Search Results for: golden-age,-the

The Golden Age is a haunting, mysterious story – a strange Gothic novel of the future. The holocaust is over; Oxford seems to be the capital of the habitable world; and a poet-ruler appears to live out a future tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

It has become a world in which the devil can materialise monstrosities through barriers of time and place, where death has been the monarch and beauty remains a memory in the mind of only a few. The scientists, the priests, soldiers and politicians have all failed; perhaps only the poets can save mankind.

Chemical symbol… atomic number… atomic weight…

Scientific terms for gold… but science can’t begin to explain the mystery and magic of gold.

It was gold that lured the ‘Secret Legion’ – as oddly mixed a group of adventures as any song or story – into the world’s most treacherous desert.

And gold they found – a golden man, and exotic golden woman, a huge golden tiger, and an eerie golden snake.

Gold brought them together… gold made them enemies in a battle to the death… gold held the key to the mysterious forces that assailed them.

Jack Williamson, alchemist with words, spins a rare web of adventure, fantasy and science… a gem from the golden age of Weird Tales, now available in book form for the first time.

The romantic legend of the Holy Grail is almost without parallel in the stories of chivalry. It has about it a quality of inspiration and a standard of purity that transcends everyday life. It shines like a star through the darkness of the Dark Ages. But what if Satan has his own counterpart? What if – just as the Black Mass of the witches and wizards, is an abominable reversal of the Holy Communion Service of the Christian – what if, then, there is an Unholy grail? A sinister thing of death and terror. A glittering, golden chalice forged in the nethermost chasms of Hell, wrought by the hands of unholy craftsmen. Gilded by demons, decked with gems by jewellers who life with the Prince of Darkness.

A thing that originated below the dark hills where trolls dwell…

That, too, would be the object of many a quest. There would be dedicated heroes searching to destroy it. There would be unscrupulous men who wanted to employ its dark power for their own ends. There would be weak men unable to resist its call. There would be strong men whose wills clashed with the almost irresistible power of the Golden Goblet.

A collection of the trend-setting stories from “the Dean of Science Fiction” which opened and explored such topics as first contact with aliens, the Internet, transfers among parallel universes, and many more.

“The best of [these stories] are remarkable inventions, providing a window on to science fiction’s first Golden Age that demonstrates exactly what made it golden” – Kirkus Review

The secrets of Asorbes – and of the alien Pharaoh who ruled there!

All bowed their heads before the golden splendour of Khasathut’s pyramid – and before his atrocities. Slaves and princes alike feared his awesome powers, which came from far beyond the stars. Only Khai was not blinded by the glories of the Pharaoh, for not only had he seen the horrible secrets of the pyramid but he had lived to escape their deadly grasp!

A man of two worlds, out of two ages, Khai fought to win the hand of the Queen Ashtarta and to vanquish the devil-king and his wraiths of hell. And he kept to an eternal faith: that one day the Golden Ones would return from their journey through the heavens bringing justice…

A baker’s dozen of stories from the Golden Age master of the police procedural: seven from the casebook of Detective Inspector John Poole, whose brilliant work in the The Duke of York’s Steps and No Friendly Drop will be remembered by readers of Wade novels; and six miscellaneous narratives of crime and detection, all of them displaying the scientific ingenuity which distinguishes Wade’s work.

The power of one…
Job. Against all evidence he never lost faith in his fellow man.
Job. Born on he bottom rung in an age that made ours seem Golden, his life went rapidly downhill from there.
Job. Cast adrift into a world he never made, but would change forever.
Job. Sometimes, one true man can make the difference.

With the war over, the forties, fifties and sixties have the aura of a golden age. But nostalgia is deceptive. From teenage Teddy Boy razor gangs and casual stabbings at dance halls to the psychopathic Krays, ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser and Ronnie Biggs, Villains’ Paradise reveals the chilling true story of the crimes of postwar Britain.

With the narrative pace of the best detective fiction, Donald Thomas creates a thrilling journey into the heart of postwar Britain’s secret history.

When four friends stumble across the body of a fellow club member during a game of golf they suspect murder. The police aren’t so sure, and when it looks as though the official verdict will be suicide the men are outraged. Convinced that there had been ‘dirty work’ and that ‘the police aren’t very good at following up clues’, they undertake their own investigation.

