THE BICENTENNIAL MAN

Panther SF paperback, 1978. Cover painting by Chris Foss.

"ROBOT AS REVOLUTIONARY 

Andrew was one of Earth's first house robots - clean, smoothly designed and functional. But when Andrew started to develop special talents which exceeded the confines of his allotted positronic pathways, he abandoned his domestic duties in favour of more intellectual pursuits. As time passed, Andrew acquired knowledge, feelings and ambitions way beyond anything ever experienced by other mechanical men. And he found himself launched on to a career which would bring him fame, fortune - and danger. For a robot who wants to be human must also be prepared to die... 

In The Bicentennial Man, Isaac Asimov returns to his first and most enduring love - robotics. The result is a brilliant book of first-class entertainment and mind-spanning ideas which confirms Asimov's supreme status as Grand Master of science fiction."

Contents:


The Prime Of Life
Feminine Intuition
Waterclap
That Thou Art Mindful Of Him
Stranger In Paradise
The Life And Times Of Multivac
The Winnowing
The Bicentennial Man
Marching In
Old-fashioned
The Tercentenary Incident
Birth Of A Notion

THE TIME OF THE EYE

Panther SF paperback, 1974. Cover painting by Chris Foss.

"Here is a collection of dark and wonderful stories by one of the most explosive talents in science fiction today. He has won more Hugo and Nebula awards - the most coveted trophies of the SF world - than just about any other writer, and, reading these tales of conflict, alienation and future fantasy, it is easy to see why." 

Contents:


Are You Listening?
Try A Dull Knife
In Lonely Lands
Eyes Of Dust
Nothing For My Noon Meal
O Ye Of Little Faith
The Time Of The Eye
Life Hutch
The Very Last Day Of A Good Woman
Night Vigil
Lonelyache
Pennies, Off A Dead Man's Eyes

21ST CENTURY FOSS

Dragon's Dream hardback, 1979. All images © Christopher Foss.

Cover painting for A. E. Van Vogt's Away And Beyond.

Cover painting for the short story collection The Machine In Shaft 10 by
M. John Harrison.

Cover painting for the novel A Case Of Conscience by James Blish.

Painting for the novel A Quincux Of Time by James Blish.

Easter Island.

Painting for James Blish's short story collection Anywhen.

MISSION TO THE STARS

Sphere SF paperback, 1976. Cover by Chris Foss.

"In the far distant future, the spaceship Star Cluster is searching for certain inhabited planets lost somewhere in the teeming wilderness of outer space. The inhabitants of these planets know the ship is searching for them, but they refuse to reveal their location. Why don't these people want to be found? What is their secret? Discover the astounding answers as you read this gripping, classic tale interstellar adventure by A.E. van vogt, one of the all-time great names in adventurous science fiction."

THE ULTIMATE ENEMY

Ace SF paperback, first printing, September 1979. Cover art
by Michael Whelan.

"LIFE AGAINST DEATH 

For countless millennia the dreadful Berserker fleets have ranged across the galaxy in a relentless war against all things living. Great irony is it indeed in this war of life against mechanism that while the purposes of Death are carried out by ultimately sophisticated devices, the cause of life is represented by one of the least evolved of intelligent species. For all of the starfaring races, only Man has brought with him untamed the heritage and instinct of battle; only man can face 

THE ULTIMATE ENEMY."

BERSERKER MAN

VGSF / Victor Gollancz Science Fiction paperback,
first VGSF edition, 1988. Cover illustration by Terry Pastor.

"Rampaging through space, bent on an orgy of random destruction, the killing machines pound all life forms to steam and dust. Humankind, fighting for its life, has devised a terrifying new weapon. But will Michel Geulincx - humanity's new champion - have the psychic strength to wield it? For he is one against many, a precarious synthesis of man and machine, and Michel Geulincx is only eleven years old..."

BLACK EASTER OR FAUST ALEPH NULL

Penguin SF paperback, 1972. Cover design by David Pelham.

"When Baines, a megalomaniac arms manufacturer, employs for a secret personal project the Black sorcerer Theron Ware, D.D., all hell is let loose - literally! 

One other man is fully aware of their evil machinations, Brother Domenico Garelli of the small, obscure order of Monte Albano, and because of the strict limitations placed on his powers he finds himself unable to stop the rising tide of horror. "each of the opposing sides in any war always predicts victory."

MIDSUMMER CENTURY

Arrow paperback, 1975. Cover painting by Chris Foss.

"When John Martels' new radio telescope obstinately refuses to function, he decides to see for himself what the trouble is. Field strength detector in hand, he clambers up the side of the wave guide - and falls straight down the tube. The fall is bad enough to put him in hospital for weeks. But it doesn't. 

In fact, when Martels regains consciousness, it takes him a little time to grasp exactly where he is: trapped inside someone else's brain, about 23,000 years in the future..."

THE SEEDLING STARS

Arrow SF paperback, 1972. Cover artwork by Chris Yates.

