Search Results for: alien

On her maiden voyage to Venus, the space liner Cosmic Cloud encounters a mysterious voice speaking through the void. The language is alien-but it is realised that danger threatens. Hardly has a recording been sent to Earth for expert interpretation before a mysterious gong is heard in the space liner, followed by further nerve-shattering notes until, abruptly, the space liner is utterly destroyed. Eventually it is learned that a diabolical mechanism is buried somewhere on Venus, left behind by a long-vanished malign alien race, and at a time appointed it will destroy the whole Solar System. Three men and a girl travel to Venus in a desperate race against time to find and deactivate the doomsday device…

The mysterious disintegration of the planet Mercury presaged mutational changes in the solar system. Next, the Moon followed Mercury into oblivion, bombarding Earth with giant meteors and causing more earthquakes. Then a giant metal globe that had apparently been buried inside the Moon took up an orbit of the Earth. The new satellite is an alien spaceship carrying the survivors of a super scientific race forced to abandon their own world to emigrate to our solar system. The aliens seeded the then primeval Earth with life cultures in their own image, and then placed themselves in suspended animation whilst evolution took place. They have awakened to assist humanity to avert the mutational danger now facing the remaining planets…

A secret US navy research project is founded to investigate the existence of paranormal powers, bringing together a variety of men and women who have shown indications of telepathic ability. As a result of the experiment they make mental contact with the Tyrenni, strange alien beings resembling winged squids who dwell in the upper atmosphere of their tempestuous world.

The aliens’ world, Tyree, is being threatened by a huge being, the Destroyer, which is moving inexorably towards them, obliterating whole solar systems in its path. When the Tyrenni realise that it threatens to exterminate life on Tyree, they are forced into the decision – contrary to all their moral beliefs – to take over the bodies of their human contacts in order to preserve their race.

The Colony on Rigel IV had been founded seven hundred years earlier but for the past six centuries, they had been forced to exist on the bottoms of the great oceans of the planet, kept there by the tremendously potent weapons of the alien star-race which had swept down out of space and wiped them off the land masses of the new world.

Kerrel Stevens found himself trapped in one of the Shells, unable to remember how he came to be there, aware only that for some strange reason, he held the secret which could release these people from their terrible existence, but that his memory and all of the knowledge which could help in the struggle against the aliens had been erased from his mind.

In the Shells, he finds what he is seeking – others like himself, different from the people who had become used to this life on the sea bottom, where science had gradually given way to superstition and witchcraft – and this chance meeting provides the key which unlocked the amnesia in his mind. For him, it opened the doorway to the surface of this strange, impossible planet, plunging him breathlessly towards the stars- and the unbelievable secret which spelt destruction for the alien star-race.

After two hundred years colonising earth, the Aleutians prepare to return to space, leaving behind humanity and an earth that have been shaped by their presence, their care, and their cruelty.

In the dying days of Aleutian rule, Catherine has altered her body to appear more alien, and soaks herself in the decadence of their culture. Misha idolises the Aleutians, and begins a love affair with Catherine, both desperate to forget their humanity and embrace the alien.

What will be left for the humans when the Aleutians leave? What will the Aleutians take with them from their time on earth? Could humanity have changed them as much as they changed it?

Dark, violent, political and emotional, PHOENIX CAFÉ is the third book in Gwyneth Jones’ critically acclaimed Aleutians Trilogy.

The galaxy is at war, a war between the oxygen-breathing Terran Federation of worlds and the Ginzoes, chlorine-breathing aliens. Neither side dare attack the others’ habitable worlds for fear of reprisals: the war has become a matter of spaceships firing on each other as they emerge from hyperspace.
An Earth ship is captured in battle by the Ginzoes, and its surviving crew learn that the aliens have gained possession of a newly-developed catalyst. If dropped into the oceans of oxygen planets the catalyst can liberate the chlorine from the sea and convert them to chlorine worlds suitable for the Ginzoes. The catalyst will be used unless the Terran Federation declares peace within fifty days. Fifty days to save Mankind . . . or fifty days to doom!

It is sometime I the near future. The nations of Earth have drawn closer together – there is even hope of a new era of co-operation and progress will soon begin.

These dreams of lasting peace are shattered by one momentous discovery. One of the members of an international team of scientists stationed on the moon has found an alien spacecraft – with all its incredible technology and weaponry intact. The discovery shatters the illusion of peace on Earth, as each nation joins the mad scramble to learn the terrible secrets entombed by alien visitors eons before.

Only one thing prevents total war – Werner Brecht, the discoverer of the vehicle, is the only one who knows its location, and he has disappeared into thin air.

The Expendables were criminals, offered pardons in exchange for exploring alien worlds. But their mission takes them to Kratos, where the local lifeform is giant, slimy and hostile!

