The a body with two holes in its neck and no blood left turned up at his back door, and he found himself dealing with the kind of information that can get a man killed, or worse, much worse.Being chased by things out of myth and nightmare, Jason has only two weapons: his best friend, and his won quick wits.In a battle against darkness, the brightest weapon is the light of reason.

    Chester IV, who has inherited his great-grandfather's lifework--a super computer that can bring any situation or time to life; and Roger Tyson, who is being pursued through time by a motorcycle-riding, rutabaga-like alien in a world where eras millions of years apart have been combined into an insane smorgasbord of eons.Contains:In the QueueThe Planet WreckersThe Body BuildersThe Devil You Don'tThe Exterminator (aka "A Bad Day for Vermin") The Big ShowGooberealityPrototaphThe Great Time Machine Hoax

    Many have native microbes dangerous to the human immigrants. Others have diseases brought to them accidentally -- or on purpose -- by visiting ships. When millions of lives are threatened, it's a job for the Interstellar Medical Service, and a Med Ship is sent to solve the problem. Calhoun is the best the Med Service has, and hard experience has taught him that often the major obstacle to curing the sick is... the sick. And removing that kind of obstacle may take very strong medicine.This book is a compilation of four books released in the 1960's: The Mutant Weapon, Doctor to the Stars, S.O.S. from Three Worlds and This World is Taboo.3 • Med Ship Man • (1963)57 • Plague on Kryder II • (1964)121 • The Mutant Weapon • (1959)231 • Ribbon in the Sky • (1957)285 • Tallien Three (aka The Hate Disease) • (1963)351 • Quarantine World • (1966)425 • The Grandfathers' War • (1957)505 • Pariah Planet (aka This World is Taboo) • (1961)632 • Editors' Afterword by Eric Flint and Guy Gordon

    But even if the lost home world can be found, there may be no place for humans on it anymore. The once-lowly creatures who are now the sole inhabitants, and which mankind dominated in ages past, have been raised to a high level of intelligence and the future they plan is not one with any room for the former rulers of the planet. This future saga is here assembled for the first time, as well as several bonus short novels in a huge volume of highly original space adventure.

    Rats with human speech, but with rat priorities: sex, food and strong drink. And the bats were revolutionaries planning to throw off the human yoke -- with high explosive. Then there was the girl they'd rescued. Rich. Beautiful. With a passionate crush on her "heroic" rescuer. Her entourage was a screwball Alien tutor, and a cyber-uplifted lemurlike pet galago with delusions of being the world's greatest lover. Of course things only got worse. Seven rats, five bats, a galago, two humans, a sea-urchin-like alien and an elderly vineyard tractor without brakes...against several million inimical aliens. He was going to die. Mind you, not dying could be even more terrible. That girl might get him.

    An alien migration fleet -- 14,000 starships strong -- searches the stars for a new home, its homeworld forever lost. When they finally find planets that can support them, all they have to do is eradicate the pesky human natives, a task they assume is easily within their powers. But Earth's Commonwealth of Worlds isn't about to give up so easily -- even if it has to create and train something it hasn't had for centuries: soldiers!

    . .

    They had their own invention with them-an emotional amplifier, which could cause anyone to feel a heightened emotion, but this wasn't useful at first. If they heightened the locals' sense of pride, they took pride in becoming better criminals. So they pretended to be the Royal Legions, sent by a distant star kingdom in pursuit of an all-powerful villain who was hiding on the planet. Things were going better than they could have hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized . . . and then the real Royal flagship showed up. They thought they were doomed-but instead they were told they had shown just the type of initiative and intelligence that the new arrivals were looking for. So they were inducted into the Interstellar Patrol. And that was just the beginning. . . .

    A caste of scientists arose who knew how to repair and operate the ancient machines, but not how they worked, and worshipped at the altars of the atomic gods who were said to make the machines run. Society was a strange mix of the modern and the medieval, with armies riding on horseback into huge spaceships, then flying to human colonies on other planets to wage war with swords and arrows. Then came the mutant Clane, who would have been put to death for his deformities had he not been born into the ruling family. Though his body was twisted, his mind was brilliant, and he not only recovered the lost science behind the ancient machines, but found the truth behind the legends of civilisation's downfall. Alien invaders, not human war, had reduced humanity to barbarism as a prelude for a later return in force to colonize the Solar System. And that return would happen soon, unless Clane could find a way to stop it. . . . For the first time, the entire Clane saga, told in the two novels Empire of the Atom and The Wizard of Linn, is complete in one volume.Mission to the Stars, Van Vogt's sweeping novel of interstellar adventure, is also included, along with the two short novels in the Ezwal series, chronicling the struggle of one man to convince a feral but intelligent species to join with humanity in the battle against a mutual enemy, but first he must convince the lone Ezwal who is trapped with him in a deadly jungle to co-operate, or neither will survive.

