Date: 1950-70

The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales

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The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales
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Celebrated author L. Sprague de Camp recaptures our imaginations with this accounting of the relationship between of God and Man in a tale that critic Groff Conklin says is “…in the Conan tradition in every sense of the word, though better written.”

When the Gods of the West assemble to talk about the fate of the bronze age lands of Poseidonis, Drax, the Tritonian god of war declares that a danger to their kind hails from the kingdom of Lorsk, and more particularly, from the royal family. Entigta, sea-god to the Gorgons, appears before King Zeluud, ordering him to make war upon those who threaten them the most.

In the kingdom of Lorsk King Zhabutir’s twin sons, Vakar and Kuros, are at odds. Vakar, being the younger by a quarter-hour, is heir according to their old system of ultimogeniture, which Kuros finds unjust. But when the threat to their kingdom becomes known, Vakar is sent on a quest to obtain the thing that the Gods fear most—The Tritonian Ring—for he is the one man whose actions the Gods cannot divine, the one man for whom the gods do not appear in dreams.

Granting its bearer the ability to repel magic or interference from the gods, The Tritonian Ring could turn the tide of any battle. But as Vakar traverses the many kingdoms for the ring made out of metal fallen from the stars, many obstacles—distractions—will stand in his way….

“Pure swashbuckling fun with a touch of bawdiness.”—P. Schuyler Miller, reviewer for Astounding Science Fiction and Analog.

“A remarkable job.”— Galaxy Science Fiction magazine

The Time of the Dark (The Darwath Series)

The Time of the Dark (The Darwath Series)
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A California medieval scholar is pulled into a far-off magical world—and a fight to save mankind—in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author.
As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows well the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams.

She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat. Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help.

For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil’s world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

The Best of Cordwainer Smith

The Best of Cordwainer Smith
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Cordwainer Smith was one of the original visionaries to think of humanity in terms of thousands of years in the future, spread out across the universe. This brilliant collection, often cited as the first of its kind, explores fundamental questions about ourselves and our treatment of the universe (and other beings) around us and ultimately what it means to be human.

In “Scanners Live in Vain” we meet Martel, a human altered to be part machine—a scanner—to be able withstand the trauma space travel has on the body. Despite the stigma placed on him and his kind, he is able to regrasp his humanity to save another.

In “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” we get to know the underpeople—animals genetically altered to exist in human form, to better serve their human owners—and meet D’Joan, a dog-woman who will make readers question who is more human: the animals who simply want to be recognized as having the same right to life, or the people who created them to be inferior.

In “The Ballad of Lost C’mell” the notion of love being the most important equalizer there is—as first raised in “The Dead Lady of Clown Town”—is put into action when an underperson, C’mell, falls in love with Lord Jestocost. Who is to say her love for him is not as valid as any true-born human? She might be of cat descent, but she is all woman!

And in “A Planet Named Shayol” it is an underperson of bull descent, and beings so mutilated and deformed from their original human condition to be now considered demons of a hellish land, who retain and display the most humanity when Mankind commits the most inhumane action of all.

Hold Back the Night

Hold Back the Night
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From the author of the classic Alas Babylon comes this riveting story of a Marine captain and his soldiers and their arduous, difficult retreat from Changjin Reservoir to Hungnam during the Korean War—a stirring portrait of courage and sacrifice.

“These are not stragglers, sir. This is Dog Company…”

In Pat Frank’s classic 1951 war novel, one-hundred-twenty-six soldiers commence their long, harrowing journey at Changjin Reservoir during the height of the Korean War, but few will survive the grueling fight and eventually reach Hungnam. Vividly bringing to life the bravery, daring, and turmoil a unit of soldiers endures, Hold Back the Night reveals their gripping stories.

Captain Mackenzie, commander of Dog Company, not only bears the responsibility for victory or defeat, but also feels the full weight of the emotional toll that the war inevitably takes on him and his troops. His one consolation to inspire his band of soldiers to keep on going is an unopened bottle of Scotch that holds bittersweet memories of his wife who gave it to him as a gift.

Sergeant Ekland, a cocky, determined communications sergeant, is due for a battlefield promotion and longs for the day his tour is over so he can be reunited with his fiancée—that is if he makes it out of Korea alive.

Private Couzens, finds himself in a precarious situation with the enemy due to circumstances out of his control—a situation that causes his loyalties to come into question with his superiors.

As readers follow the lives of these men and the other unforgettable soldiers, Pat Frank’s epic novel of war, loss, and survival recounts a crucial chapter in American history.

Forbidden Area

Forbidden Area
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From the author of the post-apocalyptic classic Alas Babylon, comes an eerie, cold war thriller

A young teenage couple having a rendezvous one night on a beach in Florida suddenly sees a submarine emerge from the ocean. Armed soldiers disembark the vessel and a Buick drives off its landing ramp. For Henry Hazen, who is scheduled to ship out to an army training camp the next day, the sight leaves him uneasy, but he tells no one what he has witnessed.

