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The Rod of Light: The Soul of the Robot Book 2 (SOUL OF THE ROBOT)
by Barrington J. BayleyRobot evolution has advanced to the point that intelligent robots have liberated themselves from servitude, defending themselves from servitude, defending themselves against the humans who work to exterminate them using super-machines.The ultimate hope of the most powerfully intelligent robots lies in the attainment of human consciousness. And they are willing to steal men's souls if they must, to get this final elusive quality for themselves.Only one free robot, Jasperodus, has been granted true consciousness - a soul - by his maker, now long dead. Brought into the soul research project by force, Jasperodus faces a moral dilemma: to release his secret and bring about the final downfall of humanity to a new race of super-robots, or to keep his own kind forever from the light of consciousness. And the mechanized armies of the humans press ever forward, seeking the robot hideout.
The Snows of Ganymede: Psychotechnic League Book 2 (PSYCHOTECHNIC LEAGUE)
by Poul AndersonWhen the Order of Planetary Engineers sent Hall Davenant to Ganymede for a terraforming survey, they knew that the job on the airless, frigid Jovian moon would be tough. Changing it to resemble Earth - with fertile land, water and good air - was the biggest and most important planet conversion job ever attempted by the Engineers. But they hadn't counted on the already too Earthlike behaviour of the Ganymede colonists, who had never altered the ancient Earth-born habits of intrigue, bigotry and double-dyed treachery!
Starman's Quest
by Robert SilverbergThe Lexman Spacedrive gave man the stars - but at a fantastic price. Interstellar exploration, colonisation, and trade became things of reality. The benefits to Earth were enormous but, because of the Fitzgerald Contraction, a man who shipped out to space could never live a normal life on Earth again. Travelling at speeds close to that of light, spacemen lived at an accelerated pace. A nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri and back seemed to take only six weeks to men on a spaceship. When they returned, their friends and relatives had aged enormously in comparison, old customs had changed, even the language was different. Alan was a spacer, just like his whole family - until, suddenly and without intending to, he in turn jumped ship and remained on Earth. There were times he regretted that. Earth was a bewildering and utterly hostile place. To stay alive, he had to play a ruthless game - and he couldn't even find anyone to tell him the rules. . . .First published in 1958.
Stepsons of Terra
by Robert SilverbergIt had been five hundred years since the distant Terran Colony of Corwin had communicated with Earth. But now Corwin was threatened by the indomitable warriors of Klodni and the peaceful planet desperately needed help. Baird Ewing was the ambassador chosen by his people to find that help and save Corwin from destruction.But Earth had changed . . .Ewing found a decadent world of worthless pleasure-seekers devoid of hope and incapable of help. The only remaining vestige of the old world on Earth was to be found in the College of Abstract Science. It was Ewing's last hope. If he failed it was the end of the line for him, Corwin - and the galaxy.First published in 1958.
Supernatural Stories featuring The Golden Warrior (Supernatural Stories)
by Patricia Fanthorpe Lionel Roberts Lionel FanthorpeWho is the mysterious Golden Warrior lingering near the ancient burial grounds? And what strange apparition haunts the dreaded Goodwin sands?Another spinetingling collection from the prolific pen of R L Fanthorpe!
The Time Kings
by John Glasby J.B. DexterThey came out of the long grey ages of Time, killing and plundering, and their object was to take back captives to appease the blood-thirsty mobs. The city was burning when Paul Sanders drove into it that wet and foggy evening, the streets filled with tall, cruel-faced warriors.Taken prisoner by them, he and a handful of others found themselves transported in Time to the world of a million years hence. A strange world filled with the weirdest anachronisms where a superstitious people were held in thrall by three men, the Time Kings, who alone knew the secret of time travel.The ancient knowledge had been destroyed by a people smarting under utter defeat. During the long ages there had been three Interstellar Empires when Earth had reigned supreme throughout the galaxy, but it remained for a group of men from the early dawn of the Atomic Age to overthrow the anarchy which prevailed and to restore Earth to her previous position of greatness, leading the people back to the stars which were their destiny.
