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Peter Grant, sailing his boat in unfamiliar waters, is forced ashore on an island connected with the mainland by a causeway uncovered only at low tide. There is a house on the opposite shore lived in by two secretive people.

His involvement in their affairs, begun by his sea-chance, becomes deeper and more dangerous as the tides ebb and flow over the causeway, until he finds himself face-to-face first with love – and then with terror and violent death.

‘A sensitive, absorbing tale’ Sunday Times

This is the culmination of the greatest adventure series in the history of science fiction.

With ‘A Stone in Heaven’ Poul Anderson has brought the career of Dominic Flandry full cycle. From the beginning Flandry has piece by piece mortgaged his soul that the long night of galactic barbarism might be held off just a little longer. Now, face to face with his personal long night, Flandry is offered one last chance for love and honour in a universe he has come to believe holds neither…

Jonathan Meriweather, trapped in the strange world where animals walk and talk, and where he, as the Spellsinger, possesses unearthly powers, has faced any number of perils since Clothahump the wizard called him from his own world to help in the war against the evil of the Greendowns.

Now Jonathan, with Clothahump and Mudge the Otter, faces the greatest challenge of all, for the mysterious Perambulator is threatening the very fabric of the universe – unless Jonathan and his company can stop him.

His face badly burned in a motor accident, young Robert Struve is horribly disfigured.
Unable to afford corrective surgery, and denied lawful redress against the rich man whose daughter was responsible, Struve wears his scars as a badge of honor, excelling at school and sports. The social pressure is intense however, and he is treated harshly by his peers-young men and women alike. When his frustration boils over, he assaults a girl.
In a correctional institution, as a ward of the state, he undergoes reconstructive surgery.
Years go by. Then one of the girls involved in the incident is murdered, her face mutilated. A second and third are killed in similar fashion; is Robert Struve involved? No one has seen him, since his incarceration…
Written in the late 1940s, The Flesh Mask was Jack Vance’s first success as a mystery writer, launching his Edgar-winning career. The story was first published in 1957, as Take My Face, under the pseudonym “Peter Held”.

Not much was known about Arthur Kedby in the West End Club that he frequented. ‘He doesn’t look much like a secret agent,’ remarked one member, but in general that was what he was believed to be. But Kedby is a blackmailer, and not even a very successful one; his great success lies in the fact that he has never been caught.

Then he recognises the face of a club guest – a face he has seen before. And all at once Kedby has an opportunity to practise his skills at a level that might just furnish him with a pension …

A grotesque murder and a mysterious woman lead to the most difficult choice of his life.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

Andrew Fane is faced with five years in prison for fraud, and a penniless future. When he appeals for help from his uncle his pleas go unanswered, but on visiting him Fane is welcomed by a mysterious and heavily veiled woman.

When he finds his uncle’s body, murdered in horrible and grotesque circumstances, she suddenly disappears leaving Fane faced with the dilemma of telling the police or covering his tracks . . .

John Ansell, the new editor of Truth and Crime magazine, takes his appointment, and the title of the magazine, at face value. Until his boss, President of Barclay-Truth Inc., Noble Barclay, rejects his ‘Unsolved Mystery of the Month’ article, an investigation into the death of Warren G. Wilson, household name in correspondence courses, who was found dead in his hotel room with a bullet in his back.

Noble Barclay, it turns out, is anything but noble, and a dangerous man to boot. But how will his employee face the dilemma of exposing the father of the woman he loves? And at what cost?

IT SEEMED AS IF EVERYONE WAS A SPY!

The political situation in the 21st century was coming to the boil: one man, a scientist, held what might be the important key to ultimate power in the struggle between the three blocs: West-world, Sov-world, and Common Europe. The scientist, Auguste Bazaine, disappears, and each bloc accuses the other of kidnapping.

There was only one way to settle the difference! So nine men were chosen to fight to the death in a trial by combat organised by the World Court. The winner will put his country on top. But when an American and a Russian meet face to face – the result is not what was expected!

