Search Results for: impossibles,-the

A cool girl hunt is what the blind man wanted. He was searching for a pretty young woman, soft spoken and slender, whom he’d never seen but knew had vanished, and he was willing to pay Bertha Cool anything to find her.

The whole thing seemed impossible and sounded suspicious, but the man’s money was right – even if his motives weren’t – and given the choice Bertha always followed the dollar sign.

Only this time, the dollar sign pointed to murder and fingered Bertha Cool as a red hot suspect.

Perry Mason orders a double serving of trouble the night he and Della Street dine at an intimate restaurant after a hard day at law. In the middle of their steaks a waitress flees the premises in terror, leaving the puzzled proprietor holding her mink coat.

Why a humble working girl abandons such a pricey wrap is only the first question in a cop-killer case that traps Mason’s client with both an impossible story and the murder weapon, makes Perry himself a prime suspect, and blazes a gunpowder trail that leads straight to the heart of the police department itself.

Travel at light speeds is common, and Earth – the first in the universe to discover it – now reigns over many worlds.

But in order to rule effectively, Captain Robin Weinbaum, head of Security, needs an extremely advanced communications system. He gets it with the Dirac transmitter, the first machine capable of sending instantaneous messages anywhere in the universe. The only problem is that someone called J. Shelby Stevens has a machine that can do the impossible – tap the transmissions before they are even made! It is Weinbaum’s job to find Stevens. And unless he does, time will be abolished and the universe closed to Earth forever . . .

A follow-up to the highly successful Discworld Unseen University Quizbook, The Wyrdest Link will present itself as qualifying tests for various levels of mastery in Ankh-Morpork City’s Guilds and other organisations – from the dignified Thieves’ Guild to illicit outfits like the feared Breccia (the trolls’ Mafia) or the wholly reprehensive Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night (see Guards! Guards!). As before, the straight Discworld general knowledge inquisition – presented with offbeat twists and linking themes – will be varied with trick questions, outrageous bogglers, and the occasional near-impossible poser to suit all levels of Discworld fans.

ANTARCTIC SAVAGES – PREHISTORIC MASTODONS – FLYING FORTRESSES – PARALYSING RAY GUNS – GRYPHONS – WATER-WITCHES – LOST CONTINENTS – WONDERFUL FLYING MACHINES…AND MORE!

Coming soon – the most fantastic contest ever conceived: An airplane race pitting Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes against Manfred von Richthofen (the Bloody Red Baron), his kid brother Lothar and Princess Irina Lvova of Russia!

Which team will be the first to complete the never-before-attempted round-the-poles flight?

Warning: On this doughnut-shaped alternate Earth it is impossible to fly off the edge!

The conflict between the King of Ys and the gods growing, with increasingly devastating results. It is becoming impossible to balance the demands of his own god, Mithras, with those of the gods of Ys, as they demand that he marry his daughter, which is forbidden by his religion. And while the King struggles to preserve his kingdom, others are plotting his demise…

Meanwhile, the Roman Empire is occupied by its own internal struggles, and the barbarians sense an opportunity to attack.

Filled with rich historical detail and a gripping fantastical narrative, this wonderful mixture of history, legend and fantasy continues the compelling story begun in Roma Mater and continued in The Gallicenae.

The Doomed Planet

The gigantic planet of Mirkheim was gone – blasted and vaporised by a supernova. But its core had survived the holocaust, and now, transmuted, it was the only source of certain vital supermetals. David Falkayn, agent and troubleshooter for the powerful Polesotechnic League, governors of the Terran Empire, had plans for Mirkheim. But the Baburites – an unscrupulous alien race – were one step ahead of him and had claimed the priceless minerals as their own. The conflict could mean only one thing – war, on a titanic scale – unless Falkayn could turn the tide and negotiate a peaceful agreement. But with the Baburites, that was a near-impossible task.

His real name is Ul Quorn, but he is known throughout the Solar System as the Magician of Mars. With sheer scientific mastery and cunning he once terrorised the entire population of all nine planets – until Captain Future put an end to his evil deeds.

