W wiosce Ansby, nale??cej do barona Rogera, trwa rekrutacja jego wasali maj?cych wesprze? kr?la Edwarda II w tocz?cej si? Wojnie Stuletniej przeciw Francuzom. Nieoczekiwanie, w chmurze dymu i ognia, w samym ?rodku tego? obozowiska l?duje statek kosmiczny obcych. Wersgorowie widz?c prymitywny gatunek ludzki, postanawiaj? podbi? planet?…
„Pomocna d?o?” Poula Andersona to najm?drzejszy utw?r w antologii. Wyp?ywaj?cy z niego polityczno-kulturowy mora? wydaje si? oczywisty, ale jednocze?nie zastanawiamy si?, dlaczego sami nigdy o tym wcze?niej w ten spos?b nie pomy?leli?my. Daleko mu do speculative-fiction — od razu do g?owy przychodzi konkretny przyk?ad ze wsp??czesnego, jak najbardziej rzeczywistego ?wiata.
In a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure. A mountain-climbing vacation may wind up in deep Space. Or loyalty may prove to be high treason. But it has its rewards.
Co by? zrobi?, gdyby? m?g? si?? woli przenosi? si? w czasie? Gdyby Tw?j dar m?g? wp?yn?? na losy ?wiata? Jack Havig jest mutantem obdarzonym tak? zdolno?ci?. Wie, ?e ludzko?? zgotuje sobie apokalips? i ?e po niej przyjdzie czas stabilizacji pod panowaniem m?drego ludu Maurai. Jednak nie tylko Jack potrafi w?drowa? przez wieki — s? te? inni obdarzeni t? zdolno?ci?, a ich wizja przysz?o?ci jest ca?kiem odmienna.Powie?? by?a nominowana do Nagrody Hugo w roku 1973.
La ?poca es el siglo XXI. Los personajes son cincuenta especialistas: hombres y mujeres elegidos tras un largo y cuidadoso proceso de selecci?n destinado a incorporar s?lo personal particularmente entrenado en el viaje espacial y excepcionalmente apto para desarrollar con ?xito una nueva colonia. La nave es la , la m?s reciente de su clase. Y todos los esfuerzos est?n puestos al servicio de una ?nica misi?n: viajar a trav?s del espacio interestelar hasta un lejano planeta donde debe establecerse una colonia terrestre.Sin embargo dos a?os despu?s de su partida, la colisiona con una nube de desechos del espacio, se aver?a y la ruta se altera. Todos se ven irremediablemente sin fin hacia lo desconocido.
Maestro della fantascienza spaziale, autore di celebri saghe come quella del mercante van Rijn e della Lega Palesotecnica, Anderson ? festeggiato in questo volume con tre celebri avventure “indipendenti” che non appartengono a cicli ma ce lo mostrano in tre diverse sfaccettature della sua poliedrica carriera; Quoziente 1000 ? una straordinaria avventura del pensiero che parte da un’ipotesi affascinante: che accadrebbe se all’improvviso il quoziente intellettuale di tutta l’umanit? aumentasse di dieci o venti volte? Quali orizzonti si schiuderebbero alla nostra conoscenza e alla nostra immaginazione? Le amazzoni ? la storia di un pianeta dove le donne sono molto, ma molto bellicose; Tau zero, infine, racconta con grande verosimiglianza un viaggio nello spazio a bordo di un’astronave relativistica e dell’incidente che trasforma quest’avventura in un incubo dove spazio, tempo e dimensione cessano di avere ogni significato a noi noto.
Explosive and provocative battles fought across the boundaries of time and space—and on the frontiers of the human mind.Science fiction's finest have yielded this definitive collection featuring stories of warfare, victory, conquest, heroism, and overwhelming odds. These are scenarios few have ever dared to contemplate, and they include:-"Superiority": Arthur C. Clarke presents an intergalactic war in which one side's own advanced weaponry may actually lead to its ultimate defeat.-"Dragonrider": A tale of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, in which magic tips the scales of survival.-"Second Variety": Philip ...
Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Poul Anderson tells a breathtaking tale of Earth. Immortal humans take to the skies to travel to the stars and galaxies in a great space adventure.Nominated for the Nebula Award in 1989.Nominated for the Hugo Award in 1990.
Aeneas is the powder keg of the universe, a frontier planet where rebellion is a way of life—and death. Smarting under the thumb of the Terran Empire after an almost successful war against Imperial rule, the Aeneans are swept up in a fanatical religious movement that promises the return of the Elder Race.
The inevitable Long Night of Interstellar barbarism is approaching, and Dominic, who devoted his life to keeping the galactic peace decides that others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets. Enter Diana—illegitmate—but the true daughter of Dominic.
With this story, I’ve enter a future in which mankind has spread itself far out into the galaxy of which Earth’s sun — and Earth itself, of course — are such microscopically small bits of dust. In Anderson’s concept, most life forms encountered seem to be essentially humanoid. In this story, indeed, they are not only humanoid, but measurably “human” in their psychological reactions. If one wanted to draw some comparisons, one could, I suppose, compare Cundaloa in this tale with the islands of the Pacific, and Skontar with the Scandinavian countries. Sweden, for example, is Swedish through and through. Hawaii? Whatever Hawaii is, and it sounds wonderful for a vacation, it surely no longer belongs to the original Hawaiians… You will get the point of this analogy as you read on, of course.Poul Anderson
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 northeastern Lincolnshire. The Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking over planets, and having determined from orbit that this one was suitable, they initiate standard world-conquering procedure. Ah, but 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!Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1961.
Everything that lives contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It was the fate of the Assyrians and the Hittites, the Greeks and the Romans, the British and the Americans. And so it was for the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire. Conception, birth, growth, aging, death: This is the law of life, true for nations, worlds and stellar empires no less than for organisms.For the greatest and the smallest it is the same, differing on it in this: the greater the heights conquered, the greater the fall, the longer and darker the night that follows…The stories contained herein were first published as follows:“The Star Plunderer,” 1952.“Outpost of Empire,” , 1967.“A Tragedy of Errors” , 1967.“The Sharing of Flesh,” , 1968. Won Hugo and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1969.“Starfog,” 1967.
The ninth shared-world anthology laid in Niven's Known Space universe during the wars against those fighting felinoids, the alien Kzin, offers four notably readable long stories. In the late Poul Anderson's "Pele," a human couple on a research expedition rescue a Kzin with more courage than sense. Hal Colebatch's "His Sergeant's Honor," probably the book's strongest entry, features a Kzin who backs up his race's fanatical concept of honor with keen tactical sense. In Paul Chafe's "Windows of the World," a member of the UN police, ARM captain Joel K. Allson, and Allson's Kzin partner confront a mysterious murder ...
When three Terrans — a space pilot, a planetary queen and an obese tycoon — crash-landed on Diomedes, they realized that the chances for survival were quite slim. The native food was totally poisonous to humans, and the survivors had only six weeks’ worth of supplies to get them across thousands of miles of unmapped territory to the one Terran outpost. Their only hope was to enlist the aid of the winged inhabitants of Diomedes, and these barbarian tribes cared only for battle and glory. There was little that could induce them to worry about the lives of three humans.
