Taken from the cover flap of the novel SONS OF THE OCEAN DEEPS by Bryce Walton:
It might not have been so hard to sell Jon West on the Deeps - if he hadn't had his heart set on the stars. Bitter disappointment over washing out of space school prompted his rash decision to join the Deepsmen who struggled to conquer Earth's last frontier and the threats it held for the North American continent.
Based on the theory that man may someday inhabit the vast ocean floors, this tale is a speculative journey into that fantastic realm. Scenes in fabulous undersea cities, tense battles between men and colossal sea monsters, a running feud between Jon and a belligerent civilian youth - all combine to make this an exciting drama in the best science fiction tradition.
Not until rumors begin about the Mindanao Trench and the mysterious Project called "X" - a project to save a continent - does Jon snap out of his reluctant attidude toward the Deeps and realize the full magnitude of a mission more dangerous than any on Earth or in space. Tidal waves, the descent to perpetual blackness seven miles under the sea, disasters that struck with lightning speed breed action that drives Jon and his fellow Deepsmen toward a powerful climax.
Bryce Walton has written in SONS OF THE OCEAN DEEPS a chilling tale of the terrors and mysteries of the seas that will make readers long to live to see the day when man may invade Earth's most beautiful and most dangerous realm - the indomitable sea.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Synopsis for SPACEMEN, GO HOME by Milton Lesser
Taken from the cover flap of the novel SPACEMEN, GO HOME by Milton Lesser:
When the moonship "Tycho III" comes into the landing pit at the New Mexico Spaceport, Andy Marlow has his first look in more than a year at the planet Earth. Instead of proud launching gantries and gleaming ships, he sees empty firing pits and the broken hulks of a few old spacetubs. Earth's brief two hundred years in space is now past history; man has been exiled for a violation of inter-galactic law.
A short time after landing, Andy and his best friend despondently accept a mysterious job offer that takes them to a secret spaceport deep in the jungles of Central America. Here a ruthless ex-space captain, Reed Ballinger, plans to blast his way back into the galaxy.
Andy, torn between loyalty to his friend and a growing awareness that Ballinger's way means war, finally flees the spaceport. He joins Project Nobel, a brilliant and dangerous scheme to thwart Ballinger and to convince the Star Brain, the machine that rules the galaxy, that Earth deserves to regain its place in space.
Milton Lesser skillfully evokes the world of tomorrow in a dramatic story certain to appeal to all science fiction enthusiasts.
When the moonship "Tycho III" comes into the landing pit at the New Mexico Spaceport, Andy Marlow has his first look in more than a year at the planet Earth. Instead of proud launching gantries and gleaming ships, he sees empty firing pits and the broken hulks of a few old spacetubs. Earth's brief two hundred years in space is now past history; man has been exiled for a violation of inter-galactic law.
A short time after landing, Andy and his best friend despondently accept a mysterious job offer that takes them to a secret spaceport deep in the jungles of Central America. Here a ruthless ex-space captain, Reed Ballinger, plans to blast his way back into the galaxy.
Andy, torn between loyalty to his friend and a growing awareness that Ballinger's way means war, finally flees the spaceport. He joins Project Nobel, a brilliant and dangerous scheme to thwart Ballinger and to convince the Star Brain, the machine that rules the galaxy, that Earth deserves to regain its place in space.
Milton Lesser skillfully evokes the world of tomorrow in a dramatic story certain to appeal to all science fiction enthusiasts.
Synopsis for STADIUM BEYOND THE STARS by Milton Lesser
Taken from the cover flap of the novel STADIUM BEYOND THE STARS by Milton Lesser:
En route to the Center of the Galaxy for the Interstellar Olympic Games, the HELLAS, carrying Earth's team, intercepts a mysterious space ship, apparently derelict. Steve Frazer, champion spacesuit racer, volunteers to investigate.
Once aboard, he discovers astonishing evidence of an intelligent nonhuman race that can speak by telepathy and disappear at will - a race superior in some ways to human beings. Stunned, Steve returns to the HELLAS to find that no one believes his startling story.
