Showing results by author "Poul Anderson" in All Categories

Nicholas van Rijn, the most flamboyant member of the Polesotechnic League of star traders, could see dark times ahead. Fellow league members were using tactics verging on outright piracy, and others were all too eager to sell starships and high-tech weapons to alien barbarians. A planet not previously known for interstellar commerce suddenly revealed a secret fleet of armed starships and started building an empire. Even if Van Rijn and his right-hand man, David Falkayn, could find a way to stop this blatant aggression, the glory days of the League were over.

No longer a brash, young ensign, Captain Dominic Flandry has risen in rank but now appreciates fully that the Terran empire is old and tired, wanting to be left in peace. But the enemies it has made and the competing empire of Merseia will give it no peace. Too evenly matched for open warfare not to destroy them both, the opponents engage in subtle thrust and counter-thrust, feint and counter-feint, with Flandry in the thick of it.

Poul Anderson's novel The Broken Sword draws on similar Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sources as The Fellowship of the Ring. In his greed for land and power, Orm the Strong slays the family of a Saxon witch-and for his sins, the Northman must pay with his newborn son. Stolen by elves and replaced by a changeling, Skafloc is raised to manhood unaware of his true heritage and treasured for his ability to handle the iron that the elven dare not touch. Meanwhile, the being who supplanted him as Orm's son grows up angry and embittered by the humanity he has been denied.

Poul Anderson was one of America's premier science-fiction and fantasy writers. This collection shows his incredible versatility, with everthing from a humorous short story to two sci-fi/fantasy novellas. Titles in this collection are: "The Sentitive Man", "Duel on Syrtis", "Witch of the Demon Seas", "The Burning Bridge", "Industrial Revolution", "The Virgin of Valkarion", "Security", "Sentiment, Inc", and "Innocent at Large".

College student, ex-marine, and martial artist Malcolm Lockridge is in prison awaiting his trial for murder when he receives an unexpected visit from an extraordinarily beautiful woman named Storm. Claiming to be a representative of the Wardens, a political faction from 2,000 years in the future, Storm offers the astonished young man a proposition: freedom in return for his assistance in recovering an unspecified lost treasure. But it is not long before Malcolm realizes that, in truth, he's been recruited as a soldier in the Wardens' ongoing war against their rivals, the Rangers.

Sir Dominic Flandry is now an admiral, but takes little joy in his new rank. He sees the rot in the Terran Empire on every hand and knows that the Long Night will inevitably fall upon the galaxy. His consolation is that measures he has taken while doing what he can to postpone the empire's final collapse may shorten the coming galactic dark age and hasten the rise of a new interstellar civilization. In the meantime, he'll enjoy the comforts of a decadent civilization - and he'll always be ready for one more battle against the empire's enemies.

Far into the reaches of space, Anson Guthrie and a band of colonists have forged a new existence on Amaterasu not as physical beings but as downloaded consciousness watched over by the benevolent Life Mother. Yet as idyllic as their lives may be, back home on Earth the situation is growing grim.

Artificial intelligence has been developed to a point where human intelligence can be uploaded into a computer, achieving a sort of hybrid immortality. Astronaut Christian Brannock welcomes this technology, technology that will make it possible for him to achieve his dream and explore the stars.

Earth lies crushed in the grip of totalitarianism. To save her planet, Kyra Davis is sent on a mission to liberate the last bastion of freedom and to rescue its legendary leader. Her bold adventure will sweep her from Earth’s rebel enclaves to the decadent court of an exotic lunar colony.

Anderson includes Wizards, Witches, Monsters, Fish-people, blackmail, battles and scheming, all taking place on a faraway planet in this fast-paced and engaging tale. No wonder he was the winner of seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Poul Anderson began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. He also authored several works of fantasy, and many short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. The Virgin of Valkarion first appeared in the magazine Planet Stories in 1951.

This collection of classic science-fiction stories from the 1950s and 1960s features three imaginative novellas from some of the pioneers of the genre.

Captain Dominic Flandry has been knighted for his many services to the Terran Empire - an empire which is old, jaded, and corrupt, as Flandry well knows - but he also knows that the empire is better than anything that is likely to take its place. And while that "Sir" before his name may be an added attraction to comely ladies (not that he has ever lacked for the pleasant company of the same), he expects that it will also bring him less welcome attention from envious "colleagues" within the empire.

On a far-future Earth, a linked system of artificial intelligences called the cybercosm runs the planet and the universe far more efficiently than any flesh and blood ruler ever could, in essence rendering the human race obsolete. On the Earth's moon, genetically engineered Lunarians carrying the DNA of Dagney Beynac - a descendant of the legendary Anton Guthrie, founder of the powerful and visionary Fireball Enterprises - struggle to preserve their lives, their freedom, and their satellite's resources in the face of threats posed by encroaching humans and controlling machines.

Sci Fi Shorts is a collection of classic science fiction stories from the golden age of space stories. This group of five unabridged short stories by various authors covers such adventures as space-going disasters, culture-shocked Martians, minds being stolen, alien flying cities and ancient artefacts being discovered in the far future.

Many centuries in the future, no great destiny for humankind exists on Earth. The Lunarians, genetically engineered human adaptations bred to survive on the moon, have spread out toward the stars. But not even their colony on distant Proserpina is free from the suffocating influence of the Teramind, the vast network of intelligent machines that preserves order and logic in the universe.

By the end of the 21st century, a deep-state human-systems organization, the Psychotechnic Institute, has begun melding neuroscience and psychoanalytics to create the foundation for generations of more peaceful, more powerful, more "sensitive" human beings. In Poul Anderson's 1954 science-fiction thriller, The Sensitive Man, one such human, Simon Dalgetty, is on the trail of brutal men who kidnapped Michael Tighe, keeper of the keys to the Institute's secrets, and, thus, to the fate of world order.

An enterprising company has set up a mining endeavor on an asteroid to collect, process, and sell atmospheric gas products. The company, called Sword, is initially successful until an unnamed government tries to stamp out freedom and free enterprise in the Belt so the gases and minerals can be sent back to Earth, essentially trying to establish the business as a colony. Early Poul Anderson with a great finish.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

The way we feel about another person or about objects is often bound up in associations that have no direct connection with the person or object, at all. Often, what we call a "change of heart" comes about sheerly from a change in the many associations which make up our present viewpoint. Now, suppose that these associations could be altered artificially, at the option of the person who was in charge of the process.