A Glimpse of Infinity: The Realms of Tartarus, Book Three
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
The masters of the Euchronian Millennium are panicking. The fabric of their ideal society on the platform built over the Earth has been ripped, and the order that they hold so precious seems to be teetering on the brink of collapse. In order to save it, the Hegemon has decided to obliterate all life in the perpetually covered Underworld of Earth from which the threat comes--but his followers are of two minds as to whether that's even possible, let alone justifiable. As the opposition grows, the plan goes forward--but then the Underworld begins to fight back, and everything's thrown into chaos: a chaos with which the citizens of a supposedly ideal society are simply not equipped to deal. Meanwhile, in the Underworld, the fight for survival goes on, as bitterly and ruthlessly as ever. The smashing conclusion to The Realms of Tartarus Trilogy!
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The City of the Sun: Daedalus Mission, Book Four (The Daedalus Mission)
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
The fourth landing of the Daedalus Mission confronts Alex and his companions with a colonial culture seemingly modeled on a classic Utopian dream, but all of its inhabitants are infected with a mysterious alien parasite, and they no longer seem entirely human. Are they being controlled by the parasite, or has the parasite merely enabled them to transform themselves? Can the visitors from Earth avoid infection themselves, and what will the consequences be if they cannot? For once, the risks of the contact seem potentially far greater than any possible reward--but that still leaves the visitors with the necessity of passing judgment and deciding what to do, in an exceedingly awkward situation. Daedalus Mission, Book Four.
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On the Brink of the World's End
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
Seven French scientific romances by Raoul Bigot, Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, Charles Epheyre, Jules Hoche, Joseph Méry and Colonel Royet. This is the thirteenth in a series of anthologies of exemplary texts in the evolution of the French genre of roman scientifique. The seven stories collected here were published between 1784 and 1928. They include two remarkable tales about Future Paris, the first story to seize upon the potential of air balloons as imaginative devices, and an extraordinary pseudo-case study in magnetism by Nobel prize-winning physiologist Charles Richet (writing as "Charles Epheyre"). Also included are a novella about the "death" of iron and how it changed the fate of the Great War, mind-reading technology and how it can be used to solve crimes, and the eponymous 1928 novel by Colonel Royet, which explores in a colorful fashion how a mad scientist threatens the stability of the world.
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To Challenge Chaos
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
SYNOPSIS;THEY NAMED THE PLANET CHAOS X,BECAUSE ONE HEMISPHERE WAS NOT IN THIS UNIVERSE-AND NO ONE WHO VENTURED THERE WOULD EVER RETURN.THEY NAMED THE OTHER UNIVERSE ULTRA,BECAUSE IT WAS BEYOND THE LAWS OF THE MILKY WAY GALAXY.IT WAS ONLY BY MEANS OF ULTRA'S NON-EUCLIDEAN PHYSICS THAT MAN COULD TRAVEL THE STARWAYS.THEY NAMED THE RULER OF THAT IMMOBILE PLANET FURY,BECAUSE THAT WAS THE EFFECT OF HIS POWER ON PEOPLE.BUT THEY WERE AFRAID TO CALL CRAIG STAR GAZER BY ANY OTHER NAME,BECAUSE HE WAS THE SPACE CAPTAIN WHO WAS GOING TO CROSS INTO FURY'S DOMAIN AND WRENCH HIS LOVE ONE FROM ULTRA'S POWER-AND THIS WAS SOMETHING NO ONE HAD EVER DONE BEFORE EXCEPT THE LEGENDARY ORPHEUS
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The Return of the Djinn and Other Black Melodramas
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
Six stories of fantasy and science fiction by a modern master, including three pieces published for the first time: "The Path of Progess," "Kalamada's Blessing," "The Shepherd's Daughter," "Shadows of the Past," "Reconstruction," and the original short fantasy novel, "The Return of the Djinn."
