Only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of the total annihilation of the universe. They are Arthur Dent, homeless Englishman currently marooned in the deep past; his friend Ford Prefect, temporarily insane to see if he likes it, also marooned; Slartibartfast, once of the planet builders of Magrathea; Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-confidence trickster and part-time galactic president; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox. In other words: we're doomed.
Merlin is a Prince of Chaos and Amber, Corwin's son and heir. He has grown up knowing that his legacy is to one day follow in his father's footsteps, live up to his father's legend. When Corwin goes missing, that day comes far sooner than he could ever have expected.Merlin must find his own identity as the ruler of the worlds, and discover what kind of King he wants to be. Will he be a warrior like his father, or embrace his own path as a hacker-magician?A generation after Corwin's rise to the throne, Merlin is aided by powers beyond anything Corwin could have imagined. The epic magic from The Chronicles of Amber is wielded alongside sentient computers, a vorpal sword, and the ghosts of those who came before.Featuring the Locus award-winning Trumps of Doom, the Locus nominated Blood of Amber and Sign of Chaos, and the final two novels Knight of Shadows and Prince of Chaos, the Second Chronicles of Amber continues the epic story of Amber and the Shadow worlds.
Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth ... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood.By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive like this?Winner of the Bram Stoker Prize for Vampire Novel of the Century, I Am Legend is a stunning blend of science fiction and horror.'The most clever and riveting vampire novel since Dracula' - Dean Koontz'Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me' - Stephen King'It is, by turns, scary, thrilling, tragic, witty and - ultimately - uplifting' - James LovegroveWelcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction
Welcome to the Best of the Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction-What does it mean to be human when you're part of the machine? Synners are synthesizers - not machines, but people. They take images from the brains of performers, and turn them into a form which can be packaged, sold and consumed. They don't use the net, they are the net.Everything is automated. Everything is synthetic. But when the technology starts to fail, the terrifying question remains: what is a human? Winner of the 1992 Arthur C.Clarke Award, Synners was Pat Cadigan's early stories, and cemented her place in the core of the cyberpunk movement, and has even inspired academic works. Lauded for her complex characters and plots, and seen as a stalwart of feminist SF, Cadigan has gone on to win another Clarke and a Hugo for subsequent works. -'Racingly told, linguistically acute, simultaneously pell-mell and precise in its detailing' - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'Ambitious, brilliantly executed .. . Cadigan is a major talent' - William Gibson'Pat Cadigan is the undisputed Queen of Cyberpunk' - The Fantasy Hive
Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero in an interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy. But his greatest test will be when he returns home. Relativity means that for every few months' tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting.The Earth he knew is dead. The one he returns to . .. unrecognisable. Winner of the Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards, The Forever War was the first title selected for the SF Masterworks series when it launched in 1999.Inspired by Haldeman's experience in the Vietnam War, it has been seen as a critical work of anti-war SF. 'This is an enraged and enraging classic that deserves a place alongside Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter as an expression of the pain caused by Vietnam'- Guardian'The book is near perfect'- infinity plus'This book is not only one of the best military science fiction books ever written, but is one of the finest works of modern American literature' - TordotcomWelcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction
The year is 2110. Humankind is entering a new golden age. But when an amateur astronomer points his telescope at just the right corner of the night sky, he sees disaster hurtling toward Earth: a chunk of rock that could annihilate civilization.
While a few fanatics welcome the apocalyptic destruction as a sign from God, the greatest scientific minds of Earth desperately search for a way to avoid the inevitable. On board the starship Goliath, Captain Robert Singh and his crew must race against time to redirect the meteor from its deadly collision course. Suddenly they find themselves on the most important mission in human history - a mission whose success may require the ultimate sacrifice.
ENTER THE ADMINISTRATION
Peretz spends his days navigating the bureaucracy of the Administration, the institute tasked with governing the Forest below. Except no one ever seems to go there, and his attempts only trap him further within the workings of this strange organisation.
ENTER THE FOREST
Candide cannot remember how he got to the Forest, and he is certain he belongs somewhere else. Determined to escape, he finds that all paths lead him round strange bends and into encounters with bizarre creatures.
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
This classic SF novel sees Boris and Arkady Strugatsky meditate on how little man can understand of the wider world, and in doing so produce one of the great literary works to come out of Soviet Russia.
