reason for this persistence . . .

Were the ancients entirely wrong?

Science has unlocked many mysteries that terrified our forebears, but there are others which remain just as enigmatically sealed as before.

What strange astrological influences do the dark stars exert as they speed through the heavens on their evil courses? Like a cosmic combination lock their tuning unleashes timeless forces of evil.

The Pantheon of Old Gods rides again to bring hideous terror to the 20th century.

Tharnos, assistant to the High Priest of the Holy Mysteries at Karnak was disturbed when strange alternation appeared in the ritual. Was it Kakos the silent High Priest who was introducing these dark ceremonies….? If not was there a presence from Beyond lurking in the shadows of the great temple?
A dying slave warned Tharnos of the plot that was being launched against him . . . Too late! There were other victims waiting in the secret cells below the temple; a retired Roman Centurion; a giant Nubian; a Greek mariner with the cunning of Odysseus.
Only the sacred Temple Virgin could help them to escape. If she would help them, there was a slim chance that the Dark Powers could be held in check…. If not… the world was threatened with an Aeon of darkness such as it had never witnessed before.

There are some parts of the world where change comes slowly. There are other placed where it scarcely comes at all. In really remote areas time stands still. The passing of the centuries means no more than the passing of clouds across a leaden sky.

In the wilder regions of eastern Europe and the dark forests of Transylvania ancient derelict castles moulder away in medieval gloom. There are deadly secrets behind the decaying walls.

Karina was running away from the Secret Police. She accidentally stumbled upon the hidden headquarters of a coven of witches, warlocks and necromancers and as a result she found herself pursued by a thing that was not of this world. Karina had three desperate problems; to rescue her lover from the Secret Police; to save her brother from the coven; and to escape from the inescapable.

The modern mind usually associates witchcraft with the middle ages. We think of witches as Shakespeare depicted them in Macbeth. We see them as secret, black and midnight hags, doing a deed without a name. We close our eyes and immediately the vision of a cauldron filled with foul ingredients appears before us; here are the fenny snake, adder’s fork, wool of bat, scale of dragon and tooth of wolf.

But this does not go far enough back. There was witchcraft in the world long before medieval times. The Witch of Endor who practiced her strange arts in the reign of King Saul is familiar to all students of the Old Testament. The writings of Homer abound with references to witchcraft and sorcery. The very earliest human societies had witch doctors, medicine men, shamans and priests of the black art.

Perhaps so ancient and widespread a cult has some basis in fact. There are powers beyond science. Ancient occult laws will still hold good. It is not wise to cross the path of a being whose age is measured in centuries and whose dark powers can alter the stars in their courses.

Warm Worlds and Otherwise contains the following stories:

All the Kinds of Yes
The Milk of Paradise
And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost Ways
The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
Amberjack
Through a Lass Darkly
The Girl Who Was Plugged In
The Night-Blooming Saurian
The Women Men Don’t See
Fault
Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death
On the Last Afternoon