Gods! Dragons! Fairies! Frog Princess! Knights! and much more. John Grimes faces them all.

The crew of the XV-ftl was looking forward to shore leave, vacation, and a chance to see their families after a month in space. But once they brought back the news that they had discovered aliens, they were doomed to another, and longer, journey.

Accompanying them on the return were several technical experts, who seemed to be more interested in squabbling with each other than meeting the first alien race in the history of humankind. But face to face with the blue humanoid Norglans, everyone began to realise just how important these first meetings could be – for they could make the difference between peaceful coexistence in space and interstellar war!




(First published 1958)

Warfare between Earth, Venus and Mars is brewing, their hates being fanned by the sinister intrigues of a power-drunk armament baron, Chester Candris. Candrris is enamoured of Ann Urslor, the fiancée of a government official, Ken Hargraves. When Hargraves departs into deep space on a secret mission to prevent the impending war, he is followed by Candris who shoots him, disposing of his rival. But some time later, a gigantic face in the depths of space appears in the night skies on Earth, apparently watching over the planet…and gradually moving nearer. The press dubs the face ‘the Interloper’ and humanity watches in superstitious awe… then the Interloper speaks!

Invading England after Charles II’s death, the Duke of Monmouth comes face-to-face with an old friend – Theophilus Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe, in common with only a handful of others, knows Monmouth’s background fully – not only that he is Charles’s son, but also that he has elven blood, and has allied himself with evil powers in order to take England’s crown. In fact, he is being used as a cat’s paw by one far more steeped in evil than himself…King Arthur, who would return to rule Britain and the entire world. Through London, Glastonbury, Sedgemoor and many stranger places unearthly battles rage, and the elves forsake their millennia-long neutrality…

Captain Future meets Captain Future…

The two men stood facing each other.

One man was tall and impressive. His red hair, his self-assured manner, the global ring he wore on his finger, left no question in the minds of viewers that he was the man he said he was – the man known the Solar System over as Captain Future.

The other man was tall too, but fierce looking, with a wild black beard and a scarred face. They called him Blackbeard and believed he was a space pirate, although the main claimed he didn’t remember who he was. Not even he suspected that he might be the real Captain Future…

For almost two centuries the huge spaceship had speared its way through the stars, bound for another two hundred years of travel before it would put down on a new planet, a new home for the Earth people.

On board the metal-enclosed worldlet were four hundred people: the last survivors of Earth. It was up to them to start life anew, to correct the mistakes their ancestors made.

But as the tenth generation neared maturity, the idle passengers found themselves face to face with these same problems – and this time there was no place to run and hide or to postpone their answers. For their miniature society was changing faster and faster. An the spaceship suddenly seemed destined to end as a star-bound coffin.

When Robert Wolff found a strange horn in an empty house he held the key to a different universe. To blow that horn would open up a door through space-time and permit entry to a cosmos whose dimensions and laws were not those known by our starry galaxy.

For that other universe was a place of tiers, world upon world piled upon each other like the landings of a sky-piercing mountain. The one to blow that horn would ascend those steps, from creation to creation, until he would come face to face with the being whose brain-child it was. But what if that maker of universes was a madman? Or an imposter? Or a super-criminal hiding from the wrath of his own superiors…?

A brilliant collection of original stories.

A predatory alien accidentally teleported to Earth.

A mad scientist and his imprisoned ghost.

A space traveller returns to face an accusation of murder.

The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines is a moving meditation on the things that endure in the face of implacable circumstance: art, love, freedom, the persistence of erotic fervor, the indelible beauty of the natural world.

Lara of Xy and her Warlord, Keir of the Cat, have been through much together. Lara left her homeland and her people for him, adopting his tribe as hers and learning their ways. Together they have overcome great trials, faced plague and insurgency, and found joy and happiness in each other’s arms.
But now they face their most arduous trial: Keir must take Lara into the Heart of the Plains, where she will be tested and examined by the warrior-priests.
For Lara is the Warprize, but if the elders are to confirm her in her role, she must be accepted by a people who loathe everything she represents. And if she is found wanting, she will lose everything: her new home, her new people – and her Warlord . . .

