THE FINAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA

Sphere paperback, 1988 reprint. Cover by Les Edwards.

"THEY SOUGHT ONLY TO CONTROL MANKIND - HIS MISSION WAS TO UNDERSTAND IT... 

Almost a century has passed since the legendary Donal Graeme, master of interplanetary warfare and unifier of mankind, disappeared into the vastness of space. Out of his great vision only scattered colonies of the Dorsai, Earth, the Exotics and the Friendlies now remain to challenge the all-conquering Others who have mutated from the strongest of the Splinter Cultures to rule the galaxy. 

Yet even these last bastions are in disarray, their peoples isolated and divided by self-interest. Only someone who can understand the forces of their long and glorious history - someone in who the spirit of Donal lives on - can bring them together against the new superman, and prove that their own evolution has not been in vain."

LOST DORSAI

Orbit paperback, 1991. Artwork by Les Edwards.

"Renowned throughout the galaxy as the finest soldiers ever born, the men of the Dorsai had been hired by El Conde, sovereign of Gebel Nahar, to transform his raggle-taggle army into a fighting force to be reckoned with. Now revolution had erupted, and the men once trained by the Dorsai bore arms against them. Bound by their rigid code of honour, the mercenaries' first duty was to protect el conde from the rebels. But what chance had a handful of warriors, however noble and fearless, against the massed ranks of the Naharese?"

SPIRIT OF THE DORSAI

Orbit paperback, 1989. Artwork by Les Edwards.

"The spirit of Dorsai is an illumination of the heart and soul of the planet dorsai and its people, showing with epic clarity and unforgettable vision how and why the Dorsai fight and live. It tells of the beginning when the first Dorsai was formed by mercenaries willing to fight others' battles to buy freedom for their own homes. It tells how even children and old men fought for the dream of the Dorsai. From the mouth of Amanda Morgan, direct descendant of two illustrious women who bore her name, the full story is told in all its splendour."

PLANET OF NO RETURN

Universal paperback, 1978. Cover by Les Edwards (thanks, Staz).

"WANTED: 

terrestroid planets, habitable but uninhabited, clean of major sicknesses, rich enough to support colonists without outside help. 

FOUND: 

in almost a generation, nothing. 

Then a shipful of astronomers chanced on the troas-illium system. The da gama had set out, but never come home. Now, seven years later, the henry hudson is due to leave on the same mission..."

ALIEN LANDSCAPES

Mayflower paperback, first American edition 1979. © Young Artists. Cover painting by Les Edwards

"Alien worlds have always been a central excitement in science fiction. Imaginary landscapes, some surreal, others realistic, are highly important to the novels in which they are contained. Many of these worlds are carefully constructed, realistically detailed and vividly imagined. 

ALIEN LANDSCAPES explores ten of the best-known worlds with a detailed text explaining their history & politics, climate, geography, flora & fauna and their location in the galaxy. All are brilliantly visualized in 30 original paintings, specially commissioned from ten of the best sf and fantasy illustrators. 

See in full colour the spectacular worlds of Arthur C Clarke's Rama; Anne McCaffrey's Pern; the Okie Cities of James Blish; Hal Clement's Mesklin; Harry Harrison's Eros; the Arrakis of Frank Herbert's Dune; Larry Niven's Ringworld; Trantor from Asimov's Foundation Trilogy; Brian Aldiss's Hothouse and the End of the World of H G Wells. These illustrations give an inspired reality to the life and times 'out there' from the full planetary view right down to the details of landscapes and society."

First Contact by Jim Burns.

 "After Lieutenant Pak and the Dragonfly crashed near the south pole he became the first explorer to encounter a Biot. This was one of the most abundant forms, the scavenger, which played an important part in recycling waste material on Rama. Here it is slicing up the remnants of the Dragonfly with its scissor-like claws and placing the pieces in a storage cavity on its back with the help of appendages closely resembling human hands."

Okie City, Trading Contact by John Harris.

 "In orbit around a colonized world, the Okie City of New York, with its familiar Manhattan skyline, makes contact with a space vessel sent up by the colonists to make first trade-contact. Such stops frequently include the transfer of some personnel, some city dwellers deciding to apply for immigration permission, some colonists requesting permission to come aboard the flying city and make a life for the stars."

Storm Debris On Mesklin by Tony Roberts.

 "A hurricane has raged across the equatorial area of Mesklin wreaking immense damage to life and land, and reaching deep into the sea itself. This huge deep-ocean creature has been cast onto a sandy beach, dead and rotting. An earthman, wearing the heavy, life-supporting suit that enables him to walk despite the 6 times normal gravity, tries to dig a sample of the creature for analysis, but he has no instrument strong enough to tear into the 'teak-wood' like tissue of the monster. The tiny Mesklinites, a group of traders, gather round to watch, and solve the problem themselves' their forward pincers are able to cut tungsten steel, and they snip off pieces of the creature with ease, eating more than they give to the earthman."

