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Plague…or paradise?

2005 A.D. Six years have passed since the alien Symbionts invaded Sea Venture, Earth’s largest ocean habitat. Now, despite the government’s best attempts at quarantine, the Symbionts have spread all over the planet, infecting the bodies of both humans and animals – and slowly, subtly forcing mankind in new directions.

Once possessed by the Symbionts, men and women become smarter, wiser – or else they die. War and violence are punished by instant execution from within. A new era dawns, but there are those who would turn back the millennium, who will stop at nothing to prevent…A Reasonable World.

Krells never set out to be a hero. He was the first to admit he was a trader. “In it for the money; I leave thinking to the experts.” But the experts couldn’t solve the problem of Ralcor IX.

Professional fighters and scientific investigators vanished or were mysteriously destroyed. The robot might of an armoured Bellicose 35 was found shredded like tinsel. Krells still refused to think of himself as hero material – but he wouldn’t quit. Martia, his computer girl, and Galor, the despatch man, stayed with him. For some reason the power that had driven every other terrestrial humanoid off Ralcor IX couldn’t dislodge the traders. Krells groped desperately for a reason. Finding one meant the return of his own people and that meant money. Something he couldn’t understand was shielding him from the Unknown Menace. Suppose he accidentally stopped doing whatever it was that protected him…?

Most people would have become neurotic and quit – not Krells. He didn’t seem to have enough intelligence or imagination to know when to worry.

On Venus: An ancient and powerful Venusian race finds its ultimate evolution – but can they accept it?

On Mars: The people of the Fourth Planet are eminently reasonable in all things – except for the cult of the Sacred Martian Pig, for which ‘fanatic’ would be entirely too reasonable a word.

And on Earth: On the unknown world of one or ten centuries from now, the strangest stories of all become haunting, fascinating reality, as we find out that human beings are, after all, the most alien of creatures . . .

There had to be a reason why that isolated human colony had been able to survive mankind’s implacable enemies. But nobody had been able to get to the quaintly named Dunroamin to find out.

If they had a secret defence, it could be the answer to a hundred planets’ prayers. And Feliz Gebrod realized as he came in for a crash landing that he’d know the secret sooner than he’d expected.

Except that what he encountered was a life-and-death riddle that had nothing to do with stellar defence. It was this: how can two mutually irreconcilable Utopias occupy the same space at the same time?

MILK RUN.

That’s what they told Ronny Bronston this job would be. “Just like a vacation,” his boss had said. All he and the giant Dorn Horsten would have to do is visit the planet Einstein and see if there was any reason not to admit them to United Planets.

The planet was a paradise, where the people had bred themselves for intelligence and beauty, where everyone was completely free. Free, sometimes, to get into more trouble than they could handle.

Only Ronny could get them out of that trouble; and that’s how he wound up on Dawnworld, in a gladiator’s arena!

The opening of The Fugitive Worlds finds Toller Maraquine II – grandson of the hero of The Ragged Astronauts and The Wooden Spaceships – bemoaning the fact that life on the twin planets of Land and Overland has become dull and uneventful compared to the stirring times in which his illustrious forebear lived. Then, while on a balloon flight between the worlds, he makes an astonishing discovery – a rapidly growing crystal disc, many miles across, is creating a barrier between Land and Overland. Precipitated for personal reasons into investigating the enigmatic disc, Toller – armed with only his sword and boundless courage – becomes a pivotal figure in events which will decide the future of entire planets and their civilizations.

It lay in the grass, tiny and white and burning. He stooped, put out his fingers. And then there was nothing. Nothing but darkness and oblivion. A split second demolition of the world of Richard Avery.
From a damp February afternoon in Kensington Gardens, Avery is precipitated into a world of apparent unreason. A world in which his intelligence is tested by computers, and which he is finally left on a strange tropical island with three companions, and a strong human desire to survive.

But then the mystery deepens: for there are two moons in the sky, and the rabbits have six legs, and there is a physically satisfying reason for the entire situation.

The interstellar Bridge System was the greatest invention in the long history of cosmic humanity. Spread through dozens of planets, men and their societies had drifted apart in isolation until the Bridge came to link together humanity’s multifold worlds . . . and had affirmed once more that all men were brothers and sisters under the skin.

But the far away world of Azreal was the exception, the one dissident world that refused the Bridge. It became the task of two agents, a man and a woman, to bring Azreal back into manshape unity, to ferret out the hidden reasons for the stubborn refusal.

The problem, with its perils and high risks, was to involve more than just secrets, for Manshape is John Brunner novel that deals with the very fabric of civilization . . .

By order of the World Council, a vast chain of towers was being constructed across the globe. The people were told that the towers would provide free universal power from broadcast energy. When Statander, a member of the World Council, questioned their construction, he was assassinated to ensure his silence.
But there was one other who shared Statander’s suspicion – Altair the Thief, whose father had also been killed for a similar reason. Just one man, a criminal and a fugitive, but a man determined to uncover the monstrous secret that had led to their deaths . . . the secret of the towers!

