Search Results for: poul anderson

DOMINIC FLANDRY HAS FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.

But fight, scheme and betray he might to stave it off, with the inevitability of physical law the Long Night of interstellar barbarism approaches. He has known that for 50 years – just as he has known that a lost cause may be the only one worth fighting for. That is why he has devoted his life (that part of it not devoted to the decadent pleasures of a decadent civilisation) to providing a few more years of peace and plenty for uncounted billions of sentient beings.

But now Dominic is of an age more suited to deciding the fate of empires from behind the throne; others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets filled with creatures stranger still. Such a one, with her faithful Tigery companion, now enters the galactic stage. Her name is Diana.

Though her career is just beginning, two things are certain: illegitimate or not, she’s the true daughter of Dominic and…

SHE’LL DO HER OLD MAN PROUD!

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…

The Terran Empire was faced with disaster. A turmoil of unrest on the planet Diomedes was the first spark that threatened to ignite a chain reaction of insurrection. All the attention of the ruling powers was centred on Diomedes – but Sir Dominic Flandry, bon vivant and interstellar troubleshooter, was one jump ahead. Through a highly unorthodox gambit, Flandry had learned that the Diomedean troubles were a red herring masking the real location of a deadly plan for a galactic civil war that would crush the Empire out of existence.

Time was running out. Only Flandry had the knowledge that could prevent devastation. And when the real trouble began, Flandry was half a universe away.

Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was a top man in the Intelligence Corps of the Imperial Terrestrial Navy. He knew that on the outer edges of the empire, civilisation was spread hideously thin. The stars faded towards barbarism, with the great evil Empire of Merseia beyond.

But there were times when Flandry abandoned his senior position of command to go out into the field. Then he operated like the cool and brilliant agent he was, a ruthless, highly-trained professional. And in these three fast-moving adventures Captain Dominic Flandry shows that a space-age secret agent has to stay on top of the job – or succumb to nameless horrors.

“If it pleased Ruethen of the Long Hand to give a feast and ball at the Crystal Moon for his enemies. He knew they must come. Pride of race had slipped from Terra, while the need to appear well-bred and sophisticated had waxed correspondingly. The fact that spaceships prowled and fought, fifty light-years beyond Antares, made it all the more impossible a gaucherie to refuse an invitation from the Mersian representative. Besides, one could feel delightfully wicked and ever so delicately in danger.”

It is the common fate of empires to grow old and jaded: Rome, Byzantium, Britain, America, and so on to the Empire of Terra itself, each has near the end succumbed to the same weary “sophistication” that allows a warlord of Merseia to make a mock of a race whose star-conquering ancestors found the Merseians a race of pre-technic barbarians huddled in stone piles – and saved them from extinction. Flandry himself has come to understand that there is no more point to all his victories than that a few trillion of his fellow creatures may live out their lives before the coming of the Long Night of galactic barbarism. That he will not have shortened that coming Dark Age one bit – only postponed it. That the barbarians always win in the end, and are always followed by a new round of civilisation.

Back under the thumb of the Terran Empire after leading their planetary sector in an almost successful war against Imperial rule, Commissioner Desai saw real trouble brewing this time. A strange, fanatical movement was spreading like wildfire: there were rumours of the return of the fabled Elder Race: the Firstling, leader-elect of the planet, was on the run and hiding from Imperialist retribution. And off-planet agents from the Ythrian Domain and Mersia, Terra’s ancient foe, were abroad in the land. Unless Commissioner Desai could damp the fuse of rebellion, the universe would begin its terrifying descent into the Long Night . . .

The barbarians in their long ships waiting at the edge of the Galaxy waited for the ancient Terran Empire to fall, while two struggled to save it: ex-Admiral McCormac, forced to rebel against a corrupt Emperor, and Starship Commander Flandry, the brilliant young officer who served the Imperium even as he scorned it.

Trapped between them was the woman they both loved, but couldn’t share: the beautiful Kathryn – whose single word could decide the fate of a billion suns.

Ace Lieutenant Dominic Flandry was not a man easily swayed from his duty to the Empire; not, that is, until galactic vice king Leon Ammon offered him a million-credit bribe, a voluptuous woman called Djana, and a chance to explore a dark and treasure-laden moon.

Yet within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadows, Flandry found more than he had bargained for. Supposedly barren, the planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures, infernally controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each, like a piece in a bizarre and vicious chess game, was programmed to kill. And although Flandry did not know it – so was the woman he loved.

Dominic Flandry had a great future ahead of him as saviour of the civilised universe. In later years his talent for swift, decisive action would give him an intergalactic reputation. But at the age of nineteen and straight out of naval academy, he was just another raw ensign.

The mighty Merseian Empire had sworn to wipe the Earth from the face of the universe. The attack had already been launched, but no one knew how or where the ravening power of the savage green skinned aliens would strike. Only Ensign Flandry had the answer, in the form of a code which he might – or might not – be able to decipher.

And so the Merseians were coming after Flandry with every weapon in their terrible arsenal. And just to make things worse, Earth’s own armadas were after him too – for desertion, high treason and other assorted crimes. Even for a future saviour, times were looking pretty tough.

Like two giants the old enemies faced each other across the reaches of the galaxy – the Terran Empire and the Ythrian Domain. Terra was a Leviathan, encroaching ever further among the stars, promising peace and prosperity – but at the price of freedom. Ythri was smaller, but an empire in its own right, peopled by birdlike beings with a civilisation and intellect that easily matched Terra’s own.

And between the adversaries lay Avalon. One single planet, inhabited by human and Ythri alike. Both sides wanted to claim Avalon, by persuasion or by force, for it was a key world that could turn the tide of the war. But Avalon had developed a unique culture, a powerful blend of human and Ythrian thought. And Avalon had ideas of its own….

