Search Results for: masterworks

Joanna. Jeannine. Janet. Jael.
Four women, four worlds, four vastly different societies.
When these women are suddenly able to communicate with each other through the boundaries of dimensions, they are confronted with what could have been if one thing changed in history. And they find themselves looking at their own worlds with new eyes.

Acclaimed as one of the essential works of science fiction, The Female Man examines gender roles in society and remains a work of great power. It won a retrospective James Tiptree Jr. Award and a 2002 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame award.

‘A stunning book, a work to be read with great respect. It’s also screamingly funny’ – San Francisco Review of Books
‘She was brilliant in a way that couldn’t be denied’- The New Yorker
‘It’s a gorgeous book, frankly, and well worth any reader’s time’ – Tor.com
Welcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction

Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone’s jokes – until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.

But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.

Winner of the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, and subsequently expanded into a Hugo-nominated novel, Flowers for Algernon earned Daniel Keyes the honour of SFWA Author Emeritus in 2000 for his contribution to Science Fiction and Fantasy.

‘Heartbreaking and beautiful. Required reading, as far as I am concerned’ – Wil Wheaton
‘A masterpiece of poignant brilliance . . . heartbreaking, and utterly, completely brilliant’ – The Guardian
‘Excellent . . . extremely moving’ – The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction


Welcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction

Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth … but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville’s blood.

By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.

How long can one man survive like this?

Winner of the Bram Stoker Prize for Vampire Novel of the Century, I Am Legend is a stunning blend of science fiction and horror.

‘The most clever and riveting vampire novel since Dracula‘ – Dean Koontz
‘Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me’ – Stephen King
‘It is, by turns, scary, thrilling, tragic, witty and – ultimately – uplifting’ – James Lovegrove


Welcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction

World War Terminus devastated the Earth. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard searches for the renegade replicants he is sent to ‘retire’, while he dreams of owning a live animal – the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of natural life.

The opportunity of a lifetime: kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard’s world things aren’t that simple, and his assignment turns into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit – and the hunter becomes the hunted . . .

Voted in a Locus poll as one of the 100 pre-1990 SF Novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep spawned two blockbuster movies. Philip K. Dick won multiple awards for his works, examining human identity, psychology, conspiracy and paranoia, challenging the idea of objective truth in a manner that remains relevant today.

‘A masterclass in sci-fi wonderment’ – Empire
‘One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction’ – The Sunday Times
Welcome to The Best Of The Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction

2026: Something is growing in the Pacific Ocean.

“The Slick” appears to be a strange, fungus-like organism, but its DNA is unlike anything else on the planet.

Rumours start to fly. Was life discovered deep beneath the Martian icecaps on a recent Chinese space mission? If it was, no-one is confirming it, but could that same life now be spreading through the ocean and threatening Earth’s entire food chain?

Brilliant scientist Dr. Mariella Anders is recruited to join an urgent NASA mission to Mars to see if she can uncover the truth of this organism, but this is no straightforward investigation. Corporate powers are committed to exploiting the secrets of the Slick for profit; radical eco-terrorists strike out against rampant genetic engineering; and a second Chinese mission to Mars at the same time has its goals shrouded in mystery.

The secret of life on Earth and Mars might be found on the red planet, but who can Mariella trust with the truth once it’s found? And what price will she have to pay for it?

Merlin is a Prince of Chaos and Amber, Corwin’s son and heir. He has grown up knowing that his legacy is to one day follow in his father’s footsteps, live up to his father’s legend.

When Corwin goes missing, that day comes far sooner than he could ever have expected. Merlin must find his own identity as the ruler of the worlds, and discover what kind of King he wants to be. Will he be a warrior like his father, or embrace his own path as a hacker-magician?

A generation after Corwin’s rise to the throne, Merlin is aided by powers beyond anything Corwin could have imagined. The epic magic from The Chronicles of Amber is wielded alongside sentient computers, a vorpal sword, and the ghosts of those who came before.

