Mute


Piers Anthony - 1981
    The protagonist, Knot, is a double mutant: he has a physical deformity, and the psi power to make others forget him. He's satisfied with his life--until the lovely Finesse walks into his life to recruit him for a dangerous galactic mission. She is aided by two small animal mutants: a telepathic weasel and a clairvoyant crab. Knot tries to resist, aided by his psi, but the woman's beauty and the animals' powers doom him to a phenomenal adventure. The prior edition was cut; this is the complete version.

Dayworld


Philip José Farmer - 1985
    The other six days they're in suspended animation. The focus is on Jeff Caird, a daybreaker living more than a day a week. He's not like most daybreakers. He belongs to the radical Immer group working to create a better government. Not all Immers are daybreakers, but send information from one day to the next they've daybreakers like Jeff. Immer daybreakers assume seven different personalities & jobs, slipping from culture to culture in seven different worlds. While Jeff & the other six go day to day, they run into problems while working as Immer daybreakers. They must cover their tracks while trying to keep up with seven different lives, families & jobs. It could drive a man crazy. It does & the Immers must dispose of Jeff to keep the rest safe. Jeff, wanting to live, tries to escape, but they have undercover Immers in every job & government level. Jeff is caught & put in an asylum, classified with multiple personality disorder. If considered incurable he'll be killed. But Jeff has an escape plan. The sequels are Dayworld Rebel, '87 & Dayworld Breakup, '90.

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs


Robert A. Heinlein - 2003
    

Two to Conquer


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1980
    It is the pivot of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel of Darkover during the final flaming days of the Ages of Chaos.This is the story of the era when the planet of the Bloody Sun was divided into a hundred warring kingdoms and civilization teetered on the edge of oblivion.It is the story of Bard di Asturien, ambitious soldier-outlaw, and of his opponent, Varzil the Good, who struggled to establish the Compact. And it is also the story of a man from distant Terra named Paul Harrell who was the exact duplicate of Varzil's enemy.Two to Conquer is a novel of social forces in combat, of the use and misuse of science, of war, of rape, and of witchcraft.

Sorcerers of Majipoor


Robert Silverberg - 1982
    The aged Pontifex Prankipin, who brought sorcery (and prosperity) to the Fifty Cities of Castle Mount, is dying. The Coronal Lord Confalume, who will become Pontifex, begins the Funeral Games before his own replacement is chosen. It is no secret that the next Coronal will be Prince Prestimion. By law and custom, the blood son of the present Coronal, Korsibar, an avid hunter'cannot rule. But Korsibar has a secret quarry'the Starburst Crown. Visited by an oracle, Korsibar has heard a prophecy that will plunge the planet into a fearsome conflagration and alter destiny itself: "You will shake the world!"Outstanding Praise for The Majipoor Cycle"Plotted like a Shakespearian play.... With a brand new cast of characters and engaging conflicts of heart and soul, Silverberg'one of the world's finest stylists and storytellers'breathes fresh life (and quality) into sci-fi's sister genre."-- "San Antonio Express News""Boasting Machiavellian plot twists, underhanded and power-hungry backstabbers, and plenty of literary allusions, Sorcerers of Majipoor serves as a fine historical foundation for a wondrous world. Readers, both old and new, will want to accompany him in exploring this treasure trove of imagination."--Des Moines (IA) Sunday Register"Silverberg has created a big planet, chock-a-block with life and potential stories."-- "The Washington Post""There are two things that abide: absolute awe at Silverberg's capacity for creating images ... he makes yousee, believe, be there witnessing ... and [the] overarching compassion that colors every word and all the souls in his enormous planet."-- "Los Angeles Times""I was happy to visit Majipoor again, and to know there's room on that great and grand world for even more events to be chronicled."-- "Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" "A grand picaresque tale by one of the great storytellers of the century." --Roger Zelazny

A Stainless Steel Rat is Born


Harry Harrison - 1985
    The book opens with Jim bungling a bank job so that he can be arrested and sent to prison, where he plans to learn the art of being a master criminal. Deciding that the Bishop should be his mentor, Jim sets about proving himself worthy of the master's attention. He eventually has to flee his home planet of Bit O' Heaven with the Bishop, but Garth, the Captain of the ship who promised them safe passage, sells them into slavery. The latter part of the book details Jim's adventures on the planet Spiovente, a semi-industrial world fighting feudal wars with weapons smuggled in (against League regulations) by Captain Garth.

The Girl Who Heard Dragons


Anne McCaffrey - 1985
    The Girl Who Heard Dragons and fourteen other stories of alien worlds and strange beings are all brought magically alive by the magic pen of Anne McCaffrey.

Expedition To Earth


Arthur C. Clarke - 1953
    Clarke.Contents:Second DawnIf I Forget Thee, Oh Earth Breaking Strain History Lesson (as "Expedition to Earth" in the British Edition, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954)SuperiorityExile of the Eons Hide-and-SeekExpedition to Earth (as "Encounter in the Dawn" in the British Edition, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954)LoopholeInheritance The Sentinel (basis for 2001)

Jupiter


Ben Bova - 2000
    Heated from below by the planet's seething core, it is the widest, deepest, most fearsome ocean in the solar system.Idealistic young American scientist Grant Archer joins a clandestine expedition to this awesome new world. But Grant does not share the ideals of the scientists he accompanies: he has been planted on their expedition by the New Morality, a religious group that wants to ferret out what the 'godless humanists' have discovered. His mission: to reassure the new religious leaders of Earth that Jupiter holds no intelligent life.But unknown to the New Morality, Grant, though the son of a minister, is both a believer and a man who sees no reason why science and faith can not co-exist. He has come to the vast, planet-girdling ocean of Jupiter with an open mind, and he is about to tell his masters something that may shatter their conviction.

