Search Results for: alien,-the

Through Katherine MacLean’s artistry and imagination you’ll soar through space, you’ll touch the stars, you’ll bask in the glow of other suns…and you will be one with

– The long-legged lawyer who suspected that he was a Martian
– The boy who became all he characters in his make-believe games
– The sewing-circle ladies who took over the world
– The alien spacemen adrift in a raindrop
– The woman who discovered the terrible secret of immortality

There are other stories in this remarkable collection, but merely to describe them might give away their plots, and that is a dastardly crime punishable by indefinite exile on mysterious, fog-shrouded Planet X!

Occupation of Earth is now in its 27th year, and relations between humanity and the dictatorial Hefn have never seemed shakier. The aliens mission is to save the planet from its human abusers; and the Baby Ban imposed by mass hypnosis has made Earth a cleaner, wilder, less crowded place. But the Ban has now lasted so long, and provoked such hatred, that when a spark is struck the situation explodes into worldwide riots on one side and retaliatory mindwipings on the other. Years of effort by the eco-spiritual Gaians, who mediate between humans and Hefn, have been destroyed.

While the Gaians regroup and brainstorm frantically in an atmosphere of doubt and danger, one obsessed Hefn and one young woman begin a radical experiment. Pam Pruitt has discovered a growing ability to acquire information by non-rational means. Childhood suffering has empowered her, in a way once understood by hunting and gathering peoples – an understanding lost with that lost lifeway – to communicate with mysterious forces through strong dreaming: to function as a shaman on behalf of her community, the human race.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, Earth teetered on the brink of ecological destruction. Then the alien Hefn came, determined to save the dying Earth – and to the Hefn, the ends always justified the means. Humans were given nine years to correct their mistakes – alone, with no recourse to the Hefn’s advanced technology. If by then the Earth’s ecology had not stabilized, the Hefn would solve the problem for good . . . by eliminating humans entirely.

But slowly, against their will, some of the Hefn became deeply involved with their human counterparts. And to the handful of people who came to know them, the Hefn made a great difference: as mentors, researchers, rulers . . . and saviors. But could those few friendships sway the Hefn to help save a despoiled planet – and the human race?

Stranded on a strange planet with a race of alien vampires!

Red O’Reilly, the hero, is among three prisoners being transported by car with a guard and a social worker on a rainy night in contemporary California. Suddenly, in a flash, the car is off the road and into the middle of a jungle – which disappears as the rain ceases, leaving them stranded in a trackless desert!

After a trek across the desert, evidently on an alien planet far from earth, they discover a strange, ruined city inhabited by a race of vampire aliens – whom they must battle for survival.

Seven billion years from now, long after the Sun has died and human life itself has become extinct, alien beings reincarnate humanity from our fossilized DNA drifting as debris in the void of deep space. We are reborn to serve as bait in a battle to the death between the Rimstalker, humankind’s reanimator, and the zotl, horrific creatures who feed vampire-like on the suffering of intelligent lifeforms.

The reborn children of Earth are told: “You owe no debt to the being that roused you to this second life. Neither must you expect it to guide you or benefit you in any way.” Yet humans choose sides, as humans will, participating in the titanic struggle between Rimstalker and zotl in ways strange and momentous.

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.”

One star-chained evening in a Manhattan bathroom, Carl Schirmer spontaneously combusts! His body transforms into light, mysteriously snatched from his banal life by an alien intelligence 130 billion years in the future. There, all spacetime is collapsing into a cosmic black hole, the Big Crunch – and a bold, cosmic destiny awaits Carl. Rebuilt from the remnants of his light by extraterrestrials for a cryptic purpose, he awakens in time’s last world, the strangest of all – the Werld.

At the edge of infinity, Carl discovers the Foke, nomadic humans who travel among the floating islands of the Werld. The Foke teach him how to live – and love – at the end of time, and he loses his heart to his plucky guide, the beautiful Evoë. Their life together in this blissful kingdom that knows no aging or disease brings them to rapture – until Evoë falls prey to the zotl, a spidery intelligence who hunt the Foke and eat the chemical by-products of their pain. In order to save his beloved from a gruesome death, Carl must return to Earth – 130 billion years earlier – where he is shocked to discover that the Earth he’s come back to is not the one he left.

