Search Results for: worlds-for-the-taking

When a young British couple, who make jigsaw puzzles, are hired by an ageing Norwegian to take nude photos of themselves in a sculpture park in Oslo, they are drawn into a web of occult Nazi horror. Even more horrifying will be the fate of the whole world some years later if alien visitors achieve their secret aims.

However, the aftermath of events in that Oslo park will provide Anna Sharman with a key to unlock those aims.

Anna is a rebel within Britain’s intelligence service at a time when most of the world appeases the aliens because of the gifts they bring – and if she must lose her own body in order to discover the truth, she will do so.

A journey to the Rim Worlds takes you straight to the edge of the unknown or right to the gaping void of the abyss. Out there you’re beyond the borders, hovering between the warped contours of troubled space and time…

Captain Clavering bought his ship on a lottery win. Now he’s holed up on the dismal planet of Lorn filling in the time on a chemical-blasted airstrip waiting for a contract. Somewhere there must be a newly colonized planet needing charters or some threatened world that needs evacuating. He’d risk anything for money in the bank – even a dodgy landing on the gas-blasted plains of Eblis, if the Rim Runners fancy paying hard cash for an expedition to hell…

The world, as Lafayette O’Leary knew it, disappeared in a flash. Perhaps it was his own doing – after all, he had the uncanny gift of creating alternate realities by sheer mental power.

But the result was a nightmare gone out of control. All O’Leary wanted was to find his wife and return to the familiar world of Artesia. Yet no sooner did he manage to extricate himself from one bizarre situation than he was thrust into another, equally threatening…

There was only one thing to do: he had to penetrate the very center of power from which his destiny was being controlled and – take it into his own hands!

In a vastly changed world, thirteen centuries from now, Sumner Kagan searches the earth to find the godmind, a malicious being with reality-shaping powers. In this strange and beautiful world – eerily alien, yet hauntingly familiar – Kagan will change from an adolescent outcast to a warrior with god-like abilities and, in the process, take us on an epic and transcendent journey.

Author’s Note: The volumes of this series can each be read independently of the others. The feature that unifies them is their individual observations of science fiction’s sub-genre: “space opera,” which the editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer define as “colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes.”

Having succeeded in defeating the deadly Mr Redman, Nick and April are left alone with the knowledge that their only friends, Paddy and Julia, may be dead as a result. But as time passes April, whose psychic powers are increasing, begins to sense that they are still alive. So begins a journey in search of their friends. A journey for which even stronger magic is required. And a journey which takes them into a terrifying nether world where soulless beings walk a never ending path of mist and sorrow.
And if they find their friends . . . what then? Even with the help of creepy skeletal Bertrand do they have the slightest hope of escaping the path and returning home? Or are they too doomed to be swallowed by the mists and lost to the mortal world forever . . ?

Stories from the darkness of space, and the planets around us . . .

This collection of short stories from legendary author John Wyndham takes us around the planets around Earth and the civilisations which might exist there. Is it as simple as Us vs Them, or are there things that humans do not understand yet?

This collection contains:
– Sleepers of Mars
– Worlds to Barter
– Invisible Monster
– The Man from Earth
– The Third Vibrator

When Abner Perry invents a vehicle that essentially drills through the earth, he takes it to his good friend (and independently wealthy man about town) David Ennis. And what else can they do? Drill down into the earth, of course. What they find there isn’t what we’d expect: it’s an inner world called Pellicidar, a place where the sun neither sets nor rises – because what appears to be the sun is no sun at all, but the molten core of the earth. Pellucidar is a great fun fantasy world, full of dragons, apes, and reptiles and Weird Things. It’s ruled by sorcerous royalty (the princess falls in love with Our Hero, of course) and of course our heroes end up hip-deep in dragons…

The Earth lies in ruins in the aftermath of an invasion, the land devastated by an intergalactic war where neither side won. The seas are drying up while the atmosphere corrodes and slowly cooks all remaining life on the now desolate rock.

Few survivors remain, but one of them is Lucas, an ordinary man hardened by the last few years after the world’s end. He’s fought off bandits, murderers, and stranded creatures on his long trek across the country in search of his family. What he finds instead is hope, something thought lost in the world.

