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."

THE WEREWOLF PRINCIPLE

Berkley Medallion paperback, June 1968. Cover by
Richard M. Powers.

"BACK FROM THE STARS 

Andrew Blake, found frozen in a space capsule after 200 years on a wandering asteroid, is brought back to a strangely different Earth. 

In his search for identity he suddenly becomes frighteningly aware of two alien beings that lurk within his body. With this discovery as a clue to his origin, Blake gradually unearths the mystery-shrouded "Werewolf Principle" - a scientific theory buried in the past that promises startling consequences for the future..."

BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES OF CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

Paperback Library paperback, first printing, 1972. Cover artist
uncredited, possibly Bob Pepper? (thanks: Egrove).

"A man's discovery of the truth about his travelling companions. A shipboard romance involving a fickle female and three unresponsive crewmen. A young man's dissatisfaction with his new job. A drunken evening that turns into one continuous lost weekend. These are some of the ordinary events that take on quite extraordinary dimensions in these seven unusual takes by a master of science fiction. Highly original and perceptive, each of the stories examines the glamor and mystery of existence and the very real possibilities that lie within the realm of future experience. Together they show Clifford Simak at his entertaining and thought-provoking best."

Contents:

Founding Father
Immigrant
New Folks' Home
Crying Jag
All The Traps Of Earth
Lulu
Neighbor

TUNNEL THROUGH THE DEEPS

Berkley Medallion paperback, May 1974. Cover painting by
Richard M. Powers.

"A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! 

The time is the 1970's - sort of. The place is Earth - in a way. The project: build a tunnel from England to her colonies in America, under the Atlantic Ocean! Captain Gus Washington, engineer extraordinary, wrestles with awesome problems to complete the tunnel and redeem his family's name. For Gus is a direct descendant of the famous traitor of long ago, George Washington, who led a failed rebellion in the 1700's. Harry Harrison, that incomparable creator of alternate worlds, has  created a brilliant double exposure of history and a typically superb reading experience."

FIRST CYCLE

Ace paperback, first printing, January 1982. Cover artist uncredited,
possibly Wayne D. Barlowe?

"In a galaxy very far away, two planets were born in a fiery collision and began to circle a yellow sun. One was watery while the other was hot and arid, but life is tenacious, and managed to develop slowly on both worlds. On the water planet, fish crawled from the sea and became amphibians, then grew greenish fur to protect them from the cold, and finally walked upright and bore patches of green hair only on their heads. On the arid planet, creatures like large slugs developed bones from their cartilage, crept through the desert as lizards, and finally evolved into red-furred creatures with cat-like faces and monkey's limbs. On both planets the natives grew more intelligent, learned about trade and war, and sang songs celebrating their exploits. The centuries went by, and eventually it was inevitable that two civilizations living so close to each other would find a way to meet. The history of all civilizations could have predicted that their meeting would not be peaceable..."

THE COSMIC COMPUTER

Ace paperback, 1983. Cover art by Michael Whelan.

"Merlin - the magical name that conjured up visions of unlimited knowledge and power. Merlin - the god-like, infallible computer that could mean the salvation of a war-torn human race. But did such a fantastic cybernetic marvel really exist? 

Was Merlin just another legend of the spaceways, as most people believed? Or was it really hidden somewhere on the colony planet, Poictesme? 

And if it was to be found, would it save mankind...Or be its destruction?

BEYOND THE GALACTIC RIM

Sphere SF paperback, 1982. Cover painting by Peter Elson.

"A MAN WHO COMES OUT TO THE RIM TO MAKE HIS LIVING WOULD GO TO HELL FOR A PASTIME 

A journey to the Rim Worlds takes you straight to the unknown or right to the gaping void of the abyss. Out there you're beyond the borders, hovering between the warped contours of troubled space and time... 

Captain Clavering bought his ship on a lottery win. Now he's holed up on the dismal planet of Lorn filling in time on a chemical-blasted airstrip waiting for a contract. Somewhere there must be a newly colonized planet needing charters of some threatened world that needs evacuating. He'd risk anything for money in the bank - even a dodgy landing on the gas-blasted plains of Eblis, if the rim runners fancy paying hard cash for an expedition to hell... 

This is just the first of four amazing journeys into the shifting uncharted worlds that spin BEYOND THE GALACTIC RIM."

THE HEAVEN MAKERS

NEL paperback, 1975 reissue. Cover artist uncredited. Possibly
Bruce Pennington or Ray Feibush.

"The Chems were the prisoners of eternity, gripped by the despair that immortality brought. They were strange dwellers in a timeless world, inflicting terror and suffering on the creatures they manipulated. 

Enter their world of infinite possibility and discover the fascinating secrets of a master race whose plaything is time. 

These are the super-beings who control men's destinies and who derive their pleasure from the pain and torture they impose on their human underlings."