Barr Herndon is the kind of man who can turn a slave auction into a personal reckoning. In the crowded markets of Borlaam, he outbids a wealthy noble for a suffering proteus, then shocks the onlookers by shooting the shape-shifting creature and sending it into the harbor—an act of ruthless mercy that reveals both his hard edge and the buried anger beneath it. That same boldness draws the attention of Bollar Benjin, a sly jeweler who offers him a place in a secret starstone-smuggling syndic...

Paul Hendriks thinks he has won a place at the event of the century when he secures two costly engraved invitations to Ultrarama, a secretive new form of entertainment so coveted that crowds line up for days to see it. His skeptical wife is less impressed, but Hendriks is dazzled by the promise of a spectacle "more real than life itself" and by the prestige of being among the first to witness it. Inside the vast Ultrarama Theater, the luxury is overwhelming: a futuristic foyer, striking us...

Hal Preston, a proud former Space Patrolman, is dumped into the Postal Service and sent on what feels like a humiliating backwater assignment: carrying mail to distant Ganymede. Bitter at the downgrade, he boards a mail ship escorted by two old Patrol comrades, only to learn that this new job is every bit as dangerous as the old one. Before the run is over, pirate ships strike in the asteroid belt, and his friends pay a deadly price to keep the mail moving. When Preston finally reaches Gan...

Rick Mason, a Solar System intelligence agent, is descending toward the hostile planet Mordarga when a desperate telepathic plea from his partner, Klon Darra, turns a routine reconnaissance mission into a race against time. Klon has been seized by the Mordargans and faces torture in the main palace, forcing Mason to abandon caution and mount an immediate rescue in a world where mental contact may be his only lifeline. Landing in a hidden valley, Mason begins the treacherous journey to Mord...

In the ashes of atomic war, Mayor Lloyd Riddell has rebuilt Center City into a fragile refuge of hope, only to see that peace threatened by neighboring Northburg and its conquest-driven leader, David Barr. When a spy is killed and a warning reaches him, Riddell refuses to answer violence with violence, even as his hatred for Barr burns hot enough to tempt him toward war. Instead, he sends his ally Ken Naylor on urgent errands and goes alone to confront the danger at its source. On the road...

J. F. Corrigan runs the Corrigan Institute, a booming interstellar "zoo" that recruits alien specimens for the one place they all dream of seeing: Earth. On Ghryne, his office is packed with hopeful applicants, desperate petitioners, and bizarre creatures whose longing for Terra is matched only by Corrigan's talent for turning it into profit. Brisk, satirical, and full of sharp alien color, the story follows Corrigan as he sorts genuine prospects from scams, all while keeping one eye on th...

Jim Reese returns to Colony Eight on the jungle world of Damballa hoping to mend his strained relationship with Lois, but instead finds the settlement warped into a nightmare. A warning from Kuhli, a drug-addicted native who steals away with narcotics, sends Reese back in time to realize the danger is real: the colony is wrong, and Lois may already be in peril. What should be a familiar home has become eerily alien, with friends acting like strangers and the air thick with dread. When Rees...

Drug Themes in Science Fiction explores how imagined chemicals have shaped one of literature's most revealing genres, from early cautionary tales to visions of expanded consciousness and social control. Introduced by Robert Silverberg and framed as part of a research series on drug use, the book connects the rise of science fiction's popularity with the upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s, arguing that the genre offers a sharp lens on changing attitudes toward drugs, freedom, and human ...

On his seventeenth birthday, Larry faces the most important choice of his life: remain in the drugged comfort of childhood or step into the uncertain demands of adulthood. In a future society where children are raised on an "unworry" drug that erases fear and responsibility, his robonurse presents three capsules that will decide whether he stays in blissful dependence or begins the irreversible path to maturity. As his father welcomes him into the "Age of Anxiety," Larry is thrust toward a...

Kiley is a swaggering jewel thief who thinks he's finally found the perfect partner in Thaklaru, an alien mind-reader with a talent for turning suspicion into profit. Trapped in an alien prison after a failed burglary, Kiley is offered freedom in exchange for cooperation—and discovers that Thaklaru can project hypnosis through him, letting the pair slip past guards, crack security, and steal almost anything they desire. Their alliance quickly becomes a dazzling crime spree across an entire...

Dave Conroy wakes chained aboard an Earth-orbiting satellite, where the contemptuous Major Hawes informs him that he and the other "volunteers" have been condemned to deadly radiation duty. Recruited from convicts and drunks, they are trapped in a brutal system that trades prison for a slow, agonizing death. As Dave pieces together how he was lured there during a drunken night, he faces the horror of the ruined men already laboring in the jetroom and realizes he is expected to suffer the s...

When the last radio signals go silent, Haverford believes he is the final human being left on Earth. A lonely amateur operator who has spent years retreating from the world, he is the last person anyone would expect to survive an alien invasion. Yet as the Lanthaii descend in silvery ships and sweep across the globe with terrifying speed, his sealed room becomes a fragile fortress against extinction. One by one, voices vanish from the airwaves. Friends in distant countries fall silent. Cit...