Best of
Speculative-Fiction

1982

Stalking the Nightmare


Harlan Ellison - 1982
    (1957)The 3 Most Important Things in Life (Scenes from the Real World #1) (1978) • essayVisionary (1959) / Harlan Ellison and Joe L. HensleyDjinn, No Chaser (1982)Invasion Footnote (1957)Saturn, November 11th (Scenes from the Real World #2) (1981) • essayNight of Black Glass (1981)Final Trophy (1957)!!!The!!Teddy!Crazy!!Show!!! (1968)The Cheese Stands Alone (1982)Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto (Scenes from the Real World #3) (1974) • essayTranscending Destiny (1957)The Hour That Stretches (1982)The Day I Died (1973) • essayTracking Level (1956)Tiny Ally (1957)The Goddess in the Ice (1967)Gopher in the Gilly (Scenes from the Real World #4) (1982) • essay

The Earth Will Shake: The History of the Early Illuminati


Robert Anton Wilson - 1982
    The history of the world is their story: a conspiracy as vast and all-encompassing as the riddle of time itself.In Naples, Italy, in 1764, a young aristocrat is about to stumble onto one piece of the great pattern. Through a heartless murder and his passion for the beautiful daughter of his enemy, young Sigismundo Celine uncovers the mystery of the Rossi brigade, former M.A.F.I.A. assassins, and the secret agenda of the dreaded Inquisition.In the wind of the raging social storm that will soon tear through Europe and America with the flame of revolution, Sigismundo begins his journey of discovery, joined by the boy Mozart, Dr. Frankenstein, Casanova the spy, lover and magician...and a mysterious violet-eyed assassin who calls him "brother." Join him. The journey has just begun.

Prince Ombra


Roderick MacLeish - 1982
    And he's going to need them. Bentley is a hero - the thousand and first to be exact - in a long line of heroes that has stretched all the way back to antiquity. Heroes like Arthur and Hercules. And now: Bentley.That's because there is an evil in the world that never dies. Its name is Prnce Ombra. When Prince Ombra arises a hero is called upon to battle him. One day when Bentley is grown he will be that hero.What Bentley doesn't know is that his "one day" is today.

The Tale of the Dark Crystal


Donna Bass - 1982
    On a faraway planet, Jen, the last of the Gelflings, is given the mission of restoring a missing shard to the great Crystal and preventing the tragedy of a Skeksis triumph when the Three Suns merge.

The Compass Rose


Ursula K. Le Guin - 1982
    Twenty astonishing stories from acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin that carry us to worlds of wonder and horror, desire and destiny, enchantment and doom.

Wild Wood


Jan Needle - 1982
    Part of a series of fiction aimed specifically at libraries and secondary school English courses for first to third year pupils, this is a humorous retelling of "The Wind in the Willows" as seen from the viewpoint of the Wild Wooders, whom the River Bankers despise and fear.

The Science in Science Fiction


Peter Nicholls - 1982
    An illustrated survey of the actual science behind recent science fiction investigates the frontiers of contemporary scientific knowledge and the possibility, and probability, of starships, cyborgs, time travel, and other "science-fiction" phenomena

Encyclopedia of Monsters


Daniel Cohen - 1982
    The book includes creatures of lakes and rivers, of sea, the land and the air. There is a description of each creature's curious physical characteristics, it's habits and probable location.The book also gives accounts of expeditions in search of various monsters and a brief history of how and when each monster was sighted. The many photographs and drawings shed further light on an elusive subject.Some of the monsters described in this volume have been exposed as hoaxes or myths. Daniel Cohen gives the background of these legends, explaining how they evolved. And in the case of hoaxes, he tells how these ingenious frauds were produced.

More Uncommon Law


A.P. Herbert - 1982
    P. herbert's incisive look at the absurdities of English Law coupled with his gentle observations on human frailities make for unusual and entertaining reading.

Mindkiller


Spider Robinson - 1982
    Karen, a former wirehead who barely escaped death by pleasure, is determined to bring down those who sell the wireheading equipment, but she and her lover Joe instead turn up evidence of a shadowy global conspiracy-not to control the world, but to keep anyone from realizing that the masters of mind control have been controlling us all for some time now . . . .

Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea Folk


Jane Yolen - 1982
    Now in these superb stories of the magical denizens of the sea, distinguished poet and storyteller Jane Yolen has taken themes from ancient myth, medieval romance, nineteenth-century fairytale and modern science fiction and woven them into original contemporary fantasies of compelling beauty and fascination.In one, a loving wife rescues her husband from the deadly enchantment of a sea goddess; in another, a woman encounters Proteus on a New England seacoast; in a third, deep-sea magic lures a tourist from an antique shop in a back alley of London to the bottom of the Indian Ocean and a terrifying confrontation with an evil mer creature.