To Marry Medusa
by Theodore SturgeonIt came from outer space . . .The Medusa, the intergalactic conqueror, a hive-like being with a consuming appetite to absorb all life in the universe.Now the Medusa had reached Earth. It had taken control of its first human being. Through him it would possess all his fellows.But there was one thing the Medusa had not reckoned on. One tiny factor in the complex human equation. A desperate last chance for the stubborn and independent creature known as Man to save himself . . .
The Tower of Zanid
by L. Sprague deCampWelcome back to the planet Krishna - a wilderness of blue woods under three moons, where square-riggers sail the treacherous inland seas, where fierce humanoid natives with feathery antennae cross swords in endless war, and where a Terran outside the confines of the spaceport is strictly on his own!The Tower of Zanid is the seventh book of L. Sprague de Camp's Viagens Interplanetarias series - interplanetary romance in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian Tales.
The Triumph of Time: Cities in Flight Book 4 (Gateway Essentials)
by James BlishWhen the scientists of the wandering planet, journeying through inter-galactic space, heard the sound of hydrogen atoms coming into existence out of nothing, they realized that they had accidentally discovered the birthplace of continuous creation. They had lifted the curtain and caught an instant's glimpse of the unknowable. But to have looked it full in the face could have been no more fatal. For later, much later, they were to learn that they had also uncovered mankind's Day of Judgment . . .
Vor
by James BlishThe glowing ovoid plummeted downward, the whole sky screaming like a metallic banshee as the air boiled away from its sides.A supersonic bang broke over the forest, but the thing was already gliding down to Earth. As the ovoid settled in among the trees, the entire forest burst into flames.A thin black line appeared and etched a perfect circle on the side of the metal egg, then thickened into a door. The air was rent by a searing hiss. Slowly, the strange being - soon to be known to all mankind as VOR - began to emerge . . .
War with the Gizmos
by Murray LeinsterThe first battles began in the wilderness. The animals in the forests and glades struggled furiously for life and often fought with splendid courage. But they never won; they were always killed. And now it was man's turn...
The World Makers
by John C. Maxwell John GlasbyEarth had been destroyed, but man had built his colonies on Mars and Venus and the far-flung moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Mutation and forced breeding had changed these people so they were no longer human. Clyde Lester, the last man on Earth, had a special problem. From somewhere in space there originated strange radio signals which could only come from beyond the orbit of Pluto, the outermost planet.
200 Years to Christmas
by J. T. McIntoshFor almost two centuries the huge spaceship had speared its way through the stars, bound for another two hundred years of travel before it would put down on a new planet, a new home for the Earth people.On board the metal-enclosed worldlet were four hundred people: the last survivors of Earth. It was up to them to start life anew, to correct the mistakes their ancestors made.But as the tenth generation neared maturity, the idle passengers found themselves face to face with these same problems - and this time there was no place to run and hide or to postpone their answers. For their miniature society was changing faster and faster. An the spaceship suddenly seemed destined to end as a star-bound coffin.
Alien From The Stars
by Patricia Fanthorpe Lionel Fanthorpe R L FanthorpeCan it be that of all the billions of probably planets, revolving around strange suns, in far corners of the Universe, ours is the only home of intelligent life? If life has managed to come into being elsewhere on some bizarre, grotesque world, just how strange and alien will that life be? What if its own planet is dying? It would need a new environment, and the questing ships of its explorers would traverse the void. What if they find Earth and decide that it suits their purpose perfectly... except for man? How would the battle be fought and who would win?
