Search Results for: to-keep-the-ship

John Grimes falls into the clutches of terrorists. Its going to talk all his efforts to keep his precious golden ship. (Especially as it is infected with mini-Susies who were sharp-toothed, hungry and ready to eat him alive.)

The Dreamlands! Created from the dreams of men, haunt of gods and demons, the other side of Death’s portal…

Professor Leonard E. Dingle, lecturer on the subconscious mind of man. Deceased.

David Allenby Hero, fantastic artist of the macabre and supernatural. Also deceased.

Or should we simply say they have undergone…a transition?

A transition indeed – for under the aliases of Eldin the Wanderer and Hero of Dreams, their present occupations include keep-climbing, wizard-slaying, swordmastery and amazing adventuring in the land of Earth’s dreams!

Put yourself in the place of Kim Rendall, a handsome, idealistic young man living on a distant planet ruled by a super-efficient government. Here is industrialization carried to its illogical conclusion. Kim Rendall lives in the shadow of mechanized terror, for machines have taken over, and the disciplinary circuit keeps the inhabitants in check . . .

Hugh had been taught that, according to the ancient sacred writings, the Ship was on a voyage to faraway Centaurus. But he also understood this was actually allegory for a voyage to spiritual perfection. Indeed, how could the Ship move, since its miles and miles of metal corridors were all there was of creation? Science knew that the Ship was all the Universe, and as long as the sacred Convertor was fed, the lights would continue to glow and the air would flow, and the Creator’s Plan would be fulfilled.Of course, there were the muties, grotesquely deformed parodies of humans, who lurked in the upper reaches of the Ship where gravity was weaker. Were they evil incarnate, or merely a divine check on the population, keeping humanity from expanding past the capacity of the Ship to support?
Then Hugh was captured by the muties and met their leader (or leaders), Joe-Jim, with two heads on one body. And he learned the true nature of the Ship and its mission between the stars. But could he make his people believe him before it was to late? Could he make them believe that he must be allowed to fly the ship?

The ship rose on a column of invisible, super-heated steam ejected at incredible velocity. The spread of the blast flattened everything in the immediate vicinity. The surrounding town was wiped out.

Immediately on blast off the automatic pilot engaged hi-drive to avoid the attacking missile. This put the ship into negative mass with relation to the normal universe. It was now in M-space.

The ship was self-contained. It could keep going till all her occupants died of old age. But where to? Proxima Centauri? Or maybe Alpha Centauri, Riga, perhaps, or Sirius! The universe is a big space.

They hurtled on through space and time until they saw the planet, a cloud-hidden ball, as it hung in space a hundred thousand miles below the orbiting vessel. It had seas and clouds, mountains and ice-caps, islands and continents, It had a moon and a yellow G-type sun.

Home? Was this their second chance?

Things were quiet that night in the space port. Then the ‘Theban’ arrived without warning, bringing with it a surly crew, led by a blustering captain, Larson…

The ‘Theban’ was old, propelled by a totally obsolescent interplanetary drive. The only way Larson could get it off the ground was to kidnap the young engineer, Horn, who he hoped could at least manage to keep the ship in flight until it reached its final rendezvous.

Their destination was the spaceship ‘Danae’ – a ship loaded with millions in space credit notes. If Horn wanted to save the ‘Danae’ from the onslaughts of the Space Invaders, he had his work cut out for him…

Far from Earth, on a ship carrying the 13th and 14th generations of descendants from the original crew, life is short. You are born, learn the tasks needed to keep the ship running, help breed and train the next crew – and your death is ordered by the computer in charge.

Gregson, chief of the psych-police, makes sure the computer’s death-sentences are carried out quickly and painlessly. His duty is a sacred trust. He knows the intricacies of the system, how it works . . . and how it can be subverted.

He is growing old. Rebellious.

He also knows his name will soon come up in the computer for elimination.

And he has no intention of carrying out his own death-sentence!

