But upon entering the sleepy, isolated little hamlet, Ted is distraught to find that the place bears no resemblance to the one he left behind—and never did. He also discovers that in this Millgate Ted Barton died of scarlet fever when he was nine years old. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is literally impossible to escape. Unable to leave, Ted struggles to find the reason for such disturbing incongruities, but before long, he finds himself in the midst of a struggle between good and evil that stretches far beyond the confines of the valley.Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    If they fail, the entire world will be doomed.

    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...?

    It was a time of Decision.The bureaucrats of Earth, the stark pioneers of "terraformed" Mars, and the proud gill-altered rulers of Venus were torn between two techno-religions - one offering the certainty of eternal life; and the other, a far-flung destiny among the stars.

    When a celebrated science fiction writer takes to space on his first trip to Mars, he's sure to be in for some heckling from the spaceship crew. But Martin Gibson, man about space, takes it all in his stride. That is, until he lands on the red planet. Once there the intrepid author causes one problem after another as he stumbles upon Mars's most carefully hidden secrets and threatens the future of an entire planet!

    He set the stage for such in The 11th Commandment. Following a nuclear exchange which destroyed the Vatican, a new pontiff was elected by American Cardinals. When Europe also elected a Pope, Americans split from the Old World in a schism establishing the priority of an 11th commandment: "Ten were given to Moses, for the Hebrews, & our Lord instrusted us to observe them. But what we call the 11th—it should be called the Original—was given by God the Father to the entire human race thru Adam, to whom He said, 'Be fruitful & multiply & replenish the earth.' It was the foundation of our accomplishments." These principles found fertile ground in a decimated land. To Boyd Jensen, Mars colony immigrant, the culture is frightening. Four billion live in N. America, a billion in S. America. Most are American Catholic. Contraception is illegal. Boyd's profession, biologic research, is restricted to priests. Poverty is commonplace among the laity, practically unknown in the clergy. In addition to mass misery, mutations & plagues are everywhere. Boyd learns he'a not allowed to return to Mars, as he's been exposed to Earth diseases. There's a hint his DNA is damaged, that he was tricked into coming to Earth to remove him from Mars' gene pool. Boyd believes he'll survive without subscribing to the state religion. He wears an unobtrusive patch to keep him sterile; he isn't the type to succumb to the bleeding disease; he's more valuable training in cytology than many priests. He hasn't reckoned with two things, however. 1st, at a higher gravity than Mars', the contraceptive is ineffective. Boyd impregnates a woman. Her baby is taken by the Church to be raised in a special facility. Boyd is determined to help rescue it. 2nd, the Church knows more than admitted about the extent of the mutations. The 11th Commandment may be the only thing guaranteeing human survival. Del Rey's conception of a Catholic America is predicated on the 3rd world. Long Island seems like Caracas or São Paulo. He seems to suggest Catholicism causes poverty & overcrowding. Reading on, however, his message comes clear: The root cause of this misery is the need to contend for survival. You don't get to opt out of the game, as Mars has done with her pure racial stock. The crucible is where the metal is purified & made strong, not the shelf. The 11th Commandment seems hardly dated. Its plot needs little amendment to be conceivable as a possible future. The warning that the fruitful will multiply & the meek inherit the Earth, is worth considering.

    Then came the announcement that the whole thing was a hoax. End of story. Case closed.Except that two agents of the most secret intelligence agency in the U.S. government were on the scene and disappeared without reporting back. Then four more follow up agents also disappeared. So the head of the agency and his two top agents went in and managed to get out with their discovery: an invasion is underway by slug-like aliens who can touch a human and completely control his or her mind. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And most of Iowa is already under their control.Sam Cavanaugh was one of the agents who discovered the truth. Unfortunately, that was just before he was taken over by one of the aliens and began working for the invaders, with no will of his own. And he has just learned that a high official in the Treasury Department is now under control of the aliens. Since the Treasury Department includes the Secret Service, which safeguards the President of the United States, control of the entire nation is near at hand.

    After the explotion, searchers sifted through the immense pile of debris ... to discover a fantastically instrumented capsule, and a strangely human pilot, stone dead. Bowden Karvel's theory, that the capsule's port of origin lay in the distant future, seemed a plausible explanation. But while investigating, the capsule was accidentally dispatched again through time ... only to reappear with an alien navigator, this time destroying a small French town. One thing seemed imperative: a human operator must man the intricate controls of the capsule, riding it forward to its mysterious point of origin. And Bowden Karvel seemed the perfect choice to make the trip...

    His only clues point to a conspiracy that reaches far beyond his own murder, and survival lies in discovering other fugitives who know the truth about the ultimate weapon of chaos and salvation. Reprint.

    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.

    Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal...2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life...to annihilate it.In the Ocean of Night is a 1977 hard science fiction novel by Gregory Benford. It is the first novel in his Galactic Center Saga. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1977. It was first published as a novelette in the May/June 1972 edition of Worlds of If Science Fiction.

    For according to computer predictions, Mars is humankind's only alternative to extinction. But beneath his monstrous exterior, Torraway still carries a man's capacity for suffering.

    Once he was outbound, where the Society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the Universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he'd left...a planet that had had 3,000,000 years to develop perils he had never dreamed of -- perils that became nightmares that he had to escape...somehow!

    To save his kingdom, Anubis, Lord of the Dead, sends forth his servant on a mission of vengeance. At the same time, from The House of Life, Osiris sends forth his son, Horus, on the same mission to destroy utterly & forever The Prince Who Was a Thousand. But neither of these superhuman warriors is prepared for the strange & harrowing world of mortal life. The Thing That Cries in the Night may well destroy not only their worlds, but all humankind. As Zelazny did with the Hindu pantheon in the legendary, groundbreaking classic Lord of Light, the master storyteller here breathes new life into the Egyptian gods with another dazzling tale of mythology and imagination.

    It was waiting for him, just as he had left it. But where? He only knew he was in the center of a galaxy in a universe of galaxies. Within them lay endless varieties of the planet Earth. And there was only one way to find his Earth again: he would have to visit each one. And he would have to hurry--because his search for home had turned into a race with death.