Featuring the Locus award-winning Trumps of Doom, the Locus nominated Blood of Amber and Sign of Chaos, and the final two novels Knight of Shadows and Prince of Chaos, the Second Chronicles of Amber continues the epic story of Amber and the Shadow worlds.

John Carter, veteran of the American Civil War, finds himself transported from Arizona to Mars when hiding from attackers in a secret cave. The inhabitants greet him, referring to the planet as Barsoom, and Carter finds that he has superhuman strength and agility due to the different gravity of this new world.

After joining the nomadic tribe of green, six-limbed Martians called Tharks, he rises through the ranks and earns the respect and friendship of one of the chiefs. Until, that is, the Tharks capture Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium and a member of the red, humanoid Martians. Rescuing Dejah Thoris, Carter attempts to return her to her people, finding himself at the centre of a conflict that reaches across Martian society, all while falling in love. Can he save Barsoom? What of Earth? Does he want to return, or would he rather stay with Dejah Thoris?

A Princess of Mars was first serialised in 1912, and to celebrate its centenary we have collected it and its two sequels – The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars – in this beautiful Golden Age Masterwork.

Anna Senoz is a brilliant young scientist, working towards her PhD and a bright career when she makes a discovery that could change the world of genetics forever.

The ‘Transferred Y’ chromosome, however, isn’t as welcomed by her peers, or the wider society. Anna is forced to choose between her dedication to her discovery, the progress of her career, and her responsibilities to her family. Does scientific integrity mean speaking out against the naysayers? Are the potential ramifications of her discovery too wide-reaching for her to risk pursuing it?

Winner of the 2004 Philip K. Dick award, Life examines society’s fixation on biological sex, the struggles of women in STEM, and the pressures placed upon them by families, colleagues and friends alike. Perfect for fans of alternate histories and near-future feminist SFF, like The Handmaid’s Tale and Vox.

London. Early 21st Century. A Conservative government is in power in the UK, bringing increased wealth disparity, an ever-more militant police state, and rising civil discontent as the wealthy govern for themselves rather than the people.

But BREAKTHRU – a pharmaceutical company turned religious cult – have the answer. They call it Kairos.

Kairos allows the user to not just see a different world, but shape the world to their very will. Perfect for a cult of like-minded individuals. Disastrous when it is exposed to the general public.

As disparate groups of people try to shape the world into their own image, reality itself is placed under threat. With society so divided, is there any way to pull the world back together?


Written in 1988, this remarkably prescient book received great critical acclaim.

‘Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable – gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country – and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their centre … Literature will miss her. There’s no one like her’ Zadie Smith

‘Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power’ OBSERVER

Through his dreams, George Orr can make alternate realities real – but who is controlling him?

War rages and global warming wreaks havoc on the quality of life everywhere as seven billion people jostle for living space and food. For George Orr, a mild and unremarkable man, the world is overwhelmingly difficult. But George is different: his dreams can change reality – although he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.

Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help, directing George to dream a world without racism. But as ambition gets the better of ethics, no one can predict the devastating consequences.

Matthias Ronay is a prodigy. He’s talented, smart, imaginative, and he’s never left the Moon. He dreams of more – of space, of adventure, of glory.

Desperate to explore the galaxy further, he finds himself at odds with his father, Albin, a senior politician in the Lunar government. Albin has expectations for his son, for the legacy he has built on the Moon, and he expects Matthias to fall in line without question.

While Matthias buries himself in computer games to simulate being anywhere but where he is, and Albin attempts to gain support for political plans that he wants to groom Matthias for, can they come to a solution that benefits them both?

GROWING UP WEIGHTLESS is one of John M. Ford’s last novels, and another triumph of writing.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Winston Smith is a good worker. He supports the Party. He is good at his job rewriting history to Government specification. Big Brother watches him, but there is nothing to see.

Winston’s struggle against the totalitarian world he inhabits is a closely guarded secret. It exists only in his mind until he begins a secret love affair with Julia, a fellow worker. Is this enough to push him to revolution? Or is it the beginning of his downfall?