They call them the “rat-catchers.” They’re the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which an economically destitute Earth has dispatched on a mission to re-establish contact with its far-flung, long-lost space colonies. Alex Alexander, ship’s biologist, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that he encounters light-years from home. The planet Floria initially appears to be one of the few Earth colonies that’s actually prospered since its initial settlement. But underneath the surface of the society, the “Planners” keep a strict, repressive rule over the Florians, while the police are apparently attempting to assert their own authority. But is either group actually what they seem?

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.

All Verrill wanted to do was to get to Mars, to Port Mercham where a ship was getting ready to take the Big Jump to the stars. But he was stranded on Venus, without money, papers, or weapons, with nothing but a keep-sake between him and starvation and the revengeful fury of the powerful Brotherhoods – and charity was a forgotten word.

How, with foreign papers, he fought and won the right to a berth, discovered a subtle plot to smuggle narcotics and defeated a mutiny. How he fought a desperate battle with the menace of the Sun and escaped from Mercury, and how, at last, he managed to reach his objective, make a story of high adventure.

This is a fast-moving, hard-hitting tale of the future, of rocket ships and the men who guide them across the wastes of space, of the perils and dangers waiting at every turn. A story which paints bright colours across the pages of unwritten history, and brings to life the lives of those yet unborn.

Lola Belman was a refugee. She and her younger brother were on one of the last ships to leave Earth as the bombs began to fall; by the time they left lunar orbit, they were orphans. Lola is now practicing as a therapist on Ganymede, and she has a new patient whose past is a mystery.

During those years of chaos, many records were lost and histories forgotten, and it was an ideal time for anyone who wanted to conceal his or her identity. Now there is a small, dangerous group who will stop at nothing to keep Lola from exploring the past and discovering their existence.

US Federal agent John Dennison arrives in the UK to meet Chief Inspector Philip Hunter of Scotland Yard, and to find $300,000, smuggled ashore via Liverpool. According to Dennison, the smugglers are intent on buying diamonds, to ship back to the US.

Two suspects are followed to a London hotel and the diamonds are found. Shockingly, they are discovered to be real . . . but synthetic.

The diamond deal, involving an eccentric middleman, exposes a much bigger racket. Hunter and Dennison have a complex plot to unravel, some dangerous men to deal with – and Dennison the beautiful, red-headed Martine to keep an eye on . . .

Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having the giant spaceship Planetara stop off at the moon to pick up Grantline’s special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal – invaluable in keeping Earth’s technology running – was the target of many greedy eyes. But nevertheless he hadn’t figured on the special twist the clever Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret – that would be by turning space-pirate himself and paying the Brigands of the Moon back in their own interplanetary coin.

When racial hatred turns to murderous menace . . .

First a rocket ship loses its engines on take-off and is destroyed. On board – an important extra-terrestrial visitor.

Next someone slams into the sealed vehicle used for transporting aliens around in the lethal atmosphere of Earth.

Then the vital controlled environment for the Tau Cetian delegation is sabotaged. Oxygen leaks in, and the aliens are half burnt alive.

Even if it means brutal murder, The Stars Are For Man League is determined to shatter the harmony between Earth and civilizations on other planets – and to keep mankind supreme among the alien life forms. Only one man can stop them – a man who unknowingly nurses a viper in his bosom . . .

First published in 1965.

McNulty’s Disease has escaped the Sea Venture and is now epidemic on land. The disease kills only a few of its victims…but no one knows what long-term effects it has on those who survive. For the public’s safety, the U.S. government sets up a giant internment camp on the old CV herself, and attempts to find as many survivors as possible to keep safely on board the ship. Fortunately, Julie Prescott has a most resourceful and clever husband (he used to be a high-priced hired killer) who doesn’t want his wife locked up forever. So he sets himself up against the entire government bureaucracy – with remarkable results.