Now Ul Quorn has broken loose from the escape-proof Interplanetary Prison – a feat that was believed impossible. His plan to obtain wealth and power is more ingenious than ever before and more deadly to the System.

Soon he will be master of the Universe. But first he must settle a score with Captain Future…

The case started with a corpse. Nobody knew who he was. Next, a man named John Burke disappeared. But D.A. Doug Selby could not find his body.

Then Mrs Burke swore that the corpse and her missing husband were one and the same man. This should have solved both mysteries. All it did was run the D.A. up two different trees. Sure, the faces of the dead man and John Burke were exactly the same. The only trouble was that their fingerprints were different!

Impossible? That’s what Doug Selby thought too – until the killer struck again …

Inside the furnace was a seething pool of molten metal, bubbling with a heat great enough to destroy a man’s body so completely it would be impossible to trace. And Gerald Norris had disappeared without a trace!

In London, Julie Crocker was hunting for her brother amongst the demi-monde of unsuccessful artists. He too had disappeared, leaving no trace except an indifferent painting in a Soho restaurant.

Against the backdrop of the power and heat of the steelworks and the overcrowded bars of Soho, private detective John Bryant sets about investigating both mysteries. Mysteries that can only be solved in the consuming flames of yet another fire.

A collection of cutting-edge SF stories from one of the grand masters of science fiction, including:

Rule Golden
To protect the galaxy, Aza-Kra came from a world where violence and cruelty ceased to exist. To him, Earth was a jungle.

The Dying Man
In a century that holds the secret of immortality, Claire and Dio find love impossible – until Dio discovers he is mortal.

Natural State
AD 2064. Were the cities doomed? Were the plants and animals and people who lived outside more efficient than any machine that could be built? Alvah Gustad, actor and patriot, leaves New York for an unusual mission.

In a barbaric, demon-infested world, no one stands against the all-powerful magic of the Unnamed Enemy, who is called Master of Fiends. No on except young Jarrel and his three friends – Scythe, Archer and Mandra – each with their own special powers. And they have taken on the impossible task of rescuing their friend, the wizard Cryl, who is held captive beyond the Barrier Peaks.

Trying to pass beneath the Peaks, they must battle the weird beings of that underworld and their monstrous ruler, the Keeper of the Chasms. And beyond those terrors lies something even worse – the ghastly realm of the Enemy, and his demon horde from the Farther Darkness…

BY JOHN E. MULLER
The botanist claims that human life depends indirectly on the chlorophyll in the green leaf. The leaf depends on sunlight. But both depend upon the atom. No atoms, no physical matter, no physical universe!
Microscope experts peer closely into the mysteries of the human body, into the mysteries of the green lead, into the mysteries of the chemical elements. It is hardly feasible to subject an atom to microscopic examination. But what if it was possible? What if a new technique of observation was discovered? A strange, revolutionary “seeing” without recourse to the photon.
The microscope might reveal scientific impossibilities which would shake the universe to its foundations. Smallness hold more terrors than greatness.

Once the city of Carrig stood supreme on this planet that had been settled by space refugees in the distant, forgotten past. From every corner of this primitive lost world caravans came to trade – and to view the great King-Hunt, the gruesome test by which the people of Carrig chose their rulers.

Then from space came new arrivals. And with them came their invincible death guns and their ruthless, all-powerful tyranny.

Now there would be no King-Hunt in Carrig, or hope for the planet-unless a fool-hardy high-born named Saikmar and a beautiful Earthling space-spy named Maddalena, could do the impossible . . .



(First published 1969)

L M Greenspan, the head of ailing Climactic Studios, gave producer, Barney Hendrickson, five days to get a major movie in the can – and Climactic out of it.

Impossible?

Not with Professor Hewett’s miraculous presto chango time machine, the answer to Hollywood producer’s prayer.

Nipping back to AD 1,000 with a whole film crew and two glam stars, Barney sets out to prove that the Vikings discovered America five hundred years before Columbus – and to film the event in glorious Technicolour. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, as they realise when history lets them down and their Viking Columbus fails to show up in the New World.

