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The human race is in decline, is withdrawing into protective city shells. Could contact with civilised aliens revive the probing curiosity once the hallmark of human achievement? Are there any such beings in the Universe? If there are, can they be contacted?

The beginnings of an answer, oddly enough, begins to form when Alex Craven sets out in search of his girlfriend Nicole and finds her working in the marshlands of the Angles. Reluctantly he becomes involved in her work. She is experimenting with empathic communication between twins. Eventually, accompanied by one of two particularly gifted twins, he leaves Earth for New Carthage.

In that strange world a shadow-line civilisation is in perpetual slow motion to avoid the intolerable daytime heat. But what lies beyond the shadow line . . . ?

Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of Torturers, flees from exile. In a mountain wilderness

Severian, the disgraced apprentice torturer, has reached his place of exile – Thrax, the city of Windowless Rooms, where he must take up his post as Lictor, executioner and torturer. However, he flees the city and heads into the mountains. There he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live on, adopts a son only to lose him in battle and discharges an old debt to vengeance. As his exile takes stranger and stranger turns, he encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and meets the mysterious Dr Talos . . .

Imagine an Earth totally dominated by an alien race.

Imagine that humans and their technology are completely powerless against these invaders.

Imagine a world in which people are nothing more than cattle to their new masters.

Now imagine that one man discovers a key that might free mankind, but he must learn how to care and how to love before he can believe in that key.

The ancient starship La Chasse Gallerie is found drifting perilously in space. Despite heavy damage from alien Laagi warships, incredibly the ship is till intact and the voice of its pilot, Raoul Penard, comes through loud and clear.

But Petard died over one hundred years ago.

On Earth, frantic investigation reveals that Petard may be dead but his mind is very much alive, merged with the ship itself. The staggering potential of this evolutionary breakthrough compels the scientists to embark on a technological journey of astonishing discovery.

The Ruml were highly intelligent creatures. They had an elaborate civilisation, advanced technology and a strict moral social code – moral according to their values. They had already over-run six worlds, exterminated the native life and colonised the planets.

But an ordinary citizen of Earth, Jason Barchar, was able to penetrate the mind, think the thoughts, see the sights, feel the sensations of one of the Ruml. And on Jason depended the fate of the world – for the Ruml were preparing to invade Earth.

An international agency, COSMOS, is in charge of space exploration in the not very distant future. Odd forms of life have been discovered on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter; there may be a life form on Mercury; and finally something utterly mystifying is discovered on the moon. Three astronauts land and examine an installation that all three perceive as radically different – one sees a heap of gold, one a fort bristling with guns, one a space platform and space craft. They return to Earth with some crystals picked up at the mystery site.

All three soon produce children – the moon children, gifted, precocious, and seemingly damned by the crystals their fathers had handled. Two are eerily beautiful, the third a grotesque monster. And the three soon discover that they are Earth’s hope for survival, as interplanetary invasion brings overwhelming alien forces to bear on mankind.

One man fights those who quarantine Earth from alien cultures.

Winner of the Nebula Award for best novel, 2005
Winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award 2004

Unknown to anyone, two creatures have wandered the Earth for generations. The aliens have no knowledge of each other, but share a residual memory of a mysterious, sunken relic – and an affinity for deep water. One, the changeling, has survived by adaptation, taking the shapes of many different organisms. The other, the chameleon, has survived solely by destroying anything or anyone that threatens it.

Now, finally brought up from the bottom of the sea by marine biologist Russell Sutton, the relic calls to them both . . . to come home. For all these generations there have been two invincible creatures on Earth. But the chameleon has decided there’s only room for one . . .

Jacque LeFavre is a tamer – a member of one of the tough and honed exploration teams that, since the dramatic discovery of the Levant-Meyer Translation, humankind has been able to send to the stars. And Jacque’s first world is the second planet out from Groombridge 1618. It isn’t an especially promising place; the planets accompanying small stars rarely pan out. But the strange and mysterious creature that Jacque and his colleagues find there, with its gift of telepathy, leads to contact with the alien and enigmatic L’vrai, and confronts humankind with an awesome opportunity – and appalling danger.

William Mandela is a genetic throwback, one of the small group of humans who fought and survived the Forever War. They returned to find humanity has evolved into a group mind called Man.

Surrounded by a society that is too autocratic and intrusive, living a dull existence which cannot compare to the certainties of combat and feeling increasingly alienated, the veterans plan an escape to the future by means of space travel and relativity. But when their ship starts to fail, their journey becomes a search for the Unknown, the elusive entity responsible.

Remote, mysterious and deadly, Verdia is a world from which no one has ever returned.
But Jan Hazard is convinced his brother could still be alive and Petra knows Jan can’t make it alone…on the Killer Planet.
Together they go in search for survivors – only to find themselves the next victims, trapped by the malign forces of a monstrous alien…

The chronicle of adventures of the survey ship Sarafand as it journeys through space exploring and mapping newly-discovered planets.

The mission brings them into contact with man startling life-forms and menacing aliens. On one world the Sarafand sends out six survey modules and seven return: one of them is a shape-changing malevolent alien – but which?

On another planet they discover a humanoid civilisation which can move around in time. Suddenly the Sarafand investigators are marooned millions of years in the past.

Finally the Sarafand and its crew are stranded in a distant galaxy where everything – including them – is shrinking inexorably to zero size…

Shot at by aliens, eaten up by monsters, frozen up, burned up and shipped all over the galaxy¿ war was one game Private Peace didn’t want to play. So why had he joined the Space Legion?