A brilliant collection of original stories.

A predatory alien accidentally teleported to Earth.

A mad scientist and his imprisoned ghost.

A space traveller returns to face an accusation of murder.

In the late twentieth century, Admiral Julian 3rd can get no rest, for he knows his future. He will be reborn as his grandson in the next century to journey through space and make an ominous discovery inside the moon; he will live again in the dark years of the twenty-second century as Julian 9th, who refuses to bow down to the victorious Moon Men; and as Julian 20th, the fierce Red Hawk, he will lead humanity’s final battle against the alien invaders in the twenty-fifth century. The Moon Maid is Edgar Rice Burroughs’s stunning epic of a world conquered by alien invaders from the moon and of the hero Julian, who champions the earth’s struggle for freedom, peace, and dignity.

A space opera is what science fiction readers call an adventure in outer space and on alien planets. But a space opera could also be an opera, a musical work, that originated in outer space…

Jack Vance’s unique novel SPACE OPERA fits both definitions marvelously! Because it starts with the mysterious opera company from the equally mysterious planet Rlaru that arrives on Earth to astonish and infuriate music-lovers – and then disappears without trace!

And when Roger Wool’s wealthy aunt determined to reciprocate by bringing an Earthly operatic team into space and to the unknown world Rlaru, there unwinds a complex and surprising space opera of the first kind …filled with enigmatic aliens, weird worlds, and all the special color and cunning that is the hallmark of the best Jack Vance.

Everything was ordinary. Men worked in factories and fields. Women were shopping. Children were at school. Then came the four-minute warning. Wires hummed madly between heads of governments. Just before the massive retaliation went into the air the world realised that no-one had despatched the first rocket.

The retaliation was checked with seconds to spare. Experts examined the ruined city. There was something else besides radiation. Deadly bacteria from an unknown source spread across the planet. More alien bombs followed the first. But there was no real pattern in the attacks, if they were genuine attacks.

At last the detectors found the alien ships. They were fighting among themselves and earth was the battle-area. Could the remnants of humanity interfere? What would be the result if they did?

It was a proud moment in the earth’s history, when twenty-four dedicated volunteers set off, on that bright summer morning in 1993, to conquer the vastnesses of inter-stellar space. They did not hope to accomplish their Herculean task in the meagre span of human life. It was their descendants who would walk out onto the as yet undiscovered, planets of the alien stars… or so they dreamed.
There were dire perils ahead of them. Damage to their engines, radio-activity the invisible killer, space madness and the failure of the life giving hydroponic tanks which supplied their oxygen. Yet the worst enemy of all was the enemy within themselves. The human failure of men and women, locked in the close confines of the Star Ship.
Then there was the Alien Ship… Friend or foe?… Saviour or destroyer?

Wrestling Reptiloids is no job for milquetoasts.

Mild-mannered Terran archaeologist Keith Salazar was just minding his own business, digging up the alien past on an out-of-the-way site on the planet Kukulcan, when suddenly he was besieged by intruders on his scholarly peace: hostile natives, an indifferent ex-wife, and a demon developer with rapacious eyes glued on both his site and his true love.

In the course of protecting his dig, regaining his loved one and vanquishing his rival, Salazar will fight a giant reptilian predator bare-handed, leap into snake-filled pits, engineer the planet’s first imperial conquest, lead and train a battalion of alien riflemen and hold a séance. Pretty exciting work – but then maybe Keith Salazar wasn’t such a milquetoast after all.

From the depths of space the Seeker had come, to make the Solar system her nest. The invader was defeated, but not before the Earth was ravaged, its technology destroyed and its inhabitants reduced to barbarism. Mankind’s only chance for salvation lay with the alien Eldren – but the Eldren considered humanity primitive and savage, and so they withheld their help.

Young Benn Dain hoped to prove humanity’s worth on Mazeway, a planetary doublet whose twin worlds, Blade and Stone, were a testing ground for Eldren young. For Roxane Kwan and Diego Bolivar, Mazeway was a path to control of the dying Earth, and Dain’s quest was not part of their plans. But the Game of Blade and Stone was not designed for humans, and to survive, they would have to work together to fathom the depths of alien minds and the subtle traps of Eldren way…

Johnny Parent was driven by a furious anger – anger against the cocky aliens from outer space and anger against the company which had hired him to build the space drive which would lift the quarantine against Earth.

It was a tough problem – made tougher by the company’s double-dealing. And Johnny didn’t relish the thought of cracking it with a whip on his back and a knife at his throat.

Then he stumbled upon an eccentric young playboy, his pretty but ambitious secretary and weird little alien with colossal strength. Together they plotted the piratical flight into space which would earn Earth its due place in the Universe.

But they had to hurry – because the company’s strong men were right behind them – and the sola time clock was running out!