The Valley by Colin Hay.

 "From a vantage point high above the valley the pronounced curvature of the small world can clearly be seen. A river runs the length of the valley, providing a natural barrier between the two primitive communities. The valley's 'sun' is actually a ball of plasma in a controlled fusion reaction; it runs across the 'sky' (whose illusion of reality is complete even at close proximity) on tracks. Here, having finished its daily traverse of the sky, the sun is about to enter the interior of the asteroid, where it will cross under the valley in time to emerge above the distant mountains for tomorrow's dawn. Night is about to fall: in the valley the villagers hurry to the safety of their villages as Coatlicue emerges to stalk the fields and marshes."

Sandworm And A Rider by Terry Oakes.

 "At the fringe of the deep desert the Fremen have summoned a Sandworm by means of a 'Thumper'. Now the Hookman mounts the worm, holding open the fore edge of the ring segments with his Maker hooks. Other Fremen wait to follow once the Hookman has control. This is a medium-sized worm, perhaps 250 metres long; in the deep desert worms may grow to almost double its size."

Ringworld Surface At Night by Stuart Hughes.

"Only at night can the true awesomeness of the ringworld be appreciated on its surface. In daylight the landscape dwindles away into a hazy, horizonless infinity; at night the arch of the Ringworld becomes visible, soaring overhead - a mere line of brightness at its apex - and descending again at the other side (behind the vantage point of this picture). At night it is possible to appreciate the sheer immensity of the ringworld. The mountain in the right foreground is the thousand-mile-high first-of-god, formed by the impact of a meteorite striking the underside of the ringworld and causing even the fantastically strong foundation material to bulge inwards."

TOUR OF THE UNIVERSE

Mayflower paperback edition, 1980. Painting: Jim Burns.

 "Imagine - in the morning mail comes a letter announcing you have won a competition, the first prize an all-expenses-paid trip around the local galaxy. You will spend six months travelling from Earthport across millions of miles of space, visiting strange and wonderful planets along the way. You would think it a hoax if it happened now - but imagine yourself living in the year 2577 and such a letter might not be so crazy. Leio and Caroline win such a prize and visit in full fabulous colour Jupiter, with overnight stops at Ring City, Ganymede, Pluto, VandeZande's World, Pliax and have their first meeting with a living alien civilisation, travelling on through dozens of adventures and dangers. This book is the record of their whole journey. We see the dazzling places in full colour, we see the space craft they travel in, the passports, the immigration forms, the travel brochures, newspaper reports and their diaries of the holiday. Share their adventure of a lifetime!"

Hunderdrag Rock by Richard Sparks.

 "Attention is immediately drawn to the much obscured, yet unmistakeable shape of a man embedded in the largest of the rock columns. His face-plate is clearly delineated, and part of the equipment he wore upon his chest; and from the rock surface, some forty centimetres away, a hand grows out, half clenched as if in final agony. There are no names, no visible clues as to this time-lost person's identity."

Chikstha Varieties by Terry Oakes.

 "The immediate obvious feature of the Chikstha is that they are spider-like creatures, especially in the region of the head, jaws and eyes. This analogous evolution to that of the terrestrial spider is quite remarkable, and is the reason for the widespread belief that the Chikstha seeded earth with their own kind some millions of years in their past (a theory easily disprovable: the Chikstha first cycle occurred less than two million years ago)."

The Sacred World by Bob Fowke.

"On Pliax VI, on the world now totally covered by Chiksthian cities, which even extend out across the oceans, here the human tourist may enjoy a brief and possibly frightening holiday."

The Prismoids by Richard Clifton-Dey.

 "The Prismoids of Annax IV are the most enigmatic of intelligent life - if, indeed, they can properly be said to either intelligent or alive, debate on these questions has raged ever since Annax was discovered in 2264."

Aurora-Magellan Guards With Mural by Jim Burns.

 "This mural, completed in 2493 by Kleo Mchaag, depicts one of the crucial encounters in the Great War of Independence: the Battle of Shiva's Rift, which took place between 13th and 24th May 2451."

Aurora-Magellan Cruiser by Jeff Ridge.

Hall Of A Thousand Races by Les Edwards.

"In this immense gallery, which measures almost 30 kilometres in overall length, we see preserved in columns of ionized fluid representative specimens of 984 different alien species. Of these 633 are identified (including an early specimen of Homo Erectus in column no. 422); the remaining 351 are unknown species (many of which may have been extinct for many years: estimated age of the gallery is 0.5 million years)."