From the vaults of The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal introduction to the work of the award-winning Bob Shaw. Best known for his extraordinary novel of 'slow glass', Other Days, Other Eyes, Bob Shaw was a fan favourite at conventions for his hysterical 'serious scientific talks'. This omnibus contains three of his finest works: Orbitsville, A Wreath of Stars and The Ragged Astronauts

Shrouded by its shell of drifting lunar fragments, the planet Mnemosyne is a refuge for creative artists and poets, a place isolated from the desperate, losing struggle of the humans against the Syccans.But then COMsac, theFederation's High Command, come to Mnemosyne, and suddenly the planet is more a military colony than a place for artists.For Mack Taverner, the dilemma is stark: either go along with the brutal military visitation or join the hopeless resitance and become...

Racing from the certain vengeance of Earth's tyrant ruler, space captain Vance Garamond flees the Solar System.And discovers the almost unimaginably vast spherical structure soon to become famous as 'Orbitsville' - a new home for Earth's huddled masses.Behind Garamond comes Earth's space fleet...Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1975

Shot at by aliens, eaten up by monsters, frozen up, burned up and shipped all over the galaxy¿ war was one game Private Peace didn't want to play. So why had he joined the Space Legion?Warren Peace had joined the Space Legion to forget - exactly what, he hadn't the faintest idea. But he was sure about one thing - however horrific the crime he'd once committed, the memory of it could hardly be more unbearable than life in the lunatic Space Legion. Private Peace knew he'd got to get ...

Twenty-four years have passed since Toller Maraquine led the population of Land to the sister planet of Overland. Somehow, those left behind have become immune to the deadly pterthacosis which caused the exodus, and their voracious ruler now lays claim to Overland.Grudgingly put in charge of his planet's defence, Toller designs a front-line force of spaceships and satellites made of wood, which will engage the enemy fleet in the cold vastness of space, before the invaders can set f...

Orbitsville is the scene of two of Bob Shaw's most successful novels and is possibly the most gigantic artefact ever dreamed up by an SF writer - a vast hollow world completely enclosing its sun, habitable across its entire inner surface. At the end of ORBITSVILLE DEPARTURE the whole world was shifted to an alternative universe. In a conclusion which is both stunning and moving, ORBITSVILLE JUDGEMENT tells what happens next...

The chronicle of adventures of the survey ship Sarafand as it journeys through space exploring and mapping newly-discovered planets.The mission brings them into contact with man startling life-forms and menacing aliens. On one world the Sarafand sends out six survey modules and seven return: one of them is a shape-changing malevolent alien - but which?On another planet they discover a humanoid civilisation which can move around in time. Suddenly the Sarafand investigators a...

'The entire head had been stripped of skin, creating a nightmarish sculpture in gelled blood...'The hideous apparition that confronted John Redpath almost defied description. It was the beginning of a horrific ordeal that would cause him to question his own sanity...A member of a telepathic research project, Redpath believes the cause to be side-effects from the experimental drugs he is taking - but then stranger things begin to happen. He wakes up to find himself in America....

Lucas Hutchman is the Ground Zero ManThe man who has his finger on the button, the man who can destroy the world - or save it, the man whose own life suddenly has no value, unless he can make the governments of Earth understand that he is the absolute master of the ultimate doomsday device - a device that can trigger every nuclear weapon in existence if Hutchman's demands are not met in time.

Remote, mysterious and deadly, Verdia is a world from which no one has ever returned.But Jan Hazard is convinced his brother could still be alive and Petra knows Jan can't make it alone...on the Killer Planet.Together they go in search for survivors - only to find themselves the next victims, trapped by the malign forces of a monstrous alien...

For 'refusing to co-operate' the Emm Luther Special Police took out Earth agent Sam Tallon's eyes and imprisoned him on a dark and eerie swamp from which nobody ever escaped.But then Tallon invented a way of seeing - ludicrous, agonizing, yet still a way to make escape possible. He 'saw' through the eyes of a bird. A dog, a woman guard and, later, even saw himself through the eyes of his enraged Lutheran pursuers. Madness and death were his constant companions as he schemed and fou...

This is the gripping story of the collision between two vastly different human civilisations. One is Earth in the early 21st century, rushing toward self-inflicted nuclear doom. The other is the distant world of Mollan, whose inhabitants have achieved great longevity and the power to transport themselves instantly from star to star.Bob Shaw's novel unfolds a tale which spans thousands of years and the reaches of interstellar space. On Earth's side, there is Denny Hargate, whose ind...