A classic Golden Age whodunit that involves the reader in a charming game of detection as the protagonists use Sherlockian methods to unravel the mystery.

From the vaults of The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal introduction to the fantastic work of one of the Golden Age’s most influential writers, Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner sold his first story WEIRD TALES in early 1936 and was, with his wife, fellow writer C. L. Moore, a regular contributor to John W. Campbell’s ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. He and Moore collaborated for most of the 1940s and 1950s, but his career was tragically cut short in 1958, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. This omnibus contains two of his major novels, which have been out of print for many years – FURY and MUTANT – and collection THE BEST OF HENRY KUTTNER.

One of the very last authors of detective fiction from the genre’s “Golden Age” INDEPENDENT

Suicide or murder? Despite all indications to the contrary, Alec Methven had not eaten his last meal in solitude, and somebody was very anxious to conceal that fact.

As if one death on the beautiful island of Madeira was not enough, there was another. Peter Corey, who had found Methven’s body, had a cast-iron alibi: he was on a plane to the island at the time of the death, en route to visit his old friend. But what of the second killing that so inexplicably occurred?

From one of the best-loved authors of the Golden Age of detective fiction, this collection of short stories by Helen McCloy features psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing.

Beginning with her classic, Through a Glass, Darkly, which she later expanded into a full-length novel, McCloy experimented with daringly imaginative concepts within the framework of the formal, fairplay detective story. From doppelgangers to flying saucers each story demonstrates the author’s masterful combination of style, content and technique to produce some of crime fiction’s finest work.

From the vaults of The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal introduction to the work of one of the giants of the Golden Age, Clifford D. Simak.

A regular contributor to ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION throughout the influential John W. Campbell era, Simak produced a body of highly regarded work, winning the NEBULA and multiple HUGO AWARDs, and is best known for his story suite of future histories, City. This omnibus collects three novels that explore his favoured theme of a depopulated future: TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING, A CHOICE OF GODS and the HUGO AWARD-winning WAY STATION.

Assembled here are fourteen of Harrison’s best, spanning time and space from the England of old to empires millennia from now. Among the stories included are “The Golden Years of the Stainless Steel Rat,” in which the cops have finally caught up with an aging Slippery Jim DiGriz; “Roommates,” the original basis for the movie Soylent Green; and twelve more galaxy-spanning classics!

From the bestselling West of Eden trilogy to Bill, The Galactic Hero and its sequels, from the Deathworld series to the Stainless Steel Rat books, Harry Harrison’s career is a series of landmarks. Stainless Steel Visions is another: his first major collection of short fiction.

A series of accidents? Or is it Murder in the library…?

A wonderfully entertaining classic from the Golden Age of crime fiction

At first, for the staff of the university library, it’s easy enough to dismiss the death of a woman who fell from a rolling ladder as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. It’s more difficult, however, to explain away the strangled corpse of a man found inside a locked room, surrounded by rare and obscure erotica.

When a valuable manuscript disappears from the archive, it begins to look like both a killer and a thief are on the loose. It’s up to chief cataloguer Gilda Gorham to solve the crimes but, unless she’s careful, the next death in the library might just be her own.

Poul Anderson’s stories are classics from the golden age of science fiction and beyond. A master storyteller, Anderson wrote tales ranging from the immediate to the distant future, from Earth to far-flung galaxies, from hard science fiction to fantasy – all the elements stirred and blended as only Anderson could!

THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS is the second volume of The Collected Works of Poul Anderson and collects his best works from a writing career that spans over 50 years.

This volume contains 23 stories including:

‘The Queen of Air and Darkness’ (1972 Hugo Award-winner)
‘Jennifer’s Lament’
‘Industrial Revolution’
‘The Longest Voyage’ (1960 Hugo Award-winner)
‘Marque and Reprisal’

‘She is unique. She is legend’ THE TIMES

‘A tour de force’ EVENING STANDARD

‘A wonderfully mordant analyst of human weakness’ Martin Amis

Earth, like the rest of the Known Worlds, has fallen to the Shing. Scattered here and there, small groups of humans live in a state of semi-barbarism. They have lost the skills, science and knowledge that had been Earth’s in the golden age of the League of Worlds, and whenever a colony of humans tries to rekindle the embers of a half-forgotten technology, the Shing, with their strange, mindlying power, crush them out. There is one man who can stand against the malign Shing, but he is an alien with amber eyes and must first prove to paranoid humanity that he himself is not a creature of the Shing.

