Galactic Odyssey


Keith Laumer - 1967
    After the massacre that took two of our party, we alone were left, waiting to be rescued.Hope filled my breast when a spaceship landed, but the batlike dwarfs that emerged, viciously beat me up, grabbed the Lady Raire...and when I came to, they were gone with her.She was my charge -- I was responsible for her safety, and I meant to find her, even if I had to travel to each and every planet in the galaxy.I was a bluff young lad in those days -- and might have chosen differently, if I had known what grisly adventures were in store for me in the century's most hair-raising GALACTIC ODYSSEY.

The Far Call


Gordon R. Dickson - 1978
    He seized the chance to become U.S. Undersecretary for the Development of Space and to help plan the first manned Mars voyage. But political compromise and corner-cutting built disaster into the expedition from the start. A nd when disaster struck, threatening the lives of the marsnauts and the whole destiny of the human race in space, only Jens saw what had to be done - and to do it, he had to risk his own life, face the loss of the woman he loves and defy the awesome power of the President of the United States.

The Dreaming Jewels


Theodore Sturgeon - 1950
    He runs away, taking only a gem-eyed doll he calls Junky, & joins a carnival. Finding acceptance at last, Horty never dreams that Junky is more than a toy, nor does he realize that a threat far greater than his cruel father inhabits the carnival & has been searching for Horty longer than he has been alive.This book was also published as "The Synthetic Man".

Burning Chrome


William Gibson - 1986
    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)

The Day of the Triffids


John Wyndham - 1951
    Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere twenty-four hours before is gone forever.But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk, and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, fifty years before their realization, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia.

Nova


Samuel R. Delany - 1968
    the reader observes, recollects, or participates in a range of personal experience including violent pain and disfigurement, sensory deprivation and overload, man-machine communion, the drug experience, the creative experience - and inter-personal relationships which include incest and assassination, father-son, leader-follower, human-pet, and lots more!The balance of galactic power in the 31st century revolves around Illyrion, the most precious energy source in the universe. The varied and exotic crew who sign up with Captain Lorq van Ray know their mission is dangerous, and they soon learn that they are involved in a deadly race with the charismatic but vicious leader of an opposing space federation. But they have no idea of Lorq's secret obsession: to gather Illyrion at the source by flying through the very heart of an imploding star.

Agent of Chaos


Norman Spinrad - 1967
    But at the same time he was too organically a radical ever to be confused with a conservative. Result: Agent of Chaos! Boris Johnson thinks he wants democracy. But in the course of his adventures he discovers that democracy to him means freedom. It's a banned concept from the Millennium of Religion. Like God. He finds himself dealing with a byzantine political situation worthy of anything from the banned past. The dictatorship is the Hegemony. Opposition is provided by the aptly named agents of C.H.A.O.S. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Assassins plays a game that no one can fathom. Whose side are they on? Whose fool are you? Spinrad explores his philosophical theme in a manner all too rare in contemporary science fiction. The problem is that Order will always try to eliminate any random factors. By its very nature, it encourages opposition and that feeds the forces of chaos. But chaos has built in problems as well. Its victories cannot help but feed the forces of reaction, of order. The heroes in this novel ultimately opt for personal freedom. The villains try to establish a dictatorship over the very nature of reality itself. And then Spinrad throws in the discovery of aliens. A starship sets forth to meet them, the Prometheus. The Hegemony doesn't like that.

A Jungle of Stars


Jack L. Chalker - 1976
    Suddenly, Savage found himself pitted against an enemy he had never seen, an enemy who could be anyone, anywhere, at any time . . . an enemy determined to destroy him and all who got in his way. And in this raging intergalactic war between Good and Evil, Savage discovered that he couldn't be sure whose side he was on . . . .