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Search Results for: of-all-possible-worlds

Showing 1-24 of 27 results for of-all-possible-worlds

Time Out For Tomorrow

Time Out For Tomorrow

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Richard Wilson

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Richard Wilson’s stories could almost be described as gentle – if it were not for the pungent humor which runs through most of them, the startling satiric commentary, all the more impressive for its quiet setting – and the one other quality that is essential in any form of good writing: a genuine concern with the human condition. This quality Wilson possesses in abundance and, perhaps in the end, it is this that makes his work such a joy to read.

TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW contains twelve SF tales of vivid imagination!

Kin (1956)
The Big Fix (1956)
Wasp (1954)
An Abundance of Good Things (1954)
The Tunnel Under the World (1959)
The Best Possible World (1960)
The Voice of the Diaphragm (1958)
QRM (1957)
The Ubiquitous You (1957)
Just Call Me Irish (1958)
The Locus Focus (1957)
The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

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Jeffrey Ford

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At times literary, at other times surreal, this collection offers an eclectic group of stories that deal with real-life conflicts, human values, and coming-of-age experiences all placed within fantastical settings. One tale recounts the author’s search for a Kafka story that can only be found in an elusive and quite possibly cursed edition. Other stories feature humans dressing in full-body protective exoskins in the personas of old Hollywood movie stars to barter old Earth movies for an alien aphrodisiac and a young boy coming to terms with creation and moulding his own man out of detritus from a nearby forest. In the title story, a great fantasy writer loses touch with the world he has created and pleads with his young assistant to help him visualise the story’s end and enable him to complete his greatest novel ever.
The Judas Rose

The Judas Rose

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Suzette Haden Elgin

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An instant cult classic upon first publication, Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue trilogy has earned wide critical acclaim, shocking and captivating a loyal readership among science fiction and women’s literature audiences alike.

Sequel to the enormously popular Native Tongue, The Judas Rosecontinues Elgin’s gripping vision of a frightening, male-dominated world where the women of Earth are virtually enslaved. Once again, this group of women-and the nonviolent yet transformative power of language-is called upon to challenge Earth’s violent, patriarchal order. Their revolutionary tool is Laadan-a secret women’s language created to free them from men’s control and make resistance possible for all women.

In The Judas Rose, the time has come to take Laadan from underground and spread its revolutionary power to women everywhere-in part, through a group of nuns inside the Roman Catholic Church. But when a handful of horrified priests uncover the women’s sabotage they move to stamp it out with an undercover female agent of their own.
Prince Of Demons

Prince Of Demons

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Mickey Zucker Reichert

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THE BALANCE BETWEEN LAW AND CHAOS has long been maintained by the rulers of Béarn, but the death of the current king has enabled the elves to magically substitute one of their own on the throne. And, under the leadership of Dh’arlo’mé, the dark elves are preparing to claim their long-sought vengeance on mankind.
But when the small party which set out to find and bring back the last possible heir to the throne returns to Béarn, Dh’arlo’mé realizes that even magic and murder combined will not be enough to overturn the balance. Now his solution must hinge on Béarn’s burden and treasure: the Staffs of Law and Chaos. Within these plain-pieces of wood dwell the essences of Law and Chaos, each eternally seeking its Champion to destroy the other.
Lured into one Staff’s power, Dh’arlo’mé seeks to seduce the mortals into championing the other. And with all the worlds teetering on the brink of doom, it falls to Colbey Calistinsson – son of the god Thor and the greatest of Renshai warriors – to select that Champion. If he chooses wrongly, all life will come to an end. Yet even success will come at a high price. For the only way to insure that this danger can never arise again, is for both Champions and Staffs to be totally annihilated.
Fools Errant