Poul Anderson’s stories are classics from the golden age of science fiction and beyond. A master storyteller, Anderson wrote tales ranging from the immediate to the distant future, from Earth to far-flung galaxies, from hard science fiction to fantasy – all the elements stirred and blended as only Anderson could!

ADMIRALTY is the fourth volume of The Collected Works of Poul Anderson and collects his best works from a writing career that spans over 50 years.

This volume contains 23 stories including:

Goat Song (Hugo and Nebula winner)
Operation Changeling
The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound
Delenda Est
Lodestar
The Pugilist
Marius
Inside Straight

Plus the revised version of ‘Black Bodies’ and an afterword by Poul Anderson discussing ‘Eutopia’

There should have been soft breezes scented with entrancing perfumes, the soothing warmth of a golden sun, lakes of wine and mountains of grain, trees adorned with fruit and bud and flower, shrubs bearing a profusion of glittering gems. Herbs and spices to provide freedom from pain, a return to youthful zest, an end of aging and decay. Salves and ointments and natural fungi to cure all physical ills. . .

For this was Earth, that planet of legend, the paradise for which all yearned and hungered to find. The world of joy and beauty and riches beyond the wildest dreams.

Instead Earl Dumarest found a landscape of unremitting hostility. Could this really be the fabled home world for which he had spent his entire life searching . . . ?



(First published 2008)

‘Murder on Christmas day’ is the newspaper headline no one wanted to read…

A true classic from the golden age of crime fiction.

‘Brilliant’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

When a small-town schoolteacher is discovered dead, beheaded, and tied to a T-shaped cross on December 25th, Ellery Queen is intrigued enough to take a closer look. But when he arrives, Queen is met with too few clues and too little evidence to produce a satisfactory verdict, even for a master sleuth such as himself, and so returns home, defeated.

But when an identical murder occurs – followed by several more – Queen discovers a horrific connection to a strange cult. This is a disturbing puzzle unlike anything he’s encountered before, and it will take all of his powers of deduction to uncover the killer.

Poul Anderson’s stories are classics from the golden age of science fiction and beyond. A master storyteller, Anderson wrote tales ranging from the immediate to the distant future, from Earth to far-flung galaxies, from hard science fiction to fantasy – all the elements stirred and blended as only Anderson could!

THE SATURN GAME is the third volume of The Collected Works of Poul Anderson and collects his best works from a writing career that spans over 50 years.

This volume contains 18 stories including:

The Saturn Game (Hugo and Nebula winner)
Hunter’s Moon (Hugo winner)
No Truce with Kings (Hugo winner)
Operation Salamander
Sam Hall
The Only Game in Town
Hiding Place
A Tragedy of Errors

Plus: seven limericks and two untitled songs!

The Price of Eternal Life

In the 22nd Century, no one had to die of old age: an immortality drug was available to all. Its only drawback was the side-effect that ended a man’s sex drive, so most men waited till their youth was fading before they took the final step and became “cools.”

But Will Carewe became the first man to test a new variety of the drug, one without any side effects at all. The limitless future, a million tomorrows, stretched before him with golden hope – until a series of “accidents” made him realise that someone was trying to murder him.

As an immortal Carewe had an infinitely greater stake in remaining alive. So he began the battle to find out who was after him, and why…

The world of theatre is a graveyard of hopes and dreams – but someone is adding corpses to the list…

Classic, golden age crime from ‘The masters of misdirection’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘Delicious … an enormously engaging old-school mystery’ BOOKLIST, starred review

Life is far from quiet for Mr and Mrs North. Despite Mr North’s attempts to live a peaceful life, Mrs North’s constant efforts as an amateur detective give them more than enough excitement – and not a little danger.

So when the wealthy backer of a play is found dead in the seats of a New York theatre, the Norths aren’t far behind, led by Mrs North’s customary flair for eccentric murders. Alongside Lieutenant William Weigand of the New York Police Department, they’ll employ illogical logic and bizarrely tangential suggestions to draw the curtains on a killer.

After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the reader of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Were it merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about the period; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out of ignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magic protects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity. Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, much as acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, until dates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive even to the eye of the most watchful historian. It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravely affected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty of the period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age in Spain.