Search Results for: venus

The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome had returned to Earth – with all their awesome powers intact. Overnight, Earth was transformed. War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery. No change was more startling than the face of New York, where the Empire State Building became the Tower of Zeus.

In this totally altered world, William Forrester is an acolyte of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and a teacher of history. Only Maya Wilson, one of his students and a worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love, had a different sort of grading in mind. Maya is the first of the many Trials of Forrester, every bit as mighty and perilous as the Labors of Hercules. In love with Gerda Symes (like him, a devotee of Athena and a frequenter of the great Temple of Pallas Athena – formerly known as the 42nd Street Library) and dedicated to the pleasures of the mind – Forrester falls under the soft, compelling pressure of soft, compelling devotees of Venus and Bacchus. He’s going to be in need of all the strength that he and his Goddess, the beautiful and intellectual Athena, can muster!

Into this sensuous strife stride the Temple Myrmidons – religious cops sworn to obey orders without question or hesitation – with a pickup order for William Forrester. Where he is taken, what happens to him, and the truly fantastic discoveries he makes about himself and the Gods and Goddesses … here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger!

An inquiry into the limits of the possible.

Our problems on Jupiter, Mercury, Venus – conquering Time – transport in the future – overcoming gravity – communications across space – benevolent electronic brains.

The range of this enthralling book is immense: from the re-making of the human mind to the vast reaches of the universe. Newly revised, even the remarkable events of the last decade have affected few of the exciting speculations by Arthur C. Clarke – a scientist whose expert and wide knowledge is matched only by his brilliant imagination.

The son of a Civil War veteran, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific writer for the early pulp magazines. Famous the world over as the creator of Tarzan – and in SF circles for his Martian tales featuring John Carter – Burroughs turned his talents to a bewildering array of settings – the African jungle, Mars, Venus, the Wild West… and the Land that Time Forgot.

This omnibus collects his tales of that lost world: THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT and OUT OF TIME’S ABYSS.

On Venus: An ancient and powerful Venusian race finds its ultimate evolution – but can they accept it?

On Mars: The people of the Fourth Planet are eminently reasonable in all things – except for the cult of the Sacred Martian Pig, for which ‘fanatic’ would be entirely too reasonable a word.

And on Earth: On the unknown world of one or ten centuries from now, the strangest stories of all become haunting, fascinating reality, as we find out that human beings are, after all, the most alien of creatures . . .

Paul Danto was a member of a subversive political party which had an answer: make peace with Venus. But the only way to peace was through the overthrow of Security. And Danton had found the one weapon which would make Security’s fall possible: the long-forgotten duplication machine. It had been well forgotten, for a machine which could make up to five duplicates of any living person was too dangerous to have around. But now, what if the top members of Security were kidnapped briefly, and then, suddenly, there were five of each?

From the SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal sample introduction to the fantastic imagination of Theodore Sturgeon, one of the great names in science fiction.

Highly acclaimed for his short fiction, Sturgeon is nevertheless best known for his 1953 novel, MORE THAN HUMAN, and for scripting the STAR TREK episode ‘Amok Time’, which introduced the Vulcan mating ritual, the pon farr. This omnibus contains three of his finest works: THE DREAMING JEWELS, TO MARRY MEDUSA and VENUS PLUS X.

The planet beckoned them from space – and closed round them like a Venus Fly Trap!

Assailed by strange perils and even stranger temptations, the little group stumbled towards its destiny – Mike Ross, the pilot, Sara Foster, the big game hunter, blind George Smith, and the odious Friar Tuck.

Before them was a legend made flesh, around them were creatures of myth and mystery, close behind them stalked Nemesis. The doll, the little wooden painted doll, was to be their salvation. Or their damnation, for each might choose, and find, his own Nirvana.

An extraordinary collection of short stories from the award-winning author of Sarah Canary. Including “Praxis”, the story about a theater where the real and unreal collide; “The Poplar Street Study”, Fowler’s darkly comic account of an alien invasion; and “The Gates of Ghosts”, in which a child journeys to a strange and deadly world, this anthology of 13 tales also features a new foreword by the author.

The lake was full of artificial things – The Poplar Street study – Face value – The dragon’s head – The war of the roses – Contention – Recalling Cinderella – Other planes – The gate of ghosts – The bog people -Wild boys: variations on a theme – The view from Venus – Praxis

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!

Jeremy Clyde is a young scientist who discovers that Time is a circle, and that deep within the human brain is a memory ‘hangover’ of future and past events. He carries out an experiment on himself and succeeds in mentally projecting his body 2,000 years into the future. Here he learns that his arrival in 3950 has been anticipated, and incredibly, he is appointed as the nominal ruler of the four inhabited inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. But he discovers he is only a puppet for a ruthless governing system being secretly maintained by malign Jovians. Clyde joins forces with his counterparts on the three other planets and battles to throw off the alien yoke…

Mercury Shell, Venus Shell, Earth, Mars, Asteroid, Jupiter, Saturn. Each shell concentric, studded with artificial planets, each planet embedded in its shell, spinning like a ball-bearing. The whole Zeus-created in the service of Man but now beyond his control.
Now mathematics and space physics, converging, suggested another shell, its existence hidden from Man. A shell of utter darkness, cold and silence where only extreme mutants could survive.
To find that shell, the three were journeying again: Maq Ancor, Master Assassin, Magician Cherry and Sine Anura, Mistress of the Erotic. Together, daring the all-seeing, all-sensing hostility of Zeus.