    Neal Anson Clemons, brilliant physicist and martial arts expert, was born at the very moment that men first landed on the moon, and his dream had always been to find a way to travel to the stars. And now he and his team have achieved a breakthrough, both in building a warp drive, and finding a new energy source powerful enough to make the drive more than an interesting theoretical concept. With the help of a beautiful Air Force Major and astronaut, Tabitha Ames, the US Government has funded the project, including assembly in orbit of the first faster-than-light probe. Unfortunately, forces working behind the scenes have much darker dreams, and they do not hesitate to blow up a space shuttle, attempt to kill Neal and Tabitha, and use the stolen warp technology to start what they expect to be a short victorious war with the United States. But Neal has ideas for using warp drive completely unsuspected by America's enemies, and repelling the all-out attack is only the beginning of a titanic struggle to reach the stars.

    The bestselling saga of Falkenberg's legion, complete in one huge volume, this contains stories that were originally published in four parts as "Falkenberg's Legion, Prince of Mercenaries, Go Tell the Spartans" and "Prince of Sparta."

    Just in time because human war created the galaxy's newest star and Venus was all that was left of humanity. The lessons of Earth weren't completely missed. Venus's domed cities (the land areas were considered too dangerous to settle) made plenty of war, but their warfare was limited, civilized, and conducted by professional mercenary companies. Cities who stepped outside of the rules of war could be quickly nuked — a strong incentive toward cooperation. Of course, even 'civilized' warfare is still warfare and mankind's efforts were largely squandered in an entire world that is overrun with mutating and dangerous descendants of the species brought in by Earth's terraformers.In two linked novellas, author David Drake explores the mercenaries who carry on the wars. In the first, Surface Action, Johnnie Gordon joins his mercenary-uncle Dan Cooke in an attempt to overcome a conspiracy of mercenary companies to preserve their way of life — by preventing Johnnie's father from bringing about a peaceful union of Venus domed cities. With only Dan's mercenary company to protect the young alliance and with multiple opponents lining up, Johnnie's mercenary experience seems doomed. And that's before Dan comes up with a crazy idea involving a cross-country cutting out operation.In The Jungle, two junior officers face their own failings after their boat is damaged. Each perceives the other as embodying all of the characteristics that they know they are missing themselves — and each uses the other's example for inspiration, subtly living up to the other's misconceptions. But survival is only a part of the requirement. Because the Venus domed cities have themselves reached a critical situation. Somehow, men must reclaim the land while they still have the chance.In Seas of Venus, David Drake sees the romance of war, but he doesn't let it seduce him. Even distant warfare conducted by professional mercenaries has its costs — including the creation of a self-perpetuating and self-dooming system. The first story, Surface Action, is straightforward, with a twist ending. The Jungle is a continual twist as Drake gives us a deeper insight into the characters and into the world and society which spawned them. The non-linear time flow is occasionally confusing, but the storytelling works.Seas of Venus, especially The Jungle, is military SF at its best. And Drake's story of a true-life voyage to the jungle of Belize is a nice bonus.

    A talented, elite cadre, they stepped out of the everyday human race...to enter their own!

    Therefore making friends with the Dilbians and establishing a human presence there is of the utmost importance, which may be a problem, since the bearlike Dilbians stand some nine feet tall, and have a high regard for physical prowess. They're not impressed by human technology, either. A real man, er, bear doesn't need machines to do his work for him.But Dilbians "are" impressed by sharp thinking, and some have expressed a grudging admiration for the logical (and usually sneaky) mental maneuvers that the human "shorties" have used to get themselves out of desperate jams. Just maybe that old human craftiness will win over the Dilbians to the human side. If not, we lose a nexus, and the Dilbians will learn just how unbearable Hemnoids can be....

    Johnny Mnemonic (1981)The Gernsback Continuum (1981)Fragments of a Hologram Rose (1977)The Belonging Kind (1981) with John ShirleyHinterlands (1981)Red Star, Winter Orbit (1983) with Bruce SterlingNew Rose Hotel (1984)The Winter Market (1985)Dogfight (1985) with Michael SwanwickBurning Chrome (1982)