A masterwork of dystopian fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is harrowingly prescient, and its impact has stretched around the globe.

With a new introduction by political editor and writer Ian Dunt, this brand new edition of a science fiction classic is a must-have for any collector.

In the year 2038, the earth has been ravaged by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Retroviruses run rampant through humanity. Economic disaster has destabilised the world, the US has undergone a socialist revolution, and the balance of power has changed.

Then the aliens arrive.

With no clear understanding of the visitors’ intent, factions form, including the anti-alien group White Queen, working to turn humans against these extra-terrestrial tourists. Caught in the middle is Johnny Guglio, an American exile whose only fault was living near the landing site, and Braemar Wilson, a cutthroat reporter who will do whatever she needs to get ahead of the story. And for better or for worse, it seems being caught in the middle is the best place for them to uncover the truth.

Winner of the 1991 James Tiptree Jr. Award, WHITE QUEEN is the first in Gwyneth Jones’ critically acclaimed Aleutian Trilogy.

The ‘outward urge’ was a factor in the Troon inheritance. Successive generations of Troons, looking up at the stars, heard the siren voices that called them out into Space. And, as the frontiers of Space receded, there was usually one Troon, if not more, out there, helping to push them back.

In an age in which what goes up need not necessarily come down, the likely adventures of the Conquistadors of Space are every bit as exciting as any world menaced by triffids. This coming-of-age classic from the author of The Midwich Cuckoos shows Wyndham’s mastery across genres.

Greg Egan is arguably Australia’s greatest living science fiction writer. In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has produced a steady stream of novels and stories that address a wide range of scientific and philosophical concerns: artificial intelligence, higher mathematics, science vs religion, the nature of consciousness, and the impact of technology on the human personality. All these ideas and more find their way into this generous and illuminating collection, the clear product of a man who is both a master storyteller and a rigorous, exploratory thinker.
The Best of Greg Egan contains twenty stories and novellas arranged in chronological order, and each of them is a brilliantly conceived, painstakingly developed gem, including the Hugo Award-winning novella “Oceanic”, a powerful account of a boy whose deeply held religious beliefs are undermined by what he comes to learn about the laws of the physical world.
This book really does represent the best of Greg Egan, and it therefore takes its place among the best of contemporary SF. Startling, intelligent and always hugely entertaining, it provides an ideal introduction to one of the most accomplished and original writers working today. This is an important and provocative collection, and it deserves a place on the serious science fiction reader’s permanent shelf.

THE SEPARATION is the story of twin brothers, rowers in the 1936 Olympics (where they met Hess, Hitler’s deputy); one joins the RAF, and captains a Wellington; he is shot down after a bombing raid on Hamburg and becomes Churchill’s aide-de-camp; his twin brother, a pacifist, works with the Red Cross, rescuing bombing victims in London. But this is not a straightforward story of the Second World War: this is an alternate history: the two brothers – both called J.L. Sawyer – live their lives in alternate versions of reality. In one, the Second World War ends as we imagine it did; in the other, thanks to efforts of an eminent team of negotiators headed by Hess, the war ends in 1941.

THE SEPARATION is an emotionally riveting story of how the small man can make a difference; it’s a savage critique of Winston Churchill, the man credited as the saviour of Britain and the Western World, and it’s a story of how one perceives and shapes the past.



Christopher Priest is a genre-leading author of SFF fiction. His novel, THE PRESTIGE, won a number of awards and was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film directed by Christopher Nolan (TENET, INCEPTION) starring Hugh Jackman (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, X-MEN), Christian Bale (THE BIG SHORT, BATMAN BEGINS), Michael Caine (THE ITALIAN JOB) and Scarlett Johansson (MARRIAGE STORY, THE AVENGERS).

The BOLD AS LOVE series is a world of daring, dread and enchantment, a world that could almost be ours: a brilliant combination of myth, magic and pop culture.

