THE GODWHALE

Eyre-Methuen hardback, 1975. Cover artist uncredited.

"A thundering surf drowned the forlorn screams of sand-locked Rorqual Maru. Brine-tossed grains of olivine and calcite buried her left eye, blocking her view of the sky...As the eyelid of sand darkened her world, Rorqual wept over her irretrievable, wasted years. She was a Harvester without a crop - a plankton rake abandoned by Earth society when the seas died. 

Well over 600 feet long, Rorqual was a cyborg: part whale, part ship, and a marvellously complex combination of biology and mechanics. She had been built to serve Man, and yearned for his return and the feel of his bare feet on her decks. 

Then, after centuries, the miracle happened. The sea grew life again - and Rorqual began her long, slow search. But mankind had forgotten all about Rorqual and her kind..."

EXTRO

Eyre-Methuen hardback, 1975. Cover artwork by Peter Tybus.

"Alfred Bester's first science fiction novel in nineteen years is a major event. Like both his earlier novels, Extro is a breathtakingly fast-moving adventure peopled with brilliant, talented, witty eccentrics. Scattered about the overcrowded, frenzied solar system there is a small group of immortals. They range in age from Hic-Haec-Hoc, a neanderthal who hasn't become any smarter in many thousands of years of life, to Daniel Curzon, the baby of the group at two hundred and fifty. Curzon's nickname, Guig, short for Grand Guignol, was given him for his charming habit of killing horribly people he admires. For that's how people become immortal - by dying particularly horribly. Now Guig has a new target: Dr. Sequoya Guess, a brilliant young Cherokee physicist. Dr. Guess is killed when his space programme ends in catastrophe before Guig can get to him - and is transformed into a new immortal anyway, to Guig's delight. Dr. Guess begins to take over Extro, the supercomputer complex that controls all mechanical activity on earth. The immortals join him, adding their own considerable resources to the effort. Their  aim is to free earth of political repression, to rebuild guess's  space-probe programme, and also to have a good time. But Extro takes over Guess instead, and turns evil for no discernible reason. The task of one merry band suddenly becomes a fight in deadly earnest for their own lives and Earth's existence. Sequoya Guess, whom they love, must be killed - but how do you kill an immortal?"