Search Results for: war-of-the-worlds,-the

In the aftermath of an interstellar war an enigmatic star is discovered, travelling towards the Solar System from the galactic core. Its appearance adds a new and dangerous factor in the turbulent politics of the inhabited worlds as the rival factions – the power-holders of the ReUnited Nations, the rebels who secretly oppose their power, and the Religious Witnesses – all see advantages to be gained.

But what awesome technology started the star on its journey half a million years ago – and why?

The son of a Civil War veteran, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific writer for the early pulp magazines. Famous the world over as the creator of Tarzan – and in SF circles for his Martian tales featuring John Carter – Burroughs is a household name. This omnibus collects the final six tales of Tarzan of the Apes – the greatest pulp hero of all time: TARZAN’S QUEST, TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY, TARZAN AND THE FOREIGN LEGION, TARZAN AND THE MADMAN and TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS.

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.

Land and Overland – twin worlds a few thousand miles apart. On Land, humanity faces a threat to its very survival – an airborne species, the ptertha, has declared war on humankind, and is actively hunting for victims. The only hope lies in migration. Through space to Overland. By balloon. The Ragged Astronauts – first volume in an epic adventure filled with memorable characters, intense action, engaging notions, exotic locales.

Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1986

War had devastated the entire eastern hemisphere. For two hundred years America had lived in civilized isolation, while Europe had lapsed into legend.

Jefferson Turck was the first man who dared recross the 30th meridian, and like Columbus centuries before him, he landed in a New World. For Europe had become the jungle home of savage beasts and her people had banded together in bloodthirsty tribes led by barbarian queens.

THE EPIC FANTASY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND CONTINUES . . .

Kieto’s destiny, set in the heavens, is to conquer the Land-of-Mists, the mysterious island discovered by Kupe, one of the great Polynesian voyagers. But he knows it won’t be easy: the wild native tribes, particularly the Scots and Picts, have two formidable advantages – iron and horses.

But Kieto has heard of a magnificent warrior race, the Maori, who live in another world and from whom he hopes to learn the secret of success in war. The gateway to this world is on the island of giants, and Kieto and his friends, Boy-Girl, Seumas and Dorcha, themselves taken years before from the Land-of-Mists, leave the safety of Rarotonga and embark on an epic voyage of discovery aboard THE PRINCELY FLOWER.

Pursued by sea-fairies, vengeful gods, power-hungry priests and, in Seumas’s case, by a murderously angry son, confronting their worst fears and supernatural horrors, the friends finally face the awesome wrath of the mighty Maori.

THE PRINCELY FLOWERS is the second wonderful volume of THE NAVIGATOR KINGS, set in the richly imaginative world of Polynesian life and myth.

A millennium from now, global warming has gone into retreat as the Sun’s dynamics convulse. The great ice returns, driving humankind back to its primitive origins. Here, bands of brutal warriors wage war in the bitter cold. Xaraf Firebridge, powerful young son of a barbarian chieftain, enrages his sire by adopting the pacifistic doctrine of an outland mystic, Darkbloom. Before he can break his vow and slay his father, he is drawn into a temporal wormline and flung a further million years into the Earth of the Failing Sun.

Clever and determined, Xaraf wanders landscapes haunted by prospects of doom and overseen by a trio of godlike Powers. Since childhood he has dreamed of a beautiful young woman. His fate, he sees, is to rescue her from captivity–and perhaps save the whole world, now moved into the outer solar system and lit by a string of tiny orbiting suns.

He has yet to meet his true foe, the dragon whose history stands opposed to humankind’s. But which will prove to be this world’s mythic Galahad?

On an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long-vanished Preservers, young Yama’s ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires.
In the dust of many crumbling bureaucracies, Yama searches for an identity and a history – awed and fearful of his ever-growing capacity to awaken the terrible machines of destruction that his world’s absent gods left slumbering. To the common folk – the unshaped and aboriginal – he is the fulfillment of age-old prophecies. To the functionaries of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, he is a weapon to be molded and used in the bloody civil war raging at the planet’s midpoint – a seemingly endless battle that pits those who revere the Preservers’ laws against the dangerous Heretics who would obliterate all antiquated values and codes of conduct.
But there are still others who have taken notice of Yama as he pursues the hidden secrets of his past. Intelligent powers older than the Builders – as old, perhaps, as the Preservers themselves – are pursuing Yama in turn. And they will stop at nothing to control his present-and, as a result, the future of everything that lives-in anticipation of the ultimate triumph of the Ancients of Days.