Fools Errant

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Matthew Hughes

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Wise, witty and just a little weird, FOOLS ERRANT wryly strolls the satirical path laid down by Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Jack Vance, heralding the brilliant debut of a gifted new voice. Foppish young Filidor Vesh wants only to dally among his shallow pastimes. But a simple errand for his uncle, the vaguely all-powerful Archon of those parts of Old Earth still populated by human beings, becomes a frenetic odyssey across a planet speckled with eccentric nations pursuing odd aims with intense determination. Harried at every step by the irascible dwarf, Gaskarth, and frequently at the peril of wild beasts, enraged mobs and a particularly nasty thaumaturge, Filidor makes a relucant progress toward a final encounter with an ancient and possibly world-ending evil.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold
Asgard's Conquerors: Asgard 2

Asgard's Conquerors: Asgard 2

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Brian Stableford

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Asgard’s not an easy world to get away from. Mike Rousseau only wants to take a vacation in his home system, but he’s back before he has time to draw breath, and he’s been drafted into the Space Force once again. His new mission is even more dangerous than the last one, the number of his enemies has increased vastly, and his friends haven’t improved at all. By way of compensation, he has another chance to get closer to the mystery at Asgard’s heart–but the inhabitants of the megaplanet’s core are no longer content to sit quietly and wait to be found. They’ve discovered the outside universe, and are trying to decide what to do about it–but they have problems of their own. Only Rousseau can cross the boundaries between species, and offer each of the races a possible solution.
The Wrecks of Time

The Wrecks of Time

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Michael Moorcock

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Earth zero to Earth fifteen – which was the real one?

What the inhabitants of Greater America didn’t realize was that theirs was the only inhabited landmass, apart from one island in the Philippines. They still talked about foreign countries, though they would forget little by little, but the countries were only in their imaginations, mysterious and romantic places where nobody actually went..

That was the way it was on E-3, one of the fifteen alternate Earths that had been discovered through the subspace experiments.

Professor Faustaff knew that these alternate earths were somehow recent creations, and that they were under attack from the strange eroding raids of the mysterious bands known as the D-Squads. But there were tens of millions of people on those Earths who were entitled to life and protection-and unless Faustaff and his men could crack the mystery of these worlds’ creation and the more urgent problem of their impending destruction, it would mean not only the end of these parallel planets, but just possibly the blanking out of all civilization in the universe.
Z Formations

Z Formations

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John Russell Fearn, Bryan Shaw

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Using the secret motive power of a lost a lost flying saucer, physicist Micael Arnott, three companions and an escaped convict are flung into the void at eight times the speed of light to eventually land, after the oblivion of acceleration, upon a world that is both extraordinary and terrifying.

Their machine disappears and they themselves also vanish one by one, Michael Arnott going first when he is on the verge of explaining the mystery of this far-flung world.

That the planet is inhabited seems obvious from queerly designed spaceships glimpsed at intervals, all of them blazoned with a “Z”, which is not so much an alphabet letter as a symbol of a master-race of scientists.

In their efforts to solve the riddle of the world and system to which they have been hurled, the perplexed travellers gradually realise they are not only involved in an odyssey of space, but in a problem of Time as well. They are forced to the conclusion that, just as the first supersonic airmen paid a penalty of mental blackout for breaking the barrier of sound, so there is also a penalty for exceeding Fitzgerald’s Law – namely that 186,000 miles per second is the ultimate possible speed.
The Brink

The Brink

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John Brunner

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Ed Carter, a New York reporter on his way to his home town in Omaha for a short vacation, saw the missile in the last moments in its journey back to earth. A sweller on the brink, like all of us, he had no doubt about what it was; Oh God, he thought, this is it. The blast of the impact flung him some distance, and when he regained consciousness, his first reaction was one of surprised to find himself still alive, and not, it seemed, even badly hurt. Presumably the missile had been directed at the big Air Force base nearby, and should have destroyed everything and everyone within a radius of miles. Could it have failed to explode?