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The Paradox of the Sets: Daedalus Mission, Book Six
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
The final contact made by the Daedalus Mission begins badly, even before the ship makes a hard landing in the middle of nowhere. The situation of the colony doesn't seem to make any sense, and neither does the situation of the indigenous aliens--the Sets--that have helped the colony survive and thrive. Alex Alexander doesn't take long to work out a hypothesis that might explain the mystery--a hypothesis that the people on the ground have already worked out for themselves--and he's fortunate enough to fall in with a colonist who's obsessively determined to prove the hypothesis. Unfortunately, the quest seems likely to become so dangerous that both of them might die trying--and there's too much at stake not to take it to the very limit of possibility, no matter what the cost. The stunning conclusion (Book Six) of The Daedalus Mission series.
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Year Zero (2000)
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
It is the year 2000, and ex-prostitute, ex-junkie, and ex-wild child Molly has decided to make a new start for herself, getting her life straightened out and most importantly, getting her children back from the state. But as she's about to discover, that is going to be a bit more tricky than she figured. Life in London is getting more hectic all the time, and when Molly runs into Elvis Presley shopping in the local supermarket, all she knows for sure is that her world is about to take a turn for the surreal. **
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The Face of Heaven
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
After laboring for thousands of years, the people of Earth, fleeing ecological disaster, have built a new, clean, stable world on a worldwide platform erected over the entire land surface of the Earth. Everything is going well--except for Carl Magner, the man who's been having bad dreams. He shouldn't be having dreams at all, because dreams have been banished from the society of the Euchronian Millennium, but somehow he is, and his dreams are showing him the "Underworld." The real surface of the Earth, the Underworld that the Euchronian Millennium has left behind, still maintains life, human and otherwise, life that's adapted to a world without sky or sun, still evolving in response to extreme environmental challenges. Dreams are only dreams, but they're a provocation nevertheless, not merely for Carl Magner, but for the whole of Euchronian society. Can Heaven be truly Heaven, if Hell still festers in its entrails? The first book in a stunning SF trilogy, The Realms of Tartarus!
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The Nickel Man
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
Eleven French scientific romances by Jacques Boucher de Perthes, Pierre Bremond, Léon Daudet, Georges Espitallier, Louis Gallet, Pierre de Nolhac & Ralph Schropp. This is the twelfth in a series of anthologies of exemplary texts in the evolution of the French genre of roman scientifique. The eleven stories collected here were published between 1832 and 1932. They include three remarkable tales about automata and homonculi, including one in which the manufacture of an artificial human being is credited to the 13th century scholar Albertus Magnus. Also included are The Uraniad (1844), a protest against Newton's theory of gravity, The Death of Paris (1892), an account of how Paris was destroyed by a new Ice Age, and The Nickel Man (1897) by military historian and journalist Georges Espitallier, in which an eccentric scientist uses galvanic technology to turn his body into a metal statue in an attempt to preserve it.
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The World Above The World
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
A balloon ascent to the Heavens... A man with X-ray vision... A utopian metal city built on giant pylons above Paris... A sexless world in which women reproduce parthenogenetically and man is unknown... Is science insane? Unholy? See nine French authors of the 19th century grapple in a ground-breaking fashion with the future themes of science fiction. All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. This edition includes a historical introduction and notes by Brian Stableford.
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Investigations of the Future
Brian Stableford
Science Fiction / Fantasy
This is a new collection of seven French proto-science fiction stories devoted to explorations of the future, as imagined in the 1850s and early 1900s, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. This collection includes fantastic explorations of Future Paris by Théophile Gautier, Arsène Houssaye, Victor Fournel as well as Alfred Franklin's visionary The Ruins of Paris in 4875 (1875), Maurice Spronck's devastating criticism of socialist utopianism, Year 330 of the Republic (1894), and Jean Jullien's An Investigation of the World of the Future (1909), in which a reporter interviews scientists whose discoveries are in the process of laying the foundations for the transformation of human society.
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