Sixteen humans have come together on Damien, a distant world where once, dreams were stolen and atrocities took place. They have gathered to view the last rising of a manmade nova, the testament to a war none can forget.

Soon, time will warp and masks will fall. Soon, violence will erupt anew – along with treachery, horror, murder, release and love.

Soon, some will find justice . . . and others, judgement. Soon.

Now, sixteen humans have gathered – to await the light of the Murdered Star.

The Virgin of Zesh

In which a beautiful woman, a mind-drunk poet, and a super-sober scientist must fight for their lives on a planet occupied by weird cultists from the Earth and bizarre varieties of humanoids from all over the galaxy.

The Wheels of If

In which a young lawyer is trapped in a sense-shattering shuttle among alternative worlds of possibility, and lands at last in an America that has been colonised by Norsemen and divided between two great warring empires – one white, one Indian.

Is the story of 21st Century Earth – a world where work is forgotten, where the masses fight boredom with trank pills and telly, and where it is almost impossible to leave the social class you were born in. You could break the class barrier only by hiring yourself out as a mercenary to fight in the prime-time wars that are fought to keep the telly-viewing public satisfied. That is the only way to move up the ladder – if you could stay alive long enough.

Written as a sequel to Fighters from Mars, an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells’s The War of the World, this novel weaves a distinct and astonishing story of humans invading Mars, marking the invention of the space techno-thriller. Presenting a cornucopia of technical ingenuity, Edison’s Conquest of Mars marks a variety of firsts in the genre: the first space battle ever to appear in print, the original fictional example of alien abduction, the introduction of the theory that the pyramids were constructed by extraterrestrials, and the first truly functional spacesuits.

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.

With the Great War over, the Renshai have won back the Fields of Wrath. As the survivors limp homeward, Tae Kahn–Subikahn’s father–fears that a far larger and fiercer wave of enemy soldiers is headed toward them.

One Kjempemagiska and an army of their man-sized servants nearly defeated the entire Continent. This time, Tae is certain the ranks will include hundreds of these strong, magical, island-dwelling giants. The only hope for the peoples of the Continent is to regather their war-weary troops and convince the few magical beings of their own world to assist them.

It becomes a race against time as Tae, his friends, and his family struggle to convince the Continental generals of the danger; attempt to turn reluctant, antagonistic mages and elves into allies; spy on the giant Kjempemagiska sorcerors; and seek some means to defeat an enemy powerful beyond contemplation.

Most of the problems were solved in the 29th century. War was a memory. Disease was almost conquered. Old age and Death were held at bay. It was a glad world. A brave new world. Humanity had grown up. And then It came… At first the dare-devil pioneers from the far-flung corners of the universe brought back strange tales of a mountain that walked. The reign of terror spread from planet to planet, until the authorities sat up and took notice. By the time someone with enough initiative to re-open the long disused weapon shops, came on the scene, it was almost too late. Time was against them. Atomic bomb wouldn’t smash that creature, neither would heat rays nor energy bolts. It left a train of utter chaos and devastation behind it as it strode imperiously through the galaxy.

As guardian of the Universe’s freedom from the domination by the Cyclan, Earl Dumarest is ruthlessly hunted by their agent, Cyber Broge, as he searches for the fortune necessary to finance his epic quest for Terra – the planet of his birth. Hunter and fugitive, predator and victim, Earl Dumarest lands on the planet Zakym.

ZAKYM – a cadaverous, twin-sunned world where the spectres of the dead daily claim the lives of the living; a decadent world that threatens to explode with the unparalleled violence of civil war and broken taboos.

ZAKYM – home of the beautiful, haunted Lavinia whose soul is claimed and condemned by a power-crazed madman.

Both Lavinia and her planet are doomed until a man appears who promises to be their saviour. Dumarest is the only person capable of challenging the terrifying menace of the Cyclan and the terrors of Zakym. But can even he triumph against such foes?




(First published 1977)

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?

