When Steve, a hapless school teacher, consults a hypnotherapist to solve his personal problems, he "remembers" being abducted by aliens. When he starts attending sessions of Alien Abductees Anonymous (AlAbAn), he sees a pattern in the stories being told, and thinks his own experiences might provide a key. While his love life continues to deteriorate, Steve must grapple with questions of where the aliens might originate, and what their activities portend for the future of the human race. A remarkably original science-fiction comedy.

Paul Heisenberg is mysteriously endowed with the ability to jump through time. Together with thousands of eventual followers, he begins a journey that eventually takes him a billion years into the future. The Earth has been devastated by war with an alien race, and the changes that have resulted from the degradation of the world's biosphere force him--and others--to rethink their own humanity. His pilgrim's progress through the coming time is beset by doubts, distractions, and temptations as various voices attempt to distract him from his determination to follow the process through to its end. He eventually witnesses the complete transformation of the Earth, and the evolution of a single omnipotent but mindless Gaean organism. Is intelligence itself just a brief candle, forever doomed to burn out? Or can Paul find some other alternative for his race. A marvelous science fiction adventure in the tradition of Olaf Stapledon!

Acclaimed science fiction author Brian Stableford (Year Zero, Designer Genes) returns with Asgard's Heart, the final book in his trilogy about a planet that contains thousands of worlds inside it - and the one man who will do anything to penetrate its secrets. The conflict between the Isthomi and Scarid races and the surface dwellers of Asgard had come to a halt - but not to an end. Forces are at work on all sides to attempt to gain the upper hand in the struggle to control Asgard, for control of Asgard's heart could mean total power over the planet itself, and all who live in it. At the middle of this multi-sided struggle is Michael Rousseau, who must penetrate the very core of the planet itself - both in reality and in another dimension altogether - to save Asgard and all who dwell in it, before it's too late.

First published in 1976, "The Mind-Riders" features a remarkable anticipation of virtual reality gaming, in which the revised sport of boxing pits physically identical virtual fighters against one another, operated by electronically-connected "handlers" — with viewers receiving transmissions of the combatants' emotions as their simulations slug it out. Ryan Hart, banished from the sport in its early days because of his lack of marketable emotion, is brought back by an obsessed media executive who wants to see the reigning champion beaten at any cost. Hart is not certain that he can win, after such a lapse of time, nor is he certain he can resist pressure to give the vast virtual crowds the dose of sadistic exultation they crave. But that doesn't stop him from heading into the virtual "ring" and fighting the bout of his life! Rousing science fiction adventure by a master of the genre.

Stableford returns with Asgard's Conquerors, book two in his Asgard trilogy about a planet - and a man - like no other. After penetrating deep into the hollow planet of Asgard, Michael Rousseau wanted only to collect his payment for selling the location of the dropshaft and get as far away from the icy planet as possible. But instead he is captured by the Star Force, and is back under the command of Susarma Lear. Rousseau learns that Shychain city, the alien base established on Asgard's surface, has been invaded. As one of the few people with experience inside Asgard, Michael "volunteers" for a mission back into the heart of this new enemy to find a way to defeat them. But, when he's captured by the enemy, he is taken deeper into Asgard than any human has ever been. The question is whether he will survive to unlock even more of Asgard's secrets.

This collection of stories about possible future developments in biotechnology juxtaposes the ultra-large scale of "Mortimer Gray's History of Death," which encapsulates several thousand years of human history, both past and future, with the intimate scale of "Next to Godliness," in which a dinner party goes wrong, in a fashion obliquely connected to the psychotropic drug-patches worn by all the guests. Among the other tales are "Some like it Hot" which deals with possible approaches, both biological and psychological, to the prospect of global warming; while the previously-unpublished novella "The Golden Fleece" offers a comparative study of the scientific and artistic responses to a natural ability to perceive more shades of color than most people can. All the stories work at the interface between biological possibility and philosophical potential. First-rate SF speculation by a master storyteller.

Veteran British author Stableford's Emortality series of future history novels (Inherit the Earth, Architects of Emortality and Fountains of Youth, which start in the 22nd century and end in the 26th) receives a near-future underpinning in this mid-21st-century puzzle of maneuvers in the face of impending doom. Police forensic scientist Lisa Friemann wakes one night to armed intruders in her highly secure dwelling. Nothing in all the information storage media the thieves steal seems important, or even work related. Events are hardly clarified by the news that prominent geneticist Morgan Miller, her graduate supervisor and longtime colleague, is missing. Does someone think Miller made a discovery that, contrary to usual practice, he had shared with no one in his field? And why would anyone want to bomb Mouseworld, the half-million-strong genetic library of rodent strains? Lisa's cityplex police and university colleagues enter the story one by one, followed by a confusing (to all concerned) array of other agencies and factions. Could there be a secret that will avert or postpone the expected world catastrophe, or at least give some people advantages over others? Stableford's background in biological and social sciences makes for convincing behavior and dialogue among the scientists, while long practice in the novelist's trade ensures a smooth and involving read. This series should remain more visible in the U.S. than his large stable of unjustly neglected past work. 