Can he meet the harsh demands of his task before the zotl find him and begin ravishing the Earth?

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.”

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.”

‘She is unique. She is legend’ THE TIMES

‘A tour de force’ EVENING STANDARD

‘A wonderfully mordant analyst of human weakness’ Martin Amis

Earth, like the rest of the Known Worlds, has fallen to the Shing. Scattered here and there, small groups of humans live in a state of semi-barbarism. They have lost the skills, science and knowledge that had been Earth’s in the golden age of the League of Worlds, and whenever a colony of humans tries to rekindle the embers of a half-forgotten technology, the Shing, with their strange, mindlying power, crush them out. There is one man who can stand against the malign Shing, but he is an alien with amber eyes and must first prove to paranoid humanity that he himself is not a creature of the Shing.

‘She is unique. She is legend’ THE TIMES

‘Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart’ David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS

‘A tour de force’ EVENING STANDARD

Earth-scientist Rocannon has been leading an ethnological survey on a remote world populated by three native races: the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, the elvish Fiia, and the warrior clan, Liuar. But when the technologically primitive planet is suddenly invaded by a fleet of ships from the stars, rebels against the League of All Worlds, Rocannon is the only survey member left alive. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this newly discovered world – and finds that legends grow around him as he fights.

Somewhere in a far galaxy a being inconceivably alien is surging tumultuously from an unimaginable womb.

In a solitary prison cell on the Underworld, the vast prison-satellite in perpetual Earth-orbit, Terra Viridian is tormented by a vision, an imperative which has already driven her to an insane bloodletting.

On an Earth embalmed in peace by a ubiquitous bureaucracy, the Magician weaves his musical spells and tried to close his mind to the thoughts of others.

– just three links in a chain stretching across space and time towards a testing as awesome as it is unpredictable.

The firebird came at night – a magnificent creature whose magical cry seemed to transform objects at random. Gifted with powers of her own, Meguet tried to reach out to the bird. But at moonrise, the firebird became human, a prince cursed by dark magic. Meguet bowed to help him. But then the mystery carried her away, on alien winds, to a land far from her home…

At the edge of the world, the Luxor Desert awaits – a barren land where a sorcerer’s war rages. Where invisible dragons cast shadows over ruined castles. And where Meguet’s own fate depends upon a secret locked away in a tower for centuries…

Long before Paradise was properly colonised and investigated, one young woman was sent to explore the strange new world. Her mission – to find and rescue the discoverer of the planet, a young man obsessed with finding alien species and protecting them from rapacious humanity.

Crispin’s initial reports were positive, but became increasingly infrequent and jumbled. And then they stopped altogether. But his life support systems show green, and his hard-earned knowledge is needed.

Hetty must explore this new idyllic land, learn what she can about its tricks and dangers, and track down someone who may not want to be found, almost certainly doesn’t want help, and might even be dead.

But something is alive on Paradise…

A race of octopoid aliens visits earth to restore man’s dying beliefs, with spaceships containing the very Gods themselves. In the future the rich are allowed a four week holiday – into their own futures. A soldier wounded at the front finds his memories too terrifying to live with once his government-approved drugs are withdrawn. A young girl is convinced that mother-earth is male and dedicates her life to consummating her love for him. God is dead and the Devil makes an offer for the real estate of heaven…

These dark visions of the future by James Tiptree Jr. are a vivid, sometimes frightening foretelling of what may happen.

During the late 1970s, Tiptree lived for months on the eerie windswept shore of the Yucatan, and the true protagonist of this book is neither the Tiptree narrator nor the manifestations of ancient Maya civilization, but rather the Quintana Roo itself as a living, pulsating entity that envelops the reader within a uniquely alien ambience. Following Tiptree’s introduction are these unforgettable nouvelles of weird fantasy: “What Came Ashore at Lirios, ” “The Boy Who Waterskied to Forever, ” and “Beyond the Dead Reef.