Keill Randor, at the plateau of years between childhood and manhood, faces the Ordeal. As a symbol of the hardships and struggles to come in the years ahead, the Ordeal requires him to travel, unarmed and unequipped, through som eof the roughest terrain on the harsh planet of Moros. He has to pass this test to enter advanced training with the Young Legionaries.

Keill has been told that, during the two-day Ordeal, he will face the most deadly danger known to Legionaries – but what form it will take he cannot guess. Throughout the trek, Keill encounters vicious, merciless creatures of that wild region, But he learns – through the Ordeal and his subsequent training as a Young Legionary – that deadly dangers can come from within himself as from without.

When their spaceship explodes on a hostile planet, three survivors face certain death unless they can reach a special beacon which will enable them to contact the nearest rescue station.

First they went to Kratos – and faced the Deathworms. Then they went on to Tantalus and tried to fathom the Rings – which could only have been fabricated with the help of highly sophisticated machinery.

And then they discover an alien spaceship orbiting the planet in strict silence and incommunicability.
When they finally boarded the vessel, it was obvious that it had been derelict for centuries – as a result of some dreadful battle. Meanwhile down below, the enigmatic Rings lay waiting to deal with intruders – as they did the deadly vampire tree. Once again, Commander James Conrad and his team of Expendables faced their mission to find planets suitable for colonization.

The second of a new series of books, The Rings of Tantalus seems guaranteed to further launch Richard Avery as a very special writer of modern science fiction novels. And there are more to come.

Blood’s runnin’ down my face from where this guy’s just bust me, my nose feels like it’s split in half. Then this dame gets up an’ strolls over to me – I reckon I am not lookin’ quite so good.

She says: ‘Well for cryin’ out loud.’

Is this my big day or is it?

She stands lookin’ at me, sippin’ champagne. ‘So you’re a big “G” man,’ she says. ‘Well, personally, if you hadn’t got a lot comin’ to you I would take a bust at you myself, you lousy, crawlin’, gum-shoein’ dick. Have a drop of liquor, big boy.’ She pours the contents of her glass over my face. It stings like hell, but I’m tellin’ you it was good liquor.

Continuing the saga begun in the Renshai trilogy and the Renshai Chronicles, this story follows three sons of Kevral Tainharsdatter: Saviar Ra-khirsson, Subikahn Taesson, and Calistin Ra-khirrsson.
Bearn and her allies, including the Renshai, are faced with pirates, the vanguard of an army sent from a continent across the sea. Prejudice against the Renshai is growing rapidly, fueled by their ancient enemies in the Northlands. After a questionable battle, King Griff of Bearn is reluctantly forced to banish the Renshai from the Westlands.
Shunned by Westerners and hunted by Northmen, the Renshai will face many trials, while Saviar, Subikahn, and Calistin must each take his own stand in a world where there are no longer any safe havens for their people. Yet not only the Renshai are in dire straits: without their aid, Bearn may well fall to the “pirate” army fast approaching its shores….

Man is an intelligent mammal. His intelligence lies in his brain. In mammals the tissues of the central nervous system are irreplaceable. The human brain contains something like 100,000,000,000,000 neurons, but 100,000 are destroyed on average each day of a man’s life. Cosmic rays and general internal and external radioactivity account for most of this destruction.

Hunger and Gradey decided on an illegal experiment. They brought up a small group of children in a strange artificial setting where there was practically no radiation. The setting was improved. The environment grew more shielded as generations passed. At last the Thinkers exploded into a world that had not dreamed of their existence. The world was facing other complications at the moment. An alien had appeared from the other side of the cosmos! Humanity was faced with two potentially deadly enemies; could they be turned against each other, or was one a secret friend?