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.

Nicholas Van Rijn: Interstellar Merchant Prince one moment, barbarian chattel the next. Marooned half a world and an ocean away from the sole human outpost on a planet whose very water is poisonous to humans; captured by winged barbarians in the midst of a brutal war of extermination, somehow ‘Old Nick’ must scheme, conspire, wrangle and battle his way to survival.

‘Behold these annals from the Discovery and on through the World-Taking.
This is the tale as told by Terrans, who walk the earth.
Then read.’

THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE POUL ANDERSON’S MIGHTY EPIC OF FUTURE HISTORY

The full length story forming the core of the chronicle of the expansion of earthmen into the inhabited galaxy . . . from the Earth Book kept in the Stormgate archive of the great winged race of Ythri.

There were three of them – Adzel who measured four and a half metres and resembled a dragon, Chee Lan who was furry, catlike and female, and David Falkayn, a dare-devil rakehell from space.

When they learned of a rogue planet two hundred and four light-years from Sol, they were interested because the planet, a nightmare of ice and darkness, was rich in minerals. And the planet was about to melt – to move closer to a sun and release the vast wealth entombed in its depths.

And Falkayn, Chee Lan and Adzel were prepared to risk the horrors of an erupting, melting world if they could only salvage the riches that would shortly boil from the planet’s core…

Meet David Falkayn, sharpest young trader in the Polesotechnic League and susceptible only to the lithe curves of unwary space-girls. In three ingenious, fast-paced tales of interplanetary adventure and intrigue, Falkayn shows himself equally handy with his wits and a blaster. See him untangle alien taboos, outwit alien invasions, manoeuvre adroitly through alien revolutions – and then twist everything up again for his own crafty purposes.

Their space-yacht, pursued by angry Adderkops thirsting for their blood, has run into serious engine trouble. Picking up the trail of another alien spaceship, they decide to board it and force its crew to take them home. But once aboard, its not so easy to find the crew: they’re faced with cages full of bizarre, other-wordly animals: Tiger apes, Elephantoids, Gorilloids, Caterpiggles, Helmet beasts, Tentacle centaurs. One set of these extraordinary creatures must be the crew, in hiding. But which? Survival depends on finding the right answer…

The conflicts of Planet Earth are forgotten now. Even The Solar System War with its Cold Victory is barely a memory. In this the third and final volume of THE PSYCHOTECHNIC LEAGUE, the scale is immeasurably greater: in Space, in Time, and in violence

Born in the radioactive ashes of World War Three the institute for Applied Psychodynamics had guided Planet Earth to a period of plenty that for the first time fulfilled Science’s promise. But it is the central irony of human existence that prosperity bears the seeds of its own destruction; this time not just Earth but the entire Solar System would endure the flames of war.

In the beginning was World War III…

Out of the flames was born a new civilization, a new humanity dedicated to one world rather than to many nations, to once peace rather than many wars. Never again on Planet Earth would one group of humans “defend” themselves against another group equally convinced that all their actions were “defensive”. Never again on Planet Earth.

But cycles repeat themselves endlessly; Earth is only the beginning of the human story. Next comes planet against planet, and then the stars themselves. Through it all the impersonal forces of historical necessity will tend to force that story into the pathways of tyranny, stasis, and war. And in the end they must prevail. But ever will humankind win free once more…

He could see from above that this planet was inhabited. He emerged from the ship – to find himself lassoed and captured by a beautiful redhead mounted on a strange, bird-like creature. That was the first shock; the second was to realise that this world of women looked on him as a monster. For while the women of Atlantis had waited for the coming of the Men, they were certain that this creature who had landed on their planet could not possibly be a man.

When the Order of Planetary Engineers sent Hall Davenant to Ganymede for a terraforming survey, they knew that the job on the airless, frigid Jovian moon would be tough. Changing it to resemble Earth – with fertile land, water and good air – was the biggest and most important planet conversion job ever attempted by the Engineers. But they hadn’t counted on the already too Earthlike behaviour of the Ganymede colonists, who had never altered the ancient Earth-born habits of intrigue, bigotry and double-dyed treachery!

“Five of our worlds are missing”. That was the essence of the report that shocked the galactic Nomads at their annual meeting. For each of the mighty star-ships reported vanished was a world of its own – a man-made, self-sustaining city-state housing thousands of people. The Nomads themselves were an unplanned by-product of man’s conquest of the stars. They were the gypsies of the distant future, the restless rovers of outer space. But to Joachim of the peregrine tey represented a way of life that was to be dearly defended. So it fell to him to make his own world-ship the bait in a cosmic trap set to catch the galaxy’s unknown foemen!

In the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in North East Lincolnshire.

The Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking conquering planets, and having determined from orbit that this one is suitable, they initiate standard procedure. Their ship carries guided missiles and nuclear weaponry – but they have long since lost the art (and weapons) of hand-to-hand fighting. And this time it’s no mere primitives the Wersgorix seek to enslave – they’ve launched their invasion against Englishmen!

In the end, only one alien is left alive – and Sir Roger’s grand vision is born. He intends for the creature to fly the ship first to France to aid his King, then on to the Holy Land to vanquish the infidel. And then . . . ?

The corridors of time connect the ages to each other. Through them, one can travel backwards and forwards over the history of man. But rival factions have waged war for centuries: the gates onto time are bitterly fought for and jealously guarded. Malcolm Lockridge is a modern American swept into the past by the beautiful and mysterious Storm Darroway, the lithe, glowing Goddess of her people. Malcolm is an ordinary man of today, caught up in a time war beyond his comprehension.