From outside it was simply an ordinary looking London pub, a place you'd have to be guided to more than once before you memorized it's location, somewhere between Fleet Street & the Embankment. But, if by chance, an insider led you to the White Hart on a Wednesday night, you would have found yourself in the midst of a select gathering or writers, editors, scientists & interested layman--drinking, swapping odd bits of information, &, like as not, listening to Harry Purvis' memorable stories. A scientist by profession, Harry Purvis has had or heard about some of the most astonishing experiences--like the story of the carnivorous orchid that was used in a murder plot, or the one about the military computer that was converted to pacifism. There's SILENCE PLEASE, involving a spurned lover & a device that was supposed to destroy sound; & BIG GAME HUNT, in which an ambitious researcher becomes so wrapped up in his latest projest--controlling animal behavior with electrical impulses-- that he overlooks one tiny important detail. Such stories may challenge your powers of logic & strain your imagination. Yet even if you doubt their veracity, they're guaranteed to provide you with hours of SF reading. Baron Munchausen, step aside. Contains: Silence Please; Big Game Hunt; Patent Pending; Armaments Race; Critical Mass; The Ultimate Melody; The Pacifist; The Next Tenants; Moving Spirit; The Man Who Ploughed the Sea; The Reluctant Orchid; Cold War; What Goes Up; Sleeping Beauty & The Defenestration of Ermintrude

Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans. Even Robin, virtually immortal and with unlimited access to millennia of accumulated data, cannot discover how to stop these aliens. It began to seem that only a face to face meeting could determine the future of the entire universe....

H. Beam Piper was a prolific science fiction. He is well known for both his Terro-Human Future History series, and his Paratime series.

A young officer at Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a puzzling and eerie case of missing-and apparently resurrected-bodies. To unravel the mystery, Lt. Gregory consults scientific, philosophical, and theological experts, who supply him with a host of theories and clues.

An Alien tricks 416 Terrans into thinking they are going to another planet for First Contact. Arriving, they encounter bewildering problems including impending slavery due to having no money. Then a war breaks out and their only weapons are Biological. They meet the Niseyen, kidnapped off Earth thousands of years ago and get embroiled in Interplanetary politics.An Alien spaceship lands on Earth. Its Commander says it has been asked to transport Terrans to the planet Torroxell to discuss trade, contact etc. A mixed group of 416, including children, of mixed races and agendas, arrive on Torroxell to find no one knows who invited them and they are soon accumulating debt which will lead to slavery. Their leader will not face reality. Their species classification is changed to Amphibian which has profound implications. Then, shockingly, a war breaks out. Small problem; they have no weapons except the forbidden; Biological. They meet the Niseyen, Humans, well not exactly., and the Niseyen are in big trouble.A complicated system of politics governs this Universe. There is Interplanetary law but the system favours the alliance, the strong, the unscrupulous and those with the smartest lawyers. And the strong have a terrible intent. Into this Universe of countless billions come the naïve Terrans, totally confusing the Niseyen, ignoring protocols and threatening the plans of immensely powerful aggressors. OopsThis is a stand alone novel and the first in a series.

Years ago, a pair of college girls was rescued from a party-gone-bad, then abducted by an alien in need of a crew.A few years later, they abandoned their alien savior on Earth and are forced to return to find and rescue him to prevent interstellar criminals from raiding the Earth.To do this, they need help.Checkers Pizza is very popular among the students of Keekishwa University in Delasalle, Illinois, because it offers guaranteed 30 minute or the order is free. Business is usually brisk each night, even during the summer, but one night it died early and might have stayed that way, if a bizarre gentleman hadn't ordered 24 pies and paid with a solid gold coin.Just one catch: he wants them delivered to the gate of a haunted cemetery....In the Bonus Story, a woman passing through a cemetery late at night is assault by a couple of ghouls, who fight over her, allowing her to escape. But then they start to court her....

Is modern technology humankind's solution, or will it lead to our demise? Technophobe! is a collection of 5 short stories exploring techology's sinister side. Are strangers on social networks really what they seem? Could people be trusted with mind-reading devices? Will machines make us immortal? Stories to make you wonder, make you shudder, make you suspicious of your household appliances!Rebekah journeys through Cornwall on a quest to find her hero King Arthur. She discovers that she is her own hero and truth is within. Photographs.

