Did some cryptic patron race begin the job long ago, then abandon us? Or did we leap all by ourselves? That question burns, yet a greater mystery looms ahead, in the furnace of a star. Under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history – into the boiling inferno of the sun, seeking our destiny in the cosmic order of life.

    But Albertina, a beautiful woman made of glass, seems only to appear to him in his dreams. Meeting on his adventures a host of cannibals, centaurs and acrobats, Desiderio must battle against unreality and the warping of time and space to be with her, as the Doctor reduces Desiderio's city to a chaotic state of emergency - one ridden with madness, crime and sexual excess.A satirical tale of magic and sex, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is a dazzling quest for truth, love and identity.

    Simak's "City" is a series of connected stories, a series of legends, myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands.Contents:· City · May 1944 · Huddling Place · Jul 1944 · Census · Sep 1944 · Desertion · Nov 1944 · Paradise · Jun 1946 · Hobbies · Nov 1946 · Aesop · Dec 1947 · The Simple Way [The Trouble with Ants] · Jan 1951.

    I'm one of the guys who fought and bled and worked to get to Mars. I figure what I gave up in those early years bought me the right to pilot the next big jump.I've lied and stolen for that right. I'd have killed, too, but I didn't have to. Instead, I let a woman give her life so I could have my chance, my door to space.You think I'd stop at anything, now?I'll be on that rocket, blasting away on America's biggest adventure, the hop out into the stars themselves....Only Fred Brown could have written this deeply moving science-fiction novel about one man's epic, life-long struggle to open mankind's pathway to the stars...'

    The first subject chosen for treatment is Jeff Baker, the father of the datasphere (which replaced the Internet) and philanthropist extraordinaire. After 18 months in a German medical facility, the 78-year-old patient returns home looking like a healthy 20-year-old. "Misspent Youth" follows the effect his reappearance has on his friends and family -- his young ex-model wife Sue, his teenage son Tim, and his long term pals, themselves all pensioners, who are starting to resent what Jeff has become.

    And oh boy! was it fun to communicate!But Gabriel had reckoned without the finely honed irony of whatever Prankster it is who governs human affairs.As the Raven quoth,'KRONK'"

    But, because the ship will accelerate to close to the speed of light, for those on board subjective time will slow and the journey will be of only a few years' duration.Then a buffeting by an interstellar dustcloud changes everything. The ship's deceleration system is damaged irreperably and soon she is gaining velocity. When she attains light-speed, tau zero itself, the disparity between ship-time and external time becomes almost impossibly great. Eons and galaxies hurtle by, and the crew of the Leonora Christine speeds into the unknown.

    Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.'

    As it draws near, massive tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions wrack our planet, devastating continents, drowning cities, and wiping out millions. In central North America, a team of scientists race to build a spacecraft powerful enough to escape the doomed earth. Their greatest threat, they soon discover, comes not from the skies but from other humans. A crackling plot and sizzling, cataclysmic vision have made When Worlds Collide one of the most popular and influential end-of-the-world novels of all time. This Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition features the original story and its sequel, After Worlds Collide.

    . .1681: When Sir Isaac Newton turns his restless mind to the ancient art of alchemy, he unleashes Philosopher's Mercury, a primal source of matter and a key to manipulating the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Now, as France and England battle for its control, Louis XIV calls for a new weapon--a mysterious device known only as Newton's Cannon.Half a world away, a young apprentice named Benjamin Franklin stumbles across a dangerous secret. Pursued by a deadly enemy--half scientist, half sorcerer--Ben makes his fugitive way to England. Only Newton himself can help him now. But who will help Sir Isaac? For he was not the first to unleash the Philosopher's Mercury. Others were there before him. Creatures as scornful of science as they are of mankind. And burning to be rid of both . . .

    Clarke of Last and First Men. This masterpiece of science fiction by British philosopher and writer Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) is an imaginative, ambitious history of humanity's future that spans billions of years. Together with its follow-up, Star Maker, it is regarded as the standard by which all earlier and later future histories are measured.The protagonist of this compelling novel is humanity itself, stripped down to sheer intelligence. It evolves through the ages: rising to pinnacles of civilization, teetering on the brink of extinction, surviving onslaughts from other planets and a decline in solar energy, and constantly developing new forms, new senses, and new intellectual abilities. From the present to five billion years into the future, this romance of humanity abounds in profound and imaginative thought.

    D'arque Angel, who deals her patients doses of death...Contents:· Introduction: Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don’t Look So Terrific Yourself · in · Croatoan · ss F&SF May ’75 · Working with the Little People · ss F&SF Jul ’77 · Killing Bernstein · ss Mystery Monthly Jun ’76 · Mom · nv Silver Foxes Aug ’76 · In Fear of K · ss Vertex Jun ’75 · Hitler Painted Roses · ss Penthouse Apr ’77 · The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the Memory Has Gone Flat · ss Universe 6, ed. Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1976 · From A to Z, In the Chocolate Alphabet · ss F&SF Oct ’76 · Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time · ss MidAmeriCon Program Book, Kansas City, MO., 1976 · Emissary from Hamelin · ss 2076: The American Tricentennial, ed. Edward Bryant, Pyramid, 1977 · The New York Review of Bird [original version] · nv * · Seeing · nv Andromeda 1, ed. Peter Weston, London: Futura, 1976 · The Boulevard of Broken Dreams · vi Los Angeles Review #1 ’75 · Strange Wine · ss Amazing Jun ’76 · The Diagnosis of Dr. D’arqueAngel [“Doctor D’arqueAngel”] · ss Viva Jan ’77

    Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history - and the future: Sybil Gerard - dishonored woman and daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory - explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant - diplomat and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for...Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the first collaborative novel by two of the most brilliant and controversial science fiction authors of our time. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson's and Sterling's unique visions - in a new and totally unexpected direction!

    Newton is an extraterrestrial who goes to Earth on a desperate mission of mercy. But instead of aid, Newton discovers loneliness and despair that ultimately ends in tragedy.

    Like all children, they exist in an eternal present; time is imminent, and the adults of the street live in their assorted houses like numbers on a clock. Meanwhile, ominous rumors circulate, and the increasing agitation of the neighbors points to a future in which all will be lost. Soon a sorcerer's car will speed down Mary's street, and as past and future fold into each other, the resonant parenthesis of her girlhood will close forever. Beyond is adulthood, a world of robots and sorcerers, slaves and masters, bodies without souls. In Duplex, Kathryn Davis, whom the Chicago Tribune has called "one of the most inventive novelists at work today," has created a coming-of-age story like no other. Once you enter the duplex—that magical hinge between past and future, human and robot, space and time—there's no telling where you might come out.