The “Folk” were first to arrive on this faraway planet, pushing aside the docile, intelligent aboriginal races they encountered. The “Masters” followed to subjugate the careless, complacent fellow humans who preceded them here. And so it has remained for ages.Fifteen-year-old Joseph Master Keilloran has known only privilege, respect, and civility. Born to take over the reins of House Keilloran when he comes of age, he awakens one night in the Great House of distant relatives to the thunder of battle—a terrifying din that has not been heard on this peaceful world since the original Conquest. All ...
BLAST OFF!"Between the first and last decades of the Twentieth Century lay a gulf greater than the wildest imagination could have conceived. It was the gulf between gunpowder and nuclear bomb, between messages tapped in morse code and global television from the sky, between Queen Victoria, Empress of India, and Kwame Chaka, Supreme President of the African Federation. But above all, it was the gulf between the first hundred-foot flight at Kitty Hawk , and the first billion mile mission to the moons of Jupiter. . . ."This was the beginning of the first version of 2001-the version that ...
The very best short SF fiction of any given year as recommended and nominated by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: the best novella, novelette and short story. Here you will find the cream of the crop of science fiction and fantasy - startling ideas, the intricate construction of new worlds and mind-bending experimental writing. This anthology includes not only the Nebula Award-winning works in each short-form category, but also all the nominees in the novelette and short story categories. Here you will find colourful fantasy, outstanding speculative fiction, steampunk, edgy writing on the fringes of the mainstream and uncompromisingly hard SF in stories set in the distant past, an off-kilter present day, the far future or some times in between.
It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan.This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.
During his heroic first encounter with an alien race, Dick Muller was permanently altered, hideously transformed in a way that left him repulsive to the entire human race. Alone and embittered, he exiled himself to Lemnos, an abandoned planet famed for its labyrinthine horrors, both real and imagined. But now, Earth trembles on the brink of extinction, threatened by another alien species, and only Muller can rescue the planet. Men must enter the murderous maze of Lemnos, find Muller, and convince him to come back. But will the homeless alien, alone in the universe, risk his life to save his race, the race that has utterly rejected him?
This classic work of science fiction is widely considered to be the ultimate time-travel novel. When Daniel Eakins inherits a time machine, he soon realizes that he has enormous power to shape the course of history. He can foil terrorists, prevent assassinations, or just make some fast money at the racetrack. And if he doesn’t like the results of the change, he can simply go back in time and talk himself out of making it! But Dan soon finds that there are limits to his powers and forces beyond his control.
When Tom Nile’s genetic structure was determined, it varied from the human norm only in one respect. Most of us have minds like sieves, through which our recollections of the past constantly leak away; but Tom came into the world incapable of forgetting anything. Such a miraculous memory is surely a blessed gift… or is it?
Quiller is in Hong Kong, where he thinks he's on vacation. But every alleyway leads dead to danger, and Quiller gets the message: he's never off duty.The plot moves into a high gear. Quiller always enjoyed his rides, but this one is taxing. He finds a woman as faithless as she is beautiful; he fails to reform her, but enjoys the effort. He takes on villains one, two and three at a time and dispatches them on land with karate and in the South Seas with its aquatic equivalent."Breathless entertainment." (Associated Press)
When a one-way time tunnel to Earth’s distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years…Won Locus Award for Best SF Novel in 1982.Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1982.
From the Sept. 94 issue of Magazine of Fantasy & Science(r) copyright 1994, by David Gerrold. All rights reserved.David Gerrold, CIS: 70307,544Nebula and Hugo Awards winner
