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I’m Sam Horowitz. My wife Brandy and I are private eyes – and belly-up broke. This is why we agreed to trace Martin Whitlock, a hotshot banker who’d skipped town over $2,000,000 in laundered drug money. Not our usual sort of case, but even filthy mob lucre pays bills.
The trail led from a posh mansion to a hick burg called McInerney, Oregon – and to G.O.D. Inc: the geeks who hawk overpriced garbage on late night TV. That’s where we found our man…too often. There were three Mary Whitlocks, same prints. But one was female. One was dead. We got busted. That wasn’t the worst.
The mob rip-off was only one move in a caper to take over crime – not the Mafia but something bigger. A hell of lot bigger. Because McInerney, Oregon wasn’t just off the map…It was off the edge of the Earth.
And Brandy and I were being taken for a ride – into The Labyrinth of Dreams.

AWAKEN, TERROR!

When the first expedition descended to the bottom of the Atlantic in a perfected high-pressure diving bell, their speculation ran wild as to the wonders they would encounter in that unknown sea-bottom world.

But their wildest dreams did not prepare them for uncovering first, the stones of an ancient civilization, and second, the monstrous body of an inhuman creature that had been sealed beneath the waters for countless eons.

Then, at the height of their excitement, elation turned to horror. For they had brought back an abomination so old that the memory of it had been lost to man’s remotest ancestors. Shops were disappearing, men and women were becoming enslaved by invisible whips of mental mastery, and it began to look as if it might be beyond the powers even of modern science to stop something that had so successfully defied time and space.

A daring novel of mankind’s strange and startling destiny. . .

Here is a novel to equal Arthur C. Clarke’s great work, Childhood’s End. It tells with frightening clarity of a desperately stricken Earth – wracked by overpopulation and plagued by famine and despair.

It tells, too, of a new breed of men and women – twenty-first century lotus eaters caught up in a mysterious euphoria which will ultimately threaten all life on this planet: the drug-induced world of ‘happy dreams’. Do these ‘happy dreamers’ herald the end of the human race – or the next extraordinary step in the evolution of Man?


First published in 1963.

A hundred thousand years from now, it was discovered that a star was approaching the world on a collision course. Its discoverer, Creohan, figured there might be time to save the world if he could arouse everyone to the danger.
But the Earth had become a strange and kaleidoscopic place in that distant era. Too many empires had risen and fallen, too many cultures had spread their shattered fragments across a planet whose very maps had long since been forgotten. People were too busy with their own private dreams to pay attention to one more new alarm.
The story Creohan’s effort to Catch a Falling Star is one of John Brunner’s most colourful science-fiction concepts.

Tileman could make our fantasies come true – create reality from your dreams – for a very high fee. Catering to the desires of London’s most powerful – and decadent – figures, Tileman had top-level connections to guarantee him protection and influence.

But he had killed Laird Walker’s best friend – and Walker, the dead man’s sister, and a bizarre nightclub entertainer began a private war on Tileman…a war whose final battle was unimaginable horror.

The far-flung fingers of Earth’s civilisation touched many corners of the galaxy, and among them was the beautiful planet Yan. Here the colonists lived a peaceful, almost idyllic life, amid ancient and secret relics, co-existing with their strange and compatible neighbours.

The arrival of Gregory Chart, the greatest dramatist ever, whose productions were played out in the skies, and whose actors were also the audience, could only disrupt and destroy once the Yanfolk were aroused from their dreaming indifference . . .



(First published 1972)

In the far future, it has become possible in advanced psychotherapy for a man to be given dreams as vivid as reality in which he may play any part he chooses. If that man were inclined to see his life as a struggle between good and evil, and if he were blessed with a profound sense of the black humour inherent in his situation, he might choose to play the part of Jesus, called the Christ. If he were inclined to write a book, it might be this one.

The year is 2016, and President Kennedy is being murdered – again and again and again.

The director has come to the charred ruins of New York to re-enact a mad dream from the past – the assassination of President Kennedy. As actors, he has the primitive race who inhabit the city. With them and his glamorous, dark haired lover, he rehearses everything – the motorcade, the shots, the panic.

But at the last moment it all goes wrong. When the flower-filled limousine rounds the bend, the passenger is not Kennedy – but the Director himself.

