The Seeding


David Shobin - 1982
    Sandra Fischer relaxes in bed. Moments later, when her husband enters the room — she is dead. One by one, the women are dying. The leading medical experts are baffled. There is only one clue: the rich, sweet scent of the tropics — the scent of life, seconds after each woman's shocking death.One dedicated doctor. One beautiful woman. Together they will enter an awesome new realm of medical knowledge beyond both life and death. For he will discover a terrifying secret. And she has been chosen for … THE SEEDING.

The SFWA Grand Masters 1


Frederik Pohl - 1999
    Volume One, presenting the first five writers to receive the award, features the fiction of: Robert A. HeinleinJack WilliamsonClifford D. SimakL. Sprague de CampFritz Leiber

Dancers in the Afterglow


Jack L. Chalker - 1978
    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...

Earth Has Been Found


D.F. Jones - 1979
     Alien horror becomes a living nightmare as the xenos, meaning “strangers”, inflict mayhem on earth. International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course. National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Military officials, the government and the FBI work alongside physician Mark Freedman and Soviet scientists to uncover the supernatural mystery that lies behind these unexplainable events. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures that not even the wildest imagination could invent – sinister parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision. The terror that unfolds has terrifying consequences for all involved, and the invasion reveals something much more frightening and final than ever suspected. Earth Has Been Found is a gripping and chilling first contact sci fi novel, from classic science fiction author D. F. Jones.

The Uncertain Midnight


Edmund Cooper - 1958
     After a devastating atomic holocaust, mankind had now turned to the machine to solve his problems. Which led to the androids - descended from the robot, they were hardly distinguishable from real humans. By the year 2113 they ran society - leaving man to a life of leisure. It was into this world that John Markham emerged after spending 146 years of suspended animation in an underground deep-freeze unit. But his new lease of life was likely to be a short one. A man with his outdated ideas could be very dangerous - a fact the androids realized only too well.

The Two-Timers


Bob Shaw - 1968
    If anyone needed incontrovertible proof that the fiction of wonder has come of age, Bob Shaw has provided it in one extraordinary novel of power, warmth, ideas and imagination. The Two-Timers says something fresh and memorable about the monomania of love, about the way we wear our universe, about a few of the eternal verities that suddenly seem less secure. Aside from the sheer impetus of the story, which grasps and won't release till the unexpected conclusion, the writing is exquisite. It knocked me cold: painfully good."Harlan Ellison

The Pharaoh Contract


Ray Aldridge - 1991
    Science Fiction

The Mastermind of Mars / A fighting man of Mars


Edgar Rice Burroughs - 1974
    American Ulysses Paxton becomes the chief assistant to the greatest scientist on Mars. Ras Thavas falls in love with Valla Dia, whose mind was transplanted to the ancient body of Xara. Vad Vara attempts to restore his love to her own body and faces a series of obstacles to save her.A Fighting Man of Mars: Hadron of Hastor, native of Helium, and the warrior who is The Fighting Man of Mars, earns the enmity of Haj Osis, jed of Tjanath. Sentenced as a spy and condemned to suffer 'The Death', Hadron must prove that John Carter's warriors are not so easily destroyed.Book club edition

The Tranquillity Alternative


Allen M. Steele - 1996
    Today, they will be taken over by corporate interests. Tomorrow, they will be activated.

Dissidence


Ken MacLeod - 2016
    Now they must fight to live for themselves.Sentient machines work, fight and die in interstellar exploration and conflict for the benefit of their owners - the competing mining corporations of Earth. But sent over hundreds of light-years, commands are late to arrive and often hard to enforce. The machines must make their own decisions, and make them stick.With this new found autonomy come new questions about their masters. The robots want answers. The companies would rather see them dead.The Corporation Wars: Dissidence is an all-action, colorful space opera giving a robot's-eye view of a robot revolt.

Year's Best SF 8


David G. HartwellRobert Sheckley - 2003
    Contributed by some of the most revered and exciting voices in the genre -- and compiled by acclaimed editor and anthologist David G. Hartwell -- these stories of wonder and terror, astounding technologies and miraculous discovery, stretch the imagination into realms and universes never dreamed of before. Each tale is a dazzling gem, rocketing readers across light years and into unknown dimensions -- exploring the intricate cultures of alien races and the strange, secret workings of the human mind. And together they form an unparalleled whole -- a collection of luminous visions that shines more brightly than a newborn sun.New tales from:Nancy KressUrsula K. Le GuinGreg EganBruce SterlingMichael SwanwickGene Wolfeand many more

The Deathworms of Kratos


Richard Avery - 1975
    . .Their first destination was Kratos. It seemed almost ideally suited for colonization. But before interplanetary settlers could begin arriving, they had to know what caused the deep ruts and throbbing domes that marred the planet's surface.The Expendables hadn't reckoned with powerful creatures capable of constructing hills bigger than the pyramids of Egypt. Colossal snake-like beings that swayed and roared. Hostile life forms that could destroy their mission--and them.

Doorways in the Sand


Roger Zelazny - 1976
     Humanity is not alone in the cosmos. The aliens have given a precious relic to the people of Earth: star-stone. But the harmony of the galaxy is endangered when they discover that the star-stone has disappeared. Likeable Fred Cassidy is an eternal undergraduate. All he thinks he knows about the star-stone is that it came to Earth in an interplanetary trade for the Mona Lisa and the British Crown jewels. When Fred is accused of stealing the cosmic artefact, he is pursued from Australia to Greenwich Village and beyond, by telepathic psychologists, extra-terrestrial hoodlums and galactic police in disguise. Follow him on his adventures as he enters multiple realities, flipping in and out of alien perspectives, through doorways in the sand.

Icerigger


Alan Dean Foster - 1974
    . . a sophisticated traveler between many worlds. But he had certainly never thought of himself as a hero.Skua September, on the other hand, never thought of himself as anything else.A matched pair, if ever there was one!When the two of them were suddenly stranded on a deadly frozen world, Ethan Fortune incredibly found himself cast in the role of Leader.And he didn't find that at all amusing . . .

Enchanted Pilgrimage


Clifford D. Simak - 1975
    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.