The mission brings them into contact with man startling life-forms and menacing aliens. On one world the Sarafand sends out six survey modules and seven return one of them is a shape-changing malevolent alien - but which? On another planet they discover a humanoid civilisation which can move around in time. Suddenly the Sarafand investigators are marooned millions of years in the past. Finally the Sarafand and its crew are stranded in a distant galaxy where everything - including them - is shrinking inexorably to zero size

    Menaced by a terrifying array of lethal forces, Blord risked his life against alien aggressors as well as more human adversaries.Never knowing at what moment death might overtake him, he fought to fulfill a dream; that he might one day claim the title that riches couldn't buy: Master of the Ridge Stars!Originally published in 1954. It is based on these short stories, all by E. Mayne Hull: Competition (1943) The Contract (1944) The Debt (1943) Bankruptcy Proceedings (1946) Enter the Professor (1945)

    Sartorials compete fiercely in creating new apparel, and Peder has heard that the greatest of them all are in the Caeanic worlds, where clothing is a way of life and a philosophy of living. In Peder's sector, though, Caeanic clothing is prohibited, and he has fallen in with a band of pirates attempting to salvage a Caeanic freighter. In splitting the loot--clothes--Peder cleverly spots a legendary suit, one of five in the entire galaxy, and walks off with it. And no sooner does he put it on than his personality changes; he becomes self-assured, clever, successful--it almost seems as though the suit of clothes is wearing him! A whimsical tale of a suit of clothes that really makes the man.

    Here is a novel to equal Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End. It tells with frightening clarity of a desperately stricken earth-wracked by overpopulation and plagued by famine and despair. It tells, too, of a new breed of men and women--21st century lotus eaters caught up in a mysterious euphoria which will ultimately threaten all life on this planet; the drug-induced world of "happy dreams." Do these "happy dreamers" herald the end of the human species--or the next extraordinary step in the evolution of humanity?

    For Earth was indifferent to her superfluous population and supply lines ran thin. The colonists were considered disposable "garbage."But one young Outposter, Mark Ten Roos, had an old score to settle with the Meda V'Dans. Years ago they had killed his parents and now they had crippled his adopted father.His plan was a daring challenge to the system. But could he change the odds...?

    And only one world seems to offer hope of sanctuary - Ree'hdworld, home of the only other intelligent beings in the universe. But Ree'hdworld is not as safe as it seems. For something has been happening to the natives - both the friendly Ree'hd and their more primitive kinsmen, the Rundii. And only three people stand any chance of discovering and surviving the danger that the humans of Ree'hdworld will soon face: Kristina, an Earthwoman who is slowly "going Ree'hd"; Maguire, a blind man who should have died centuries ago and who, living, has seen all the secrets of the universe; and Zeitman, a brilliant scientist who holds the key to salvation on Ree'hdworld in his mind - if only he can discover it in time...

    The Trill are a carefree and easy-living people, but violence enters their lives during raids of the Starmenters, freebooting galactic pirates who live short, perilous lives in pursuit of adventure, rape and pillage. Then there's the planet-wide game of hussade - when the Trill's passion for gambling drives them to risk all - even life itself, on the hazardous water-chessboard gaming fields. Their prize? The beautiful sheirlmaiden..

    Few of them are aware that their prosperous civilization is totally dependent upon the olz, a race of slaves owned by their god-emperor. The olz till the fields and work the forests and mines, and their reward is starvation and the vicious, caustic stroke of the zrilm whip.

    In this classic of alternate history by grand master Philip Jose Farmer, Native American bomber pilot Roger Two Hawks bails out over enemy territory in WWII, only to find himself on another Earth-one in which the American continents never rose from the waters, and the ancestors of the American Indians remained in Asia and Europe-an Earth embroiled in a world war of its own, with Two Hawks caught in the middle.

    Other nations (primarily cold war America and Soviet Union) try to acquire this technology, providing much of the tension and the climax of the novel.

    But as their sky began burning, who could blame the Russians for thinking that the Americans had attacked....?

    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.

    Ondine was a resort planet. Sixteen million tourists travelled there from just about every world you could think of to live and love in sixteen million different ways. Then came the machists... They had gobbled up world after world, spreading their culture to thousands of different races with a brutal, vicious, but most effective system. They were inhuman, unthinking...uncaring. The Combine had already seen what they had done on other worlds, seen whole populations converted into something horrible...something not quite human, non-thinking and no longer caring. Now they had captured Ondine, and no human could save the planet. And then Daniel came to Judgment. Daniel was a cyborg, a former fighter pilot now wedded to a master computer and life-support system housed in a flying golden egg. He was the Combine scientists' finest creation, a spaceship that could control twenty-two robot slaves. He was the perfect saviour for Ondine, but for one thing. Everyone seemed to forget that deep inside that golden egg was a very human being...

    They go into deep sleep while humanity matures. They resemble us & can both breathe the air & eat our food. Wes Chase discovers them while on a casual fishing trip. It was a long time before they were able to explain to him why they were on Earth or what they needed. They claim they're here to learn but their power makes it difficult to say what their real motives are. It was even longer before he conquered his horror & decided he could help them in their mission to bring peace to the universe. When he finally found the daring answer to their problems, he realized that he would have to leave his own life behind & go with them into the future & the winds of time.

    The Wastelands were a realm of magic where no one ventured. Along the borders, the Little People pursued their ancient ways. But the interior was populated by all the dread creatures of darkest legends. There the Hellhounds took their awful vengeance on any who dared violate their territory. There the Chaos Beast was dead but struggled still to give birth to something even more strange & incomprehensible. Mark Cornwall was forced to flee into the Wastelands to escape from Beckett, evil agent of the inquisition. There he was joined by Oliver the rafter goblin, Gil of the marshes, Hal & Coon of the Hollow Tree, Snively the gnome--& Mary, who could free the horn of a unicorn & said she was born in the Wastelands. Ahead lay unknown terror & perilous adventure. If they survived, there was the alien Caretaker with a message of Destiny.