They came out of the void, from Venus, only to find there was no answer to their radio signals. Earth seemed dead. And on the Moon, Man’s greatest achievement, the Lunar Military Base was a mass of rubble and blasted wreckage.

Here, the crew of the Stellar Polaris, led by Commander John Forrest, discovered one sole survivor. He was mad! To their questions he could only answer that the children had destroyed the armed might of the Military Base.

When they finally reached Earth, they found that what he had said was true. The children had taken over control of the world. But then, these were no ordinary children – and their little weapons were almost enough to overthrow the armed superiority of the Stellar Polaris herself!

Visit Earth, the birthplace of man!

From the holiday planet of Paradiso one could go on many exciting tours and excursions – Mars, Venus, the Moon, even the most distant and alien worlds were accessible to the inquisitive holidaymaker, courtesy of Starways Inc. – the giant combine which owned Paradiso and over half of the galaxy.

But of all Starways illustrious trips, there was really only one which interested Ram Burrell – the one which Starways seemed to actually discourage people from taking… the trip to planet Earth. And once Burrell had got himself a ticket for the journey, he began to discover why Earth had become the least visited planet in the galaxy, and why Starways worked so hard to keep it that way…

From the ether came mysterious messages announcing that a hitherto unknown Englishman had conquered space, flown to Venus, and is now on his way back to Earth. The fact that science’s most highly developed range and frequency finders are unable to pinpoint the actual source of the voice is looked upon as absolute proof that they are hearing from outer space. The aggressive and autocratic quality about the way in which the eccentric Ardath Steele makes his proclamations not only annoys Betty Travers, ace reporter on the Daily Searchlight, but also deciders her to embark on a one-woman vendetta to prove that Steele is an impostor. Even when the spaceship finally lands she remains the only sceptic in a country full of pride in its first space explorer.

Gifted novelist Fowler (Sarah Canary and The Sweetheart Season) delights in the arcane, and, as a result, these 15 clever tales are occasionally puzzling but never dull.

In the long title story, temperance activist Carry Nation is resurrected in the 1990s (“We’re talking about a very troubled, very big woman,” says one shaken barman to reporters) and becomes such a nuisance that the DEA is forced to dispatch her with voodoo. Other plots are only slightly less outrageous in conceit. In “Lieserl,” a lovesick madwoman dupes Albert Einstein into believing he has a daughter; in “The Faithful Companion at Forty,” Tonto admits to second thoughts about his biggest life choice (“But for every day, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There’s an element of exhibitionism in it”). “The Travails” offers a peek at the one-sided correspondence of Mary Gulliver, who wants Lemuel to come home already and help out around the house. The homage to Swift makes sense, for, when Fowler doesn’t settle for amusing her readers, she makes a lively satirist. The extraterrestrials who appear in her stories (whether the inscrutably sadistic monsters in “Duplicity” or the members of a seminar studying late-1960s college behavior in “The View from Venus: A Case Study”) seem stand-ins for the author herself, who, in elegant and witty prose, cultivates the eye of a curious alien and, along the way, unfolds eccentric plots that keep the pages turning.

Contents:
Black Glass (1991), Contention (1986), Shimabara (1995), The Elizabeth Complex (1996), Go Back (1998), The Travails (1998), Lieserl (1990), Letters from Home (1987), Duplicity (1989), The Faithful Companion at Forty (1987), The Brew (1995), Lily Red (1988), The Black Fairy’s Curse (1997), The View from Venus (1986), Game Night at the Fox and Goose (1989)

An expedition to Mars is decided on and Chris, Serge, Morrey and Tony are chosen to man it. Unlike their expedition to Venus, this is not a desperate last-minute venture; it is a sober, carefully planned affair. Chris and his friends have no reason to expect anything beyond the normal risks of space travel – except for the experiences of the Dutchman Van der Veen. He is the only man who has ever penetrated beyond the Le Prince layer, which blots out radio communication with the earth – and he returned in a state of mental collapse. When he hears of the new expedition he has another breakdown, and when at last he is able to describe his experiences he speaks of strange and terrifying voices that assailed him in outer space.

Will Chris and his friends also here these voices, and what will they find on Mars?

For countless years the enigmatic city of Klagan had rested beneath the racing moons of ancient Mars. Forbidden, guarded, sheltered in the cup of the Blue Mountains and surrounded by waterless desert. It rested there, a place of a thousand rumours and whispered fantasies, and gave birth to muttered tales of incredible wealth and riches.

