On a post-nuclear Earth, visionaries who dream of reaching for the stars attempt to revive the forbidden technology that destroyed their world. Centuries ago, humankind was nearly destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse. Many generations have passed since that terrible time, and the remnants of civilization have re-formed into separate, vastly different societies. The dominant culture of a widely diminished Earth, the ecologically sensitive Maurai hold fast to their belief that “non-green” science is an unacceptable evil. But the reborn dream of space flight harbored by a forward-thinking few could herald the revival of the nuclear technology that once ravaged the planet and its people—and the powerful Maurai Federation will take every step necessary, no matter how drastic, to prevent doomsday from dawning again. An enthralling work of speculative fiction from a winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards, Orion Shall Rise is a feat of world-building and a sobering view of tomorrow by one of the twentieth century’s most revered science fiction masters. Poul Anderson’s monumental tale combines science, anthropology, philosophy, and global politics with breathtaking action and adventure, offering an ingeniously unique and provocative vision of humankind’s all-too-possible destiny. This ebook includes the bonus story “The Sky People.”

The virtual persona of a long-dead visionary entrepreneur threatens to incite a revolution from space that could topple Earth’s powerful and repressive religious-technological dictatorship in this ingenious science fiction classic In the future, individual freedom is a thing of the past. North America is a police state controlled by the Avantist government, a despotic, techno-religious ruling order that promises an impending transcendence for the oppressed. Space, however, remains free, thanks to Anson Guthrie’s powerful Fireball Corporation. Guthrie’s corporeal self died many generations ago, but his essence lives on, preserved forever in a computerized state that enables him to inspire his loyal employees and adherents to keep reaching for the farthest stars. But now the totalitarian enemy, led by sadistic secret policeman Enrique Sayre, has gained possession of a Guthrie download, intending to subvert it to the Avantist cause, thereby breaking Fireball’s hold on the cosmos. The corporation is doomed unless ace pilot Kyra Davis can smuggle a still-unreconstructed version of Guthrie out of enslaved America and rocket him to the moon and beyond, where Fireball’s virtual creator can attempt to stoke the flames of revolution—and change the direction of his world. A truly remarkable work from one of science fiction’s all-time greats, Harvest of Stars might be the most ingenious and ambitious novel of Grand Master Poul Anderson’s acclaimed and prolific career. Thoughtful and adventurous, rich in imagination and integrity, it offers definitive proof of the seven-time Hugo Award–winning author’s unparalleled mastery in the field of speculative fiction.

After Armageddon the People of the Sea created a new kind of civilisation, on based on the integrity of Life and the moral as well as pragmatic necessity of conservation. But the Sky People live by a different vision, and they have come to enforce it...

Reproduction of the original: The Witness of the Stars by Ethelbert William Bullinger

In the year 2012 the Earth awaits a super catastrophe: its magnetic field will turn over in one go. Phenomenal earthquakes and tidal waves will completely destroy our civilisation. Europe and North America will shift thousands of kilometres northwards into polar climate. Nearly the whole earth's population will perish in the apocalyptic happenings. These dire predictions stem from Mayans and Egyptians -- descendants of the legendary Atlantis. The Atlanteans had highly evolved astronomical knowledge and were able to exactly calculate the previous world-wide flood in 9792 BC. They built tens of thousands of mandjits and escaped to South America and Egypt. In the year 2012 Venus, Orion and several other stars will take the same 'code positions' as in 9792 BC, the year of the previous cataclysm! For thousands of years historical sources have told of a forgotten time capsule of ancient wisdom located in a mythical labyrinth of secret chambers filled with artefacts and documents from the previous flood -- this book gives one possible location.

Consists of book reviews and essays written for The magazine of fantasy and science fiction.

"The book is like a dream you want to last forever" (Roberta Silman, The New York Times Book Review), now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund A masterwork of W. G. Sebald, now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund The Rings of Saturn—with its curious archive of photographs—records a walking tour of the eastern coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald) are lonely eccentrics, Sir Thomas Browne’s skull, a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem, recession-hit seaside towns, wooded hills, Joseph Conrad, Rembrandt’s "Anatomy Lesson," the natural history of the herring, the massive bombings of WWII, the dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, and the silk industry in Norwich. W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants (New Directions, 1996) was hailed by Susan Sontag as an "astonishing masterpiece perfect while being unlike any book one has ever read." It was "one of the great books of the last few years," noted Michael Ondaatje, who now acclaims The Rings of Saturn "an even more inventive work than its predecessor, The Emigrants."