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They have lived among us for centuries-distant, separate, just out of sight. They fill our myths, our legends, and the stories we tell our children in the dark of night. They come from the air, from water, from earth, and from fire. What are these creatures that enjoin out imagination? Faeries.

Megan is an artist who draws seascapes. Jonah owns a shop devoted to treasures from the deep. Their lives, so strongly touched by the ocean, become forever intertwined when enchanting people of the sea lure them further into the underwater world-and away from each other.

Since the day her father’s fishing boat returned without him, Peri and her mother have mourned his loss. Her mother sinks into a deep depression and spends her days gazing out at the sea. Unable to control her anger and sadness any longer, Peri uses the small magic she knows to hex the sea. And suddenly into her drab life come the King’s sons-changelings with strange ties to the underwater kingdom-a young magician, and, finally, love.

Deep inside a palace on the edge of the world, the orphan Nepenthe pores over books in the royal library, translating their languages and learning their secrets. At sixteen, she knows little of the outside world. But when a young mage gives Nepenthe a book that has defied translation – a book written in a language of thorns – it speaks to Nepenthe’s soul, and becomes her secret obsession. As the words escape the brambles they reveal themselves – and begin to reveal Nepenthe’s destiny …

Six stories from Phillip Mann, taken from his long and varied career.

Includes stories from the Out of Time Cafe, a very unusual refuge from reality. It attracts people afflicted with a deep malaise. It offers what seems from the outside to be sanctuary, but it can be subversive too, for on entering the cafe, one gives up a certain amount of independence, and before one knows it one is trapped. There is no escape… save one: the lift which services the cellars descends… but no one who has used the lift has ever returned. On a brighter note, the cafe has a will of its own, and travels different dimensions with ease and every journey is a new beginning.

Also featured are The Gospel According to Mickey Mouse, originally produced as a hugely successful radio play; Maestro;Lux in Tenebris, a cautionary tale about a medieval stonemason’s encounter with an anachronism and the effect it has on his culture; and An Old Fashioned Story, wherein Jody is having problems with his Sythno companion Elizabeth, who head butted him without warning. He is attempting to repair her. Then Elizabeth and her Sythno Joseph from next door drop in…

Life at the Station had ceased to hold any drama. The only enemies were boredom – a psychic inertia – and the innate weakness of the human element. Reading and samplings, data analysis and stereotyped daily radio reporting filed the long bleak hours.

Suddenly they lost all contact with the outside. No radio…No television…No physical contact with patrolling ships…Nothing… Their universe had contracted until life was bounded by the beryllium alloy fuselage of the Station.

Martia, the assistant astro-physicist, woke from a strangely deep sleep to find herself unable to get out of her cabin. None of the others could reach her… When the door was finally cut away Martia had vanished.

One by one other crew members and scientific personnel disappeared until Kersh, the radio-operator, found himself alone on the vast echoing station…

The sea has always been a symbol of uncontrolled power and infinite movement. Its rhythms are the rhythms of Life itself… for Life began in the primeval oceans…

Roger Adams was a man who dreamt of the untold wealth lying beneath the inscrutable waves of the Atlantic deeps. His mind filled with visions of Lost Continents, sunken galleons and the limitless possibilities of undersea farming. He same his meagre capital into a neck-or-nothing gamble and fought desperately against time and rude to turn his dreams into reality.

The unexpected stowaway added to his problems and then his diving began to pay dividends. The Atlantic Deeps gave up some of their secrets… but each enigma led to greater riddles. Then came the discovery that pointed to world-shaking consequences. Hidden beneath the great rollers lay supernatural forces so immense that the Kraken and other monsters of popular mythology were harmless toys beside it.

The force which had submerged continents was stirring once more…

Beyond the eccentric orbits of Pluto and Neptune lies a vast, empty wilderness. There is nothing but the silence of space between the fringes of the Solar System and our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri. The outer worlds of the Home System were only inhabited by Service and Scientific Personnel. Life for them was a constant routine war against an almost impossibly hostile environment.
Then something in deep space began to affect the fringe of the Solar System. The isolated Observers in their living domes were helpless. They could do nothing except report on the increasingly bewildering phenomena. As the strange effects worsened, several domes were abandoned. The menace from Beyond continued to encroach on the civilised planets as it head steadily earthwards…
What was the rational, scientific explanation for the thing that looked like an eye? Was it merely motiveless and purposeless, or was it guided by something sinister and more dangerous? Were men fighting a Cosmic Accident or an enormous Intelligence from out there…?

The ties of home were strong. In a few years man gets attached to bricks and mortar, and scenery. In a hundred years roots are so deep that no one wants to tear them up. In a thousand years it is quite unthinkable. In a million years, only a lunatic would want to leave…
Then came the alien, presenting an impossible choice… Humanity must leave the Earth – or die! Behind them was everything they had known. In front of them, an unknown to-morrow.
Which were the greater – the hazards remaining or the dangers of the infinite void ahead?
Could they trust the alien?
He said there was another world, a safe world, that would be a new home – but was it all a trap?
There were dangers out there. The dangers of a population confined in ships for a half a life-time; the dangers of cosmic radiation; danger of attacks by the ‘Others’!
Only men of the highest courage and the greatest integrity could hope to survive in the raw, searing savagery of the unknown…

These are the heroes of the Starry Rift, a dark river of night that flows between the arms of our galaxy: a headstrong teenaged runaway who makes first contact with a strange alien race; a young officer on a deep-space salvage mission who discovers an exact double of a woman he thought he’d lost; and the crew of an exploration ship who must plead for the human race to avert an interstellar war.

