A land where men and women are marked for life. Where they are bound to irrevocable destinies by the proclamations of the Faceless Man-an unseen power which terrorises and controls the world.Durdane is a place where defiance is punished with death. But this kingdom of myriad mystery and incalculable peril is now threatened by a menace from without-the dreaded Rogushkoi. And only one youth, Gastel Etzwane, dares to challenge the unchallengeable, the power of the Faceless Man, in an extraordinary struggle for mastery and for the survival of Durdane...

    Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat. For a fraction of a second he wondered if a fan blade had hit some submerged obstacle; then, quite literally, the bottom fell out of his world.It fell slowly, as all things must upon the Moon. The sea was alive and moving . . . Every stage of that nightmare transformation was pitilessly illuminated by the earth light, until the crater was so deep that its firewall was completely lost in shadow, and it seemed as if Selene were racing into a curving crescent of utter blackness – an arc of annihilation.In darkness and in silence, they were sinking into the Moon. . . .

    For three years it had been there, and still there were nothing but questions. What had lured the voyager from Sigma Dacron's to Earth? How did the creature plan to use its incredible power? And most important, why was it waiting...and for what?Then, in a blinding flash of insight, Skip Wayburn suddenly knew the answers... knew with dead certainty why the Sigman had come, who "he' was, and precisely what the Earthmen must do.But who would listen to the far-out ideas of a mere sigaroon? Skip didn't know. But someone had to listen—and fast.

    Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions - Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she's trying to kill him.

    based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.' - Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science FictionAsher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write.Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Aldebaran XII.

    His spells can strike terror in the hearts of even his most powerful enemies. But the enemy he faces now is like none he has ever seen before. The stranger has come from nowhere and is ignorant of even the most basic principles of magic. But the stranger has an incredibly powerful magic of his own. There is no room in Shoogar's world for an intruder whose powers match his own, let alone one whose powers might exceed his. So before the blue sun can cross the face of the red sun once more, Shoogar will show this stranger just who is boss.

    When they reach the planet Grudgrodd, they come across another space-faring species. It's a case of instant dislike. The gentle Utods do not feel pain, they change sex as the planet changes suns, they live long pleasurable lives, free of stress. They wallow in their own middens. But 'Civilisation is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta'. So the carnage begins.

    Yet among this desolate world, he discovers reasons for living.

    Their aircraft had begun to crash at an alarming rate, and no one could figure out what was going wrong. Desperate for an answer, they turned to Waldo, the crippled genius who lived in a zero-g home in orbit around Earth.But Waldo had little reason to want to help the rest of humanity — until he learned that the solution to their problems also held the key to his own...Magic, Inc.Under the guise of an agency for magicians, Magic, Inc. was systematically squeezing out the small independent magicians. Then one businessman stood firm. With the help of an Oxford-educated African shaman and a little old lady adept at black magic, he went straight to the demons of Hell to resolve the problem — once and for all!

    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.

    But there is much more to the story of the little Neanderthal boy plucked out of time and transferred to the 21st century. Now, Robert Silverberg--in this second collaboration with Asimov--has made this sf classic into an engrossing novel-length tale.

    Now Schoken Associates, one of the big players, has a new challenge for star copywriter Mitch Courtenay. Volunteers are needed to colonise Venus. It's a hellhole, and nobody who knew anything about it would dream of signing up. But by the time Mitch has finished, they will be queuing to get on board the spaceships.Biographical NotesPohl and Kornbluth started writing together as early as 1940, although both authors produced a wide variety of stories separately, under their own names and pseudonyms.Each wrote sections, starting where the other left off, and through long experience they developed an almost telepathic awareness of each other's intentions.

    Their aim was to keep the existence of the alternative Earths a secret and prevent these Earths from mixing and destroying each other.But the Time Police made mistakes, and they made a big one when a seemingly ordinary Pennsylvania State Trooper named Calvin Morrison was accidentally switched into the Aryan-Transpacific sector, Styphon's House subsector.In just a few weeks, Morrison was being hailed as Lord Kalvan, and was masterminding a campaign that could blow the whole Paratime secret sky high!

    What he wishes is to communicate with the stars, to answer signals from deep space. The colossal tower he's constructing for this purpose soars above the Arctic tundra, and the seemingly perfect androids building it view Krug as their god. But, Krug is only flesh-and-blood, and when his androids discover the truth, their anger knows no bounds...and it threatens much more than the tower. "...a multi-levelled work of high adventure, considerable tension and social consciousness."--Harlan Ellison.

    They brought to life the one man out of history who would most want to destroy Astrobe!