There’s a ship buried in a crater wall. One of theirs. One that works. To fly it, Lucas must join forces with a traitorous alien scientist and a captured, merciless raider named Asha. Their perilous journey fighting savage men and creatures alike takes them across the remains of the planet and far out into the stars to…where exactly? Lucas has to live long enough to find out.

Paul Heisenberg is mysteriously endowed with the ability to jump through time. Together with thousands of eventual followers, he begins a journey that eventually takes him a billion years into the future. The Earth has been devastated by war with an alien race, and the changes that have resulted from the degradation of the world’s biosphere force him–and others–to rethink their own humanity. His pilgrim’s progress through the coming time is beset by doubts, distractions, and temptations as various voices attempt to distract him from his determination to follow the process through to its end. He eventually witnesses the complete transformation of the Earth, and the evolution of a single omnipotent but mindless Gaean organism. Is intelligence itself just a brief candle, forever doomed to burn out? Or can Paul find some other alternative for his race.

The sails were the product of the Old Technology, lost long ago in the depleted Earth, and they were priceless. For with those fantastic sheets of etheric material, ships could sail the sky and even brave the radiant tides between worlds and stars.

The alchemists who had replaced scientists still sough the ancient secrets, and Rachad, apprentice to such a would-be wizard, learned that the key to his quest lay in a book abandoned in a Martian colonial ruin long, long ago.

But how to get to Mars? There was one way left – take a sea vessel, caulk it airtight, steal new sails and fly the star winds in the way of the ancient windjammers.

Here is an intriguing, unusual and colourful novel of ships that sail the stars riding before the solar breeze that blows between worlds.

Bleys Ahrens is now a political power on the planet Association, home of the Friendlies. His people – his Others, not Dorsai or Friendly or Exotic, but hybrids – are in place in all the new worlds and are ready to take his message to the greater human public. But within his inner circle is Henry McLean, Soldier of God, and a True Faith-Holder.

Henry fears for the soul of his nephew Bleys, and while he guards, he also watches and judges. And beyond Bleys Ahrens’ control is Hal Mayne: the one man in all the human worlds who might successfully challenge Bleys in his bid for power.

For Hal Mayne is the true culmination of the Cycle’s grand design. Bleys would give anything to convert Hal Mayne to his cause – or failing that, to destroy him.

After roving through space for centuries, a starship unburdens its cargo of human embryos on a harsh new world. They quickly grow to maturity in the ship’s artificial womb. A lifetime of Earth memories is programmed into their dreams.
But before their indoctrination is complete, an alien intruder infiltrates and destroys the system, and the reason for the odyssey is never learned.
Now, on a verdant island surrounded by quicksand, Othman, wanderer, dreamer, and self-proclaimed leader of the Earthling band, builds a mighty bridge to span the ocean of molten mud that keeps them from the world beyond.
He has yet to face the deadly toll his quest will take on the delicate ecology of the planet – or the revolt of his beautiful, strong-willed wife, Silandi. And he has yet to discover the hidden knowledge locked deep within their hearts.

It began with a few small items in the newspapers – dead dogs and cats, a mutilated child, a series of unexplained fires. Then suddenly it exploded into a full sized catastrophe.

Huge mutants – half rat, half man – began to take over the world, stealing children for slaves and destroying their populations.

Only a few people escaped, among them Tim Barrett, his wife Jane, and a handful of survivors. Alone on the high seas in a small ship, they set off to find the island where Dr. Theodore Piper had been experimenting with a sonic death ray.

They knew Dr. Piper was their only hope for personal and world survival – if he was still alive… if the King Rats hadn’t forced him to serve their evil purpose… and if he could find a way to stop the spreading horror of invasion.

Dis was a planet, a wasteland, a world of death where living was dying and dying was much better than living.

Dis was a scorching desert, its people crude, barbaric, backward and miserable – and they would become seven million blackened corpses unless Ihjel stopped the H-bombs. But Ihjel had forseen his sudden death, and only one man could take his place – Brian Brandd, Champion of Champions and master of a secret power.

