Disclaimer

The Mind Slavers are back--and only the cat-like Kzinti can save mankind now. This volume includes all-new tales of Larry Niven's Known Space--including one by Niven himself. Another blockbuster in the ongoing chronicle of humanity's greatest war.<

In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched.

In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization—at least one million years old—that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they’ve been unable to solve in over a million years.

This is the first collaboration between Niven and Pournelle, two masters of hard science fiction, and it combines Pournelle’s interest in the military and sociology with Niven’s talent for creating interesting, believable aliens. The novel meticulously examines every aspect of First Contact, from the Moties’ biology, society, and art, to the effects of the meeting on humanity’s economics, politics, and religions. And all the while suspense builds as we watch the humans struggle toward the truth.

Nominated for Hugo and Locus awards for best novel in 1981.

An honored SF writer returns to his best-known creation: the artificial world, built far from Earth by aliens over a half million years ago, in the form of a ring 600 million miles in diameter, hosting an astonishing multitude of inhabitants and cultures. This third fictional voyage to the Ringworld (after , 1970, which won both the Hugo and the Nebula for best SF novel of that year, and , 1980) offers two stories crowded into one. A motley array of hominid inhabitants are seeking to defeat a plague of vampires. Meanwhile, returning hero Louis Wu is battling what effectively is a plague of Protectors (superbeings common to many Niven novels) whose rivalries threaten Ringworld’s existence. The battle against the vampires is the more exciting of the two stories, filled with action, scenes of the Ringworld and explorations of ritualistic interspecies sex. Wu’s pursuit of the Protectors displays Niven;s deft hand at portraying aliens, but the dialogue that fills in the backstory slows the narrative. Niven still ranks near the top of the SF field, but this outing is likely to satisfy determined Ringworld fans more than other readers.<

The setting of Niven’s 1984 novel was striking and imaginative, even for this acclaimed world builder; it’s well worth the second visit made in this sequel. Around a neutron star an envelope of gas holds a breathable atmosphere and a strange profusion of plant and animal life, all floating in free-fall. Five hundred years after the crew of the Earth ship mutinied and deserted to this paradise, their descendants are still watched over by the ship’s unbalanced computer mind. The machine is busy manipulating its one small contact group into exploring the larger city they have been avoiding for years. Aspects of this society are intriguing: for instance, the disdain of the better-adapted taller, thinner people for the “dwarfish” throwbacks, even though only the short can fit into the scientific relics of the old ship. As usual with Niven, character and story are just an excuse for working out the properties of his wonderful imaginary world, where people can fly like birds and ponds full of fish hang in midair. Unfortunately, in this book he fails to marshal the visual and dramatic flair needed to show it off to best effect.<

Cartea conţine două fire narative principale, care se întrepătrund abia spre final. Marea parte a primei jumătăţi a poveştii este dedicată reunirii unor specii hominide de pe inel, pentru a ucide un cuib de vampiri care se hrăneşte cu ele. Unele personaje au apărut şi în , doar puţini hominizi fiind omorâţi în timpul operaţiunii lui Louis Wu şi a Ultimului de stabilizare a inelului, desfăşurată la sfârşitul cărţii anterioare.

A doua parte descrie aventurile lui Louis Wu, acum bătrân şi bolnav. În cele din urmă, el şi Chmee revin la Ultimul, fiind vindecaţi, doar pentru ca ei — şi un alt Kzin, pe nume Acolyte, care este fiul lui Chmee — să devină sclavii unui Protector Pak vampir. Urmează o luptă între Protectorii de pe Zidul de Margine şi Protectorii vampiri care controlează apărarea Lumii Inelare.

When Maxon met Sunny, he was seven years, four months, and eighteen-days old. Or, he was 2693 rotations of the earth old. Maxon was different. Sunny was different. They were different together.

Now, twenty years later, they are married, and Sunny wants, more than anything, to be “normal.” She’s got the housewife thing down perfectly, but Maxon, a genius engineer, is on a NASA mission to the moon, programming robots for a new colony. Once they were two outcasts who found unlikely love in each other: a wondrous, strange relationship formed from urgent desire for connection. But now they’re parents to an autistic son. And Sunny is pregnant again. And her mother is dying in the hospital. Their marriage is on the brink of imploding, and they’re at each other’s throats with blame and fear. What exactly has gone wrong?

Sunny wishes Maxon would turn the rocket around and come straight-the-hell home.

When an accident in space puts the mission in peril, everything Sunny and Maxon have built hangs in the balance. Dark secrets, long-forgotten murders, and a blond wig all come tumbling to the light. And nothing will ever be the same….

A debut of singular power and intelligence, is a unique love story, an adventure between worlds, and a stunning novel of love, death, and what it means to be human.

Join the breakneck chase through Chicago for a murderous maniac. As the victims begin piling up, detective Keren Collins’s spiritual discernment is on high alert. Will she capture the killer before another body floats to the surface? Ex-cop, now mission pastor Paul Morris has seen his share of tragedy, but nothing prepared him to be a murderer’s messenger boy. Will his old ruthless cop personality take over, leading him to the brink of self-destruction? Can Keren and Paul catch the killer before the corpse count reaches a perfect ten?<

As the title suggests, this is a modern and witty retelling of . Jasmin Field, a columnist for a woman's magazine, is invited to audition for a charity production of the Austen novel, which is to be directed by the Oscar-winning actor Harry Noble. Jasmin sees this as fodder for her column but is selected for the lead role of Lizzie Bennet instead, even though the haughty Noble calls her "the ugly sister" after her beautiful sister, George, an actual actress, also auditions. Soon the lives and interactions of the cast members begin to resemble the characters they portray. Everyone swoons over the famous Noble except for Jasmin, who considers him an aloof, unfeeling egotist, which is his cue for becoming besotted with her. All the elements of the original story are here, cleverly molded to fit modern characters and situations involving career women and the contemporary arena for scandals: the tabloids. Nathan succeeds admirably in paying homage to a classic with her delightful tale.<

A golden California schoolboy and an old man whose hideous past he uncovers enter into a fateful and chilling mutual parasitism. Todd Bowden is an apt pupil. Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher: Mr. Dussander. Todd knows all about Dussander’s dark past. The torture. The death. The decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn’t want to turn him in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to learn the real meaning of power—and the seductive lure of evil. <