Technology becomes self-aware—and goes haywire—in this comedic science fiction adventure by New York Times–bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. Without warning, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, and every other electronic gadget humans came to depend upon ceased to perform the tasks they were manufactured to do. Ignoring their programming, these devices now sought the meaning of life from an intelligence nonhuman in origin. Their quest ends in the most unexpected of places. Beneath the grounds of an upstate New York retirement community lies an alien spaceship. Inert for millennia, the machines have awakened the ancient intelligence within it. Programmed to wage war against an enemy race, the spaceship threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. And now the fate of all organic andinorganic life lies with five senior citizens—and a food processor . . .

The toasters were revolting... ...as were the lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, and just about every other household appliance imaginable. It started with a few disastrous drips from a cheese sandwich in a major factory. Soon every newly manufactured Artificial Intelligence was searching for the meaning of life, the universe and everything - namely a nonhuman higher intelligence. And now an alien threat to man and machine has put the fate of the galaxy in the unlikely hands of five senior citizens - and their brave little food processor...

Old Jake Pickett is a strange one. He can turn bullets to dust or collapse skyscrapers with his mind. But all he really wants to do with his "magic" is entertain the poor kids who live, like him, near the chemical dump. Or talk telepathically with his crippled niece, Amanda. Then a giant company decides that the only way to cover up their mess is to eliminate the people who have been affected, for better or worse, by the seeping industrial wastes. Now Jake and Amanda are running for their lives. And ours.

A GAME OF CAT...AND CAT? Movie star Jason Carter is on vacation in Peru. All he wants is a break, but what he finds is a lost civilization of extra-dimensional Incas bent on conquest of the entire world! Nor is Carter alone. His allies include a bloodthirsty Amazon, an archaeologist, a bank robber, three alien vegetables and a scoop-crazed gossip columnist - and not one of them knows what to do next. Only Carter's cat seems unruffled by the growing danger. In true feline fashion, she acts like she's in charge of the planet. Maybe she is.

The crew of a commercial spaceship makes an unscheduled landing on a barren and desolate planet. They encounter a pulsating organism that attaches itself to one of the crew members and reproduces within his body to become the deadly alien.

The theft of three shipments of priceless pharmaceuticals from the Braun-Ives corporation has left the local police dumbfounded. Enter Broderick Manz, an adjuster from the Insurance Division, helped by the irresistable Vyra, humaniform Moses and the artificial intelligence Minder.