For hundreds of years the male members of the Kilcannon family have considered themselves to be the beneficiaries of distortions in the statistical distribution of chance, associating their most fortunate windfalls with visual distortions that they call "streaks." This belief has led to the accumulation of a vast heritage of superstitions—rules which, if broken, might allegedly terminate the privilege.The current heir, Canny Kilcannon, is anxious to dispose of this burden, but is unsure as to how far he can go in tempting fate. When his father dies, his life is further complicated when a female beneficiary of a similar centuries-old lucky streak reveals herself to him. Lissa suggests that they atstempt the ultimate experiment—to test the boundaries of their gift. Can they succeed? Or will they bring down upon them the "black lightning" of which both of their traditions warn?A truly compelling tale of luck and probability in the real world.BRIAN STABLEFORD...

Despite the development of a faster-than-light drive, Earth’s space program has been in the doldrums for centuries, as has Earth itself. Hyperspace being impossible to navigate without beacons at which to aim, there is no alternative but to wait for vessels sent out at sub-light speed decades previously to find somewhere worth going. Unfortunately, when a worthwhile planet finally turns up, it doesn’t take long for political conflicts to materialize over its exploitation. Then, when an entire survey team perishes, the problems intensify. Lee Caretta is the man most likely to solve the problem—if his conflict-ridden employers will let him, if he can keep his tendencey to suffer unexplained blackouts under control, and if the world really is sufficiently Earth-like not to be deadly to the explorers. And then the humans begin to die once more! Despite the development of a faster-than-light drive, Earth’s space program has been in the doldrums for centuries, as has Earth itself. Hyperspace being impossible to navigate without beacons at which to aim, there is no alternative but to wait for vessels sent out at sub-light speed decades previously to find somewhere worth going. Unfortunately, when a worthwhile planet finally turns up, it doesn’t take long for political conflicts to materialize over its exploitation. Then, when an entire survey team perishes, the problems intensify. Lee Caretta is the man most likely to solve the problem—if his conflict-ridden employers will let him, if he can keep his tendencey to suffer unexplained blackouts under control, and if the world really is sufficiently Earth-like not to be deadly to the explorers. And then the humans begin to die once more!

British author and critic Stableford adds a fifth novel to his Emortality series (Inherit the Earth, etc.) with this heavily speculative tale that puts the "science" in science fiction. Expanding on the episode of humanity's first extrasolar colony from The Fountains of Youth (2000), he devises an entire biosystem based on a dual coding genome rather than Earth's sole replicator molecule, DNA. That changes everything, as the colonists learn, from reproductive strategies and lifecycles to the basic taste (mildly unpleasant) of native food. Cultural as well as scientific conflicts afflict the passengers of the colony ship Hope, whose crew members seek to expand their mission to include other stars so that they can declare the colony self-sufficient. Unfrozen from suspended animation, Matthew Fleury, an ecologist and televangelist, must solve both the mystery of a murder and the mystery of life itself down on the planet called Ararat. Weaving the two plot lines together is the suggestion that the murder was committed by intelligent humanoid natives, builders of the abandoned city in which the crime took place. After talking with every faction on ship and planet, Matt travels by boat to the unexplored great plains downriver, and the novel picks up speed as his team adventures among the native flora and the very lively fauna. Despite his reputation as "an arrogant son of a bitch" and an "egomaniac," Matt is ultimately a sympathetic hero, whose intellectual and emotional leaps of faith justify the reader's belief in him.

Credibly written but lacking in emotional range, this third installment in Stableford's Living in the Future series imagines a time when most humans--nearly immortal--aren't much preoccupied with the subject of death. Born more than five centuries ago, in 2520, Mortimer Gray is an emortal, a sturdy genetic composite who was raised in the Himalayas by the standard group of eight adults. These days, unlike most of his contemporaries, Gray--who long ago discovered his potential mortality when he barely survived a massive underwater volcanic eruption--is obsessed with death, and in fact has undertaken a massive study of how human's ideas about it have affected history. Well before completing the work, several centuries and nine volumes later, he became both famous as a popular scholar and notorious as an influence on the Thanaticists, militant believers in keeping death a part of the human condition to the point of organizing ritual suicides and creating "recreational diseases." (Meanwhile, Gray's world has remained in flux--experiments are turning humans into cyborgs or genetically altered beings with four hands; interstellar probes have encountered intelligent aliens.) Gray is in some ways a fine narrator, able to reflect on the events circling around him with a historian's critical eye--but because he's rather detached, it's hard to get involved in his story. Moreover, Stableford has written much of this book as if he was composing a literary essay (complete with excessive foreshadowing)--which makes reading it a bit of a chore.