The IPF is charged with controlling the satellite network and preventing nuclear missile launches. But many factions resent this orbital police force--and attempt to seize control of the satellites . . . and the IPF.

    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!

    They are garnered from different trees, and few of them will seem at once to grow toward the same sun. Yet they do."This is the tale, told afresh, of how Avalon came to settlement and thus our choth to being. This is the tale as told by Terrans, who walk the Earth..."Then read."Contents:Wings of VictoryThe Problem of PainHow to be Ethnic in One Easy LessonMargin of ProfitEsau (also known as Birthright)The Season of ForgivenessThe Man Who Counts (the first appearance of the unedited version of War of the Wing-Men)A Little KnowledgeDay of Burning (also known as Supernova)LodestarWingless (also known as Wingless on Avalon)Rescue on Avalon

    All is not as it seems, however. While the peace-loving farmers labor endlessly to provide food for the City, the City Bosses rule the Shantih with an iron fist. When a group of farmers decide to from a new settlement further away, the Bosses retaliate by threatening to crush the "rebellion."Luz understands what it means to have no choices. Her father is a Boss and he has ruled over her life with the same iron fist. Luz wonders what it might be like to make her own choices. To be free to choose her own destiny.When the crisis over the new settlement reaches a flash point, Luz will have her chance.

    A short story collection originally published as Future Tense by one of SF's greatest authors, Jack Vance.Contents:- Dust of Far Suns (1962)- Dodkin's Job (1959)- Ullward's Retreat (1958)- The Gift of Gab (1955)

    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...

    if the might of the Federation met the advanced weaponry of the aliens... the inevitable clash would surely destroy all life in the solar system!"

    The place is Earth—in a way. The project: build a tunnel over four thousand miles in length, intended to sustain a pressure of one thousand atmospheres while accommodating cargo and passengers traveling in excess of a thousand miles per hour. The Transatlantic Tunnel will be the greatest engineering feat in the history of the British Empire, a structure worthy of Her Majesty’s Empire in this, the eighth decade of the twentieth century.If the project is a success, the credit will belong to Captain Augustine Washington, the most brilliant engineer of our age. It is Washington’s greatest hope that his success will at last erase the family shame inspired by that other Washington: George, traitor to his king, who was hanged by Lord Cornwallis more than two centuries ago.Harry Harrison, that incomparable creator of alternate worlds, has crafted a brilliant double exposure of history and a typically superb reading experience.

    Alex Alexander, ship's biologist, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that he encounters light-years from home. The planet Floria initially appears to be one of the few Earth colonies that's actually prospered since its initial settlement. But underneath the surface of the society, the "Planners" keep a strict, repressive rule over the Florians, while the police are apparently attempting to assert their own authority. But is either group actually what they seem? Daedalus Mission, Book One.

    . . First a rocket ship loses its engines on take-off and is destroyed. On board - an important extra-terrestrial visitor. Next someone slams into the sealed vehicle used for transporting aliens around in the lethal atmosphere of Earth. Then the vital controlled environment for the Tau Cetian delegation is sabotaged. Oxygen leaks in, and the aliens are half burnt alive. Even if it means brutal murder, The Stars Are For Man League is determined to shatter the harmony between Earth and civilizations on other planets - and to keep mankind supreme among the alien life forms. Only one man can stop them - a man who unknowingly nurses a viper in his bosom . . . First published in 1965.

    His previous collection, N-Space, was lauded by the Houston Post as "outstanding . . . hours of entertainment," while Publishers Weekly called it "a must for science fiction fans." A follow-up volume, Playgrounds of the Mind, was similarly praised by Kirkus Reviews: "An abundance of Niven's curious yet disciplined inventiveness and his fun-filled knack for turning seemingly absurd notions into credible, absorbing fiction. Grand entertainment."Now, ten years later, Scatterbrain collects an equally engaging assortment of Niven's latest work, all in one captivating volume. Here are choice excerpts from several of his most recent novels, including his upcoming Ringworld's Child and Rainbow Mars, as well as numerous short stories, nonfiction articles, interviews, editorials, collaborations, and correspondence. True to its title, Scatterbrain roams all over a wide variety of fascinating topics, featuring Niven's singular insights into everything from space stations to convention etiquette.So give yourself a treat, and feel free to pick the brain-or Scatterbrain-of one of modern science fiction's most fascinating thinkers.

    But in the far distant future, a time travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And in Washington D.C., an air disaster investigator named Smith is about to get a phone call that will change his life...and end the world as we know it.

    Tomost of the inhabitants of post-World Warr III he looks outlandish, even sinister, To their women, he looks attractive. earth looks equally odd to Scully. Hormone treatment has turned Texans into giants and their Mex slaves into unhappy dwarfs.To the Mexes, Scully is a Sign, a Talisman, a Leader. To Scully the Mexes are a Cause, The time is ripe for revolution...

    Bill Graham learned their terrible discovery: Earth was—and had been for centuries—controlled by aliens!The alien energy beings fed on human emotions. To cultivate their "food:' they manipulated Earth affairs to create war and strife, the sources of the human fears and passions which the aliens craved.Now their machinations were leading up to a devastating world war: They would feast finally on the self-destruction of the human race. Somehow. Graham and a hand-picked team of scientists had to stop the aliens before it was too late. But even thinking about the enemy could bring death...

    The story continues when the daughter of the anthropologist who studied the Asadi, a hominid-like race on the planet Bosk’veld, investigates his disappearance. In the journal Foundation, John Clute writes that the novel is "a fever of explanation. Hypothesis builds on hypothesis [as more data is added to the original observations], & much of the resulting construction is beautifully crafted, almost hallucinatory it is so plausible. But of course these explanations are never enough–-& the intellectual tact by which Bishop makes them almost but not quite fit the data they are meant to make transparent is perhaps the strongest part of this extremely dense and carefully thought-through novel." Legendary science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon writes "Michael Bishop’s Transfigurations is as complex, as carefully thought-out, & as compelling an sf novel as you’ll find anywhere, ever."