Best of
Speculative-Fiction

1981

After Man: A Zoology of the Future


Dougal Dixon - 1981
    Looking 50 million years into the future, this text explores the possible development or extinction of the animal world through the eyes of the time-traveller.

The Many-Coloured Land


Julian May - 1981
    Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....

The Silver Metal Lover


Tanith Lee - 1981
    In this unforgettably poignant novel, Lee has created a classic tale--a beautiful, tragic, erotic, and ultimately triumphant love story of the future.For sixteen-year-old Jane, life is a mystery she despairs of ever mastering. She and her friends are the idle, pampered children of the privileged class, living in luxury on an Earth remade by natural disaster. Until Jane's life is changed forever by a chance encounter with a robot minstrel with auburn hair and silver skin, whose songs ignite in her a desperate and inexplicable passion.Jane is certain that Silver is more than just a machine built to please. And she will give up everything to prove it. So she escapes into the city's violent, decaying slums to embrace a love bordering on madness. Or is it something more? Has Jane glimpsed in Silver something no one else has dared to see--not even the robot or his creators? A love so perfect it must be destroyed, for no human could ever compete?

The Mockery Bird


Gerald Durrell - 1981
    The tiny island paradise of Zenkali is turned upside down when a civil war breaks out, and the island is invaded not only by the British Military, but by the world press and a fanatical group of conservationists - and all because of a silly bird.

Canopus in Argos: Archives


Doris Lessing - 1981
    Even as it gives an epic account of the struggles between Canopus and its rivals over the fate of the universe, 'Canopus in Argos' comments, with Lessing's characteristic insight and eloquence, on human history and our prospects for the future.

Mission


Patrick Tilley - 1981
    A living, breathing, three-dimensional figure with a disconcertingly casual manner. Leo Resnick, a smart young Manhattan lawyer, and his girlfriend, Dr Miriam Maxwell, are confronted with this very reality. Leo's record of his encounter with The Man is fast-paced and thoughtful at the same time. Here Tilley showcases his ability to explore vast themes whilst creating a page-turning level of excitement. If you've ever looked up at the stars and wondered what it all means, this is the book you've been waiting for.

The Green Futures of Tycho


William Sleator - 1981
    Soon he is jumping back and forth in time, mostly to play tricks on his bossy older brothers and sister. But every time he uses the device, he notices that things are different when he gets back—and the futures he visits are getting darker and scarier. Then Tycho comes face-to-face with the most terrible thing of all: his grown-up self. Can Tycho prevent the terrible future he sees from coming true?

Out of the Everywhere, and Other Extraordinary Visions


James Tiptree Jr. - 1981
    Collection of science fiction stories, two of which are original. STORIES: Angel Fix (1974); Beaver Tears (1976); Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light! (1976); The Screwfly Solution (1977); Time-Sharing Angel (1977); We Who Stole the Dream (1978); Slow Music (1980); A Source of Innocent Merriment (1980); Out of the Everywhere; With Delicate Mad Hands.

Way-farer


Dennis Schmidt - 1981
    But Way-farer is more than that: it is a novel that may well change the way you view reality itself.According to every reading it was a paradise planet—a warm and fecund world far more desirable than the teeming, polluted warrens of the planet-city that Earth had become. Yet when the last of the one-way transports had landed its cargo of Pilgrims, the men of Earth were to learn of a danger that no machine could detect, and against which no machine could defend them—the Mushin, mental entities that stimulate and amplify the dark streak of violence that lies near the core of every human being.Seven generations would pass before a descendant of the scattered remnant of the original colonists would be ready to face the power of the Mushin. But first he would have to learn to wield the weapon that is no weapon—and that only where there is no Will, is there a Way…His name is Jerome. This is his story. He is the WAY-FARER.

Mysteries of the Worm


Robert Bloch - 1981
    To know them will be to know him. And thus we have decided to release a new and expanded third edition of Robert Bloch’s Mysteries of the Worm. This collection contains four more Mythos tales–”The Opener of the Way”, “The Eyes of the Mummy”, “Black Bargain”, and “Philtre Tip”–not included in the first two editions.

The Earth Witch


Louise Lawrence - 1981
    Young Owen nearly loses his life when he unknowingly falls in love with the Earth Witch.

The War Hound and the World's Pain


Michael Moorcock - 1981
    But in return for her love, he must meet her master ... Lucifer!

VALIS


Philip K. Dick - 1981
    Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALIS is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.

Byzantium Endures


Michael Moorcock - 1981
    Born in Kiev on the cusp of the twentieth century, he discovers the pleasures of sex and cocaine and glimpses a sophisticated world beyond his horizons before the storm of the October Revolution breaks. Still a student at St Petersburg, he is deflected into more immediate concerns, caught up in the rip-tide of history.