Barrier 346 (Fanthorpe Sci-Fi Collection)
by Karl Zeigfried Lionel Fanthorpe Patricia FanthorpeIf we can access Hyperspace – the Fourth Dimension – it holds out unlimited travel possibilities: through time as well as space. In Barrier 346, Captain Keriot and his crew, aboard the XQ9, experience the enigmatic greyness of that mysterious realm beyond our three-dimensional cosmos. They face not only the weirdness of Hyperspace, but the threatening presence of a supremely advanced life-form, the Flargos, that lives there, and is pursuing the XQ9. Can any barrier protect them from the supremely intelligent Flargos? Can they ever escape from the Fourth Dimension and resume their normal lives aboard the XQ9 ?
The Brink
by John BrunnerEd Carter, a New York reporter on his way to his home town in Omaha for a short vacation, saw the missile in the last moments in its journey back to earth. A sweller on the brink, like all of us, he had no doubt about what it was; Oh God, he thought, this is it. The blast of the impact flung him some distance, and when he regained consciousness, his first reaction was one of surprised to find himself still alive, and not, it seemed, even badly hurt. Presumably the missile had been directed at the big Air Force base nearby, and should have destroyed everything and everyone within a radius of miles. Could it have failed to explode?Carter sees the remains of part of the missile in an adjacent field and hobbles over to it. A minute or two later several Air Force officers arrive. They examine the remains, and find the burned-up body of a pilot. In other worlds, the missile was not Russia's first shot in the Third World War, but a failure to launch a man into space. But Carter knows that the Distant Early Warning line will have reported the missile; that the senior Air Force officers, in accordance with plan, will have taken to the air - in the country's interest, their lives must, of course, be preserved if possible; that by now the retaliatory American bombers will have passed the point of no recall; and that the Third World War has begun. Not so, Colonel Ben Goldwater tells him: "I called the bombers back."Goldwater, the man who had been left in command, has saved the world - for at least a little longer. So he becomes a world hero? Not a bit of it. On the contrary: a nightmare looms ahead both for him and for Ed Carter, and the reader watches it all with growing fury...
The Changeling Worlds
by Kenneth BulmerOn the gold-symbol world of Beresford's Planet, Richard Kirby lived in total luxury. As a member of "The Set" his life was a never-ending round of planetary party-hopping. The only restriction imposed on him - that he never put down on any world marked with a red or black symbol - was something that he had always accepted without question.That is, until his brother Alec was murdered in cold blood! Alec had been an undercover agent to those forbidden planets, and in order to avenge him, Kirby had to find out for himself what was really happening there.But with the start of his investigation, Kirby found out quickly that the authorities meant business when they said "Hands off!" The secret they were protecting was of vital importance, and it now became a matter of life and death, not only to Kirby, but to all the inhabitants of THE CHANGELING WORLDS.
Chaos (Fanthorpe Sci-Fi Collection)
by Thornton Bell Lionel Fanthorpe Patricia FanthorpePhilosophers, theologians and psychic investigators have wondered for centuries about the possible existence of elemental spirits. Could immensely powerful and mysterious entities live without physical bodies? Do they drift across wild, lonely deserts and high above the summits of remote mountains? Do they glide over the wave crests of far-off seas and oceans? Ancient folklore and mythology are peopled by strange, powerful, psychic beings such as the djinn and the devas. Could they be elemental spirits of this type? Has modern human thought advanced too far beyond myth and magic and supernatural entities? What if a bizarre elemental spirit, possessing immense power, burst like a hurricane into lucid contemporary life? “Chaos” describes what happens when rational, contemporary society is confronted by such a being. Can logic and science defeat a terrifying elemental spirit?
The Dark Millenium
by John Glasby A.J. MerakPlanet Earth was finished, its surface seared by nuclear heat, its great cities obliterated, its billions of inhabitants dying or dead. Only a few pockets of survivors remained. For all but a few it was only a matter of time. Then into the poisoned atmosphere of Earth there flashed a mysterious craft from somewhere deep in space. It landed, a small number of Earth people were taken aboard, then the craft disappeared into the great void. During the dark millennium which followed a strange experiment was conducted. When it was complete, another space craft took off for Earth...