After bitter defeat on the Isle of the One Tree, Thomas Covenant, Linden Avery and the Giants of the Search take ship again. Across the frozen oceans they return to the Land, now perilously close to destruction from the ravages of the Sunbane. Drawn inexorably towards the caverns deep below Mount Thunder, Covenant and Linden Avery prepare to meet their bitterest foe. Even the white gold they carry may not serve against Lord Foul’s powers. For once the wild magic is released, the Arch of Times will crack, and Lord Foul’s conquest of the Land will be assured . . .

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 is a household name. But John Carter wasn’t the only Earthman to champion another world. This omnibus collects PIRATES OF VENUS, LOST ON VENUS and CARSON OF VENUS – the first three of Burroughs’ classic pulp tales of Carson Napier on the waterworld of Amtor – better known to us as Venus.

PIRATES OF VENUS: The shimmering, cloud-covered planet of Venus conceals a wondrous secret: the strikingly beautiful yet deadly world of Amtor. In Amtor, cities of immortal beings flourish in giant trees reaching thousands of feet into the sky; ferocious beasts stalk the wilderness below; rare flashes of sunlight precipitate devastating storms; and the inhabitants believe their world is saucer-shaped with a fiery center and icy rim. Stranded on Amtor after his spaceship crashes, astronaut Carson Napier is swept into a world where revolution is ripe, the love of a princess comes at a dear price, and death can come as easily from the blade of a sword as from the ray of a futuristic gun.

LOST ON VENUS: Napier’s adventures continue in this pulse-pounding sequel to PIRATES OF VENUS. Here the intrepid and wry explorer takes on a savage world in order to rescue the princess from her sworn enemies. Napier’s epic quest for Duare takes him through the streets of the City of the Dead, into the terrifying Room of the Seven Doors, and face to face with fantastic and perilous creatures. LOST ON VENUS brims with the action, suspense and wit unique to the Master of Adventure.

CARSON OF VENUS: Carson Napier, first Earthman to reach Venus, had to keep alert every instant of his stay on that world of mist and mystery. For its lands were unmapped, its inhabitants many, varied and strange, and he had taken an obligation to restore a native princess to her lost homeland. On terrible oceans where dreaded sea-monsters dwelled, in deep forests where terror haunted every branch, and behind the walls of eerie cities where power-mad chieftains plotted uncanny schemes, CARSON OF VENUS is fast-paced science fiction adventure.

STAR TREK is one of the world’s most popular and enduring science fiction franchises, spanning decades’ worth of TV, film, comics, books and more. This book – originally published just as DEEP SPACE NINE was first being produced – analyses the rebirth and renaissance of the series in the nineteen eighties and nineties.

Along with masses of factual information – plot synopses, cast and crew and, uniquely, British transmission dates – this Programme Guide casts a gently critical eye over the series’ continuity (and lack of it) and lingers over the moments of humour (intentional and otherwise).

In sum, this is a light-hearted, detailed and affectionate overview of the revitalised version of the classic STAR TREK. Please note that it has not been updated since its original publication.

The Earth does not belong to man alone

The Himalayas bury their secrets well. Two skulls unearthed in the cradle of the human race – the remote heights of Kashmir – throw evolutionary theory into chaos. But a far more disturbing secret lies hidden deep in the bleak mountains and snow-swept valleys unseen by human eyes.

A few miles from the explosive triangle of tension where Afghanistan and Pakistan border on India the story of the century breaks. And the echoes of the most shattering revelation yet made to man threaten to plunge the world into total war which will turn the cradle of the human race into its final grave.

First came the tourists…


Ondine was a resort planet. Sixteen million tourists travelled there from just about every world you could think of to live and love in sixteen million different ways.


Then came the machists…


They had gobbled up world after world, spreading their culture to thousands of different races with a brutal, vicious, but most effective system. They were inhuman, unthinking…uncaring. The Combine had already seen what they had done on other worlds, seen whole populations converted into something horrible…something not quite human, non-thinking and no longer caring.


Now they had captured Ondine, and no human could save the planet.


And then Daniel came to Judgment.


Daniel was a cyborg, a former fighter pilot now wedded to a master computer and life-support system housed in a flying golden egg. He was the Combine scientists’ finest creation, a spaceship that could control twenty-two robot slaves. He was the perfect saviour for Ondine, but for one thing. Everyone seemed to forget that deep inside that golden egg was a very human being…

Life on Earth was intolerable – and yet Man had stayed there, his dreams and potential suffocating under the dead weight of bureaucracy.