Katherine Hume is the only woman working for the Pentagon’s Atomic Energy Commission. From intelligence they have gathered, she and her team are convinced the Russians are poised to conduct a nuclear attack on the U.S. on or shortly before Christmas. But convincing their superiors an attack is imminent is proving far more difficult than she could have imagined—even after several stealth fighter planes and their pilots go missing over the Gulf.

Banker Robert Gumol sees all the signs that the big attack is finally coming. As a reluctant spy for the Russians, Gumol’s loyalties lie more with his adopted country than his motherland. Deciding to take the next flight to Havana, he risks being executed by the Russians if his betrayal is discovered—but he’s willing to put it all on the line for a chance at freedom.

With the clock ticking, the fate of America hangs by a very thin thread.

A classic of science fiction that is a cautionary tale of the dangers of nuclear power, Forbidden Area is as timely today as it was when it was first published in 1958.

Alas, Babylon

Alas, Babylon
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“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker

The classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, with an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.

“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.

But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and women of all ages and races—found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.

Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories

Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories
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Frederik Pohl, the bestselling author of The Boy Who Would Live Forever, is famous for his novels, but first and foremost, he is a master of the science fiction short story.

For more than fifty years he has been writing incisive, entertaining SF stories, several hundred in all. Even while writing his bestselling triple-crown (Hugo, Nebula, Campbell Award) novel Gateway and the other Heechee Saga novels, he has always written short fiction.

Now, for the first time, he has gathered together the best of his many stories in Platinum Pohl. Spanning the decades, these tales are in their way a living history of science fiction. Because Frederik Pohl has been on the frontlines of the field since the halcyon days of the late 1930s, and has written short stories in every decade since. And because he has always been a keen observer of the human condition and the world that is shaped by it, his stories reflect the currents of political movements, social trends, major events that have shaken the world . . .

Yet at their core, all his stories are most acutely concerned with people. All sorts of people. Some are people you’ll love, some you’ll hate. But you will need to find out what happens to the people who inhabit these stories. Because Frederik Pohl imbues his characters with a depth and individuality that makes them as real as people you see every day. Of course, he also employs a mind-boggling variety of scientific ideas and science fictional tropes with which his characters must interact. And he does it all with seemingly no effort at all. That’s some trick. Not everyone can do that . . . but that’s why he was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by his peers in the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Here are his two Hugo Award winning stories, “Fermi and Frost” and “The Meeting” (with C. M. Kornbluth), along with such classic novellas as the powerful “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” and “The Greening of Bed-Stuy,” and stories such as “Servant of the People,” “Shaffery Among the Immortals,” and “Growing Up in Edge City,” all finalists for major awards. And dozens of other wonderful tales, like “The Mayor of Mare Tranq” and the provocative “The Day the Martians Landed” and many others.

Altogether, a grand collection of thought-provoking, entertaining science fiction by one of the all-time greats!

Double Star

Double Star
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Many of Heinlein’s fans consider the novels he wrote in the fifties amongst the author’s strongest work; when he was at the peak of his talents. Double Star is considered by many to be the finest of his titles. Brian Aldiss called it his “most enjoyable novel.”
Whether it is the simplicity of a lively tale, the complexity of the situation, or the depth of characterization, the book has developed a loyal following. It also won Heinlein his first Hugo.

The story revolves around Lawrence Smith—also known as “Lorenzo the Great”—a down-and-out actor wasting the remainder of his life in bars.

When he encounters a space-pilot who offers him a drink, before he knows what is going on, he is on Mars involved in a deep conspiracy with global consequences. He is given a mission where failure would not only mean his own death, it would almost certainly mean an all-out planetary war.

“Heinlein’s novels of the 1940s and 50s shaped every single science fiction writer of my generation and everyone currently writing science fiction. Or making science fiction movies … and Double Star is an excellent example of all the reasons why.”—Connie Willis

Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke

Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke
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This “marvelous lunar espionage thriller” by the science fiction grandmaster and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey “packs plenty of punch” (SFReviews.net).

Two hundred years after landing on the Moon, mankind has moved further out into the solar system. With permanent settlements now established on the Moon, Venus, and Mars, the inhabitants of these colonies have formed a political alliance called the Federation.

On the Moon, a government agent from Earth is tracking a suspected spy at a prominent observatory. His mission is complicated by the rise in tensions between Earth’s government and the Federation over access to rare heavy metals. As the agent finds himself locked in a battle for life and death on the eerie, lunar landscape, the larger conflict explodes across space, leaving mankind’s future in doubt.

First published in 1955, this suspense-filled space opera by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inductee was a significant forerunner of television hits like Star Trek and The Expanse.

The End of Eternity

The End of Eternity
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A spellbinding novel set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s classic Galactic Empire series and Foundation series

Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled.

The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will.

You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love.

Eternals weren’t supposed to have feelings. But Andrew could not deny the sensations that were struggling within him. He knew he could not keep this secret forever. And so he began to plan his escape, a plan that changed his own past . . . and threatened Eternity itself.