His attempts to prove that he is telling the truth plunge Steve quickly into the midst of interstellar conflict and intrigue. Disqualified from the Games on a trumped-up charge, Steve soon realizes that someone very powerful thinks he knows too much.
Tightly written and intensely dramatic, the story sweeps to the outermost reaches of the galaxy. Its picture of the Games with their brilliant color and keen competition is entirely new to the pages of science fiction.
A skillful combination of fact and fantasy, STADIUM BEYOND THE STARS is a top-notch novel.
En route to the Center of the Galaxy for the Interstellar Olympic Games, the HELLAS, carrying Earth's team, intercepts a mysterious space ship, apparently derelict. Steve Frazer, champion spacesuit racer, volunteers to investigate.
Once aboard, he discovers astonishing evidence of an intelligent nonhuman race that can speak by telepathy and disappear at will - a race superior in some ways to human beings. Stunned, Steve returns to the HELLAS to find that no one believes his startling story.
His attempts to prove that he is telling the truth plunge Steve quickly into the midst of interstellar conflict and intrigue. Disqualified from the Games on a trumped-up charge, Steve soon realizes that someone very powerful thinks he knows too much.
Tightly written and intensely dramatic, the story sweeps to the outermost reaches of the galaxy. Its picture of the Games with their brilliant color and keen competition is entirely new to the pages of science fiction.
A skillful combination of fact and fantasy, STADIUM BEYOND THE STARS is a top-notch novel.
Synopsis for THE STAR SEEKERS by Milton Lesser
Taken from the cover flap of the novel THE STAR SEEKERS by Milton Lesser:
When man tackles the first really long journey - across twenty-six trillion miles of uncharted space - to the nearest star, it will take him two hundred years to complete the flight. Not until the sixth generation nears maturity will the starship reach its destination. Around this fascinating theme, Milton Lesser has woven a tale of the first starship's final days of flight. He pictures the ship as a hollowed-out meteorite composed of four concentric circles - a world in which civilization has deteriorated and superstition risen to a high pitch, making those within unaware of the fact that they are traveling through space or that their journey is destined to end.
All Mikal knew when he embarked on the "Journey of the Four Circles" was that every eighteen-year-old from Astrosphere, the outermost circle, must visit each of the other circles if he hoped to become an Enginer. But before he completed his trip, he unearthed startling truths that threw the four circles into a state of chaos. Gradually Mikal discovered that unless the people of the four circles took immediate action the ship was doomed to crash. Mikal's desperate efforts to unite the four circles in order to save their world is a story of rising tension and clashing interests.
Not only is this a tale of man's triumph over the barriers of space, but a fabulously exciting epic of civilization's victory over superstition and complacency. With subtle satire the author has written one of the most realistic and unforgettable stories ever to appear in the science fiction field.
When man tackles the first really long journey - across twenty-six trillion miles of uncharted space - to the nearest star, it will take him two hundred years to complete the flight. Not until the sixth generation nears maturity will the starship reach its destination. Around this fascinating theme, Milton Lesser has woven a tale of the first starship's final days of flight. He pictures the ship as a hollowed-out meteorite composed of four concentric circles - a world in which civilization has deteriorated and superstition risen to a high pitch, making those within unaware of the fact that they are traveling through space or that their journey is destined to end.
All Mikal knew when he embarked on the "Journey of the Four Circles" was that every eighteen-year-old from Astrosphere, the outermost circle, must visit each of the other circles if he hoped to become an Enginer. But before he completed his trip, he unearthed startling truths that threw the four circles into a state of chaos. Gradually Mikal discovered that unless the people of the four circles took immediate action the ship was doomed to crash. Mikal's desperate efforts to unite the four circles in order to save their world is a story of rising tension and clashing interests.
Not only is this a tale of man's triumph over the barriers of space, but a fabulously exciting epic of civilization's victory over superstition and complacency. With subtle satire the author has written one of the most realistic and unforgettable stories ever to appear in the science fiction field.
Synopsis for TROUBLE ON TITAN by Alan E. Nourse
Taken from the cover flap of the novel TROUBLE ON TITAN by Alan E. Nourse:
When Tuck Benedict and David Torm faced each other on the bleak and frigid face of Titan, Saturn's sixth moon, they represented, literally, the opposite ends of the universe. For in the twenty-second century, Tuck represented the rich and easy civilization of an Earth that had grown luxurious by utilizing solar energy through a catalytic mineral produced in Titan's grim mines.