Dr. Bloodmoney is a post-nuclear-holocaust masterpiece filled with a host of Dick's most memorable characters: Hoppy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers; Walt Dangerfield, a selfless disc jockey stranded in a satellite circling the globe; Dr. Bluthgeld, the megalomaniac physicist largely responsible for the decimated state of the world; and Stuart McConchie and Bonny Keller, two unremarkable people bent on the survival of goodness in a world devastated by evil. Epic and alluring, this brilliant novel is a mesmerizing depiction of Dick's undying hope in humanity.

In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and that the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilisation has yet achieved. Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travellers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster.

DO HOLOGRAMS DREAM OF ELECTRIC CINEMA? He wanted Hollywood. He got Brentford. He wanted Spielberg. He got Fudgepacker. He got who? Fudgepacker. Ernest Fudgepacker. Directed all those weird B-movies back in the Fifties. Whatever happened to him? He retired. Opened Fudgepacker's Emporium, a prop house catering to the more bizarre needs of the film industry. Amazing place. There you could hire anything from shrunken heads to a pickled homunculus. Trouble is, they just don't make that kind of movie any more. Ernie's going bust. In fact, if he can't come up with some big bucks pretty damn quick, he's going to lose the business. It will take a miracle to save him now. Young Master Robert believes in miracles. He has a dream. He wants to star in movies alongside The Greats. The Golden Greats. The dead Golden Greats. He's a boy boffin with computers and he's invented this system that could put the stars of yesteryear right back up there on the screen. Next to him. He's written a script and he's got piles of money (his dad owns the brewery), but Hollywood isn't keen. And Mr Spielberg didn't ring back. The lad needs a director and Ernie needs the dosh, and Ernie only lives up the road. Could this be the perfect partnership? Well, it could be...but then this is Brentford and when you make movies in this neck of the woods, you can be sure of a BIG surprise. And when Brentford takes on Hollywood, then Hollywood had better pack up and head for the hills.

Salvage in Space is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Jack Williamson is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Jack Williamson then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

When Emma wakes strapped to a cold metal table she has only one name on her lips, "Marshall!" What she doesn't expect is discovering that he is only one of the disturbing people in her small world who deserves to die in a fiery death. Twenty years ago scientists made some remarkable discoveries with genetics and the ability to perfect the babies we gave birth to. Ten years ago the governments of the world made a hard choice, earth or people. Nine weeks ago the choices they made came full circle. Fourteen days ago the truth of their mutations leaked out into the borderlands and other areas. Yesterday the worst thing they ever made learned about what she was. Today she's coming for them and she knows about the strengths they gave her. Tomorrow she plans on destroying everything. She plans on starting with her her own creator. Her own father. Mature Content Warning

Looking Backward 2000–1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888. It was the third-largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It influenced a large number of intellectuals, and appears by title in many of the major Marxist writings of the day. "It is one of the few books ever published that created almost immediately on its appearance a political mass movement".

He was scared – scared of standing in front of that door again, of reaching into his pocket and finding the keys to a studio that didn’t exist. To a life that didn’t exist.Short story. He was scared - scared of standing in front of that door again, of reaching into his pocket and finding the keys to a studio that didn’t exist. To a life that didn’t exist.

Aiben leads an uncertain life as a cybermancer acolyte and part-time starship mechanic. When the Zenzani Protectorate invades his homeworld, he learns that the molecule-sized machines augmenting his body and mind have a centuries-old plan for him. He must find an ancient weapon and a long-forgotten people that will bring his past crashing into his future and seal his destiny forever.Left behind by his childhood friend, Aiben ekes out his existence as a cybermancer acolyte and part-time starship mechanic on a backwater world. He leads an uncertain life, until one day, the Zenzani Protectorate invades his home and destroys everything he has ever known. Aiben soon learns that the molecule-sized machines, which augment his body and mind, have a centuries-old plan for him involving nanotechnology, genetic manipulation, and hyperspatial thought. Now, along with his companions, an old soldier and a sentient mechanoid, he takes his journey to a world of fabricated prophecies. There he navigates the treacheries of war and espionage to find an ancient weapon and a long-forgotten people that will bring his past crashing into his future and seal his destiny forever.