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| Methuen paperback, 1976. Cover artist uncredited. |
"Scattered over the densely populated solar system there is a small group of immortals. One of them, Dr Sequoya guess, attempts to take over Extro, the supercomputer complex that controls all mechanical activity on earth. But instead Extro takes over Guess, and the combination turns suddenly evil. Dr Guess must be destroyed - but how do you kill an immortal?"
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| Coronet SF paperback, 1975. Cover artwork by Chris Foss. |
"P 939 - the greatest venereal disease in the history of mankind
The day Gabriel Chrome, a failed book sculptor contemplating suicide on the Thames embankment, stumbled on the suicide bid of the naked Camilla Greylaw, was a day of hopeful redemption for a corrupt and violent world. For the lovely form that he chanced to preserve was the sole carrier of a contagious venereal disease. A bug which could inhibit the aggressive instinct, rendering total placidity in all humans. At once Gabriel's life has new meaning and purpose. To save mankind becomes his hardened ambition. But mankind seems far from hope."
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| Orbit paperback, 1978. Cover painting by Peter Jones. |
"Robert Silverberg: a giant among sf writers, a master of the macabre, the fantastic, the satirical and the amazing. Here is the very best of his shorter fiction.
HAWKSBILL STATION: one of the great classics of time travel;
NIGHTWINGS: the Hugo award-winning masterpiece;
PASSENGERS: the chilling Nebula winner;
GOOD NEWS FROM THE VATICAN: sly and elegant, a Nebula award-winner; and six more superb stories."
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| Sphere SF paperback, 1975. Cover artist uncredited, possibly Bruce Pennington or Ray Feibush. |
"The Underpeople were mutated from animal stock to serve mankind. They lived downdeep in the forgotten corridors and caverns of old earth, servants to the men who bred them in their own image.
But even underpeople dream - and often have strange powers.
And now they have a strange ally in the richest man who ever lived: the man who owned the whole planet."
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| Ace paperback, 1969. Cover art: Jeff Jones. |
"Marooned on the strange planet Tschai, Adam Reith agreed to lead an expedition to return the princess Ylin Ylan, the flower of Cath, to her homeland halfway around the globe.
Monsters of land and sea lay before them, and beings both human and alien who might rob, kill or enslave them. Tschai was a large planet, an ancient planet, where four powerful alien races struggled for mastery while humans were treated as pawns; nothing would be easy for Reith on this journey.
But the girl's father was enormously wealthy, her homeland technologically sophisticated. If reith was ever to obtain human aid in returning to Earth, where better than Cath? If he could get there..."
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| Arrow paperback, 1978. Cover artwork by Melvyn Grant. |
"Darkover had once been home to Jeff Kerwin - a home he'd left and then yearned after for many years. But when, finally, he returned it was to mystery and fear. For there was no record of his birth there, nor of his childhood. And when he joined the freedom fighters who struggled to overthrow earth's control of the planet, the Darkovans accused him of being a spy. Had Jeff been conditioned, on Earth, to betray Darkover? He, himself was no longer sure of who - or what - he really was!"
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| Sphere SF paperback, 1978 reprint. Cover painting by Melvyn Grant. |
"Behind the walls of Terra lay a secret no man could be allowed to learn. But Kickaha - the Earth-born adventurer of the Tiered Worlds - had to uncover that secret, or watch his home world destroyed.
Kickaha was returning to earth from the World of Tiers, the many-levelled universe of the god-like lords, that he had entered many years ago as Paul Janus Finnegan. Now he had returned to a world he no longer knew, to find it ruled by Red Orc, a lord jealous of his personal domain and hostile to intruders. Yet Kickaha had to stay alive in order to defeat the deadly enemy that threatened Rarth and the other Worlds of Tiers - the 'Beller', the malignant creature that was the mind-essence of a rebel lord."