A small cube of black rock has been unearthed in a 3500-year-old Mycenaean tomb. An incomprehensible object in an impossible place; its age, its purpose, and its origins are unknown. Its discovery has unleashed a global storm of intrigue, theft andespionage, and is pushing nations to the brink of war. Its substance has scientists baffled. And the miracle it contains does not belong on this Earth.

It is mystery and madness — an enigma with no equal in recordedhistory. It is mankind’s greatest discovery … and worst nightmare. It may have already obliterated a world. Ours is next.

This stunning collection showcases 11 of Haldeman’s best stories. They range through time and space from planets beyond our wildest dreams to a nightmare future Earth all too close to home.

Lindsay and the Red City Blues: A story of revenge – with a heart-stopping twist in the tail.

Blood Brothers: A ‘Thieves World’ story.

You Can Never Go Back: A self-contained story from the original version of ‘The Forever War’, never before published in book form.

And ten more sharp and startling visions of tomorrow.

Out of body, out of time…

Though basically a skeptic, William Reynolds had known out-of-body experiences in the past. But never before had he floated past the boundaries of Baltimore . . . and across the borders of time. And now, with the fires of Civil War looming on the horizon, the astonished graduate student was hobnobbing with none other than the dark poet Edgar Allan Poe. But their meeting of minds was to have chilling consequences. For a desperate Confederacy planned to use them both to remold the world – and to change history…for the worse.

Fourteen stories – including “Radiant Green Star”, winner of the 2001 Locus Award for Best Novella – make up this classic collection. Leading off the book is the Nebula Award-winning title story, in which a poor Honduran hunter is coerced into tracking the forbidden “Black Jaguar of Barrio Carolina.” Futuristic war, menacing wind spirits, parallel worlds, a six-thousand-foot dragon: this collection proves that Shepard is neither genre fantasist not strict realist, but one of the most intriguing writers we have today.

The Roman Empire never fell. Riven by political ambition and internal dissent, thrown into turmoil by rebellion and civil war, it changed and adapted, and somehow it survived. The balance of power between Constantinopolis in the east and Roma in the west ebbed and flowed, but the Empire endured. And it continued to expand, encountering the New World while still dominating the old.

Robert Silverberg’s superbly accomplished and ambitious novel explores over fifteen hundred years of Roman history through the very human stories of some of those who lived it. The young soldier encountering the exoticism of the New World for the first time; the minor official exiled to Arabia, for some misdemeanour, whose meeting with a religious fanatic may have changed the course of history; the military hero seizing his destiny; the innocent British aristocrat witnessing at first hand the bloody destruction of the royal family, and the children who find the last emperor in a decaying house in an old wood are all vividly and memorably portrayed.

Dakos was an alien humanoid who hated earth; he detested the planet; its people were anathema to him. He loathed its cities; its countryside was an abomination to him. He lived for one thing only… the destruction of the world which had rejected him.
Dakos was no mean enemy. His hatred was allied to a brilliant mind and a very superior technology. He was a man of action… highly destructive action!
Security agents Blanthus and Croberg were after him, but Dakos covered his tracks with all the cunning of a diabolically clever homicidal maniac.
He could so easily pass as a terrestrial humanoid.
…Are you sure that man sitting beside you in the bus isn’t the alien? What’s in that case?
His clothes? His lunch? His business documents? Or an alien bomb?
This is the story of a world reeling from a war of nerves with a sinister secret enemy.

He was a mysterious cosmic presence who came out of nowhere with the incredible promise to free the dying planet.

Earth’s future is one of peace. There are no more wars, nuclear weapons are outlawed, and technology is raising mankind to new heights. Many cities are now underground. Alain von Bek is a bastard of distinguished lineage working an unassuming job with city administration in the underground city of Switzerland. But with the appearance of a massive clownish figure calling himself the Fireclown, Alain’s life and the course of Earth’s future are both about to change.

The Fireclown claims to hold the keys to mankind’s salvation. He carries an undeniable charisma that is winning him followers, chief among them Helen Curtis, Alain’s cousin and former lover, not to mention serious candidate in the next presidential election. But there are also those who mistrust the Fireclown. At the forefront of this opposition is Minister Simon von Bek, Alain’s grandfather, and Helen’s chief competition in the forthcoming election.

Gradually, Alain finds himself sucked into a game of chess between these three polarizing forces, but each new revelation raises new questions, about his past and that of the world’s future. He will have to put his trust in someone, and time is running out-for him and the world.