Search Results for: human-is

In the Jesus Incident Herbert and Ransom introduced Ship, an artificial intelligence that believed it was God, abandoning its unworthy human cargo on the all-sea world of Pandora. Now centuries have passed. The descendants of humanity, split into Mermen and Islanders, must reunite… because Pandora’s original owner is returning to life!

A stunning work from the acclaimed author of Dune, the series which inspired the 2021 Denis Villeneuve epic film adaptation, Dune, starring Oscar Isaac, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Josh Brolin.

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.

Orthe – half-civilized, half-barbaric, home to human-like beings who live and die by the code of the sword. Earth envoy Lynne Christie has been sent here to establish contact and to determine whether this is a world worth developing. But first Christie must come to understand that human-like is not and never can be human, and that not even Orthe’s leaders can stop the spread of rumors about her, dark whisperings that could cost Christie her life.And on a goodwill tour to the outlying provinces, these evil rumors turn to deadly accusations. Christie is no offworlder, Church officials charge: she is a treacherous and cunning descendant of Orthe’s legendary Golden Witchbreed – the cruel, ruthless race that once enslaved the whole planet. Suddenly, Christie finds herself a hunted fugitive on an alien world, where friend and foe alike may prove her executioners. And her only chance of survival lies in saving Orthe from a menace older than time…

On the Rim planet fittingly called End of Nothing, a bizarre society of robots and humans toiled for a thousand years to perfect a religion that would create a new and all-embracing faith – no novelty in a galaxy crowded with religions. But one project was hidden from the hordes of pilgrims welcomed at Vatican-17 on End of Nothing. A group of trained human sensitives were sending their minds ranging through all of time and space, gathering information. With that information, a computer of infinite knowledge, wisdom and infallibility was being constructed in secret – the ultimate Pope.

Of the three outsiders allowed residence on End of Nothing, one was tolerated at a distance by Vatican-17, one was welcome – and one was a threat to be countered.

Decker hardly mattered. His lifeboat had landed him on the remote planet, and he kept to himself in the wilderness. Neither the human nor robot authorities knew of the unseen companion who whispered constantly in Decker’s mind.

Dr Jason Tennyson had fled the political furies of his homeworld. Here, Vatican-17’s physician had died, and Tennyson’s skills were desperately needed and well rewarded.

Jill Roberts was a journalist in quest of a sensational story she had scented. Vatican-17 knew she could not be allowed to break the news of Project Pope before it was completed – and debated two possible ways of stopping her.

The one of the Searcher sensitives threw Vatican-17 into turmoil, threatening its very existence and involving the three outsiders in a sudden power struggle between human and robot.

Drifting in unsuspecting dimensions, the woman had encountered Heaven!

Jay Vickers was an ordinary man, or so he thought. All he wanted was to be left in peace to finish his next book. However, strange things started happenin – from his discovery of a mouse that was not a mouse, to the visit of an old neighbor that was not a man. Or at least he was not an ordinary man.

For as it turned out, neither was Jay Vickers. This is the story of human mutation – the next step in the evolution of the species. What if mutants walked among us already? What if they were organized? What if they had unbelievable powers, such as the ability to cross between alternate worlds or dimensions at will, or to intuitively reach the absolutely correct answer by intuition or “hunch”, or to telepathically reach out to the stars?

Such supermen would automatically try to conquer lesser men, would they not? Or would they do everything in their power to free the rest of humanity from slavery and suffering? Just what would the political and corporate powers-that-be do to keep their power and their slaves? How would mutants undermine the power of these bosses to set mankind free?

This is a story of unlimited freedom, of worlds without end, ready for the taking. It is also the story of powerful, benevolent beings that exist only to help those who need that help. This is a future of a lop-sided mechanical culture of technology that could provide creature comfort for a few, but not human justice or security for the many. It is a future of hate, and war, and worry. Nothing like the way the world really turned out – after all, there couldn’t really be an underground of mutants working to free humanity . . . could there?

Given: Earth 400 years from now – a rotten society which mankind is doomed to die out.

A solution to the problem – an ultra-intelligent computer to govern humanity.

One man of seemingly average intelligence, but with incredible I.Q. potential.

And you have: A corrupt society turned into a world where there is no corruption, because Mother Machine knows what’s best for her human children and does it. Where that same all-powerful computer is rapidly turning men into zombies.

And where the world’s only hope turns out to be one outlawed not-average man.