Warren Peace had joined the Space Legion to forget – exactly what, he hadn’t the faintest idea. But he was sure about one thing – however horrific the crime he’d once committed, the memory of it could hardly be more unbearable than life in the lunatic Space Legion. Private Peace knew he’d got to get out¿

The trouble was, the only way to escape his 30-year contract was to discover exactly why he’d signed it in the first place. And that meant a hair raising journey into his forgotten past to meet the one person Peace definitely didn’t want to know – Warren Peace Mark I – in other words, himself!

The Best of Philip E. High

Welcome to the Bizarre Imagination of Philip E. High.

-A world without laws where the basest criminal activity flourishes unchecked in a dog-eat-dog society;
-When the crew of a submarine find themselves flung millions of years into the past the consequences are devastating;
-The minds of the entire population of a city are infected by the thoughts of a madman, and become insane themselves – and the contagion is spreading;
-Mankind is facing extinction by an alien race of mind-readers who can anticipate man’s every counter attack.

Here is the first-ever collection of the greatest short stories of one of Britain’s finest-ever SF writers – Philip E. High! Already well know on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer of many exciting adventure novels, these twelve stories reveal High as a true literary craftsman. A major science fiction event that is not to be missed!

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 . . . ?

Moon dust that comes alive in an attempt to destroy the invaders from Earth . . .

A diabolical snare set on a fiery star for a desperate inter-galactic fugitive . . .
An alien ‘primitive’ life form that has the last laugh on condescending space-men . . .

This is a perverse Pandora’s box of startling surprises and deadly perils – nine breakthrough stories by one of the most exciting and imaginative talents of SF

Stranded on an alien planet, light years from home, wandering from blistering heat to searing cold, Nils Kruger was not a happy man. So when he met another being – even though it wasn’t human – things seemed to be looking up. The alien might be helpless, or it might be dangerous, but one thing was for sure – they stood a better chance for survival if they worked together.

But as the two creatures overcame their mutual suspicion, as they worked together, as the language barrier was broken down, Nils came to a terrifying conclusion – this alien was more intelligent than a human. And to it, Nils was the alien.

Gastel Etzwane had held total power in the Land of Shant: the brooding musician, turned man of action with his corps of Brave Free Men, rid the land of slavery and alien invaders in one masterful stroke-only to discover the greatest threat of all – alien parasites of inconceivable intelligence and unfathomable purpose. Their expulsion from Shat has been celebrated by all, but Etzwane is uneasy. For wild rumours come out of the hidden land of Caraz-and once again the musician must don the cloak of action, setting out on a dangerous quest for knowledge that will take him farther than he ever wanted to go: to the grim reaches of a hideously alien world, there to learn the secret of the Asutra!

Getting back to Earth from the planet Tschai involved only stealing a spaceship or having one built to order – for Tschai was the abode of several intelligent star-born races and, as such, had spaceyards. But Adam Reith’s problem was not so simple. He’d already been lucky to escape the Chasch and the Wannek, and a dozen different types of humans, and now his course led directly to the Great Sivishe Spaceyards in the domains of the Dirdir. But the Dirdir were quite different from the other aliens who competed for this world. They were quicker, more sinister, and had an unrelenting thirst for hunting victims like Adam Reith. The closer he came to his objective, the keener their hunting instincts would become!

Hugo and Nebula award winner Anderson incorporates two stories he wrote for the Asimov’s Universe series into this absorbing posthumous novel, a fast-paced space opera that never lets the reader forget that aliens are alien. At a time when nearly immortal humans have colonized the galaxy, various space-faring species commingle freely and the residents of Earth have become as alien to other humans as true ETs, an astronomical event that may affect all existence is about to take place. Unfortunately, only one set of aliens knows what that event is and their ruling dictatorship is hell-bent on keeping it that way. Lissa Windholm, an Earth woman with a spirit of adventure men find attractive, is determined to uncover the mystery and share the knowledge with everyone. Lissa and her partner Karl, a tyrannosaurus-like scientist, make some startling archaeological discoveries on the planet Jonna about beings known as the Forerunners, but a psychologically scarred starship captain and an impressively ancient and profit-minded human rogue have other plans for the relics.

At the world’s end, all love is timeless, and all age-old disputes irrelevant . . .

Jherek Carnelian, however, is in danger of taking reality too seriously, and grows tired of his pleasures. Perhaps a hunt for aliens could lift his spirits? Or better yet, a journey through time? Ah, yes! The past! So complicated and strange – especially with its scarcity of time machines for a return trip! But regardless of the dangers, the past does hold one irresistible lure: Mrs Amelia Underwood, for whom the Hero at the End of Time risks all.

Early in the 21st century the world is enjoying an uneasy peace, with a distinct division between the “straight” society and the various fringe groups that go to form the Byworld.

Tension grows, however, over the presence of an alien spaceship that is orbiting the world, bearing a single occupant – the Sigman. It appears that no-one knows how to communicate with the Sigman; no-one knows the purpose of his visit. Until two people – one “straight” and the other a Byworlder – solve the problems involved; and in so doing trigger off a series of violent plots and counterplots that mount to a frenetic climax.

Earth had changed since the days when her proud space fleets spanned the void of Space. Now her people were packed and packaged tight on Earth, their freedoms exchanged for a promise of stability by a multi-armed autocratic government. Then one small band of people led by a fanatic saw there was one last chance for Man to make his place in the Universe. But to take that chance they had to fight, not only the mighty grip of the government, but the terrible, generation-long voyage fraught with risk. And then, the new planet – strange, challenging, alien…

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.