Though Morgon the Riddle-Master was reunited with his beloved Raederle, his purpose in life and the reason for the stars on his forehead remained a mystery. All around him, the realm shook with war as mysterious shape-changers battled against mankind. Without the missing High One, Morgon must assume responsibility for all his world.

Justin’s having the worst trip ever. He and his mother are Time Traders, traveling undercover to different alternate realities of Earth so they can take valuable resources back to their own timeline. In some of these worlds, Germany won World War I or the world has been destroyed by nuclear warfare. Justin and his mother are in an America that never became the United States: each state is like a country, and many of them are at war with one another. Their mission takes them to Virginia, which is on the verge of bloody violence with Ohio.

Beckie is from California and, like the rest of her world, is unaware that Time Traders exist. The only reason she’s in small-town Virginia is because her grandmother dragged her there to visit old relatives. Beckie is just as horrified by the violence and racism of the alternate Virginia as Justin is, and the two are drawn to each other. But when full-fledged war breaks out between Ohio and Virginia, including a biologically designed plague, will either of them manage to get back home? Forget about home: will they make it out alive?

After roving through space for centuries, a starship unburdens its cargo of human embryos on a harsh new world. They quickly grow to maturity in the ship’s artificial womb. A lifetime of Earth memories is programmed into their dreams.
But before their indoctrination is complete, an alien intruder infiltrates and destroys the system, and the reason for the odyssey is never learned.
Now, on a verdant island surrounded by quicksand, Othman, wanderer, dreamer, and self-proclaimed leader of the Earthling band, builds a mighty bridge to span the ocean of molten mud that keeps them from the world beyond.
He has yet to face the deadly toll his quest will take on the delicate ecology of the planet – or the revolt of his beautiful, strong-willed wife, Silandi. And he has yet to discover the hidden knowledge locked deep within their hearts.

Usually, Crosstime Traffic concerns itself with trade. Our world owns the secret of travel between parallel continuums, and we use it to trade for much-needed resources with the worlds next door; preferably without letting them know about any of that parallel-worlds stuff. But in one parallel world, Crosstime Traffic is present, not to trade, but to study what went wrong.

In a Los Angeles where nuclear war broke out back in 1967, survival is a matter of neighbourhood versus neighbourhood. When the Westsiders block Sepulveda Pass, the inhabitants of the San Fernando Valley are forced to fight back. With the help of some prewar machine guns, the Valley prevails, and their forces occupy the Westside.

In this brutal world, Liz and her family are undercover Crosstime Traffic agents living near the ruins of UCLA. Dan is a soldier in the occupying Valley army. Dan thinks Liz is the most impressive woman he’s ever met. Liz thinks she’d better avoid Dan if she wants to protect the mission.

To complicate matters, when Dan catches Liz in the UCLA library, he fears she may be a spy for the Westsiders. After all, what reason could anyone have for reading about the Old Times, if not to figure out how to reconstruct old weapons systems?

Then a real spy for the Westside government-in-exile shows up at Liz’s house…

Legally, the United Planets Organization could do nothing about the repressive, backward planetary governments of Falange, Stalin and Doria. It was imperative, however, that something be done. The UP had proof that a race of highly advanced, warlike aliens existed somewhere in the depths of space – the human-held worlds ad to be ready to meet the challenge when it came.

For this reason the secret corps, Section G, was formed. No government could be allowed to hold up the progress of mankind; Section G was ordered to bring them down – by any means necessary!

When a nervous scientist from Beller Laboratories approached James Harker, asking him to introduce a new scientific discovery to the world, Harker had his own reasons for agreeing. The discovery was a reanimation process – bringing the recently dead back to life. But Harker hadn’t anticipated treachery within the ranks of the scientists working on the process, nor on the consternation and mounting hysteria when the news broke. James Harker faced the most demanding task of his life – and he didn’t know if he would live to see the results.



(First published 1962)

Brenden Vetch has a gift. With an innate sense he cannot explain to himself or describe to others, he connects to the agricultural world, nurturing gardens to flourish and instinctively knowing the healing properties each plant and herb has to offer. But Brenden’s gift isolates him from people, and from becoming part of a community – until the day he receives a personal invitation from the wizard Od, to serve as a gardener in her great school of wizards. But even Brenden isn’t fully aware of the full extent of his power – and the true reason Od has recruited him …

It was supercivilization, a Utopia. At its core were the Cybernetic Brains, brains taken from geniuses who were promised they would live forever.
Then engineer Al Demming discovers the truth accidentally, the terrible truth transmitted to him by one of the brains. The brains are in reality slaves and in terrible torment. It was now up to Demming to stop the inhuman practice.
Just when he planned to make the announcement to the Governing Board, Demming learned that the Board knew about the hideous living death. What was the real reason behind the facade? How could he convince the Board to suspend the system before the Brains revolted and destroyed the world?

