Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal...2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life...to annihilate it.In the Ocean of Night is a 1977 hard science fiction novel by Gregory Benford. It is the first novel in his Galactic Center Saga. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1977. It was first published as a novelette in the May/June 1972 edition of Worlds of If Science Fiction.

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

    They are put in a deep sleep until they arrive. However, due to a systems malfunction, Carter is the last one left alive. When he makes it to the planet he finds that he has been in deep sleep for about two thousand years and that the ship he made it there with refuses to return to earth. The only living thing he discovers is Carnivore, who claims that there is an inter-space tunnel which is the only way to leave the planet.

    SweetThe planet Ishtar has three suns: Bel, the "real" sun, the Life Giver. Ea, the Companion who warms the Ishtaran summers. Anu, the Demon Star. Mostly Anu is so far away that it is just a light in the Ishtaran sky. But once every thousand years it comes close. It is then that the barbarians must flee their scorched lands, and civilizations fall.The natives call this Fire Time. Always before, its coming had meant the death of a civilization. But this time, the humans are here, and they have brought with them their magical technology. This time things could have been different. Too bad that the humans are suddenly faced with a war of their own, their own Fire Time.

    S is for science fiction, spine-tingling, supernatural and sublime! S is for stories from a "Star Wilderness that stretched as far as eye and mind could see and imagine".ChrysalisPillar of FireZero HourThe ManTime in Thy FlightThe PedestrianHall and FarewellInvisible BoyCome into My CellarThe Million-Year PicnicThe Screaming WomanThe SmileDark They Were, and Golden-EyedThe TrolleyThe Flying MachineIcarus Montgolfier Wright

    A Shaper. In a warm womb of metal, his patients dream their neuroses, while Render, intricately connected to their brains, dreams with them, makes delicate adjustments, and ultimately explains and heals. Her name is Eileen Shallot, a resident in psychiatry. She wants desperately to become a Shaper, though she has been blind from birth. Together, they will explore the depths of the human mind -- and the terrors that lurk therein

    There are permanent populations established on the Moon, Venus and Mars. Outer space inhabitants have formed a new political entity, the Federation, and between the Federation and Earth a growing rivalry has developed. EARTHLIGHT is the story of this emerging conflict.

    Only a few scientists even suspected its presence, and then, suddenly and silently, it arrived, dwarfing and threatening the Moon and wreaking havoc on Earth's tides and weather. Though the Wanderer is stopping in the solar system only to refuel, its mere presence is catastrophic. A tense, thrilling, and towering achievement. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best SF Novel of the Year!

    The Tree ruled the horizons, shouldered aside the clouds, and wore thunder and lightning like a wreath of tinsels. It was the soul of life, trampling and vanquishing the inert, an Joe understood how it had come to be worshipped by the first settlers of Kyril. For Joe Smith, the sight of the tree was the beginning of an experience that would forever change his life. He had journeyed into space in search of a man, but found instead the Tree. A Tree which held the power of life-and-death over millions of slaves!"The Houses of Iszm:"The inhabitants of a planet called Iszm, a species known as the Iszic, have evolved the native giant trees into living homes, with all needs and various luxuries supplied by the trees' own natural growth. The Iszic maintain a jealously-guarded monopoly, exporting only enough trees to keep prices high and make a great profit. The protagonist, Aile Farr, is a human botanist who goes to Iszm (like many others before him, of many species) to steal a female tree, which might allow the propagation of the species off world and break the monopoly."

    The vital foodstuffs supplied by its Martian colony are being poisoned. Working in secret, the ruling Council of Science sends David Starr, its youngest member, to the Martian farmlands to discover the truth behind the murders...

    But although they may have longed for it, not even the most brilliant minds could conceive of a device as infinitely powerful or as immeasurably precise as the macroscope, until the twenty-first century. By analyzing information carried on macrons, this unbelievable tool brought the whole universe of wonders to man's doorstep. The macroscope was seen by many as the salvation of the human race. But in the hands of the wrong man, the macroscope could be immensely destructive-infinitely more dangerous than the nuclear bomb. By searching to know too much, man could destroy the very essence of his mind. This is the powerful story of man's struggle with technology, and also the story of his human struggle with himself. This novel takes us across the breathtaking ranges of space as well as through the most touching places in the human heart. It is a story of coming of age, of sacrifice, and of love. It is the story of man's desperate search for a compromise between his mind and his heart, between knowledge and humanity.

    The only problem is that the Confederacion needs him as one of its twelve Prime Operators for its secret service, the TBII. The TBII wants him as a spy, thief & assassin. It's not, of course, a problem for the Confederacion, which simply uses immersion therapy & hypnotic personality overlay for Otto's training, then sends him out in deep cover, encased in plastiflesh, on a variety of dangerous missions on a number of bizarre worlds. But for him, it's a different matter: what he has to witness & what he's forced to do take a terrible toll. Always he returns to his original self--his conscience stabbed by the memory of all those he'd killed in the service of interstellar harmony.

    So the Terran government made a law--no further contact would be allowed with sentient creatures anywhere in the galaxy. Therefore Doona could be colonized only if an official survey established that the planet was both habitable and uninhabited.But Spacedep had made a mistake--Doona was inhabited. Now the colonists' choice was limited. Leave Doona and return to the teeming hell of an overpopulated Terra. Or kill the catlike Hrrubans. Or learn, for the first time in history, how to coexist with an alien race.

    Pull up a chair, grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths...and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.Callahan's Crosstime Saloon contains the following stories, virtually all of which were published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact: * "The Guy With the Eyes" * "The Time-Traveler" * "The Centipede's Dilemma" * "Two Heads Are Better Than One" * "The Law Of Conservation of Pain" * "Just Dessert" * "A Voice is Heard in Ramah..." * "Unnatural Causes" * "The Wonderful Conspiracy"

    That led many people to underestimate the Nildoror and their obviously more fearsome commensals, the Sulidoror.But aliens should never be judged by human standards, as the Company learned to its cost when Holman's World, now once again known as Belzagor, was given back to the natives and the Company sent packing. Now Edmund Gunderson, once head of the Company's operation on this world, has come back across the galaxy to settle old scores with the Nildoror. If he can even get them to acknowledge his existence. Cover Artist: Gene Szafran