The stars were attainable – thanks to the Infall Drive – but only a few heard the call of deep space. Some had already gone to colonise a new world. The second ship was ready at last. Ready to escape the Earth’s prison; ready to seek refuge in deepest space. But it wasn’t only freedom that awaited it…

Shangri-La is a protected haven built by the enigmatic Eloi, (genetically-enhanced humans of indeterminate sex), and is now the Antarctic underwater prison of Jan Dorvin, once Sky Lord Captain, sometime dictator of the depleted Earth of the Gene Wars, and her maimed lover, Robin.

Far above them, the struggle against the mighty airships an their commanders continues, as Ashley, a rogue computer personality, once again joins forces with the Machiavellian trickster, Milo Haze, against the remaining rebellious survivors of humanity.

Meanwhile, on Belvedere, a religious commune set in deep space, contact is made with Earth for the first time in years and an unexpected counter is thrown into the game. Milo Haze, Mark Two, is about to enter the equation.

In the darkest depths of the Pacific lies a new, underwater frontier, where only the brave or the desperate dare to tread…
Experts from the West, to harvest rich minerals – and to spy.
The Russians, to further their plans for global domination.
A team of sadistic mercenaries hired to protect mammoth business interests.
And a British journalist, Christopher Maine, in search of a story – and the sinister truth.
Down on the ocean bed a giant submersible forages for hidden treasures. But then the forces of man and nature terrifyingly unleash disaster after disaster – until the survival of the world itself is at stake.

Beneath the surface of To Walk the Night lies something strange and exciting that lends the tale a tense and troubling quality. There is the baffling and beautiful woman who complicates the lives of four men. Who is she whose past is a mystery so deep, so inexplicable that those who penetrate it die?

DREAD PERIL FROM BEYOND DEEP SPACE

Where are they from and what is their ultimate evil purpose?

A band of dread invaders, led by a ruthless genius, is overcoming the system, sapping it of radium – its most vital element – killing all who stand in the way. Captain Future must find their base – their Outlaw World – and crush their deadly plot. He is the last hope in a crumbling solar system.

You need to be rich to survive at all. But it’s easier to be dead than poor.

Twenty-first-century New York. It’s a nightmare. Reaganomics has gone mad. There’s murder and mutilation on the bombed-out streets and in the corporate conference rooms. Manhattan is a zoo. There’s guerrilla war on Long Island.

Seamus O’Malley is a bodyguard and assassin in the outrageously powerful Dryco organisation, and he’s in deep trouble. Taking the job sounded like a good idea at the time. Falling in love with his employer’s mistress, Avalon, probably wasn’t so bright. Getting caught up in the Dryden family’s crazy rivalries didn’t help. Agreeing to murder the Old Man was plain stupid. And getting involved with the Ambients could only complicate matters further.

Before long, O’Malley’s on the run, and there’s nowhere safe to hide.

Laredo Space Base hadn’t sent a ship to Earth for hundreds of years before the Project Deep Green survey craft was launched. Only one thing was known: the planet humankind had so long ago vacated was a wasteland with nothing on it but poisonous flora and small, murderous denizens.

That’s what they taught astronaut Ferrer Burgoyne and as a result he was totally unprepared for the teeming jungle stretching farther than his eyes could see. He was even moer unprepared for the slightly green humanoids who greeted him. Obviously the scientists of Old Earth had done more in their labs than just mess around mixing human and plant cells. As sure as Ferrer Burgoyne was an astronaut the new men of Earth were the descendants of those hidden, forbidden experiments.



How then could Burgoyne continue his mission: to defoliate Earth with the deadly chemical Deep Green and prepare Earth for the return of his species?

Bron is a chaos catalyst. He wreaks havoc and destruction as surely as a hurricane wherever he goes. Commando Central has planted an electrode transmitter-receiver deep inside his brain and infiltrated him into the Destroyer Spacefleet to prevent it from gaining absolute mastery of the galaxy. But Bron’s own brand of chaos is lethally unpredictable. And when whole planets are annihilated by monster hellburner bombs set on course seven hundred million years ago from distant Andromeda, aimed directly at Bron himself, both sides realise something more colossal, more threatening and infinitely more powerful is taking a hand in Bron’s weird destiny . . .

In its northern fastness Britannia – despite all the benefits of the Pax Romana, with its technology and brutally rationalist philosophy – has kept its mysterious secrets, hidden deep in the wild forests that still cover much of the land.

As the Empire gathers its forces, three young people hold the future in their hands: the Roman Viti, now known as Coll, Angus the mechanic-turned-revolutionary and Mirana the student, now in touch with strange powers.

And as the cold, rational imperatives of Rome meet the wild magic of an older world, the Empire’s dominion will at last be challenged.

The Burning Forest: the triumphant conclusion to the magical epic A Land Fit for Heroes.

Since the beginning of time it had worked its will on humanity, and for as long as man could remember, he had struggled against its power. But in the 21st century the battle was won: the sea, mankind’s age-old enemy, had finally been conquered.
Professionals like Walter Franklin now patrolled the infinite savannahs of the oceans, harvesting from the plankton prairies as crop which kept the world fed. But like that other great frontier, space, the sea had not yet yielded up all its secrets. And men like Franklin would never rest until its every fathomless mystery had been challenged . . .