Carter sees the remains of part of the missile in an adjacent field and hobbles over to it. A minute or two later several Air Force officers arrive. They examine the remains, and find the burned-up body of a pilot. In other worlds, the missile was not Russia’s first shot in the Third World War, but a failure to launch a man into space. But Carter knows that the Distant Early Warning line will have reported the missile; that the senior Air Force officers, in accordance with plan, will have taken to the air – in the country’s interest, their lives must, of course, be preserved if possible; that by now the retaliatory American bombers will have passed the point of no recall; and that the Third World War has begun. Not so, Colonel Ben Goldwater tells him: “I called the bombers back.”

Goldwater, the man who had been left in command, has saved the world – for at least a little longer. So he becomes a world hero? Not a bit of it. On the contrary: a nightmare looms ahead both for him and for Ed Carter, and the reader watches it all with growing fury…
Zero Point

Zero Point

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John Glasby, Rand Le Page

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Over the long years, ships of the Interplanetary Confederation had scoured the empty wastes surrounding Sol, searching desperately for a sister planet; a companion for the isolated worlds of the Solar System. Of the ships that were sent out, many returned. But always the answer was the same.

There were no planets! The worlds of Sol were alone in the Great Dark that swirled across the boundless heavens.

It was not until Steve Rane and Nick Brodine, in the Exploratory Ship Vega, reached across the yawning gulf of light years to Sirius, that they found the strange planet that rotated in its complicated orbit around the twin sun. It was an event transcending all others.

A discovery that plunged the planets of Sol into the greatest race of all time. For whoever controlled the alien planet, controlled the Solar System. And away from the watchful eye of the IPC it would be possible to build the greatest space armada in history and attack the Interplanetary Confederation without warning.

To Steve Rane, the order came from Earth Central. Zero Point has been set for three months hence. The ship of Jupiter must not reach the new planet first.
Time Echo

Time Echo

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Lionel Fanthorpe, Patricia Fanthorpe, Lionel Roberts

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The Eurasian world of the 24th Century is in the grip of Rajak the Magnificent, one of the most efficiently ruthless totalitarian tyrants ever produced by history. The dreaded security guards are everywhere. The only escape is the time dimension. But what if the Time Vortex breaks down? To what unknown realms – of past, future or probability – will the travellers be transported?

Mike Grafton, on the run from the security forces, finds himself changing places with Benjamin Bathurst, the true life Missing Diplomat of the early 19th Century, who vanished and was never seen again.

What happens to these men, torn from their environments, into unknown realms? Will the Liberationist forces succeed in destroying Rajak the Magnificent? But perhaps the greatest question of all is the possibility of Time Travel: will man ultimately conquer time as he is even know conquering space?
The Girl From Tomorrow

The Girl From Tomorrow

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Lionel Fanthorpe, Patricia Fanthorpe, Karl Zeigfreid

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Thursday began as an ordinary day as far as Estelle was concerned. Breakfast… Tube… Office… Lunch… And then the sane, sane, simple everyday world began to fade. One moment she was walking along the pleasant tree-lined familiarity of her home town… the next she was involved in a strange translucent sphere and life had turned into a nightmare.
Without warning and without explanation she found herself alone in a strange new environment. There were strange stars in the unknown sky above her and the flora and fauna of her new surroundings were disturbingly unfamiliar. Most minds would have yielded to the easy escape of insanity. But Estelle Wilde was made of sterner stuff. She fought back at the strangeness of her new setting and tried desperately to establish a new set of survival data before it was too late.
Piece by piece she collected her information and sat down to the mammoth task of answering the great questions. Where was she? How had she been brought there? And why?
Above all… was it possible to get home?
The End of All Songs

The End of All Songs

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Michael Moorcock

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Jherek Carnelian and Mrs Amelia Underwood return to the End of Time from their brief exile in the Devonian Period to find the world under attack from the Lat and extinction a very real possibility. The perfect occasion, then, for love to bloom, the secret of Jherek’s past to be revealed and the true nature of time to be unveiled…
Of All Possible Worlds

