Jerry Pournelle Boeken

Een buitenaards ruimteschip is op weg naar de aarde. Het lukt niet om contact te krijgen. Dat gebeurt pas als de aliens een Russisch ruimtestation vernietigen, de overlevenden gevangennemen en elke dam op aarde met een regen van asteroïden wegvagen. Dan landen de Slurven op aarde en stellen de mensheid voor de keus: volledige overgave of volledige vernietiging...

For the first few years, Rick Galloway and his band of mercenaries were doing well just to survive. They'd been swept off a hilltop in Africa by a flying saucer, and deposited on an alien world where the other inhabitants were human - but from various and unfriendly periods of history, all collected by flying saucer raids. Rick has faced facts: This place is going to be home, permanently. To create a society safe for themselves and the families they are gradually building, they need to do more than just survive. The must convince the others that a unified, peaceful society is better than a collection of warring tribes. Force would not be Rick's chosen method of persuasion,but on a planet where the other dominant culture is one brought straight from ancient Rome, force may be the only way.

The colonists from Earth have spent a century in cold sleep to make the first journey, one way, to settle a planet in another solar system. Avalon seems perfect, a verdant, livable world still in its prehistoric age. The biologists and engineers who busy themselves planting and building scoff at the warnings of professional soldier Cadmann Weyland until a large, unnaturally fast and cunning predator begins stalking the colony. Learning how to kill the beast is only the first step, for they must then reevaluate their entire understanding of Avalon's ecology. The novel is best in its sympathetic treatment of the once formidable scientists who wake from cold sleep with impaired mental powers.

Contents * xi • Introduction (Nebula Award Stories 16) • (1982) • essay by Jerry Pournelle * 1 • Grotto of the Dancing Deer • (1980) • shortstory by Clifford D. Simak * 22 • Why Is There So Little Science in Literature? • (1982) • essay by Gregory Benford * 31 • Ginungagap • (1980) • novelette by Michael Swanwick * 65 • Unicorn Tapestry • (1980) • novella by Suzy McKee Charnas * 124 • 1980: Whatever Weirdness Lingers • (1982) • essay by Michael Glyer * 137 • Rautavaara's Case • (1980) • shortstory by Philip K. Dick * 149 • 1980: The Year in Fantastic Films • (1982) • essay by Bill Warren * 168 • The Ugly Chickens • (1980) • novelette by Howard Waldrop * 192 • What Did 1980 Mean? • (1982) • essay by Algis Budrys * 210 • Secrets of the Heart • (1980) • shortstory by Charles L. Grant * 220 • Nebula Awards • essay by uncredited * 225 • Hugo Awards • essay by uncredited

Short stories.

Rick Galloway never anticipated volunteering to fight Cubans in Angola would lead to an extraordinary adventure. Stranded on the planet Tran after being abandoned by his CIA superiors, he finds himself raising drugs for an alien cartel within a civilization run by enslaved humans. Over 13 years, Rick has navigated mutinies, civil wars, and battles against various factions, all while grappling with the devastating effects of unchecked climate change. Through love and loss, he has risen to nobility, yet remains acutely aware that his alien employers may obliterate humanity when their agenda is fulfilled. Despite his efforts to improve life for the inhabitants of Tran, Rick is weary and disillusioned. Just when he thinks he has managed to maintain a fragile balance, new Starmen arrive with perilous gifts and advanced weaponry, challenging everything he believed about his mission. As the situation escalates, Rick is thrust into a pivotal role, with everyone looking to him for solutions. The stakes have never been higher, and the weight of expectation threatens to overwhelm him.

Records the reactions of people awaiting a comet which they fear will crack the earth and cause a new ice age.

The people of Tep's Town are desperate. Monstrous invaders have emerged from the desert, and people are being slaughtered. Danger on the roads means no trade. No trade means that Tep's Town itself will die. The fire god Yangin-Atep has retreated into myth, leaving the town's residents unprotected for the first time in its history - and they now face an army of fearsome birds with blades for wings, consumed by an inexorable lust for blood. Lord Sandry and his beloved, Burning Tower, must travel far beyond the walls of their home to discover the origin of these terror birds. They enter a world where magic is still strong - and someone or something has been waiting to destroy them ...

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

For the safety of mankind, the aliens called Moties have been quarantined for 25 years (see THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE) and are now poised to break out of their solar system and spread rapidly into humanity's space. Kevin Renner, Horace Bury, Rod Blaine and other characters introduced in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE must now find new ways to cope with the inevitable Motie expansion while trying to protect humanity. Sequel to the novel Robert A. Heinlein called "Possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read."