In the corner gas station, the local saloon, on the down-east farm, in the settings of EVERYDAY – there appear UNEXPECTEDLY THE ALIEN, THE WEIRD, THE MYSTERIOUS
The title story tells of one tearful stray from a herd of alien livestock which crushes most of Manhattan and causes apologetic herders to make amends. There is a shivery novelette about the abduction of a country wife by a hairy beast, and the story of a pickup truck full of mythical characters asking directions to Olympus. Then there are the ten-legged blue bugs from inner – or outer – space that can give you a dream – or a nightmare; the shadow-monkeys who have the absurd habit of following along and changing by what you think; the tiny angel that hatches from an egg; and the ‘wrens’ that hatch from Grandpa’s beard the summer he was 106.

George Mallory was out for a quiet day’s shooting. A typical country-man, in typical English country. His day’s sport was interrupted by the beginning of the greatest catastrophe in man’s history – an alien space ship was crashing as his feet.
The ghastly monstrosity that emerged was so hideously repulsive that no one would have guessed at the degree of intelligence and potential friendliness in its strange mind.
Mallory shot first and asked questions afterwards. With its dying strength, the alien cursed the earth with a scientific horror beyond the comprehension of man, a horror that turned the beasts against us.
The only escape seemed to lie out in space… but the devastating effect of the cosmic rays wrought havoc in the minds of the space men and the lunar expedition turned on itself in deadly carnage.
What would be the outcome of the terrible conflict between man and beast?

Anthropologist Paul Ellery discovers that the small Texas town of Jefferson Springs is actually an imitation of small-town America created by the aliens who now offer him a chance to explore the universe.

A science fantasy tale about a brilliant scientist who discovered a universe where mind rules matter, and the courageous men and women who battled treachery, rebellion and hellish alien forces, to found a colony there.

When Ben Shepherd left the Navy SEALs, all he wanted was to spend his retirement resting his battered body and finding peace for his wounded spirit.
That all ends when the starry desert night is shattered by an alien ship crashing to Earth near his remote home. The pilot is the last of a conquered civilisation, shot down by extra-terrestrial aggressors. Another war has found Ben, and when he is injected with a serum that gives him superhuman abilities, it’s a war he has no choice but to fight for the sake of the planet.
His body might be healed, but his trauma still weighs heavily on him as he becomes the reluctant leader of the only line of defence against an alien invasion. Will his broken psyche be able to stand the pressure? And what becomes of the Earth if it can’t?

IN THE “DOC” SMITH TRADITION

The planet was fine for big game hunters. And it was the tradition there that one must have a trophy before one could call oneself truly a man.

If that were all, it would hardly interest Cap Kennedy because his trophies consisted of planets saved for Terra and missions accomplished. But there was something on Eriadne which was not just a hunt trophy – something which required the presence of Kennedy and his men to check on. One of these things was a fragment of Zheltyana construction which outdated all civilisation.

But the hunt proved to be a double one – Kennedy against an unslayable monster and a lost world of monsters against Kennedy. And if he lost, it would be Terra itself that would be a trophy on some alien’s hunting lodge wall.

SPAWN OF LABAN is one of the best – a real edge-of-the-seat science fiction chiller in the tradition of Edward E. Smith and Edmond Hamilton

The alien ruins that dotted Earth’s landscape were an enigma.

Archaeologist Rond Heshke dismissed as a ridiculous hoax the photographic evidence which suggested that the ruins disobeyed the laws of time. The Titanium Legions believed that the ruins had been left behind by an invading force from space, which had been repelled in a past age and whose imminent return was feared.

It was not until the Titanium scientists perfected their time machines that the truth began to emerge piece by piece: that the builders of the ruins belonged not to the stars but to Earth’s own future, and that the dreaded confrontation was indeed shortly due – not with aliens, but in a form more horrifying, more calamitous, than anything imaginable…

For Earth was to be the victim of an extraordinary cosmic accident. Time itself was about to collide! Mankind’s leaders became even more fanatical, pressing on with new plans, determined at all costs to survive…

It could almost have been Earth – or so thought Ensign Alexander Braithwaite Jones, who crash-landed on the planet Taka, 500 light-years from the Solar System. Then he met the Hokas, a race of teddy-bear-like aliens, with the astounding ability to transform outdated Earth stories into riotous real life adventures.
From the guns and slang of an Old West saloon to a hair-raising drug bust in Victorian England led to the by a button-nosed, pipe-puffing Hokan Sherlock Holmes, the Hokas demand that Alex Jones live it all along with them.
Suddenly his ordinary military career is changed into a crazy world of intergalactic adventure, as he tries, without much success, to bring his furry, alien charges along the road to civilization, sanity, and a m ore respectable social rating in the Interbeing League.