Imaro


Charles R. Saunders - 1981
    a tale of a young man’s continuing struggle to gain acceptance amongst his people, and to break the cycle of alienation and violence that plagues his life. Imaro is heroic fantasy like it’s never been done before. Based on Africa, and African traditions and legends, Charles Saunders has created Nyumbani (which means “home” in Swahili), an amalgam of the real, the semi-real, and the unreal. Imaro is the name of the larger-than-life warrior, an outcast, who travels across Nyumbani, searching for a home. Like his contemporaries, Karl Edward Wagner (Kane) and Michael Moorcock (Elric), Charles Saunders brings something new to the traditional heroic fantasy tale. A broad knowledge of, and passion for, the history and myths of Africa led to the creation of a heroic fantasy character the likes of which the world has never seen. Imaro is no Tarzan… no Conan… Imaro is a warrior out of African legend.Saunders' novel fuses the narrative style of fantasy fiction with a pre-colonial, alternate Africa. Inspired by and directly addresses the alienation of growing up an African American fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which to this day remains a very ethnically homogonous genre. It addresses this both structurally (via its unique setting) and thematically (via its alienated, tribeless hero-protagonist). The tribal tensions and histories presented in this fantasy novel reflect actual African tribal histories and tensions, and provide a unique perspective to current and recent conflicts in Africa, particularly the Rwandan genocide and the ongoing conflict in The Sudan.

The Breaking of Northwall


Paul O. Williams - 1981
    One of the latter is Pelbar—proud, civilized, and intolerant of change and new ideas. Rebels and troublemakers are sentenced to a year of exile at the massive midwestern fortress of Northwall, defending Pelbar against the fierce Shumai and Sentani tribes. Restless and brilliant Jestak is a visionary who has seen and learned too much in his distant travels to be content with life in Pelbarigan. During his exile at Northwall, he makes contact with Pelbar’s age-old enemies and risks all to rescue his beloved Tia from nomads armed with long-lost weapons from before the atomic holocaust. Jestak’s daring quest for love brings profound changes to his world. The Breaking of Northwall is the first in a series of seven classic postapocalyptic novels about the Pelbar people. Williams’s fascinating and uniquely optimistic vision of an America long after a nuclear war has enthralled readers for decades.

Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural


Martin H. GreenbergTheodore Dreiser - 1981
    With works by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Silverberg, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoke and dozens more, Great Tales of Horror & the Supernatural is a spellbinding collection of 38 of the best of the genre. Anything can--and will--happen in these tales of both unworldly terror and quiet, everyday heart-stopping horror.

The City of the Singing Flame


Clark Ashton Smith - 1981
    Yet the thing was no less a mystery to me than to others at the time, and until now, it has remained a mystery. Like the rest, I sometimes thought that he and Ebbonly had designed it all between them as a huge, insoluble hoax; that they were still alive, somewhere, and laughing at the world that was so sorely baffled by their disappearance. And, until I at last decided to visit Crater Ridge and find, if I could, the two boulders mentioned in Angarth's narrative, no one had uncovered any trace of the missing men or heard even the faintest rumor concerning them....Contents:· Poet of the Singing Flame· The City of the Singing Flame· The White Sybil· The Tale of Satampra Zeiros· The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles· The Door to Saturn· The Dark Eidolon· The Black Abbot of Puthuum· The Garden of Adompha· The Maze of Maal Dweb· The Flower-Women· The Enchantress of Sylaire· The Beast of Averoigne· The Hunters from Beyond

Anna to the Infinite Power


Mildred Ames - 1981
    A 12-year-old math whiz accidentally learns the startling facts about her true identity and her role in an important secret experiment.

La mente alien


Philip K. Dick - 1981
    "Five minutes." "Okay," he said, and struggled out of his deep sleep. He had five minutes to adjust the course of his ship; something had gone wrong with the auto-control system. An error on his part? Not likely; he never made errors. Jason Bedford make errors? Hardly.

Flesh/Lord Tyger


Philip José Farmer - 1981
    But Earth had become a new world. Where science and technology had reigned, now there were agricultural and tribal warfare. And mankind worshipped the Goddess and was content. They named Stagg "Sunhero" and performed the secret rites. Endowed with the virility of a nation, and with foot-high antlers throbbing on his head, he set out on an orgiastic cross-country jaunt. He was the Sunhero, king of the Earth and all its willing women. But how long he would hold his throne, only the Goddess could say...Lord TygerMy Mother is an ape. My Father is God. I come from the land of ghosts. So sings Ras Tyger, Philip Jose Farmer's monumental incarnation of a modern-day Jungle Lord. Savage, heroic, and beautiful, he is master of the world. And he rules his kingdom with sex, savagery, and sublime innocence. Until one day, with the landing of the great whirling "birds," the insane reality of his existence begins to unfold...and plunges him into an incredible quest for the truth which cannot end until he comes face to face - with God.

Doomtime


Doris Piserchia - 1981
    The assassination failed, but Creed was never the same again. Because it launched the cliffdwellers of Creed's colony onto a new course of life---which could lead to humanity's re-emergence as Earth's masters.In those far future days, Earth's masters were two trees. Not trees as we know them, but two Everest-high growths, who sentient roots and fast-growing branches dominated every living thing on the world. Men lived between their arboreal combat.Creed's quest for vengeance-knowledge is the basis for one of the strangest novels of the future ever written. Who else could have projected it but the author whose vivid imagination produced such thought-variant classics as THE SPINNER, EARTHCHILD, SPACELING, and others?

Thieves World Roleplaying Game (Boxed Set)


Greg Stafford - 1981