The setting of Niven’s 1984 novel was striking and imaginative, even for this acclaimed world builder; it’s well worth the second visit made in this sequel. Around a neutron star an envelope of gas holds a breathable atmosphere and a strange profusion of plant and animal life, all floating in free-fall. Five hundred years after the crew of the Earth ship mutinied and deserted to this paradise, their descendants are still watched over by the ship’s unbalanced computer mind. The machine is busy manipulating its one small contact group into exploring the larger city they have been ...
For centuries they've lived in secret among northern England's green and misted hills. Creatures of extraordinary beauty, power, and sensuality, they possess the ability to shape-shift from human to dragon and back again. Now their secret-and their survival-is threatened by a temptation that will break every boundary.Dubbed the Smoke Thief, a daring jewel thief is confounding the London police. His wealthy victims claim the master burglar can walk through walls and vanish into thin air. But Christoff, the charismatic Marquess of Langford, knows the truth: the thief is no ordinary human but a "runner" who's fled Darkfrith ...
The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years, deriving wealth from the slaughter of the sea mers. But soon the galactic stargate will close, isolating Tiamat, and the 150-year reign of the Summer primitives will begin. All is not lost if Arienrhod, the ageless, corrupt Snow Queen, can destroy destiny with an act of genocide. Arienrhod is not without competition as Moon, a young Summer-tribe sibyl, and the nemesis of the Snow Queen, battles to break a conspiracy that spans space.Won Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1981.Nominated for Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1981.
A long time ago magic faded away, leaving behind only yo-yos, the extremely useful compass-pointing-to-North enchantment and the spell that keep bicycles from falling over. Things are about to change. Magical power is on the rise and King Snodd IV of Hereford has realised that he who controls magic controls almost anything. One person stands between Snodd and his plans for power and riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. Meet Jennifer Strange, sixteen-year-old acting manager of Kazam, the employment agency for sorcerers and soothsayers. With only one functioning wizard and her faithful assistant 'Tiger' Prawns, Jennifer must use ...
Paradise Lost: Just a few islands in a planetwide ocean, Thalassa was a veritable paradise — home to one of the small colonies founded centuries before by robot Mother Ships when the Sun had gone nova and mankind had fled Earth.Mesmerized by the beauty of Thalassa and overwhelmed by its vast resources, the colonists lived an idyllic existence, unaware of the monumental evolutionary event slowly taking place beneath their seas…Then the arrived in orbit carrying one million refugees from the last, mad days on Earth. And suddenly uncertainty and change had come to the placid paradise that was Thalassa.
David B. Coe enthralled readers and critics with his Winds of the Forelands, an epic fantasy full of political intrigue, complex characters, and magical conspiracy. Now he takes the hero of that series to new adventures across the sea on a journey to the Southlands. Grinsa, who nearly single-handedly won the war of the Forelands, has been banished because he is a Weaver, a Qirsi who can wield many magics. He and his family seek only peace and a place to settle down. But even on the distant southern continent, they can't escape the tension between his magical ...
For Mother In the Lists of the Dar’Nethi are tallied the full number of the Talents: Singer, Builder, Silver Shaper, Tree Delver… They are named without interpretation of their worth and without report of their rarity, for who is to say that the common Builder, who sings his bricks into the harmonious arch that pleases a thousand eyes every morn, is of any less value than the Word Winder, who creates an intricate enchantment that only a few can use to any effect? D’Arnath himself was born to be a Balancer, a most ordinary gift, but ...
A mage's soul is forged in the crucible of magic. Raistlin Majere is six years old when he is introduced to the archmage who enrolls him in a school for the study of magic. There the gifted and talented but tormented boy comes to see magic as his salvation. Mages in the magical Tower of High Sorcery watch him in secret, for they see shadows darkening over Raistlin even as the same shadows lengthen over all Ansalon.Finally, Raistlin draws near his goal of becoming a wizard. But first he must take the drea Test in the Tower of High Sorcery. It will change his life forever — if he survives.
A spaceship has crashed on a planet, and the descendants of the original colonists have all but forgotten their origins. But they have built a culture around the “holy books” that have survived the wreck—books of Indian lore and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Then this culture in contact with a crew from a Company spaceship, coming from a society that is high-tech, opportunistic, and ruthless. We see the action through the eyes of the native warrior, John-of-the-Hawks. Can his bravery and cunning win the day? Or will his people be destroyed?The book is a “fixup” novel based on three long novelettes originally published in magazine in 1966 under the pseudonym of Guy McCord.
The year is 1893, and the workaday life of a young commercial traveller is enlivened by his ladyfriend, and she takes him to the laboratory of Sir William Reynolds building a Time Machine. It is but a small step into futurity, the beginning of a series of adventures that culminate in a violent confrontation with the most ruthless intellect in the Universe.The novel effectively binds the storylines of the H.G. Wells novels and into the same reality. Action takes place both in Victorian England and on Mars, as the time machine displaces the protagonists through space in addition to time.
Combining elements of science fiction and spiritual philosophy, this novel is a tale of the devastating consequences of a scientific mission to make contact with an extraterrestrial culture.Awards:John W Campbell Memorial Award (nominee)Arthur C. Clarke AwardBritish Science Fiction Association
