Search Results for: equality

Explore the origins of sword and sorcery with Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis! Published in Weird Tales to satisfy fans of Conan the Barbarian in the wake of Robert E. Howard’s death, these four stories depict a brutal world of flashing swords and primal magic, touched by a hint of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. These exciting tales helped to establish a genre and are a critical part of any fantasy library. Also included in this collection are Kuttner’s two rare and equally ground-breaking Prince Raynor stories from 1939’s Strange Tales.

Dive into these seminal, thrilling adventure tales from one of the most important writers in science fiction and fantasy, and discover for yourself why Elak of Atlantis is renowned by scholars as a major step in the evolution of a genre.

When winter comes, the mutants gather . . .

They have always lived in the shadows, on the fringes of normal society. Ignored, shunned, they survived in their own invisible clans, using their extraordinary psychic abilities to shield themselves from the intolerance, bigotry, and hatred of the normals – until now . . .

The first mutant leader to emerge into the light of public life demanding equality has been savagely murdered. Finding her assassin has become the obsession of one courageous group of mutants. There is Michael, torn between loyalty to his clan and his love for a normal. Melanie, denied her mutant heritage by a cruel trick of genetic fate. And Jena, willing to use her psychic powers and mutant sexuality to get what she wants most.

As society faces the explosive implications of radical evolution and as inner rivalries threaten to tear the clan apart, the mutants must find a way to protect their identities, their lovers – and their very lives.

For hundreds of years the mutants walked among us, concealing their dazzling psychic abilities, living in fear. With the coming of the 1990s, the mutants took their rightful place in normal human society in a storm of political upheaval. Now, as summer ripens for the mutant clans, the long struggle for equality nears its end. But the mutants’ awesome talents – and their belief in the coming of a mutant messiah – still set them apart. The clans can join together in hope…but for how long?

Alanna, talented in her own right, but overshadowed by the brilliance of her mother, the world-renowned artist Narlydda.

Julian, he gifted graduate student, hoping to forge a link between medicine and mutant healing – and between himself and the beautiful researcher, Eva Seguy.

Rick, Julian’s mercurial twin brother, whose lack of mutant talents is his burden…and his freedom.

Strange currents are flowing, and the entire world is about to change. Unthinkable and unspeakable powers are about to be released, powers that not even the massed mutants can control.

After long years of struggle, the fight for acceptance and equality is over. The mutant clans have fit themselves and their extraordinary talents into the mainstream of human society. But when peculiar phenomena begin in the New Mexican desert – “miracle” cures, supernatural rescues – the issue of mutancy rises once more to the forefront of human affairs. At the center of the conflict are three strong and vastly different personalities, three men who will guide the tides of human destiny – and ultimately the tides of evolutionary destiny as well:

Joachim Metzger – Leader of the mutant clans, desperate to keep the hard-won peace and prosperity his people have finally achieved.

Julian Akimura – The brilliant therapist who banished his twin brother, Rick, in the hopes of saving humanity from his unsurpassed mutant talents.

Rick Akimura – The long-sought supermutant, the promise of whose power has been the building force of mutant society for centuries – and whose coming is nothing that anyone could have foretold.

The sun shone brightly on this fateful morning, bringing to its planets warmth and life-giving rays. The brightness increased sharply as the morning grew older. The glare was blinding; the radiation not life-giving, but deadly. By mid-afternoon the brilliant, intense sun shone on barren space. It had blasted each of its four planets out of existence.

Someone had found a way to poison a star.

And someone had to be found who could prevent the takeover – or destruction – of the entire universe. Who? Johnny Kettrick, as improbable a hero there never was. Johnny Kettrick who was banned from the Cluster World for his not-too-honest dealings was sent back there with his three equally unholy partners to search out the Doomstar…to find the Doomstar before it burned out another world.

The orphan had always known she wasn’t what people described as ‘normal’. Whether merely precocious or a mutant freak, she had always been able to link minds with an equally weird mutated lion and skip into the worlds of the fourth dimension.



What the heck, it sure beat staying in school on Earth – that is until she realized that some of her fellow dimension-hoppers from other planets had more in mind than just a romp in the swamp.



They were launching an inter-dimensional war of imperialism, and she alone held the secret which could save her home world – if she could only escape the truant officer long enough to pull it off!

By the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning author of Other Paths to Glory

An innocent enough advertisement, placed by General Maxwell, retired war hero and beloved squire of Duntisbury Royal, equally innocent hamlet nestled in the English countryside. But the results are explosive…

Although it seems obvious that the IRA’s stars are rising, there’s a more global type of conspiracy in the country air. The CIA and the KGB are suddenly sniffing around, along with British Intelligence Chief Dr David Audley – whose intuition for mischief and espionage puts him right in the midst of the action.