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| Mayflower-Dell paperback, 1964. Cover painting by Richard M. Powers. |
"George Braderick, a civilian GS-5 civil service employee, was also a sergeant major in the national guard. His principal duty was to guard the local armoury. It was as such that he became the target of the sinister dr. Ludwig taun - and the victim. Here is the story of a desperate struggle for power in a world without the dimensions we know."
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| Penguin SF paperback, 1979. Cover illustration by Adrian Chesterman. |
"Xanthe is a member (female) of a research team which is investigating the possibilities of humanoid robots, in a world of chaos and starvation...Two types of robot have been produced: the Pragmapractors, who do the conventional manual work; and the Philophrenics, who have been programmed to more human levels, to feel affection, to talk, and even construct themselves. The question is: should they be allowed to go further?"
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| Arrow paperback, 1979. Cover artist uncredited. |
"Institute courses told a grim story about the network - that savage world beyond the closely guarded Institute gates. But they wanted to see for themselves. They had to know.
Were there really females there? Would their training as mercenaries prepare them for the wild bands of grisly subhumans?
They set out on a journey of discovery only to become the unwitting agents of forces that threatened to destroy the only world they'd ever known."
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| Pyramid paperback, first printing, October 1963. Cover painting by Jack Gaughan. |
"It wasn't possible. No earth-made missile could escape deflection - or destruction! - by the sentry satellites that kept radar watch on the space around Venus for a million miles out.
But on they came, faster than anything had ever travelled before! And they shook the planet Venus like a toy rattle, ripping deep wounds in its desolate flank, swallowing cities whole.
What was this strange new weapon? What defense could be erected against a "blind bomb?" the questions came as commands to Venus-born, Earth-reared Alex Frost. But when Alex completed his secret mission to the sweet planet of his youth, he returned weary and disillusioned.
Once again - in 2154 A.D. - the powers-that-were on earth had corrupted the peaceful research of its scientific community and turned it toward destruction. Space War I could no longer be avoided..."
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| Belmont paperback, first printing, March 1963. Cover artist uncredited. |
"The vault was like a prison, harsh with artificial sunlight, each of the twenty computer units guarded by heavy bars. You could look up at the glittering tiers of memory banks and stimulus response units and tell yourself that the big brain was on our side. But if the unit flashed its cold light upon you...
Far down the vault a man screamed. His fists were clenched and he raged curses at the humming computers. There was agony in his eyes, and defiance.
"I had no right to interfere (it was a problem for the security guards) but I did. I'd seen men killed or crippled for life. In six long strides, I crossed the vault..."
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| NEL paperback, 1980 reprint. Illustration: Gerald Grace. |
"A lone scientist working on man's one desperate chance against conquerors from space. A man and a woman in a world where the battle of the sexes has become a death struggle. A future world where citizens are commanded to be happy or to suffer destruction. A last stand against the all-powerful dictatorship that has taken over earth..."
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| NEL paperback, 1978. Illustration: Joe Petagno. |
"GEORGIAS WAS ONE OF THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE ANCIENT AND MIGHTY RACE, THE HERCULEANS.
Their rival empire had dared challenge Earth's supremacy of the stars. In vicious retaliation their race was nearly wiped out, and their home planet left lifeless and burn out. These old and terrible memories were etched deep in Georgias' memory. They drove him on over the lonely and hate-filled centuries, seeking a vengeance that would bring eternal glory. But the lovely Myraa, beloved from long ago, had a different and strange vision that did not include empires and wars and armies. And she constantly called him, drawing him always back to her side..."
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| Pan paperback, 1974. Cover artist uncredited; signature visible, albeit illegible. |
"Through the lowering clouds came the face of Zardoz, the god who gave Zed and the Exterminators the right to mate, the means to kill. What else in life was meaningful?
Then Zed entered the Godhead seeking its mysteries, entering the world of the Vortex, where Death was banished for ever, stirring the long-forgotten sexual desires of the eternals, dividing them, reversing time itself to find the true secret of the Tabernacle...
Zed - an unlikely champion against eternal evil..."