To this city came Halmar, the guide; Lorna, the dancer from Venus; and the man called Smith. Defying the ban of the Terran Authorities, the fanatical Drylanders, and the harsh desert, they reached the crystal walls of the strange city. There they found a tremendous mystery, the deserted artefacts of a vanquished civilisation – and found themselves snared in an incredible trap.

For Klagan was more than a city. It was. . .
What it was and how the intrepid adventurers solved the incredible secret of the mysterious city makes this an exciting tale of science and plausible speculation, action and human motivations.

An international agency, COSMOS, is in charge of space exploration in the not very distant future. Odd forms of life have been discovered on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter; there may be a life form on Mercury; and finally something utterly mystifying is discovered on the moon. Three astronauts land and examine an installation that all three perceive as radically different – one sees a heap of gold, one a fort bristling with guns, one a space platform and space craft. They return to Earth with some crystals picked up at the mystery site.

All three soon produce children – the moon children, gifted, precocious, and seemingly damned by the crystals their fathers had handled. Two are eerily beautiful, the third a grotesque monster. And the three soon discover that they are Earth’s hope for survival, as interplanetary invasion brings overwhelming alien forces to bear on mankind.

So, just how was Tarzan created? Eager to know the inside story about the legendary John Carter and the amazing cities and peoples of Barsoom? Perhaps your taste is more suited to David Innes and the fantastic lost world at the Earth’s core? Or maybe wrong-way Napier and the bizarre civilizations of cloud-enshrouded Venus are more to your liking? These pages contain all that you will ever want to know about the wondrous worlds and unforgettable characters penned by the master storyteller Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Richard A. Lupoff, the respected critic and writer who helped spark a Burroughs revival in the 1960s, reveals fascinating details about the stories written by the creator of Tarzan. Featured here are outlines of all of Burroughs’s major novels, with descriptions of how they were each written and their respective sources of inspiration.

BUG-EYED MONSTERS ON BROADWAY

Pulp SF magazine editor Keith Winton was answering a letter from a teenage fan when the first moon rocket fell back to Earth and blew him away.

But where to? Greenville, New York, looked the same, but Bems (Bug-Eyed Monsters) just like the ones on the cover of Startling Stories walked the streets without attracting undue comment.

And when he brought out a half-dollar coin in a drugstore, the cops wanted to shoot him on sight as an Arcturian spy.

Wait a minute. Seven-foot purple moon-monsters? Earth at war with Arcturus? General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Venus Sector?

What mad universe was this?

One thing was for sure: Keith Winton had to find out fast – or he’d be good and dead, in this universe or any other.

All Verrill wanted to do was to get to Mars, to Port Mercham where a ship was getting ready to take the Big Jump to the stars. But he was stranded on Venus, without money, papers, or weapons, with nothing but a keep-sake between him and starvation and the revengeful fury of the powerful Brotherhoods – and charity was a forgotten word.

How, with foreign papers, he fought and won the right to a berth, discovered a subtle plot to smuggle narcotics and defeated a mutiny. How he fought a desperate battle with the menace of the Sun and escaped from Mercury, and how, at last, he managed to reach his objective, make a story of high adventure.

This is a fast-moving, hard-hitting tale of the future, of rocket ships and the men who guide them across the wastes of space, of the perils and dangers waiting at every turn. A story which paints bright colours across the pages of unwritten history, and brings to life the lives of those yet unborn.

Originally published in 1958, under the pseudonym David Osborne.

Dr. Jeffrey Brewster, assistant professor of psycho-sociology at Columbia University, had been six weeks old when the first crude satellites were flung into space back in 1957. During his childhood there had been Moon rockets and the space stations – then the joint American-Russian-manned expedition to the Moon in 1965, right after the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship. Mars and Venus had been reached as he grew up and a permanent base was established on the Moon in 1973. Now the day’s papers reported that an expedition was ready to leave for Callisto, moon of Jupiter.

But Dr. Brewster had a class to make and he was late.

That was when the telephone rang and Mari, his wife, said, “Long distance from Washington.” The caller was Colonel Chasin of Unsecfor – United Nations Security Force, the global and international army that policed the world in these days of relative peace and harmony…

Earth was a crowded world of vast cities, manned by robots who carried out all of the menial tasks, who saw to it that everything contained functioning normally. Interplanetary travel was now an established fact. The planets favourable to Man’s existence had been colonised but where, as yet, under-developed according to Earth standards.

In the whole of the Solar System, mankind was supreme. There was life on Mars, Venus and the outer moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but nothing which could match the military might of Earth.

Yet now, Earth itself faced destruction. Quite suddenly the thread had materialised. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Someone – or Something – wanted Earth. But vast creatures such as these had never originated on any of the Solar Planets and Brad Norton, investigating events for the Military Commission, refused to believe that they could have been transported through space from an of the stars.

But the undeniable fact was that they were here and Earth science was powerless against them…