Scott Hamilton is a professional thief, one who would never turn down an opportunity to steal something really worthwhile – in this case, a priceless collection of Ming Dynasty jade statuettes, whose owner is a man with a private army; a man rich enough to be above the law.

Hamilton’s accomplices are the charming and tough Gunilla von Mayenfels, who is a girl with an interest in jade, and the odious and unreliable Kosky. And the result of their attempt combines triumph and disaster in equal measure.

A reporter, a young mother and a shadowy band of former schoolmates play out a drama to an end none of them anticipated.

Still reeling from the miscarriage that ended her marriage, columnist Kate Turner, is lashing out at anyone in her wake. Equally miserable is Laurie Moon, who defied her parents by carrying her precious son Sam to term only to place him at Rudolf Mann House because he has Down’s syndrome.

One winter afternoon Kate is escaping the city to lick her wounds. While just miles away, Laurie counts the hours till she sees Sam. Neither knows that a game has been created for them. A killing game.

Tiger Mann is faced with one of the most frightening challenges of his career: to avert the imminent destruction of the defence system of the United States. An engineer has disappeared, taking with him the secret of the device he created: a method to by-pass the buttons which activate America’s most deadly missiles – and render the system inoperative.

The Communists want more than anything else to discover the workings of the by-pass control, and Tiger is equally determined to see that they don’t. But to prevent them, Tiger has to find the missing man first …

And that’s a job in itself.

The Dashkova Ballet Company – a visiting Russian troupe led by Inspector Gautier’s charming Soviet mistress, Princess Sophia – is about to become the toast of Paris when the famous Judge Prudhomme is found with a bullet in his heart in a squalid hotel room. And when the corpse of the beautiful prima ballerina Nicola Stepanova turns up equally cold, the company’s once sparkling future pales considerably.

Gautier has to solve the murders to save the troupe and salvage his great romance – all of which he undertakes with his customary élan, éclat and joie de vivre.

Shrouded – perpetually shrouded – by a blanket of clouds, the planet of Nidor made its slow way through space. A year on Nidor was equal to 3000 Earth-years. To the Nidorians change was unthinkable. Until the Earthmen arrived. And then a change cataclysmic, and the first for many a millennium, hit Nidor. A change that was to split the planet against itself.

From The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal sample introduction to one of the giants of 20th century science fiction: Frank Herbert. Although best known for his award-winning Dune, Herbert’s other work is equally ambitious and accomplished. This omnibus contains three novels spanning some 20 years of Herbert’s career: The Dragon in the Sea, The Santaroga Barrier and The Dosadi Experiment.


THE DRAGON IN THE SEA
In the endless war between East and West, oil has become the ultimate prize. Nuclear-powered subtugs brave enemy waters to tap into hidden oil reserves. Psychologist John Ramsay has gone undercover aboard a Hell Diver subtug where, hunted relentlessly by the enemy, the crew find themselves isolated in a claustrophobic undersea prison, struggling for survival against the elements . . . and themselves.

THE SANTAROGA BARRIER
Santaroga seemed to be nothing more than a prosperous farm community. But there was something . . . different . . . about Santaroga. Maybe Santaroga was the last outpost of American individualism. Maybe they were just a bunch of religious kooks . . . Or maybe there was something extraordinary at work in Santaroga. Something far more disturbing than anyone could imagine.

THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT
Generations of a tormented human-alien people, caged on a toxic planet, conditioned by constant hunger and war – this is the Dosadi Experiment, and it has succeeded too well. For the Dosadi have bred for Vengeance as well as cunning, and they have learned how to pass through the shimmering God Wall to exact their dreadful revenge on the Universe that created them . . .

The only lesson we learn from history is that we never learn from history. Primitive weakness destroys just as surely in the age of Rock and Roll as it did in the days of the harp or the spinet. Man has nothing to fear so much as human frailty. Material progress alone means nothing. Whether you kill your enemy with a club, a musket or an atomic bomb…he is equally dead! Civilisation will be mo better a thousand years from now unless man changes his nature. An ape in a space ship is just as much a jungle beast as an ape in a tree.

Fear is the fetter that holds the cave man, the twentieth century man and the space man of tomorrow. Doubt is his chain.

A fantasist without equal, Patricia A. McKillip has created worlds of intricate beauty and unforgettably nuanced characters. For many years, she’s drawn readers into her spell, spinning modern-day fables with a grace rarely seen.

Now she presents a book of short stories, full of beautiful dragons, rueful princesses, and handsome bards, and written in the gorgeous – and often surprisingly funny – prose she’s known for. This is her world, wrapped up in the finery of fairy tales

The world, as Lafayette O’Leary knew it, disappeared in a flash. Perhaps it was his own doing – after all, he had the uncanny gift of creating alternate realities by sheer mental power.