David Torm, whose ancestors had been exiled to Titan centuries before, stood for the hardened Titan colonists who huddled beneath their airtight dome to mine the metal responsible for Earth's prosperity. Meeting on the eve on an open revolt by the Titan miners against Earth's authority, these two teen-agers found grounds for friendship that their bickering fathers could never see.
This story of why the miners hated Earthlings, how they planned to ruin Earth and escape from the solar system gives this book its thrilling plot. The search for their means of escape from Titan's airless surface made by Tuck and David is a thrill-a-minute adventure interspersed with desperate attempts to prevent armed revolt and makes TROUBLE ON TITAN an unusual and thought-provoking tale of tomorrow.
When Tuck Benedict and David Torm faced each other on the bleak and frigid face of Titan, Saturn's sixth moon, they represented, literally, the opposite ends of the universe. For in the twenty-second century, Tuck represented the rich and easy civilization of an Earth that had grown luxurious by utilizing solar energy through a catalytic mineral produced in Titan's grim mines.
David Torm, whose ancestors had been exiled to Titan centuries before, stood for the hardened Titan colonists who huddled beneath their airtight dome to mine the metal responsible for Earth's prosperity. Meeting on the eve on an open revolt by the Titan miners against Earth's authority, these two teen-agers found grounds for friendship that their bickering fathers could never see.
This story of why the miners hated Earthlings, how they planned to ruin Earth and escape from the solar system gives this book its thrilling plot. The search for their means of escape from Titan's airless surface made by Tuck and David is a thrill-a-minute adventure interspersed with desperate attempts to prevent armed revolt and makes TROUBLE ON TITAN an unusual and thought-provoking tale of tomorrow.
Synopsis for VANDALS OF THE VOID by Jack Vance
Taken from the cover flap of the novel VANDALS OF THE VOID by Jack Vance:
The only thing teen-age Dick Murdock knew about space piracy was what he read in the papers - until he flew from Venus to join his father at the Moon's observatory. During that flight he saw a sample of what pirates could do - even in 1985. For along the trans-space orbits that connected Mother Earth with its colonies on Mars and Venus hung the lifeless hulk of a spaceship blasted and looted by interplanetary bandits.
Around this theme Jack Vance weaves a thrillingly realistic novel that features a quick-witted and courageous teen-ager. Dick Murdock was fascinated by the observatory that his father headed, but he was more interested in the mysterious actions of the men who worked there. His prospecting trips on the Moon aboard a homemade raft with Crazy Sam, the aged, space-happy caretaker of the abandoned Security Station; Dick's slow realization that accidents at the observatory are not always accidents, and his stealthy investigation of what goes on under the surface of the Moon builds to a taut and breath-taking climax that explodes when U N interplanetary authorities appear on the scene.
A tale of mystery and excitement; a convincing narrative of personal daring and courage against limitless odds, VANDALS OF THE VOID will grip any reader's attention till the last battle fires die above the frightenend earth colony on the planet Venus!
The only thing teen-age Dick Murdock knew about space piracy was what he read in the papers - until he flew from Venus to join his father at the Moon's observatory. During that flight he saw a sample of what pirates could do - even in 1985. For along the trans-space orbits that connected Mother Earth with its colonies on Mars and Venus hung the lifeless hulk of a spaceship blasted and looted by interplanetary bandits.
Around this theme Jack Vance weaves a thrillingly realistic novel that features a quick-witted and courageous teen-ager. Dick Murdock was fascinated by the observatory that his father headed, but he was more interested in the mysterious actions of the men who worked there. His prospecting trips on the Moon aboard a homemade raft with Crazy Sam, the aged, space-happy caretaker of the abandoned Security Station; Dick's slow realization that accidents at the observatory are not always accidents, and his stealthy investigation of what goes on under the surface of the Moon builds to a taut and breath-taking climax that explodes when U N interplanetary authorities appear on the scene.
