The Stone That Never Came Down

The Stone That Never Came Down

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Europe in the 21st Century is a stricken continent. Cities crumble with neglect. Governments topple to military coups. But one man may have the answer. It is a viral drug that drastically alters the human mind, a cure for depression, unemployment, war, madness, national hatreds, prejudice, crime & mass hysteria, but there were those who wanted the cure suppressed until the world collapsed.
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Polymath: Empire Book 1

Polymath: Empire Book 1

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Colonising a new planet requires much more than just settling on a newly discovered island of Old Earth. New planets were different in thousands of ways, different from Earth and from each other. Any of those differences could mean death and disaster to a human settlement. When a ship filled with refugees from a cosmic catastrophe crash-landed on such an unmapped world, their outlook was precarious. Their ship was lost, salvage had been minor, and everything came to depend on one bright young man accidentally among them. He was a trainee planet-builder. It would have been his job to foresee all the problems necessary to set up a safe home for humanity. But the problem was that he was a mere student - and he had been studying the wrong planet. (First published 1974)
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The Squares of the City

The Squares of the City

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

"Built in the heart of the jungle, The City was an architect's masterpiece--& the scene of a flesh-&-blood game of chess where the unwitting pawns were real people!" The Squares of the City is a science fiction novel written by John Brunner and first published in 1965 (ISBN 0-345-27739-2). It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1966. It is a sociological story of urban class warfare and political intrigue, taking place in the fictional South American capital city of Vados. It explores the idea of subliminal messages as political tools, and it is notable for having the structure of the famous 1892 chess game between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin. The structure is not coincidental, and plays an important part in the story.
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Repairmen of Cyclops (Ace Edition)

Repairmen of Cyclops (Ace Edition)

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

he Corps Galactica, the Galaxy’s police force, had pledged itself to a policy of non-interference with the backward Zarathustra Refugee Planets. Langenschmidt, the Corps chief on the planet Cyclops, was content with this ruling. After all, if the refugee planets could form their own civilizations from scratch, logically they would come up with cultures suited to their own needs.However, when the case of Justin Kolb came to his attention, Langenschmidt was forced to rethink the problem.Kolb’s accident with the wolfshark revealed to the Corps’ medicos the leg-graft that had been done on him. It was a perfect match—only its gene-pattem wasn’t Cyclopean, and limb-grafting wasn’t practiced on Cyclops. Where then had the leg come from, who had been the unknown repairmen, and wasn’t this something that might be violating galactic law?
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Into the Slave Nebula

Into the Slave Nebula

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

It was carnival time on Earth. Prosperity was at its peak; science had triumphed over environment; all human needs were taken care of by computers, robots and androids. There was nothing left for humans to do but enjoy, themselves . . . to seek pleasure where they found it, without inhibitions and without thinking of the price. Then an android died - in a senseless, brutal murder. And young Derry Horn was shocked out of his boredom and alienation. His life of flabby ease had not prepared him for a fantastically dangerous mission to outlying, primitive stars - but now, at last, he had a reason for living. And even when he found himself a prisoner of ruthless slavers, even when he learned the shocking truth about what the androids really were and where they came from . . . even when he saw all the laws of the orderly, civilised universe he knew turned upside-down and inside-out . . . he fought on. For that universe had to be shattered and reborn - even if Derry Horn and the Earth he had irrevocably left behind died in the process! (First published 1968)
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Out of My Mind

Out of My Mind

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Thirteen stories of the past, present, and future from the Hugo Award–winning author of Stand on Zanzibar. In Out of My Mind, John Brunner, in mid-career, selects a double-handful and more of what he considers his best work to date, thirteen stories that represent—under the three categories in which he classifies them: Past, Present, Future—his most challenging and entertaining stories, from present-day fear of nuclear annihilation to a loving, yet also terrifying infinite loop in time that includes a sideways step outside the universe as we know it. Put yourself in the hands of a master and take your imagination for a series of thrill-rides. "One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves." —SF Site
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The Avengers of Carrig

The Avengers of Carrig

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Once the city of Carrig stood supreme on this planet that had been settled by space refugees in the distant, forgotten past. From every corner of this primitive lost world caravans came to trade - and to view the great King-Hunt, the gruesome test by which the people of Carrig chose their rulers. Then from space came new arrivals. And with them came their invincible death guns and their ruthless, all-powerful tyranny. Now there would be no King-Hunt in Carrig, or hope for the planet-unless a fool-hardy high-born named Saikmar and a beautiful Earthling space-spy named Maddalena, could do the impossible . . . (First published 1969)
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The Super Barbarians

The Super Barbarians

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Acre was the only part of an entire world where Earthmen were allowed to live as they pleased and as they were accustomed. For elsewhere on Quallavarra, humanity was forced into servitude by the Vorra, THE SUPER BARBARIANS, who has somehow managed to conquer space. But within the Acre, the underling Terrestrials had cooked up a neat method of keeping teir conquerors from stamping them out altogether. They had uncovered a diabolical Earth secret the Vorra couldn't abide - and yet couldn't do without.
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Atlantic Abomination

Atlantic Abomination

John Brunner

Science Fiction & Fantasy

A horror novel by John Brunner? A science-fiction shocker by the man who wrote the "Hugo" winning STAND ON ZANZIBAR? By the author of THE JAGGED ORBIT, CATCH A FALLING STAR, TIMES WITHOUT NUMBER? Of course! The Brunner talent is manifest in this edge-of-the-seat novel about what happened when the first sea-bottom explorers brought up a not-so-dead body of an inhuman intelligence that had been sealed up for innumerable eons. Godzilla, Gorgo, King Kong...stand aside for THE ATLANTIC ABOMINATION!
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