Shots ring out in a wild explosion of roses.

Ron Bronston was sworn to protect the United Planets’ dream – the pursuit of freedom and progress on all of the 3000 human-inhabited planets of the galaxy.
As an operative of the secret section of the United Planets’ Bureau of Investigation, Bronston was called upon for some very unusual missions. But the present crisis was without precedent.
Man’s sovereignty in his galaxy was challenged by a single madman and the super-weapons of the Dawnmen, the mysterious aliens from the unexplored vastness of the galaxy’s center. Bronston, alone, had to find a way to stop them.

The team from Earth had the task of raising backward planets to the home world’s high level. The situation on Rigel was this:

“The most advanced culture on Rigel’s first planet is to be compared to the Italian cities during Europe’s feudalistic yeas. The most advanced of the second planet is comparable to the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest.”

“These planets are in your control to the extent that no small group has ever dominated millions before. No Caesar ever exerted the power that will be in your collective hands. For half a century, you will be as gods and goddesses!”

But the Rigelians were themselves descended from the lost colonists of old Earth and they could learn their lessons as fast as they could be taught.

In fact, they could even teach their teachers a thing or two. And therein lay the peril the professors from space never dreamed of.

It is the far future. Earth is beautifully planned efficiently run and happily united. It is the world that dreamers have envisioned since the beginning of time – no slums, no crime, no poverty, no disease, no shortages. But still, it is a world with problems – people have become so lazy, so self-satisfied, that human progress has all but ceased. To make matters worse, addicts of the newly-developed “programmed dreams” are increasing at an enormous rate.

Only a few individuals understand the far-reaching consequences of these problems; only a few realize that the human race is destroying itself.

It looked remarkably like a sterile, cold metallic coffin. It was the Intuitive Computer, a fantastic invention that would allow a user to assume the identity of any historical figure – Napoleon, Cleopatra, Hitler – anyone who ever existed. The possessor of this top-secret device would be able to witness the building of the pyramids, the crucifixion, the discovery of America.

The Intuitive Computer would revolutionise the studies of history, archaeology, anthropology; it would eventually revolutionise the entire entertainment and leisure industry. The lives of every person on Earth would be changed because of it.

IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST DANGEROUS INVENTION IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

It is sometime I the near future. The nations of Earth have drawn closer together – there is even hope of a new era of co-operation and progress will soon begin.

These dreams of lasting peace are shattered by one momentous discovery. One of the members of an international team of scientists stationed on the moon has found an alien spacecraft – with all its incredible technology and weaponry intact. The discovery shatters the illusion of peace on Earth, as each nation joins the mad scramble to learn the terrible secrets entombed by alien visitors eons before.

Only one thing prevents total war – Werner Brecht, the discoverer of the vehicle, is the only one who knows its location, and he has disappeared into thin air.

Arthur Cleveland Finch was an eminently practical man. Naturally he didn’t believe that the carnelian cube was a “dream-stone” with supernatural powers. But, of course, if he were going to wish himself into another world, he would choose one where everything was perfectly rational.

Finch got his wish – with a bang! And he soon discovered that one man’s rationality can easily be another man’s nightmare. He awoke a poet in a strange place where status meant everything and a man could be tried for umpteen kinds of crimes for reciting a poem in public.

So, being optimistic as well as practical, Finch tried again – and again. And the worlds kept getting wilder, more improbable, and funnier – but more dangerous, too. The question was, could Finch find Utopia¿ before losing his skin?

Kaeti branches out, moves farther from her beloved London. In the process she makes a whole range of new, intriguing friends; and lands herself in some scrapes startling even by her standards. The shadows she sprays on the pavement of a Thames Valley town come alive to haunt her; later, the magic Tiger Sweater she acquires does more than haunt the subjects of her wrath. While for a time her latest experience of France also looks like being her last. In a Thames-side hotel she conjures Hell on request; on a deserted airfield, and in the Green Palace, Glasgow, Hell returns to haunt her. In the West Country, she meets an eighteenth century benefactress; or is she? Certainly the experience lands Kaeti in hospital; for a while it seems she’s about to cross the Bridge of Dreams herself. Finally she circles back to London’ but a London neither you nor she has never seen…

But it’s all in a day’s work for Kaeti, the Bow Bells actress who is in touch with things magical and eternal.