The only survivor plucked from a world where life has been burned out from horizon to horizon, Rat Korga is a very unusual human. On his own world he was subjected to Radical Anxiety Termination-a synapse-jamming technique banned on many planets.

Now the officials of the Web must find a new world for him. Their first choice is the planet Velm: a world on which humans co-exist uneasily with the trisauian evelmi – and also the world of Marq Dyeth, for whom Korga is calculated to be the perfect erotic object, to about seven decimal places . . .

In the 23rd Century, out of all the races of the galaxy, only humanity has discovered the secret of travel between the stars – not so much because we’re smart, but because we are incredibly gadget-orientated. We are also, compared to the galaxy’s highest sophisticated norms, very, very tough, which most of the time does nothing for our social acceptability. But when a threat to all life in the galaxy arises from non-living biological constructs, suddenly the peculiar human virtues of valor and stubbornness make us the sword-wielding saviours of All…

Stolen from Earth by Ithaqua the Wind-Walker and transported to the alien world of Borea, a team of ERP-talented earthmen are faced with a terrible choice: join with the Thing That Walks on the Wind in his eternal war with Armandra and the People of the Plateau, and become his mindless slaces or side with Armandra and risk the perils of the Plateau – especially its Cavern of Madness!

Such a choice might seem easy, for at least the People of the Plateau are human…but is Armandra herself human As Ithaqua’s daughter, who can say which way her loyalties will turn when the chips are down and Ithaqua walks on the wind?

Pennterra is a beautiful and fertile planet and humanity’s last hope for survival. But Pennterra is already inhabited. After warning other colony ships to stay away, the small advance colony of Quakers has adapted to life on Pennterra. Heeding the empathic warnings of the native hrossa, they have settled in a single valley, sharply limited their population, and continued to use no heavy machinery in their building and farming. But surviving under these conditions has left the Quakers little time to learn more about their native neighbors. Catastrophe or peace-Tanka Wakan, the omnipotent master spirit of Pennterra, will decide.

THE DEMONS HAD TO STOP JOHN BRAVAIS

His secret assignment was simply – to save mankind from the savage dog-like ‘things’ that used their hands like men. Yet an unknown number of apparently ‘human’ beings were against him too.

First transformed by surgery into a superman, John Bravais probes ever more deeply into the secret nightmare world of the ‘things’. At last, when only his mind remains – trapped in a vast robot war machine on the moon – only by an immense act of will-power can he give humanity a future.

Between the lines of the official histories of the frontier worlds of the 29th Century lie myriad confidential accounts of the boners, near-catastrophes, and interstellar crises that were bound to occur when human meets non-human. The adventures of CDC (Corps Diplomatique Terra) diplomat Jame Retief loom large in six highly classified missions where brain and brawn save land and lives despite red-tape bound superiors amid conspiracy and conflict across alien planets – guaranteed astounding, amazing, startling, galactic, weird, and thrillingly wonderful.

A 1907 Shropshire village is visited from the future by a man looking for human wisdom in his past.

Meek and mild curate Thomas Blades discovered an alternative earth where humanity languished at the base of the food-chain. Over eventful years, Blades defeated the bestial Null master-race and carved out the empire of ‘New-Wessex’. Shedding all former inhibitions, he ascended its throne as unchallenged ‘god-king’.

Exiled in turn by overpowering new enemies – the ‘angels’ – Blades was rescued by his own descendant, Guy Ambassador, after centuries of absence. Under Blades’ strangely charmed leadership, the enigmatic and merciless angels were repulsed and humanity enjoyed a respite of liberty. But now, decades later, the venerable god-king broods in seclusion, refusing to die; the fountainhead of bitter thoughts and deeds.

Meanwhile, Wessex sinks-into anarchy and neglect. Guy Ambassador travels amongst the bickering princedoms and warring states, wavering in the faith that has cost him family, friends and home. All around him the world of New-Wessex is moving towards resolution of its ultimate destiny and reason for being. Forces beyond human comprehension invade the already baroque realm.

First came the tourists…


Ondine was a resort planet. Sixteen million tourists travelled there from just about every world you could think of to live and love in sixteen million different ways.


Then came the machists…


They had gobbled up world after world, spreading their culture to thousands of different races with a brutal, vicious, but most effective system. They were inhuman, unthinking…uncaring. The Combine had already seen what they had done on other worlds, seen whole populations converted into something horrible…something not quite human, non-thinking and no longer caring.