What happens to a woman after she has been acquitted of murder? Can she ever take up a normal life? And what happens when a journalist sees easy money in ghostwriting her memoirs?

What happens when a helpful young woman, checking on the details of the story, gets caught up in the ugly world that surrounds Teresa Swale, legally acquitted – and possibly a victim herself – of murder?

‘A consummate professional in clever plotting’ Washington Post

Capturing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of science fiction, this unique autobiography by Robert Silverberg shows how famous stories in this genre were conceived and written. Chronicling his career as one of the most important American science fiction writers of the 20th century, this account reveals how he rose to prominence as the pulp era was ending-and the genre was beginning to take on a more sophisticated tone-to eventually be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Four Encounters is an unfinished work by the writer and philosopher Olaf Stapledon, written in the late 1940s but only published 26 years after the author’s death. It takes place in contemporary (post World War II) Britain, and describes four meetings with various characters who are named for the spiritual quality that best defines them: a Christian, a scientist, a mystic and a revolutionary. There were originally to have been ten encounters, but Stapledon died before the project was completed.

THE TALES OF HENGHIS HAPTHORN

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn’s existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

HESPIRA

Hapthorn decides to leave Old Earth, seeking to solve the mystery of Hespira, an ungainly off-world woman who has lost her memory. The investigation takes him down The Spray to the rank-obsessed world of Ikkibal and the rustic Shannery, where he unravels Hespira’s role in a deadly feud between aristocrats. But behind the scenes an unseen antagonist is plotting the discriminator’s destruction.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold

In this collection of eight stories by one of America’s most gifted writers, Helen McCloy takes the reader into a world of mystery and imagination.

In the signature story – ‘The Singing Diamonds’ – Mathilde Verworn enlists the help of Basil Willing, a psychiatrist-sleuth, to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as collective hallucination. Six people from six different locations testify to seeing diamond-shaped objects in the sky, and four of those six have died in peculiar circumstances in the past twelve days …

A crime-thriller that strikes the heart of the legal world.

QC Christopher Henham is poisoned during the hearing of a divorce case. His wife, her son and ex-husband, not to mention a High Court judge, his wife and a secretary all come under suspicion.

Detective-Superintendent Simon Manton takes charge of the investigation. What is the truth behind Mrs Henham’s motor accident? Who doctored her husband’s cough sweets? But, before he can solve the case, another murder is committed.

The Dag Hammarskjold takes off from Woomera, Australia for the new human settlement on Mars.
Planet Earth is being eaten away by uncontrollable pollution, starvation and disease. Its life expectancy is nil.
This is the last spaceship, its passengers the last people on earth with any hope. But it is never to reach its objective. Five thousand years later its captain wakes up to a new world undiscovered in his time and to a bitter experience he must fight alone.

The rift in the fabric of space was fast approaching the Well World, and time was running out. Troops all over the planet were gathering for the final battle.

Nathan Brazil and Mavra Chang somehow had to reach the Well of Souls in time to save the universe and before any of the hostile natives managed to kill them.

At best, a difficult mission. At worst, impossible – especially since there was a price on Brazil’s head and many would be claimants! For Brazil, the difficult was but the work of a moment – the impossible would take a little longer!

A deadly meteor swarm approaching the Earth activates ancient Lunar technology buried beneath Earth’s surface that results in the birth of Raquilo, the last Selenite, who will save some humans from the meteor storm that millions of years ago destroyed the Moon’s atmosphere, oceans and inhabitants. Meanwhile, the balance of power on Earth has shifted to Vilgarth, an arms merchant who, with stolen v-ray technology and an alliance with governments in favor of his plan, wages a world war to take over the planet.

A castle, a deserted village, and murder in the Scottish Highlands

When child psychologist and US Naval Intelligence officer Lieutenant Peter Dunbar takes on a secret mission in the Scottish Highlands at the end of World War II, he finds himself drawn into the lives of a troubled boy and his beautiful young cousin.

But why does Johnny Stockton refuse to explain why he keeps running away from his comfortable home? And how might the answer be entangled with the mystery of an escaped German prisoner and a dying man’s message?