Of All Possible Worlds

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William Tenn

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Suppose… a man who was blasted into our time from the future arrived without any clothes?
Suppose… a man who craved the love of beautiful women got too much of it?
Suppose… a conscientious young realtor refused to rent a floor in an office building because it didn’t exist?
On such faintly horrifying, delightfully absurd speculations are some of these stories founded. With a keen satiric touch William Tenn uses his insight into contemporary life as a springboard into an absolutely believable, if slightly wacky, future.
Electric Forest

Electric Forest

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Tanith Lee

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The world called Indigo turned upside down for Magdala Cled one unexpected morning. From being that world’s only genetic misfit, the shunned outcast of an otherwise ideal society, she became the focus of attention for mighty forces. Once they had installed her in the midst of the Electric Forest, with its weird trees and its super-luxurious private home, Magdala awoke to the potentials which were opening up all about her. And to realize also the peril that now seemed poised above Indigo…which only she, the hated one, could possible circumvent.
Fang, the Gnome

Fang, the Gnome

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Michael G. Coney

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There was a time when the Earth had three moons, and when the seductive sorceress Avalona could alter futures and bend “happentracks” with her spells. Indeed, in this vast chaotic universe called the Greataway, with its many imaginable futures, anything is possible. Especially when Nyneve, Avalona’s bewitching human disciple, conjures up the complete legend of Camelot and when the roguish gnome Fang, slayer of the dread daggertooth, stumbles into the human happentrack, causing human and gnome worlds to overlap. For then the moons begin to disappear one by one, and Fang, Nyneve, and all their comrades find themselves caught in a happentrack from which there is no escape, a happentrack in which the legend of Arthur might prove their only salvation…
Brontomek

Brontomek

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Michael G. Coney

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The planet Arcadia was on the verge of economic collapse. Its human colony had been decimated by the strange Relay Effect; in the aftermath, still more colonists were leaving for other worlds. The Hetherington Organisation promised to change that. If the remaining colonists put themselves entirely in their hands for a five-year period, they would transform Arcadia into the most prosperous planet settled by mankind, while preserving its great natural beauty.

It was an offer the Arcadians could not possibly refuse, for the alternative, after all, was an accelerating slide into poverty and, eventually, savagery. Only when the Hetherington Organisation’s first cargo ships arrived, unloading a huge stream of brontomeks – huge robot agricultural machines, heavily armoured – and an army of amorphs, aliens who were capable of moulding themselves into human form, did the colony begin to realise what it had committed itself to.

Brontomek! is a sequel to two earlier books, Syzygy and Mirror Image. Like it’s predecessors it is an ingenious, adventurous tale of the type which has rapidly made Coney one of SF’s foremost entertainers.


Brontomek! won the 1977 BSFA award for best novel.
Mothership

Mothership

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John Brosnan

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Shrewd, devious, cunning and a born liar – but as a Court Jester, Jad’s a disaster. So when he’s sent off with the warlord’s son, Prince Kender, on a spying mission, he’s hoping that his less desirable traits will actually save his life. Since the Day of Wonder, when all the electric lights stopped working, there have been rumours of unrest in the neighbouring domains . . . and no one has seen hide nor hair of any of the Elite, the ruthless technocrat class that have ruled Urba for centuries. What most of the inhabitants don’t realise is that their world of Urba is actually a giant spacecraft, an ark built more than a thousand years ago to save as much of the Earth’s population as possible before the sun went nova. The Elite were originally the ship’s crew, and as a social experiment, the ship’s population were forced to live a pseudo-mediaeval life . . . and as the centuries passed, the Elite became decadent, corrupt and cruel and the truth about Urba became hidden. And now Jad and his courageous – if thick – Prince are about to find out what happened to the Elite – and what’s happening to the people of Urba . . .
The Forest of Peldain

The Forest of Peldain

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Barrington J. Bayley

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Life was not possible on that watery world except on the Hundred Islands. The Empire of Arelia ruled them all – all except one. Peldain was entirely covered with a forest so impenetrable and so deadly that all attempts to explore it were disastrous. Then a man came out of that jungle – a human – who told the Arelians that at the center of the island a secret kingdom flourished.