Against the Fall of Night

The Roman Empire had spread order, knowledge, and civilisation throughout the ancient world. When Rome fell, the light of reason flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun; they would last a thousand years. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the fall of Rome? When lightening struck and he was hurled backward into the sixth century, the question became anything but academic to Martin Padway, but even forearmed with a knowledge of 20th century technology and of events to come, what could one man do? But Padway must try, lest darkness fall.

Power-Greedy.

Men wished to rule the world, but one man stood in their way. Peter Duncan came from the planet Mattrain – but who was he? Was he human? If so, whence came his vastly superior intellect and technical knowledge? These were mysteries the Administration feared – because they could not find the answer to them. Too late they saw danger. For, by then, Peter Duncan had escaped and taken refuge in the Devastated Areas, from which he continued his fight to save the human race from final utter destruction. But then, he had a reason. Martha of the chestnut hair and striking beauty, who alone knew his secret and who taught him how to love.

Frank Rhind was lucky. He saw the Ice Dancer and lived. The town of Hays died. And still they didn’t believe Dr. William Stovin’s warnings. For very many years climatologists had been predicting a change in the world’s climate but they always believed that the process would take centuries. Now there was a reason to believe differently. Stovin had staked his career and credibility on trying to persuade the U.S. National Science Council to act, but 15,000 years of warmth had lulled mankind into thinking that climatic history was over. Already it was too late. The new Ice Age had begun.


One by one the great northern cities – Chicago, Oslo, Montreal, Moscow, Leningrad – came under siege. Some fell and were evacuated, sending their young, old and sick to crowded areas further south. Crops and animals were destroyed. Governments drew lines of catastrophe across their national maps. Doomsday prophets were in full cry. Technological man was overwhelmed. The world had changed.


Some time in the year future the next Ice Age will be triggered off. It could happen in a thousand years’ time, or in a century from now.


Or it could, quite literally, happen next winter. This book is fiction only because the events described have not yet happened. But it is not science fiction because all the science in the book is fact. When the year arrives that we see the sixth winter resembling 1792 within the space of a decade or so, then the Ice Age will be with us in a matter of weeks – and it will develop very much as described here.

Man has often wondered about the birth of his world. Our remote ancestors told strange tales of parental deities who gave birth to planets, and people.

Primitive religious thought regarded inanimate Nature as teeming with terrifying psychic life. It is a trend which persists in the dark recesses of the modern mind. There is reason for this persistence . . .

Were the ancients entirely wrong?

Science has unlocked many mysteries that terrified our forebears, but there are others which remain just as enigmatically sealed as before.

What strange astrological influences do the dark stars exert as they speed through the heavens on their evil courses? Like a cosmic combination lock their tuning unleashes timeless forces of evil.

The Pantheon of Old Gods rides again to bring hideous terror to the 20th century.

18th Century Europe: Superstition is giving way to the force of reason, and no man so fully embodies the spirit of the times as Dr Erasmus Darwin. Thinker, healer, and explorer of he seemingly supernatural, no mystery can stand for long against Darwin’s enlightened analysis. And there are more mysteries than history records…
For Erasmus Darwin’s world is filled with oddities that most cannot believe: from unknown beings lurking just outside the boundaries of civilization, to mysterious deaths that give rise to fears of malevolent sorcery.
And when the renowned Dr Darwin is called upon to heal a man dying of an ailment that seems impossible, he has no idea that it is the beginning of a quest that will lead him to the darkest corners of Europe, and an encounter with the most famous inhabitant of a certain Scottish loch…

Set in a post-apocalyptic England, RIDDLEY WALKER tells the tale of one twelve year old boy and his journey through the ruins of civilisation. After the death of his father in an accident, Riddley must become a man. But his inquiring mind and strange ways set him apart from his people, and when he discovers a relic of the old time, he sets in motion a chain of events that may well lead to the end of the world (again).

Written in a remarkable and rewarding language, RIDDLEY WALKER is a tour-de-force of imagination, history and psychology. Challenging and rewarding, this is a book that repays rereading again and again. There’s a reason why the reviews were so good, and why so many authors cite it as an inspiration. It is, quite frankly, a masterpiece.

It meant little to Robert Fairlie, a serious and dedicated young philologist, that the United States and Soviet Russia were at odds about the Moon. He had little interest in the first rocket landings or the bases that the two nations had established there. And he neither knew nor cared why the Americans would not agree to mutual inspections of these bases.

Yet the Americans had reason enough: and quite unexpectedly, because of his specialised knowledge of languages, he found himself sharing the burden of an incredible secret. For what the American base had yielded was astounding evidence that space had already been conquered many centuries before by a people who had once spanned the stars. There had been machines and destructive weapons beyond the comprehension of present-day scientists which, if knowledge of them fell into the wrong hands, could plunge the world into unutterable chaos.

Fairlie’s trip to the closely-guarded rocket base in New Mexico turned out to be only the first step on a fantastic journey amid the unexplored stars to the home-world of the space-conquerors of long ago.

It was a journey into the appalling reality of stellar space still haunted by the past cosmic struggle whose scale in space and time dwarfed the rivalries of tiny Earth’s quarreling nations.