Ax Preston, Sage Pender and Fiorinda, charismatic leaders of the Rock-n-Roll Reich, have beaten the cascade of disasters that followed the collapse of the former United Kingdom. Now they have to find some resolution to the impossible dynamics of their own relationship, while the world keeps falling apart. There are fearsome things going on in England’s rural hinterland, and in Continental Europe the green nazis are planning a final solution to desperate environmental damage. But there’s nothing the Triumvirate can’t handle – until Fiorinda’s father, a monster of the kind the world has never before known, reaches out to reclaim his magical child, the flower-bride.

And that’s when darkness falls over Ax’s England . . .

Harrowing . . . enchanting – a dark fairy tale with an epic sweep, set in a world very like our own.

From the multi-award-winning author of The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea sequence comes this single-volume omnibus of the first three Hainish novels.

Intergalactic war reaches Fomalhaut II in Rocannon’s World.
Born out of season, a precocious young girl visits the alien city of the farborns and the false-men in Planet of Exile.
In City of Illusions a stranger wandering in the forest people’s woods is found and his health restored; now the fate of two worlds rests in this stranger’s hands . . .

The three novels contained in this volume are the books that launched Ursula K. Le Guin’s glittering career, and are set in the same universe as her Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.

It’s All Hallow’s Eve, and Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to town.

Hear the music, see the lights, shrug off life’s worries and enter a place where dreams are not dreams, and wishes can be real.

All this awaits two boys trembling on the brink of manhood. But entering the smoke, mazes and mirrors, they will discover that not all dreams are worth the cost that must be paid . . .

Ray Bradbury’s seminal tale of life in small-town America is as prescient today as it was sixty years ago.

Three extraordinary people in some most extraordinary times:

It’s Dissolution Summer and as the United Kingdom prepares to break up into separate nations, the Counterculturals have gathered for a festival where everything’s allowed. Among them is a talented little brat called Fiorinda, rock and roll princess by birth, searching for her father, the legendary Rufus O’Niall.
Instead, she finds Ax Preston, the softly spoken guitarman with bizarre delusions about saving the country from the dark ages. Together with Sage Pender, techno-wizard king of the lads, they join the pop-icon team that’s supposed to make the government look cool.

Rock Legends. True Romance. A stunning fantasy about England.

In addition to being the man who coined the term ‘the Big Bang’, world-renowned astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle also produced a fine body of science fiction. The Andromeda Anthology contains the acclaimed duology A for Andromeda and The Andromeda Breakthrough, co-written with John Elliot.

The close-knit group of scientists who work at the new radio telescope are shocked to receive a mysterious signal from the heart of the Andromeda galaxy. Working with mathematician Christine Jones, Dr John Fleming interprets the signal as the instructions to build a super-computer. When the computer begins to relay the information it receives from Andromeda, scientists find themselves possessing knowledge previously unknown to mankind, knowledge that could threaten the security of human life itself.

Ten selected short stories from the master of pulp, Murray Leinster – pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, who’s prolific career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. The Golden Age Masterwork of Sidewise in Time includes the Hugo Award-winning novella “Exploration Team”.

Full contents include:

Sidewise in Time
The Runaway Skyscraper
The Mad Planet
Politics
Proxima Centauri
First Contact
A Logic Names Joe
De Profundis
If You Was a Moklin
Exploration Team

Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself – Shadow worlds, that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. But the royal family is torn apart by jealousies and suspicion; the disappearance of the Patriarch Oberon has intensified the internal conflict by leaving the throne apparently up for grabs.

In a hospital on the Shadow Earth, a young man is recovering from a freak car accident; amnesia has robbed him of all his memory, even the fact that he is Corwin, Crown Prince of Amber, rightful heir to the throne – and he is in deadly peril . . .

The five books, Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon and The Courts of Chaos, together make up The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny’s finest work of fantasy and an undisputed classic of the genre.

In a world drowning in data and information and choking on novelty and innovation, Nickie Haflinger – a most dangerous fugitive who doesn’t even appear to exist – provides a window onto a global society falling apart in all directions, with madness run amok and personal freedom surrendered to computers and bureaucrats. Caught and about to be re-programmed, can he escape once again, defy the government and turn the tide of organizational destruction?