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.

A collection of worlds of wit and wonder, including:

“AND I AWOKE AND FOUND ME HERE ON THE COLD HILL’S SIDE” – Man seeks to get into bed with anything new and different, or die trying. But when the new and different was not human…would he die trying?

“THE MAN WHO WALKED HOME” – The first-time astronaut, stuck in the far future, slid ever so slowly toward a present whose past was his future and whose future was his past…

“I’M TOO BIG BUT I LOVE TO PLAY” – If genuine aliens are to communicate meaningfully, one must make himself into an analogue of the other. But how can you tell the difference between what is human – and what is merely identical?

Contents:
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side (1972)
The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone (1969)
The Peacefulness of Vivyan (1971)
Mamma Come Home (1968)
Help (1968)
Painwise (1972)
Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion (1969)
The Man Doors Said Hello To (1970)
The Man Who Walked Home (1972)
Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket (1972)
I’ll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty (1971)
I’m Too Big but I Love to Play (1970)
Birth of a Salesman (1968)
Mother in the Sky with Diamonds (1971)
Beam Us Home (1969)

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.

Jaxie Cade continues his hunt for the fabled Phantom Planet, in the high-tech world of Lannamur and its moons. Accompanied by combat-ace, Raishe, Cade is just one jump ahead of his pursuers, the wrinkly alien Occians.

The Edge – the farthest solar system of the civilized galaxy. Its one inhabitable planet, Tallyra, is unconventional, ungovernable an teeming with crooks – and it’s where young Jaxie Cade heads when he breaks jail with stolen information that could lead him to the fabled Phantom Planet, the dream of every Edge-worlder…

But trouble is right behind Cade: trouble from the alien Occians, from whom Cade stole the information; and from Raishe – a bounty-hunter and combat-ace determined to drag Cade back to prison. And that’s before the Commonwealth Intelligence Agency turns up – or the evil, mysterious criminal, Acs, takes a hand…

The Wasteland people, fighting to save the Earth, are being driven into the fearsome radioactive Firesands by the relentless advance of the Slavers.

As Finn, Baer and the other warriors gather for a last great struggle the arrival of an alien spaceship reveals a new threat, even more deadly than the robot-like aliens.

Finn is captures and enslaved within the mighty walls of the alien Citadel, the Slavers’ mountain fortress. Relying on nothing more than his uncanny wilderness instincts, he eventually escapes only to learn the devastating truth about the Slavers and their final plans for Earth and its people.

Finn Ferral travels through the wilderness with his contingent of rebels, ever aware of the Slavers’ spywings. But his capture takes him by surprise. He is taken to the Alien Citadel, where his huntsman powers are worthless and where no human stands a chance of survival.

They had come – on the first day of the world as it now was.

They stalked over the world with cold, alien indifference.

They are the Slavers, alien invaders on an embattled Earth. In this brutal world, Finn Ferral is a young huntsman with a dangerous gift – he is wild and instinctive, more wolf or hawk than man.

When his father and sister are captured by Slavers, Finn follows – right to the heart of the Slavers’ lair…

Keill Randor, the Last Legionary of the planet Moros, and his alien companion, Glr, finally end their search for the evil that threatens the galaxy when they come face to face with the true horror of the Galactic Warlord. But even their combined power may not be enough to smash the Deathwing army and save the galaxy from destruction.

Keill Randor, the Last Legionary, and his alien companion, Glr, set course for the uninhabited planet of Rilyn in the Jitrell Federation to investigate the sinister activities of the Overseers’ deadly enemy, the Warlord, and his agents the Deathwing.

Amongst these strange and deadly life-forms on Rilyn, Keill encounters the grotesque, golden figure of the Altern, “The One”, leader of the Deathwing. In a thrilling climax, Keill must not only pit his wits against the concerted forces of the Deathwing band of warrior clones but also defend himself and Glr from the savage futy of the elements as the murderous Starwind begins to blow.