Set against a backdrop of Cold War paranoia, this futuristic novel about identity and technology is “one of the unrecognized classics of SF” (Locus). East and West have fused into separate superstates known as the Allied National Government (ANG) and the Soviet International Bloc (SIB). As the Cold War rages, brilliant scientist Lucas Martino works on a top-secret project known only as K-Eighty-eight that could alter the balance of world power. The project goes horribly awry at an Allied research facility near the Soviet border, and Martino is abducted. After several months of tense negotiations, he returns severely injured from the lab explosion, and under pressure from America, undergoes extensive reconstructive surgery. He has a mechanical arm. His polished metal skull—a kind of craniofacial prosthesis—contains few discernable features. Several of his internal organs are artificial. While his fingerprints are identified as belonging to Lucas Martino, they could be the result of transplant. Is he the real Martino? Or a technologically altered imposter sent by America’s enemies for the purpose of spying and infiltration? Tasked with uncovering the truth, ANG Security Chief Shawn Rogers makes some shocking discoveries. Narrated in chapters alternating between Rogers and Martino, Who? poses existential questions about the human condition.
Teenager Clifford "Kip" Russell wins second prize in a soap jingle contest, a used worn spacesuit, and, while trying on his prize in his backyard, suddenly finds himself on a space odyssey as a prisoner aboard the ship of a space pirate, headed toward the Moon and a series of encounters with many bizarre creatures and situations. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
A man wakes up after a fatal car accident—in someone else’s body—in this ahead-of-its-time Hugo Award–nominated classic. Thomas Blaine remembered the car accident that killed him—and then he woke up in the hospital. A nurse told him where he was. “You’d call it being in the future.” A future where bodies are sold to the highest bidder as new homes for the minds of the rich, who are greedy for more life when their own bodies wear out or are damaged. Suddenly, keeping body and soul together has taken on a new, and very sinister, meaning. From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was “a precursor to Douglas Adams.”
Throughout the Fourteen Worlds of humanity, no race is as feared and respected as the Dorsai. The ultimate warriors, they are known for their deadly rages, unbreakable honor, and fierce independence. No man rules the Dorsai, but their mastery of the art of war has made them the most valuable mercenaries in the known universe. Donal Graeme is Dorsai, taller and harder than any ordinary man. But he is different as well, with talents that maze even his fellow Dorsai. And once he ventures out into the stars, the future will never be the same....
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 . . . ?
A gifted gambler fights to survive on a hostile planet in this classic novel from the creator of science fiction antihero the Stainless Steel Rat. The gravity is twice that of Earth. The weather is an unpredictable maelstrom. All species of life, both plant and animal, monstrous and microscopic, are lethal. And the environment is drenched with radioactivity. This is planet Pyrrus, where telepathically gifted gambler Jason dinAlt has ended up after scamming a government casino out of a fortune. A small, fortified town stands against the nonstop natural onslaught, and its people are the descendants of hardened survivors. But there are some who exist outside the city—the “grubbers,” humans living in harmony with the nightmarish surroundings who share a mutual hatred with the technologically superior city dwellers. These people fascinate Jason because they share his psionic abilities. And with their help he soon realizes that Pyrrus is more than just a planet. It’s alive. It’s intelligent. And it’s angry. From the legendary author whose novel Make Room! Make Room! was the basis for the film Soylent Green, Deathworld is “an action story with a built-in mystery” (Analog). This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Ledom had made a world without war, without fear - a world in which each individual was free to love, to create, to explore . . . The Ledom, a gentle and kindly new race, made their twentieth-century guest, Charlie Johns, welcome to their paradise. Charlie thought he was in heaven. But then he found out just where - and when - he was . . . an Eden turned into a nightmare!
Hugo nominated in 1962, originally published in Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction as "Sense of Obligation." Brion has just won the Twenties, a global competition to test achievements in 20 categories of human activities -- but before he can enjoy his victory he's forced to leave his homeworld to help salvage Dis, the most hellish planet in the galaxy.
Without setting foot on another planet, people like Shep Blaine were reaching out to the stars with their minds, telepathically contacting strange beings on other worlds. But even Blaine was unprepared for what happened when he communed with the soul of an utterly alien being light years from Earth. After recovering from his experience, he becomes a dangerous man: not only has he gained startling new powers - but he now understands that humankind must share the stars. Hunted through time and space by those who he used to trust, Blaine undergoes a unique odyssey that takes him through a nightmarish version of small-town America as he seeks to find others who share his vision of a humane future. Blaine has mastered death and time. Now he must master the fear and ignorance that threatened to destroy him!
Second ending: You wake up from cryogenic sleep in a medical bunker underground. The Earth is dead after the final war, first nuked, then radiated, then burned to a sterile crisp. You're not just the last member of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, you're the last biological life form on the planet, full stop. All you have is a bunch of robots of limited AI capabilities designed to Serve Man, your memories, and a cryogenic chamber that can let you sleep for thousands of years at a time if you want. What do you do?
Lew Alton was returning to Darkover - returning at the command of men who had once been all too glad to see him leave. For Lew, a Darkovan on his father's side, and a Terran on his mother's, had always walked between two worlds, accused by each of belonging to the other, and trusted by neither. Yet Lew alone had the power to understand both worlds and to save them from each other's unknown forces. That was the reason he had returned at last - armed with the legendary sword of the Sharra matrix, whose destiny was to cross forces with the equally mystic Sword of Aldones in one mighty battle that would decide Darkover's fate . . .
The chartered Zarathustra Company had it all their way. Their charter was for a Class III uninhabited planet, which Zarathustra was, and it meant they owned the planet lock stock and barrel. They exploited it, developed it and reaped the huge profits from it without interference from the Colonial Government. Then Jack Holloway, a sunstone prospector, appeared on the scene with his family of Fuzzies and the passionate conviction that they were not cute animals but little people.
A Nebula and Hugo Award Finalist: The first novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Xanth series. Chthon was Piers Anthony’s first published novel in 1967, written over the course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in love with the dangerous, alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show how he came to know the Minionette, and flash-forwards to show how he dealt with her after his escape from prison. The author regards this as perhaps the most intricately structured novel the science fantasy genre has seen.
Time traveler Brian Chaney arrives in a devastated twenty-first century and decides to face the world his age has created instead of returning to his own time