The Vorsters
Were the blue-robed worshippers of the atom, symbolised by the Cobalt-60 reactors that glowed blindingly on every alter in their fast-growing churches.

The Harmonists
Were the green-robed heretics, a breakaway faction condemned as icon-adorers, who believed that their creed was truer to the code of Vorst, the Founder.

At the beginning of the 22nd century, Earth colonies were established on Mars and Venus. But the ultimate dream – to travel to the stars – was still an impossibility. A few enlightened men believed that the Vorsters and the Harmonists could solve this seemingly insurmountable problem, if they could only forget their differences and work together. But the hatred between the two factions was too deep to be reconciled – until a conflict on Venus between a Vorster priest and his Harmonist opponent resulted in some totally unexpected developments . . .

Bill Hastings was one in a million. He was the winner of a planet-wide contest, and the prize was a chance to spend a year working at the 1992 World’s Fair. For the young xenobiology student, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

Fifty thousand miles above the Earth, a gigantic satellite moved in its elegant orbit. It would be Bill’s home for a year, and host to hundreds of thousands of visitors. The 1992 World’s Fair was to be an orbital extravaganza, and Bill Hastings thought that his dreams had come true. He had a lot to learn.

Old Earth has reached its Third Cycle, a tired planet basking in the faded glories of a lost civilisation. Long ago it had been great – but the pride and greed of its rulers had brought about a terrible downfall.

And now Earth was threatened. Far out in space an alien race waited. Once they had been the victims of a crime perpetrated by the human race – now they were ready to return as conquerors. As a Watcher, Tomis had spent his life searching the skies for signs of the impending invasion. And when it finally came, it was to disrupt not only his world but his whole life in a way he had never dreamed was possible.


(First published 1969)

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
There was no Brooklyn, no St. Louis, no Shakespeare, no moon, no hunger, no death . . .

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
There were no real men, no real women, nothing but the dispassionately passionate ambisexuals of the lowest and highest order . . .

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
The heavens, the seas and the Earth belonged to a more intelligent species than a man called Clay could ever have dreamed possible in his own time . . . but his own time as a man had passed, and now his time as the son of man had come!

For Poilar Crookleg, the Pilgrimage to Kosa Saag has been a lifelong dream. Each year twenty men and twenty women attempt to reach the Summit, converse with the gods, and return with new knowledge. A few Pilgrims return as madmen. Most are never seen again.

Poilar and his childhood friend Traiben are determined to survive the terrifying journey not as madmen but as teachers of wisdom. Traversing mysterious Kingdoms and blasted landscapes, braving ghosts and monstrous apparitions, they will arrive at the secret of the gods themselves – a secret that will shatter centuries of belief and change their world forever.

It is the 21st century, and a man can journey through time in the form of disembodied consciousness. Now Roy Colton is about to leap 20,000 years into the past. His mission: to observe the fabled city-island of Atlantis through the mind of its royal heir, Prince Ram. But Roy is soon worried by Ram’s dark dreams. Do they presage the island’s legendary destruction? And how can Atlantis be so technologically brilliant during a barbaric ice age? Boldly, Roy seeks the truth, yet nothing can prepare him for the strange secret of Atlantis’s past…and future.

The years since first he gained the Starburst Crown have been difficult ones for Coronal Lord Prestimion and the vast, unfathomable realm he rules. But finally peace has been restored to Majipoor. And now it is time for Prestimion to name the able Prince Dekkeret as his succeeding Coronal and to descend to the Labyrinth as Pontifex. But a power from a dark past that both men believed was dead is stirring once again – an evil more potent and devastating than either leader dares to remember.

Many times, Dumarest’s dream of Earth has almost cost him his life. As he journeys from world to world, restlessly moving outwards towards the edge of the galaxy where his goal lies, Dumarest must be alert, watchful. For there are new dangers – forces more powerful than man – which threaten his dream.

On a planet where violence and superstition hold sway, Dumarest forges a bond with the prophetess Kalin. And now, more than ever, he needs her.

Kalin. The mutant girl whose mysterious talent for seeing into the future has already saved him from Bloodtime on Logis, from space-disaster, from slavery on desolate Chron.

Kalin. Who can foretell the terrors yet to come.



(First published 1969)

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)