Bøger udgivet af Aegypan

That night the comet was the only thing in the whole sky. All the stars were smothered by the light of its copper-yellow flame, and, although the sun had set two hours ago, the Earth was lit as with the glow of a thunderous dawn.In Mayfield, Ken Maddox walked slowly along Main Street, avoiding collisions with other people whose eyes were fixed on the object in the sky. Ken had spent scores of hours observing the comet carefully, both by naked eye and with his 12-inch reflecting telescope. Still he could not keep from watching it as he picked his way along the street toward the post office.The comet had been approaching Earth for months, growing steadily to bigger proportions in the sky, but tonight was a very special night, and Mayfield was watching with increased awe and half-dread -- as were hundreds of thousands of other communities around the world.Tonight, the Earth entered the comet's tail, and during the coming winter would be swept continuously by its million-mile spread.

"The Tunnel under the World" was first published in 1954 in Galaxy magazine.On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously out of bed, the searing wave of heat.He sat up convulsively and stared, not believing what he saw, at the quiet room and the bright sunlight coming in the window.He croaked, "Mary?"Pinching yourself is no way to see if you are dreaming. Surgical instruments? Well, yes -- but a mechanic's kit is best of all!

"It isn't so bad," says one of the men who are with you inside this ultimate room. "Fifty years from now, the rest of us will all be old, or dead."And then you're waking again, and you think, Fifty years. you think. It's been fifty years. But another part of your mind says, No, it is only tomorrow morning.It isn't the dying itself. It's what comes before. The waiting, alone in a room without windows, trying to think. The opening of the door, the voices of the men who are going with you but not all the way, the walk down the corridor to the airlock room, the faces of the men, closed and impersonal. They do not enjoy this. Neither do they shrink from it. It's their job.

When Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race. "The government representative isn't here yet," one of the men told him. "He's due any minute." "We're getting the green light," another said.

A smile of friendship is a baring of the teeth. So is a snarl of menace.It can be fatal to mistake the latter for the former. Harm an alien being only under circumstances of self-defense.TRUST NO ALIEN BEING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.--From Exploration Ship's HandbookThe problem of separating the friends from the enemies was a major one in the conquest of space, as many a dead spacer could have testified. A tough job when you could see an alien and judge appearances; far tougher when they were only whispers on the wind.

The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the focus quickly. "It was an atomic fission we saw, all right," he said presently. He sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. "Any of you who wants to look may do so. But it's not a pretty sight." "Let me look," Tance the archeologist said. He bent down to look, squinting. "Good Lord!" He leaped violently back, knocking against Dorle, the Chief Navigator. But when they got there, nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life . . . and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch . . .

Mel Gray flung down his hoe with a sudden tigerish fierceness and stood erect. Tom Ward, working beside him, glanced at Gray's Indianesque profile, the youth of it hardened by war and the hells of the Eros prison blocks.A quick flash of satisfaction crossed Ward's dark eyes. Then he grinned and said mockingly."Hell of a place to spend the rest of your life, ain't it?"Mel Gray stared with slitted blue eyes down the valley. The huge sun of Mercury seared his naked body. Sweat channeled the dust on his skin. His throat ached with thirst. And the bitter landscape mocked him more than Wade's dark face."The rest of my life," he repeated softly. "The rest of my life!"He was twenty-eight.Wade spat in the damp black earth. "You ought to be glad -- helping the unfortunate, building a haven for the derelict. . . ."

Anderson is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. His characters were nonetheless thoughtful, often introspective, and well developed. His plot lines frequently involved the application of social and political issues in a speculative manner appropriate to the science fiction genre. He also wrote some quieter works, generally of shorter length, which appeared more often during the latter part of his career.

It's been said that there are many and strange shadows, memories surviving from dim pasts, in this fantastic universe of ours. Here the great Poul Anderson turned to a legend from the Northern countries, countries where even today the pagan past seems only like yesterday, to tell the story of Cappen Varra, who came to Norren an age ago, in a time and place we really can't remember anymore.

First on the scene were Larry Dermott and Tim Casey of the State Highway Patrol. They assumed they were witnessing the crash of a new type of Air Force plane and slipped and skidded desperately across the field to within thirty feet of the strange craft, only to discover that the landing had been made without accident.Patrolman Dermott shook his head. "They're gettin' queerer looking every year. Get a load of it -- no wheels, no propeller, no cockpit."They left the car and made their way toward the strange egg-shaped vessel.Tim Casey loosened his .38 in its holster and said, "Sure, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's one of ours. No insignia and --"A circular door slid open at that point and Dameri Tass stepped out, yawning. He spotted them, smiled and said, "Glork."They gaped at him."Glork is right," Dermott swallowed.

Deathworld is the name of a series of science fiction novels by Harry Harrison including the books Deathworld, Deathworld 2 and Deathworld 3 plus the short story "The Mothballed Spaceship".