In the Hollywood Division of the L.A.P.D., chief of detectives Ivor Maddox and his team have their hands full. There are the routine cases, including the TV actress who overdoses on drugs and alcohol. There are the more complex cases, such as armed robber Dapper Dan, who always says thank you as he takes the cash.

And then there are the really bizarre ones: the body that turns up in pieces all over Hollywood; the midget burglar who keeps getting in through seemingly impossible spaces; and the poisoning of hamburger meat in a chain of supermarkets, which leads to a series of random deaths.

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

The world lay frozen under a thousand feet of ice. Only in the Eight Cities of the Matto Grosso did men still live, hunting the wary ice whales for meat and oil, and following the creed of the Ice Mother which foretold the end of all life in ultimate cold.
But legend told of a city far to the north – fabled New York – whose towers rose above the ice, whose crypts held the forgotten lore that might bring warmth to Earth once again. In the best ice ship in the Eight Cities, Konrad Arflane embarked on the impossible voyable to New York – an odyssey of incredible peril and adventure with a shattering discovery at the journey’s end…

It’s the Hollywood of the future, where movie-making has been computerized and live-action films are a thing of the past. It’s a Hollywood where Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe are starring together in A Star is Born, and if you don’t like the ending, you can change it with the stroke of a key. A Hollywood of warmbodies and sim-sex, of drugs and special effects, where anything is possible. Except for what one starry-eyed young woman wants to do: dance in the movies. It’s an impossible dream, but Alis is not willing to give up. With a little magic and a lot of luck, she just might get her happy ending after all.

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.

Benoni Rider set out across the unexplored desert of a future America to prove himself a man and find a new land for his people. The task at first seemed merely exceedingly hard – and then it began to seem entirely impossible.

Because all he had to do was join a barbaric army, become a bodyguard for a queen, act as another nation’s emissary to his own, lead an army into battle against the wild men of the north, and manage somehow to get back to Fiiniks with the secret of the CACHE FROM OUTER SPACE.

That last was the secret that, if learned, could enable any of the barbarian nations of that devastated future to control the rest of the world . . . or annihilate it all over again!

THROUGH THE TERROR TOROID

It could have been a black hole – one of those terrifying rips in space that defy all laws. That it was artificial in origin did not make it any less deadly.

Worst of all, that strange extra-galactic torus was drifting into an intersect with Earth in its orbit. The result would be devastation beyond concept.

Cap Kennedy and his three companions were considered expendable in such a cause. And Cap himself volunteered to dare the impossible – to turn that cosmic hole aside.

What he fell into was an adventure utterly different than anything he had expected. The novel of EARTH ENSLAVED is a real surprise package for the legion of Cap Kennedy’s followers.

“Heard of you?” The princess spoke with a great weariness. “We hear about all the adventurers of the galaxy. So far all have failed. You will fail too. I know it – but I must go on trying to find the prince. When you are dead and scattered into the atoms we shall find another strong man and try again.

One day, perhaps, we shall succeed. Maybe you will, but I doubt it. You too will be destroyed like all the others.”

With these words of confidence ringing in his ears, Big Bill Jarrett was sent out on an impossible journey – one he knew could kill him if he went, and would kill him if he didn’t.

As the sun gleamed off the gilded domes of Videssos the city, Abivard, marshal of Makuran and son of Godarz, pondered the impossible. How could he carry out the command of Sharbaraz, King of Kings, to destroy the invincible Empire of Videssos?
Then, against all expectations, the Emperor of Videssos invaded Makuran itself. Abivard was thrust on the defensive, forced homeward to drive the invaders from the fabled land of the Thousand Cities.
Abivard needed not only his greatest battle skills but his most powerful magicians, for no one doubted that Videssian military strategy would be accompanied by the finest sorcery. Yet even as reality reversed itself and renegades plotted Abivard’s ruin, the undaunted warrior vowed never to surrender…