The Harrowing of Gwynedd


Katherine Kurtz - 1989
    The Regents of the boy-king Alroy sought their destruction. And now Bishop Alister Cullen was dead, depriving the Deryni of their greatest friend. But no one could be sure he was really dead. His body lay unchanged and incorruptible. As those questions remained unanswered, the effort to save Deryni had to continue. In the meanwhile, Camber's daughter Evaine pursued the most perilous quest of all--to find among ancient foribidden scrolls the spell that might release Camber. The price to fail--or to succeed--was unthinkable.....

The Lark and the Wren


Mercedes Lackey - 1991
    Even if only she knows it. Unfortunately, the daughter of a tavern wench at the Hungry Bear, no matter how talented, doesn't get much in the way of formal training. What she does get is frustrated.One night, to back up a brag she probably wouldn't have made if she weren't so mad, she went up to play her fiddle for the Ghost of Skull Hill. Everyone knows that no one who has ever gone up Skull Hill at night has come down again. Not alive, anyway.But when the ghost appears Rune strikes a bargain: if the ghost tires of her playing before morning her life is his; if he is still listening when the sun glints over yonder hill she will have earned both life and a sack of silver. Let the music begin...

Out Of Their Minds


Clifford Simak - 1970
    What if their world were real--if dragons, devils and Don Quixote hobnobbed with Dagwood Bumstead and Charlie Brown? Such a world would have its facinations..and its dreadful perils--if it existed. Horton Smith found out that it did..and that he was right in the middle of it!

Earth Is Room Enough


Isaac Asimov - 1957
    Contents:· The Dead Past · nv Astounding Apr ’56 · The Foundation of Science Fiction Success · pm F&SF Oct ’54 · Franchise · ss If Aug ’55 · Gimmicks Three [“The Brazen Locked Room”] · ss F&SF Nov ’56 · Kid Stuff · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Sep ’53 · The Watery Place · ss Satellite Oct ’56 · Living Space · ss Science Fiction Stories May ’56 · The Message · vi F&SF Feb ’56 · Satisfaction Guaranteed [Susan Calvin (Robot)] · ss Amazing Apr ’51 · Hell-Fire · vi Fantastic Universe May ’56 · The Last Trump · ss Fantastic Universe Jun ’55 · The Fun They Had · ss The Boys and Girls Page Dec 1 ’51; F&SF Feb ’54 · Jokester · ss Infinity Science Fiction Dec ’56 · The Immortal Bard · vi Universe May ’54 · Someday · ss Infinity Science Fiction Aug ’56 · The Author’s Ordeal · pm Science Fiction Quarterly May ’57 · Dreaming Is a Private Thing · ss F&SF Dec ’55

Hellstrom's Hive


Frank Herbert - 1973
    Hellstrom's Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents was immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose and its weaknesses—it could not be allowed to continue. What they discovered was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranoid government minds could devise.First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as "Project 40," Frank Herbert's vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction.

Hunter's Run


George R.R. Martin - 2007
    Human colonists serve as world-building crash-test dummies, dropped onto empty planets deemed too dangerous or inconvenient for other races, to pave over whatever marvels and threats evolution had put there. Like so many others, Ramon Espejo ran from the poverty and hopelessness of the Third World to the promise of a new world, joining a host of like-minded workers and dreamers aboard one of the great starships of the mysterious, repulsive Enye. But the life he found on the far-off planet of Sao Paulo was no better than the one he had abandoned.Tough, volatile, and angry, a luckless prospector hoping for that one rich strike that will make him wealthy, Ramon is content only when on his own out in the bush, far from the dirty, loud, bustling hive of humanity that he detests with sociopathic fervor. Then one night his rage and too much alcohol get the better of him, resulting in sudden bloodshed and a high-profile murder.Ramon is forced to flee into the wilderness for however long it will take for the furor to die down. Here, mercifully, almost happily alone, Ramon is once again free. But while searching for his long-elusive lode, he stumbles upon something completely unexpected: a highly advanced alien race in hiding; fugitives like himself on a world not their own.Suddenly in possession of a powerful, dangerous secret, Ramon must battle for his freedom from alien captors and also against the hostile and unpredictable planet. And so the chase begins. Police, fugitive aliens, and a human murderer weave a web of shifting alliances as Ramon enters the greatest manhunt the alien world of Sao Paulo has ever known. If he is to survive, Ramon must overcome inscrutable aliens and deadly predators, but his greatest enemy is himself. With every move in the desperate game, he struggles to outwit his enemies and solve the mystery of a murder he himself committed. A rip-roaring adventure tale and character study of a fascinating and twisted mind, "Hunter's Run" showcases three masters of the form at their best.