But the result was a nightmare gone out of control. All O’Leary wanted was to find his wife and return to the familiar world of Artesia. Yet no sooner did he manage to extricate himself from one bizarre situation than he was thrust into another, equally threatening…

There was only one thing to do: he had to penetrate the very center of power from which his destiny was being controlled and – take it into his own hands!

What did our ancestors dream of when they gazed up at the stars and looked beyond the present?

A Journey in Other Worlds races far ahead of the nineteenth century to imagine what life would be like in the year 2000. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Earth is effectively a corporate technocracy, with big businesses using incredible advances in science to improve life on the planet as a whole. Seeking other planets habitable for the growing human population, the spaceship Callisto, powered by an antigravitational force known as apergy, embarks on a momentous tour of the solar system. Jupiter proves to be a wilderness paradise, full of threatening beasts and landscapes of inspired beauty, where the explorers must fight for their lives. Dangers less tangible but equally deadly await the Callisto crew on Saturn, which yields profound secrets about their fate and the ultimate destiny of mankind.

The finest tale ever written of fabled Atlantis, The Lost Continent is a sweeping, fiery saga of the last days of the doomed land. Atlantis, at the height of its power and glory, is without equal. It has established far-flung colonies in Egypt and Central America, and its mighty navies patrol the seas. The priests of Atlantis channel the elemental powers of the universe, and a powerful monarch rules from a staggeringly beautiful city of pyramids and shining temples clustered around a sacred mountain.

Mighty Atlantis is also decaying and corrupt. Its people are growing soft and decadent, and many live in squalor. Rebellion is in the air, and prophecies of doom ring forth. Into this epic drama of the end of time stride two memorable characters: the warrior-priest Deucalion, stern, just, and loyal, and the Empress Phorenice, brilliant, ambitious, and passionate. The old and new Atlantis collide in a titanic showdown between Deucalion and Phorenice, a struggle that soon affects the destiny of an entire civilization.

The sequel to Bellamy’s Looking Backward where a young man falls asleep in 1887 and wakes in a utopian year 2000, where all social ills are solved. This novel continues the thread of his utopian vision.

Equality begins when Julian West returns to the year 2000 to continue his education. The book describes an ideal society in that year.

Revenge was all Leadford could think of as he set out to find the unfaithful Nettie and her adulterous lover. But this was all to change when a new comet entered the earth’s orbit and totally reversed the natural order of things. The Great Change had occurred and any previous emotions, thoughts, ambitions, hopes and fears had all been removed. Free love, pacifism and equality were now the name of the game. But how will Leadford fare in this most utopian of societies . . . ?

A SCIENTIST BY NATURE – he used his rational powers of observation to examine more closely the privileges he was born to enjoy – and the people he was raised to despise.

A REBEL AT HEART – she followed her fiercest passions in the struggle to overthrow a legacy of hate – one that had poisoned her family for generations.

ON A PLANET DIVIDED – between rich and poor, strong and weak, intellect and feeling, only one thing could bring these two opposites together: a strictly forbidden desire.

For justice. For equality.

FOR EACH OTHER…

And so it came to pass…

Through science, faith and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society they perceived as perfect. Diverse peoples held together by respect for each other and the prospect of swift punishment if their laws were disobeyed. Fertile land that embraced a variety of climates and seasons. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowledge. Jehovah to watch over them all…

Generations later, the armed space cruiser Jehovah still looms over the planet Samaria, programmed to unleash its arsenal if peace is not sustained. Bu tan age of corruption has come to the land, threatening that peace and placing the Samarians in grave danger. Their only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen for this honour the angel named Gabriel and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel.

It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm and a devotion to duty equal to his own.

Rachel, however, has other ideas…

An epic sword and sorcery fantasy, this novel continues the history of the people and gods of Midguard. Following 300 years after the tumultuous events of CHILD OF THUNDER it tells of a new threat to Midguard’s hard won peace.

The old king of Bearn is dying and his heirs are falling prey to disease and murder, those not killed outright are failing the traditional test of kingship. With their failure comes the threat of chaos-without a tried and tested ruler Bearn will fall and the balnce between good and evil won by the legendary Renshai,Colbey Calistinsson, will be lost. A new Renshai of equal talents to Colbey’s is the only hope for Midguard…

In the Heart or in the Head is a brilliant literary memoir in which George Turner chronicles his chaotic growing-up in a family for whom fact and fantasy were equally acceptable and often indistinguishable. It is also the record of his development as one of Australia’s finest novelists and his entanglement with science fiction.