There was nothing for it but to organise an expedition. However deadly the alien forest might be, if one man could get out, an army could get in. So Lord Vorduthe landed and began the assault on the great green enemy.

Nobody could have foreseen the horrors with which the forest defended itself. Nobody could have foreseen the price that would be paid by Vorduthe’s men. And only Vorduthe himself would learn the incredible secret of the island…if his mind could stand it.
Planet of Dread

Planet of Dread

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E.C. Tubb

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ENTER DR. KAIFENG . . .

Of all possible enemies, Cap Kennedy had yet to cross swords with the legendary master of galactic villainy, Dr Kaifeng. In the struggle for the mind of the tyrant of Papan, they finally met – and Kennedy was the loser.

There was only one chance to save the situation and that was to pay the price of the enigmatic super-surgeons of the Kraid. He would have to take a role in their eternal play-acting. The stage would be the past, a barbaric world of swords and sorcery. Kennedy would be just a sword-wielding freebooter with a crew of murderous puppets at his back. And if he survived, Kaifeng would be waiting at the stage door.
The Luck Machine

The Luck Machine

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E.C. Tubb

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“We talk of good luck and bad luck. We even wear, some of us, good luck charms and we tend to select certain lucky numbers if we enter a raffle. No, Norman, you can’t tell me that we don’t acknowledge the existence of something we call luck.”

The world, indeed the Universe, is surrounded by intangible energies of which man has, at present, only the vaguest notions. Electricity is such a force. Magnetism, gravitation . . . all once-unsuspected natural forces, now known for the realities they are. And so why not luck?

And once the possibility of luck being an actual force is recognised the next step is obvious – a machine to harness its forces.

But if one man can attract the good luck, someone, somewhere is due for bad luck. When the machine falls into the wrong hands, the inventors begin to wish they’d stuck to rabbits’ feet and black cats . . .
Moon Base

Moon Base

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E.C. Tubb

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On the airless surface of the Moon the ‘cold war’ continues, with the bases of the major world powers watching each other and waiting . . .

The dedicated personnel of Britain’s Moon Base seemed well-adjusted to their peculiar existence despite a series of mysterious happenings. What bothers them most is the visit of a Royal Commission sent by an economically-worried British Government to investigate expenditure. Travelling with the Commission, but under separate and secret orders, is Felix Larsen, who’s investigations are of quite a different nature.

Larsen, alive to the possibilities of espionage, soon finds himself faced with the inexplicable. Why should one man fall a thousand feet and escape with minor bruises while another dies after falling a mere eighteen inches? Why does a desperate man, bent on suicide and with all the means at hand, find it absolutely impossible to kill himself? What are the strange messages emanating from the Base – and from whence do they come? And what is the fantastic thing that has been conceived in the research department?
The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens

The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens

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L. Sprague deCamp

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BEYOND 2001!

By the twenty-first century, the great power struggle on Earth had been resolved in the only possible way. The United States, Russia, and China all have fallen by the wayside, and Brazil has assumed her rightful place as world leader. Thus it is naturally Brazil that conducts the first interstellar explorations, and creates the great space transport system, the Viagens Interplanetaries, to extend her galactic conquests and hold her vast and growing empire together.
The Virgin & the Wheels

The Virgin & the Wheels

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L. Sprague deCamp

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The Virgin of Zesh

In which a beautiful woman, a mind-drunk poet, and a super-sober scientist must fight for their lives on a planet occupied by weird cultists from the Earth and bizarre varieties of humanoids from all over the galaxy.

The Wheels of If

In which a young lawyer is trapped in a sense-shattering shuttle among alternative worlds of possibility, and lands at last in an America that has been colonised by Norsemen and divided between two great warring empires – one white, one Indian.
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