"Pantropy - total biological engineering - Adapted Man, adapted ante-natally to life on other planets: for instance Sweeney, Ganymede dweller. Selective mitotic poisoning, pinpoint X-irradiation, tectogenetic micro-surgery, competitive metabolic inhibition, together with perhaps fifty other processes produce a man no longer Man. 

And on Hydrot: colonists engineered as minute under-water organisms that yet retain something of the personalities of their earth originals. The potential of Homo Sapiens translated into other terms. Man survives by becoming non-man, a dim, racial memory of true man transmuted into a God myth. 

The galaxies seeded with adapted man-organisms."

Contains four stories designed to form an integrated whole: Seeding Program, The Thing In The Attic, Surface Tension and Watershed.

WAR WITH THE ROBOTS

Panther SF paperback, 1976. Cover painting by Angus McKie.

"IT'S A MAN'S WORLD - BUT A ROBOT'S FUTURE... 

One day the tough, dangerous, dirty jobs will be done by robots: 

- superhumanly strong and invulnerable soldiers, with a built-in killer instinct 

- miners and sandhogs who can work on distant planets too deadly for man 

- incorruptible judges, fearing neither political pressure or criminal vengeance 

- librarians with total knowledge instantly available. 

Harry Harrison has painted a chilling yet piercingly prophetic picture of the Robot Age: a time when man's 'slave' machines have learned their own strength - and the weaknesses of their masters!"

Contents:

Simulated Trainer

The Velvet Glove

Arm of the Law

The Robot Who Wanted to Know

I See You

The Repairman

Survival Planet

War With The Robots

THE LATHE OF HEAVEN

Panther SF paperback, 1980 reprint. Cover artwork by Colin Hay.

"Before George Orr slips into a dreaming sleep induced by Doctor Halber, there are 7 billion undernourished people on an overcrowded Earth. Dream of space, of elbow room, of freedom, the doctor says... 

The sleeper dreams of burying mounds of corpses...When he wakes he "remembers" there had been a plague. Pollution-caused cancer had wiped out 6 billion people - ten years ago. 

Doctor Halber is pleased with his day's work of playing God. Tomorrow, the race question..."

THE GOD-MAKERS

NEL paperback, 1975 reprint. Illustration: Bruce Pennington

"Lewis Orne, a man with great personal magnetism, makes planetfall on Hamal. He is a freewheeler, but his assignment is precise this time, to detect and signs of latent aggression in this planet's population, situated as it is on the edge of a war-weary and devastated galaxy. 

He finds, to his astonishment, that his extrasensory powers, til now not underdeveloped some would say, are without measure. Soon he is invited to join the company of the 'gods' on this planet. The world he enters, the fantastic journeys and rites he performs are a masterly tour de force with this highly acclaimed imaginative writer. 

From the author of the DUNE trilogy"

BEASTCHILD

Lancer paperback, 1970. Cover artwork by Gene Szafran.

"WHAT ALIEN? 

The naoli came to Earth as conquerors, while the last men skulked through the ruins of their civilization. The two races, human and naoli, were the most powerful intelligences in the galaxy - and destined to be immediate and perpetual enemies! 

Then the adult Hulann met the boy Leo ... And each became a traitor to his race. For it was only through treason that the future of each race could be assured."

PERILOUS PLANETS

Orbit paperback, 1980. Cover painting by Tim White.

"Planetfall. Beyond the helmet's visor beckons an unknown, unexplored planet, awaiting the footprint of man. Walk across the sunward side of Mercury; meet with the Lizard People who murder their excess womenfolk; shelter with the telepathic Quogs during their unearthly monsoon; view the granite goddess, an icon as vast as a continent. 

Frederik Pohl, A.E. van Vog, Robert Silverberg and Norman Spinrad join forces with some of the neglected great classics from vintage pulp magazines of three decades in this anthology of worlds compiled by Brian Alidss."

Contents:

Mouth Of Hell by David I. Masson

Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse

The Sack by William Morrison

The Monster by A. E. Van Vogt

The Monsters by Robert Sheckley

Grenville's Planet by Michael Shaara

Beachhead by Clifford D. Simak

The Ark Of James Carlyle by Cherry Wilder

On The River and Goddess In Granite by Robert F. Young

The Seekers by E. C. Tubb

When The People Fell by Cordwainer Smith

The Titan by P. Schuyler Miller

Four In One by Damon Knight

The Age Of Invention by Norman Spinrad

The Snowmen by Frederik Pohl

Schwartz Between The Galaxies by Robert Silverberg

ENCHANTED PILGRIMAGE

Fontana SF paperback, 1977. Cover illustration by Colin Hay.

"The Enchanted Pilgrimage is a journey back through the centuries - to the present, in an alternate world where the fierce stranglehold of the medieval church has never lost its grip. 

It is a world of fear and repression, where the powers of the inquisition are unquestioned. It is a world from which a young man seeks escape...and finds it in the musty legend of the Wasteland, the mythic haunt of the Old Ones. But such escape is not tolerated, and the consequences are swift and violent. 

Yet out in the drifting mists and fog of the marshes there are those who are willing to help the traveller with his quest, willing to give him the mighty weapon which will save him from the terror of the inquisition, witches and hellhounds which he will face in the lands beyond."