A tale of mystery and excitement; a convincing narrative of personal daring and courage against limitless odds, VANDALS OF THE VOID will grip any reader's attention till the last battle fires die above the frightenend earth colony on the planet Venus!
Synopsis for VAULT OF THE AGES by Poul Anderson
Taken from the cover flap of the novel VAULT OF THE AGES by Poul Anderson:
Five hundred years after the "Doom" that destroyed present-day civilization and sent nations to their graves with its "glowing death," the world is pictured as a barbaric society composed of primitive tribes that shunned all things connected with the twentieth century.
This is the story of sixteen-year-old Carl who set out to break down the ignorant taboos that were destroying a priceless heritage and crushing all hope for the future of humanity.
When the fierce Lann army thundered down from the north to conquer the peace-loving Dalesmen, Carl entered the forbidden City to seek out the wisdom and knowledge that would save his people and rebuild the ancient glories of man. Accused of consorting with witches, threatenened with penalty of death for ignoring the taboo on old-world works and magic, Carl defied his own tribal seer to raise the ban on the time vault which held salvation for a dying civilization. How he fought the invading enemy for life itself in a series of violent clashes, the slow discovery of what twentieth-century civilazation had accomplished makes this book an intriquing one.
With action and suspense and the fascination of science fiction speculation, this tale of rebellion and battle fury is one that will keep readers breathless to the very last page.
Five hundred years after the "Doom" that destroyed present-day civilization and sent nations to their graves with its "glowing death," the world is pictured as a barbaric society composed of primitive tribes that shunned all things connected with the twentieth century.
This is the story of sixteen-year-old Carl who set out to break down the ignorant taboos that were destroying a priceless heritage and crushing all hope for the future of humanity.
When the fierce Lann army thundered down from the north to conquer the peace-loving Dalesmen, Carl entered the forbidden City to seek out the wisdom and knowledge that would save his people and rebuild the ancient glories of man. Accused of consorting with witches, threatenened with penalty of death for ignoring the taboo on old-world works and magic, Carl defied his own tribal seer to raise the ban on the time vault which held salvation for a dying civilization. How he fought the invading enemy for life itself in a series of violent clashes, the slow discovery of what twentieth-century civilazation had accomplished makes this book an intriquing one.
With action and suspense and the fascination of science fiction speculation, this tale of rebellion and battle fury is one that will keep readers breathless to the very last page.
Synopsis for THE YEAR WHEN STARDUST FELL by Raymond F. Jones
Taken from the cover flap of the novel THE YEAR WHEN STARDUST FELL by Raymond F. Jones:
Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill.
And then one day the modified engine on Ken Maddox's car began overheating mysteriously. By morning it didn't run at all.
Art's Garage, local headquarters for hot-rodders, was soon so full of cars that wouldn't run, that Ken's science club began working in the garage after school. It didn't take long for the club to discover that all the moving parts on these stalled cars had fused together. Soon all machinery had stopped in Mayfield. There was no longer any light or power anywhere. This mysterious creeping paralysis was spreading.
The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt. Airplanes, trains, generators and heavy machinery were immobilized. Finally man was left with only a few primitive tools and communication became possible only by means of amateur radio. In the resulting chaos parts of Mayfield were burned and looted by hunger-crazed mobs that stole and killed as they advanced.
Here is science fiction at its thrilling best. A startling and thought-provoking book that shows how human nature might react to catastrophe.
Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill.
And then one day the modified engine on Ken Maddox's car began overheating mysteriously. By morning it didn't run at all.
Art's Garage, local headquarters for hot-rodders, was soon so full of cars that wouldn't run, that Ken's science club began working in the garage after school. It didn't take long for the club to discover that all the moving parts on these stalled cars had fused together. Soon all machinery had stopped in Mayfield. There was no longer any light or power anywhere. This mysterious creeping paralysis was spreading.
The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt. Airplanes, trains, generators and heavy machinery were immobilized. Finally man was left with only a few primitive tools and communication became possible only by means of amateur radio. In the resulting chaos parts of Mayfield were burned and looted by hunger-crazed mobs that stole and killed as they advanced.
Here is science fiction at its thrilling best. A startling and thought-provoking book that shows how human nature might react to catastrophe.
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