Dawn of the Mutants
by Patricia Fanthorpe Lionel Roberts Lionel FanthorpeDan Bellamy was down and out. It seemed that he had reached the end of the road... and then he met the stranger. Who was the mystery man? Why were his amber eyes so powerful? Above all why did he call himself Melchizdek? The stranger took him to a house, and then the mystery deepened. What was going on in the hidden laboratory? Why were M.I.5 so interested? These men were different. They possessed uncanny mental powers. They had a weird control over matter that was outside any known physical laws. Then Bellamy asked himself the $64,000 question. Was he one of them? And if he was, what were they? Mutation is well-known, though still only partially understood, biological phenomena. Atomic radiations cause strange changes in the genes and chromosomes of plants and animals. They might also change men.... To find out just how strange these changes would be, you must read "Dawn of the Mutants". A superb science fiction story - that might be fact.
Dawn of the Mutants (Fanthorpe Sci-Fi Collection)
by Lionel Roberts Lionel Fanthorpe Patricia FanthorpeDan Bellamy was down and out. It seemed that he had reached the end of the road… and then he met the stranger. Who was the mystery man? Why were his amber eyes so powerful? Above all why did he call himself Melchizdek? The stranger took him to a house, and then the mystery deepened. What was going on in the hidden laboratory? Why were M.I.5 so interested? These men were different. They possessed uncanny mental powers. They had a weird control over matter that was outside any known physical laws. Then Bellamy asked himself the $64,000 question. Was he one of them? And if he was, what were they? Mutation is well-known, though still only partially understood, biological phenomena. Atomic radiations cause strange changes in the genes and chromosomes of plants and animals. They might also change men…. To find out just how strange these changes would be, you must read “Dawn of the Mutants”. A superb science fiction story – that might be fact.
The Dawning Light
by Randall Garrett Robert SilverbergThe Earthmen came to Nidor and the most important thing they brought with them was - change.Change in old-age ways of living. Change in a culture that had been static for centuries. But they were not unopposed for there was a strong underground reactionary movement which believed that the planet was destined to disappear completely into violent chaos - unless something was done about it.
The Enemy Stars: There Will Be Time, The Enemy Stars, And Fire Time
by Poul AndersonThey built a ship called the Southern Cross and launched her to Alpha Crucis. Centuries passed, civilisations rose and fell, the very races of mankind changed, and still the ship fell on her headlong journey toward the distant star.After ten generations the Southern Cross was the farthest thing from Earth of any human work - but she was still not halfway to her goal.Here is an absolutely absorbingly exciting tale of the far future from one of the giants in the field of Science Fiction writing.
Fiends (Fanthorpe Sci-Fi Collection)
by R. L. Fanthorpe Lionel Fanthorpe Patricia FanthorpeFiends tells the story of humanity’s early attempts at space travel, attempts that are interfered with by invaders from the depths of inter-galactic space – a sinister race of enormous monster ants, who have been observing Earth for millennia… The details of UFO observations are completely authentic, as are the facts behind the strange mystery of the Mary Celeste, which plays an integral part in the story. Professor Bram Stewart and his colleague George Zoman provide the essential academic input to get their space capsule safely launched. When pioneering space pilot, Charles Rogerson, is captured by the giant ants, his friend, Lance Gordon, sets out on a daring rescue mission.
A for Anything
by Damon KnightWe call it a gismo.That's right, a gismo.A bit difficult to describe. Like a cross, I suppose, without the top part. Sort of two arms on a stand.What happens is this. You hang something on one arm. Anything at all. A watch, a bracelet, money, anything. I supposed you could hang a locomotive on, only it's a bit heavy.But anyway you hang something on and there on the opposite arm appears an exact replica. And I mean exact.You can't tell the difference.So nobody need make anything any more. What you need you hang on the gismo. No work. No want. No starvation. No nothing.When you've got a gismo, you've got everything.