"Henri Lothiere, apothecary's assistant of Paris," he read, "is charged in this year of our lord one thousand four hundred and forty-four with offending against God and the king by committing the crime of sorcery." The prisoner spoke for the first time, his voice low but steady. "I am no sorcerer, sire."Edmond Hamilton is credited with writing the first hardcover compilation of what would eventually come to be known as the science fiction genre. The Man Who Saw the Future is the tale of a man who traveled from the medieval past into the here and now. He did it back when here and now was 1930! Amazing, the scientific breakthroughs that used to happen in those isolated laboratories. . . .

It is written that after the Giants came to Tellura from the far stars, they abode a while, and looked upon the surface of the land, and found it wanting, and of evil omen. Therefore did they make men to live always in the air and in the sunlight, and in the light of the stars, that he would be reminded of them. And the Giants abode yet a while, and taught men to speak, and to write, and to weave, and to do many things which are needful to do, of which the writings speak. And thereafter they departed to the far stars, saying, Take this world as your own, and though we shall return, fear not, for it is yours.-THE BOOK OF LAWS

¿. . . .He knew better.But he did write a nice round hand, like a boy's hand. He knew Spanish, and enough English. For the sector that was assigned to him he would not need a map. He knew it better than anyone else, certainly better than any mapmaker. Besides, he was poor and needed the money.They instructed him and sent him out. Or they thought that they had instructed him. They couldn't be sure."Count everyone? All right. Fill in everyone? I need more papers.""We will give you more if you need more. But there aren't so many in your sector.""Lots of them. Lobos, tejones, zorros, even people."

"After I glimpsed a kind of thin, yellowish, shimmering exhalation rising from the nitrous pattern toward the yawning fireplace, I spoke to my uncle about the matter. He smiled at this odd conceit, but it seemed that his smile was tinged with reminiscence. Later I heard that a similar notion entered into some of the wild ancient tales of the common folk -- a notion likewise alluding to ghoulish, wolfish shapes taken by smoke from the great chimney, and queer contours assumed by certain of the sinuous tree-roots that thrust their way into the cellar through the loose foundation-stones. . . ."

The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free from the Centaurian's hold upon them.

¿SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE WORLD!The pendulum clock struck slowly, its every other chime as usual setting up a sympathetic vibration in the pewter vase that stood upon the mantel. Mr. Chambers got to his feet, strode to the door, opened it and looked out. Moonlight tessellated the street in black and silver, etching the chimneys and trees against a silvered sky. But the house directly across the street was not the same. It was strangely lopsided, its dimensions out of proportion, like a house that suddenly had gone mad. He stared at it in amazement, trying to determine what was wrong with it. He recalled how it had always stood, foursquare, a solid piece of mid-Victorian architecture. Then, before his eyes, the house righted itself again. With a sigh of relief, Mr. Chambers turned back into the hall. But before he closed the door, he looked again. The house was lopsided -- worse than before!

While on a gambling trip to the casino on the planet Cassylia, he is challenged by a man named Kerk Pyrrus (who turns out to be the ambassador from the planet Pyrrus) to turn a large amount of money into an immense sum by gambling at a government-run casino. Some planet in the galaxy must -- by definition -- be the toughest, meanest, nastiest of all. If Pyrrus wasn't it . . . it was an awfully good approximation!

SF writer and editor Harry Harrison explores a not-too-distant future where robots -- particularly specialist robots who don't know their place -- have quite a rough time of it. True, the Robot Equality Act had been passed -- but so what? New York was a bad town for robots this year. In fact, all over the country it was bad for robots. . . .

The fleet numbered fifteen, more than half the interstellar ships humankind possessed. But Earth's overlords had been as anxious to get rid of the Constitutionalists (the most stubborn ones, at least; the stay-at-homes were ipso facto less likely to be troublesome) as that science-minded, liberty-minded group of archaists were to escape being forcibly absorbed by modern society. Rustum, e Eridani II, was six parsecs away, forty-one years of travel, and barely habitable: but the only possible world yet discovered. A successful colony would be prestigious, and could do no harm; its failure would dispose of a thorn in the official ribs. Tying up fifteen ships for eight decades was all right too. Exploration was a dwindling activity, which interested fewer men each generation.

. . . .He knew better.But he did write a nice round hand, like a boy's hand. He knew Spanish, and enough English. For the sector that was assigned to him he would not need a map. He knew it better than anyone else, certainly better than any mapmaker. Besides, he was poor and needed the money.They instructed him and sent him out. Or they thought that they had instructed him. They couldn't be sure."Count everyone? All right. Fill in everyone? I need more papers.""We will give you more if you need more. But there aren't so many in your sector.""Lots of them. Lobos, tejones, zorros, even people."