The Real Story was just a preview to this action-packed tome… The Gap series steps on the accelerator with Forbidden Knowledge. Beautiful cop Morn Hyland, desperate and in pain aboard Captain’s Fancy, controls her body and mind with her illegal zone implant, recreating herself as a superbeing worthy of holding Captain Nick Succorso’s affections. Jealousy among the crew, threats of rape and ship self-destruction, prisoner torture, and government cyborg programs keep things moving along. Alien Amnioni seeking genetic domination over humankind enter the scene with new technologies such as mutagens and force-growing fetuses. Bite your fingernails while you live it all (vicariously!) through brilliant survivor Morn and villain-turned-conspirator Angus Thermopyle.

‘YOU KEEP OUT OF HARM’S WAY, SOPHIE FARTHING’ Her father’s advice seemed only sensible. The flying island of High Haven was a dangerous place. So what was she doing down on the docks at midnight, talking to the sinister gentleman with the iron jaw? Where had he come from on his majestic space yacht? And why did he laugh when she spoke of her poor dead mama? Sophie only wanted to talk to him again. She didn’t really mean to stow away – certainly not on the wrong ship. Her unintended quest is to take Sophie far from home, to the pleasure gardens of the Moon, the grogshops and grime of Lambeth Walk, through the perilous Asteroid Sea and the cruel canyons of Mars where Angels fill the red sky with their ravenous cries.

The Humanx Commonwealth: Book Seven.

They call it the Drowning World. It is Fluva, a planet on the fringes of the Commonwealth where it rains torrentially, ceaselessly, and maddeningly for all but one month of the Fluvan year. Chief Administrator Lauren Matthias is fairly new to the position. Her primary goal: keeping Fluva’s indigenous species, the warlike Sakuntala, and its immigrant species, the timid but hardworking Deyzara, from annihilating one another.
The wettest place on Fluva is Viisiiviisii, an immense, mostly unexplored jungle. Thanks to the endless rains and humid conditions, exotic animals and plants have thrived there, many of them deadly predators. Yet the same evolutionary process responsible for creating toxic creatures has made the jungle a treasure trove of undiscovered botanicals potentially useful in engineering everything from pharmaceuticals to perfumes. A man can get rich there. Or die trying.
Bio-prospector Sadrach Hasselemoga has come to the jungle to get rich – if he survives the terrain once his sabotaged ship goes down. When a Sakuntala and a Deyzara are dispatched by Matthias to rescue the unfortunate soul, their ship crashes, too. Now, in order to survive, the three unlikely allies must do something that no one has ever done before: walk out of the Viisiiviisii.
Meanwhile, in what passes for civilization, long-simmering tensions between Sakuntala and Deyzara erupt into violence, threatening Matthias’s official position of neutrality – and her life. Behind the violence, Matthias detects a mysterious presence, one related to Shadrach’s disappearance. But how are the two related? The answer, when it comes, will send shock waves through the entire Commonwealth…and beyond.

It was a changed world. No longer did the black monks of the Christian Church own half of England and extend their deadly domain over their flock. No longer did the murderous Ragnarssons and their Viking hordes ravage the shires unopposed. Now, in the year 867 AD, those who wished to be Christian were free to worship without the heavy yoke of the ever-hungry Church. Those who did not could follow the Asgarth Way, the Norse religion that paid homage to the gods of Asgard: Othin, Thor, Frey…and Rig. Rig, the patron – perhaps the father? – of Shef Sigvarthsson. Whose new weapons and battle strategy had defeated both the battle-hardened Vikings and the Frankish knights of Pope Nicholas’ failed Crusade.

While enemies plotted, Shef left England by ship, to avoid the wedding of his ally, Alfred of Wessex, to his childhood love, Godive. Shipwrecked on the Frisian Coast he begins a journey that will keep him away from England for months and years, and add more legends to his already myth-shrouded life.

In One King’s Way Harry Harrison Continues the story of Shef Sigvarthsson, god-chosen warrior and mystic. From the Vikings of the North Sea to the scheming priests of Germany, from the frozen northern lands to the snow-covered Finnish tundra, he fights his way towards overwhelming kingship. While his supernatural allies and enemies engage in a shadowy battle for his future. This is historical fantasy of the highest order, from a giant of the genre.