Come, Hunt an Earthman


Book Description

If you're a human, the deadliest game. You may consider yourselves experienced hunters. You have hunted on many planets. But here things are different. For there are no mindless monsters or charging carnivores, but a devious, intelligent and dangerous prey. A prey who is out to get you before you get him. Man!




Complete Critical Assembly


Book Description

This new collection of essays, commissioned from a range of scholars across the world, takes as its theme the reception of Rome's greatest poet in a time of profound cultural change. Amid the rise of Christianity, the changing status of the city of Rome, and the emergence of new governing classes, Vergil remained a bedrock of Roman education and identity. This volume considers the different ways in which Vergil was read, understood and appropriated; by poets, commentators, Church fathers, orators and historians. The introduction outlines the cultural and historical contexts. Twelve chapters dedicated to individual writers or genres, and the contributors make use of a wide range of approaches from contemporary reception theory. An epilogue concludes the volume.




The Martian Chronicles


Book Description

The tranquility of Mars is disrupted by humans who want to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.




No Truce With Terra


Book Description

From: The Shaldron Race To: The Human Race Greetings: Your presence on this planet has been noted and the reason for your visit analyzed by our instruments. We have, therefore, taken the liberty of selecting one of your party for our first contact, one whom we feel is best suited to grasp the motivations of both our races and arrange for future group contacts. Peter Collard stared at the message with a cold feeling of foreboding. He felt pity for the poor devil. "Who is this selected contact?" "Ah, now," Dyson became suddenly interested in the papers on the table. "Well, I'm sorry and all that but, as a matter of fact, they want you."




The Sex Column and Other Misprints


Book Description

A collection of columns by the author, some previously published in SFX magazine.




Ghost Planet


Book Description

As a ghost, psychologist Elizabeth Cole is symbiotically linked to her supervisor and the creator of the Ghost Protector, who is forbidden to interact with her, which prompts her to search for the truth surrounding her own existence.




Step to the Stars


Book Description

Waking Nightmare! He awoke, stretched and scratched the top of his head with his right hand. It hurt, must have a pimple there or something. Only a few seconds later his forehead tingled, and he brushed at it with his left hand. It came away smothered in blood. What the hell! Got to get a towel or handkerchief or something. He reached forward with his right hand to throw back the bedclothes and froze. It was not his hand. It was not even human blood. The hand was brown, thin and scaly. A membrane stretched from the palm upwards to the top knuckles of the fingers, holding them together. Long curved nails grew from the tops of the fingers and one of them was bloody.




Way Station


Book Description

Hugo Award Winner: In backwoods Wisconsin, an ageless hermit welcomes alien visitors—and foresees the end of humanity . . . Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human, it brilliantly supports the contention of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein that “to read science-fiction is to read Simak.”




Earth's Man of Color


Book Description

A distinction is drawn between two very similarities based on the two types of characters that the same type of society produced. Orie, Puzo and Nmaku who hail from Angwa and the adjoining Ocha remained back in the village and made their lives almost permanently there rarely knowing what was going on in the outside world but being nonetheless greatly influenced by the latter. Their daily chores are dictated by the daily basic necessities of the moment and they have little to worry perpetually about. A lot of their life is controlled by the dictations and predictions of the traditional medicine man who occasionally misfires in his predictions which have no scientific basis supporting them. His situation is often taken advantage of by the political class who have little or nothing to lose even if the polity collapses. But Livinus on the other end of the spectrum emerges from the civil war and through a dint of luck and hard work studies hard and becomes a doctor. He even proceeds overseas despite a close shave by arsonists. He specializes and returns home to Akunwanta town from where he is again catapulted by fate and focus to become the governor of his state after a battle between titans eliminates the principal contestants. He at first meant well and had the intention of helping to reform society. Post election litigation and his lack of the economic leverage almost cost him his mandate. But again fate plays a hard one on him and because of his lack of cash he gets tied up to the economic vampires of his society. He is bailed out by a coalition of these vampires and narrowly reclaims his mandate only after colossal bribing of umpires who were least expected to soil their hands. He decides never to go begging ever again and hence he delves headlong into the rot and decay, not by his will but by the circumstances prevailing around him.




The Prodigal Sun


Book Description

Power-Greedy. Men wished to rule the world, but one man stood in their way. Peter Duncan came from the planet Mattrain - but who was he? Was he human? If so, whence came his vastly superior intellect and technical knowledge? These were mysteries the Administration feared - because they could not find the answer to them. Too late they saw danger. For, by then, Peter Duncan had escaped and taken refuge in the Devastated Areas, from which he continued his fight to save the human race from final utter destruction. But then, he had a reason. Martha of the chestnut hair and striking beauty, who alone knew his secret and who taught him how to love.