Now they had captured Ondine, and no human could save the planet.


And then Daniel came to Judgment.


Daniel was a cyborg, a former fighter pilot now wedded to a master computer and life-support system housed in a flying golden egg. He was the Combine scientists’ finest creation, a spaceship that could control twenty-two robot slaves. He was the perfect saviour for Ondine, but for one thing. Everyone seemed to forget that deep inside that golden egg was a very human being…

If a man from the mid-1920s had picked up today’s paper he would have mistaken it for a science fiction magazine. In the same way, if a man from the mid-1960s could be confronted with a national daily from thirty years hence he would shake his head and regard the whole thing as preposterous. Stop. Think. Wonder. Tomorrow’s commonplace was today’s miracle. Today’s commonplace was yesterday’s miracle. Most things change. Some change faster than others. Human nature changes most slowly of all. The sword has given way to the gun, but the hand that holds the gun is neither braver nor more cowardly than the hand that held the sword. The gun gives place to the heat ray and the energy blaster, but the hand still belongs to a hero or a coward. The greatest drama of the world is human drama. People are still fundamentally people. Spacemen are people. They will still have our human problems a hundred years hence. This is a story of people in the future facing our basic problems in a more complex environment.

They are saurians.
They are armed and dangerous.

On an Earth where the descendants of dinosaurs are still the dominant species, human beings have only their ingenuity to pit against the terrifying biological technology of the Yilanè. Kerrick grew up as their slave-pet: now he must rescue his embattled people with the help of the seafaring Paramutans. And in order to succeed he must place the future of the entire human species at risk…

Winter in Eden continues Harry Harrison’s acclaimed epic story of the titanic clash between two implacably opposed cultures – the saurian Yilanè and the resourceful mammals who have dared to challenge their absolute power.

They were the greatest trio of swashbuckling adventurers ever to ship out to the stars! There was giant Hal Samdu, rocklike Jay Kalam and the incomparably shrewd and knavish Giles Habibula.

Here is their first thrilling adventure – the peril – packed attempt to rescue the most important person in the galaxy, keeper of the vital secret essential to humanity’s survival in the deadly struggle against the incredibly evil Medusae…

The Legion of Space is the first self-contained novel in Jack Williamson’s epic Legion of Space series, an all-time classic of adventurous science fiction to rank with ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman saga and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

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.

‘You are an artificially constructed human being, a mobile gathering device.’
That is what the computer’s metallic voice tells Tanner when it releases him from his cell. Naked, unarmed, with no memory to guide him, he emerges into a savage world, into the ruins of Manhattan in the 23rd century where wild animals roam and men have become cannibals in a frantic struggle to survive.

Who has unleashed this chaos upon the world? Has Tanner really been dispatched to gather facts to help save the tragic remnants of humanity? Or is he to be the final instrument of its destruction?

A guilt-ridden Earth had turned Cachalot over to the few surviving cetaceans as a perpetual refuge – a planet whose surface was one great ocean, where the remnants of the whales, porpoises and dolphins could pursue their lives and perhaps even the development of an intelligence even greater than man’s.
Humans on Cachalot were strictly confined to a few islands and the floating towns, prospering from the wealth of its sea. The cetaceans seemed to have forgiven the thousands of years of terror and slaughter they had suffered – some had even befriended selected humans.
But something was destroying the towns of Cachalot – leaving no clues…or survivors.

It all began when someone tried to push Creed into the flesh pool to be ingested. The assassination failed, but Creed was never the same again. Because it launched the new cliff-dwellers of Creed’s colony onto a new course of life – which could lead to humanity’s re-emergence as Earth’s masters.

In those far future days, Earth’s masters were two trees. Not trees as we know them, but two Everest-high growths, whose sentient roots and fast-growing branches dominated every living thing on the world. Men lived between their arboreal combat.

The Earth’s population was more than eight billion. One day they were there, the next they were gone – all except the guests at a family birthday party, a small tribe of American Indians, and, of course, the robots. Technology disintegrated, the Indians went back to nature, and the rest developed new and extraordinary powers. As for the robots, some went to live with the remnants of humanity, others gathered in their own community and commenced work on the Project, work which was baffling in all its fantastic electronic complexity. Then one day a traveller returned from the stars – and the idyllic existence of the last of Earth’s humans was threatened.

Rafe Harald, a cosmonaut, attempts to combat the mysterious power that has put most of the human race into an involuntary sleep . . .