Book Preview The Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its … Read more
Book Preview In three hours by the clock they will be here to kill me. The door will crack open. Two noncoms will step through and flank it, in parade uniforms with stunners at the ready. I don’t know whether their faces will wear loathing and righteousness, or that sick pity I have observed on … Read more
Book Preview [19 aug 2001 – proofread and re-released for #bookz – v1] Perhaps the deadest of all things possible in this Universe is the dead cold core of a burned-out supernova. But Death is, of course, the ulti-mate trap of all living things! THEY named her Southern Cross and launched her on the road … Read more
Book Preview great admiral Syranax hyr Urnan, heir Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet of the Drakko, Fisherman of the seas of the East, Conductor to the sacrifice, and Oráculo of the Lodestar, extended its wings and it returned them to join again with a surprising humming. During a little while, the papers that were upon the … Read more
Book Preview A Science Fiction Novel Jacket Design by Paul Orban Endpaper Design by Alex Schomburg Ceci/e Matschat, Editor Carl Carmer, Consulting Editor THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY Philadelphia * Toronto Copyright, 1952 By Poul Anderson Copyright in Great Britain and in the British Dominions Copyright in the Republic of Made in the United States … Read more
Book Preview “Le roi a fait battre tambour, Le roi a fait battre tambour-” Gunnar Heim halted in midstride. He stood a while, turning his head in search of the voice that had risen out of the dark. “Pour voir toutes ces dames. Et la premiere qu’il a vue-” It was some distance off, almost … Read more
Book Preview The guide beam reached out in answer to his signal and locked onto him. Home again, he thought. His hands moved across the pilot board, adjusting Vectors more delicately than a pianist controls notes, until the moonship rode a true curve. The cabin throbbed with energies. Raising his eyes to the viewscreen, he … Read more
Book Preview Transported into a magical alternate world of dragons, witches, and fairy-folk, skeptical engineer Holger Carlsen finds himself at the center of a looming conflict in which he is inexplicably a key figure. Reissue. My first Anderson, June 17, 2000 and not a bad place to start (I’ve read plenty since). This book introduces … Read more
Book Preview [19 aug 2001 – proofread and re-released for #bookz – v1] BE AT EASE. I’m not about to pretend this story is true. First, that claim is a literary convention which went out with Theo-dore Roosevelt of happy memory. Second, you wouldn’t believe it. Third, any tale signed with my name must stand … Read more
Book Preview [23 may 2002—proofed for #bookz] The wind came from the north with sleet on its back. Raw shuddering gusts whipped the sea till the ship lurched and men felt driven spindrift stinging their faces. Beyond the rail there was winter night, a moving blackness where the waves rushed and clamored; straining into the … Read more
Book Preview They graze at night, the unicorns, upon the fresh-dewed grasses, Molten starlight flying as they toss their sapphire horns. They step with light and dainty hoof below the stony passes, Shimmer under shadow where the nightingale mourns. The bright manes ripple over dapple flanks, Quarter-moon racing past cloudy banks— Now on the warning … Read more
Book Preview The Rover Fleet got there just before sunrise. From its height, five thousand feet, the land was bluish gray, smoked with mists. Irrigation canals caught the first light as if they were full of mercury. Westward the ocean gleamed, its far edge dissolved into purple and a few stars. Loklann sunna Holber leaned … Read more
Book Preview SHE HAD SEEN HIM A hundred times or more — who has not? — in travel books, on postcards, as a miniature copy in San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden. But when he sat before her, seeming to fill half the sky with the mightiness of his peace, she knew that she had never … Read more
Book Preview One of the writing problems peculiar to science fiction is that science has a way of catching up with your imagining. Just as you finish writing a book about the poor folks who live on the perpetually dark side of Mercury, the damned Mariner flyby shows that there’s no such thing as a … Read more
Book Preview [31 jan 2003—scanned by Wickman99] [09 feb 2003—proofed for #bookz] I/we: Feet belonging to Guardian Of North Gate and others who can be, to Raft Farer and Woe who will no longer be, to Many Thoughts, Cave Discoverer, and Master Of Songs who can no longer be; Wings belonging to Iron Miner and … Read more
Book Preview The Queen of Air and Darkness Poul ANDERSON was born November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, of Scandinavian parents. Part of his youth was spent in Denmark. He returned to the United States before World War II, and he sold his first story while a student at the University of Minnesota. When he … Read more
Book Preview “You can’t leave now,” Daniel Holm told his son. “Any day we may be at war. We may already be.” “That’s just why I have to go,” the young man answered. “They’re calling Khruaths about it around the curve of the planet. Where else should I fare than to my choth?” When he … Read more
Book Preview THE coast of Dalmatia rises steeply. A bare league inland, Shibenik town stands high on a hill above the river Krka and sees mountain peaks in the east. Here the water forms a broad basin, which narrows as it moves on to the sea. Upstream, however, it tumbles in ringing cascades out of … Read more