In the year 2100, the invention of the Electron Pump - an apparently inexhaustable supply of free energy - has enabled humanity to break free of the Earth and estabish a foothold in the wider solar system. But the Electron Pump works by exchanging materials with a parallel universe, and such unbalancing of the cosmos has consequences. Now the race is on to prevent a vast nuclear explosion in the heart of the sun - and the vaporisation of the Earth exactly eight minutes later…
World War III is raging - or so the millions of people crammed intheir underground tanks believe. For fifteen years, subterranean humanity has been fed on daily broadcasts of a never-ending nuclear destruction, sustained by belief in the all powerful Protector. Bu on Earth's surface, a different kind of reality reigns. East and West are at peace. And across the planet, an elite corps of expert hoaxers preserve the lie.
An extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, in the time of a dying sun, when our present culture is no longer even a memory. The torturer's apprentice, Severian, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his prisoners, is now the Lictor of Thrax, a city far distant from his home. But it is not long before Severian must flee this city, too, and journey again into the world.Embattled by friends and enemies alike, pursued by monstrous creatures, the one-time torturer's apprentice must overcome hitherto unimagined perils, as he moves closer to fulfilling his ultimate destiny. This edition contains the concluding two volumes of this four-volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.
Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler, former hack and 'console cowboy' who crashed and burned. His nerves were damaged and thus cut off from the digital matrix, he slouches through life. Until he meets Molly, an augmented 'razorgirl', who offers him a deal on behalf of a shadowy man called Armitage.His nerves repaired and matrix access restored, in exchange for a single job. But it's not so simple - unless he completes the job, sacs of poison will explode inside him and cripple him again. And the job? That might be impossible.The first novel to win the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer has become a seminal part of SF history, coining the term 'cyberspace' and lighting a fuse on the Cyberpunk movement. Part thriller, part warning, it is one of the 20th century's most potent visions of the future.'A ground-breaking success' - Empire'Gibson is better than almost anybody at noticing what's genuinely interesting about the world' - Ned Beauman'Neuromancer is a book of exquisitely observed detail' - Eileen GunnWelcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary. Winner of the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, and subsequently expanded into a Hugo-nominated novel, Flowers for Algernon earned Daniel Keyes the honour of SFWA Author Emeritus in 2000 for his contribution to Science Fiction and Fantasy.
World War Terminus devastated the Earth. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard searches for the renegade replicants he is sent to 'retire', while he dreams of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of natural life. The opportunity of a lifetime: kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward.
But in Deckard's world things aren't that simple, and his assignment turns into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit - and the hunter becomes the hunted . . .
Voted in a Locus poll as one of the 100 pre-1990 SF Novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep spawned two blockbuster movies. Philip K. Dick won multiple awards for his works, examining human identity, psychology, conspiracy and paranoia, challenging the idea of objective truth in a manner that remains relevant today.
Cat’s Cradle, one of Vonnegut’s most entertaining novels, is filled with scientists and G-men and even ordinary folks caught up in the game. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world’s most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature. At one time, this novel could probably be found on the bookshelf of every college kid in America; it’s still a fabulous read and a great place to start if you’re young enough to have missed the first Vonnegut craze.
Vonnegut has a way of helping his readers enter into this end-of-the-world story. Jonah, the first-person narrator, wants to write a book about the end of the world – so naturally his topic is the inventor of the atomic bomb, Dr. Frank Hoenikker, and what the people surrounding him were doing on the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It is his research that leads him to Hoenikker’s children, old acquaintances and, finally, on a journey that goes completely different than expected…
The protagonist himself spoils parts of his story right at the beginning of the book, but I will do my best to keep the review spoilerfree. Personally, I didn’t even read the blurb, I just dug right into the book. Maybe that added to the wonder I felt washing over me on every page. Truth be told, I picked this as my second-chance-for-Vonnegut book because it is fairly slim (yes, I am ashamed of myself).
The style is both simple and complicated. Vonnegut uses simple words and short, precise sentences to tell a story that folds back onto itself, that jumps back and forth in time and expects the reader to know things that are only revealed much later. I see how this may turn certain people off, for me it only added to the charm and the mystery of this novel. I like having to work my brain to figure out what’s going on. The revelations are just that much more satisfying. The many, very short chapters make for a nice reading experience and give you the illusion that you can stop after this chapter or that chapter – only to find yourself continuing because it’s just that good.
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