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British Science Fiction award winner Ian Watson graces us here with a brilliant new collection of short stories and essays. Though he dazzles the reader with his footwork in the kaleidoscope intensity of his vision, each piece is plainly the work of a master craftsman. Whether he is dealing with a future culture where whales control us ("The Culling") or taking a hilarious poke at the matter of government funding ("The President's Not for Turning"), his concepts are clear and undeniably logical. True to the highest ideal of science fiction, Watson carries present tendencies of our society to possible conclusions in "Roof Gardens under Saturn," and points a warning finger at the consequences of alienation from the environment. In an innovative style which borders on the experimental, Watson explores in "The Pharaoh and the Mademoiselle" the horrors of fascism. Ian Watson's writing stays with us. He entertains and he makes us think. If in some future and better world politicians were to take advice form writers, Watson should be one of them.
In his fourth short-story collection, Watson again demonstrates the extraordinary scope of his imagination. The title story has ancient witchcraft meeting complacent modern suburbia in a tale of spine-chilling horror, while 'When the Timegate Failed' casts an unexpected light in the dangers of space travel and man's powers of self-delusion. Alien matters of a different kind crop up in 'Windows', in which mysterious artefacts found on Mars prove to be something of a problem for their chic human owners. Evil Water is a highly inventive collection which is a delight to read.
An ancient Power awakes. A modern evil mushrooms into apocalypse. Cocooned in a nightmare world, the village of Melfort waits, as The Power feeds on the death and destruction, fuelling its gross appetite. And the dead rise up.
A collection of science-fiction short stories by the author of "Lucky's Harvest". They feature dozens of characters, a new way of travelling between the stars, a strange planet, magical powers, bravura set-pieces, and manoeuvres of narrative.
Every short story in this wonderfully varied collection has one thing in common: each features some alteration in history, some divergence from historical reality, which results in a world very different from the one we know today. As well as original stories specially commissioned from bestselling writers such as James Morrow, Stephen Baxter and Ken MacLeod, there are genre classics such as Kim Stanley Robinson's story of how World War II atomic bomber the Enola Gay, having crashed on a training flight, is replaced by the Lucky Strike with profoundly different consequences. Praise for the editors: 'Mr Watson wreaks havoc with what is accepted - and acceptable.' The Times 'One of Britain's consistently finest science fiction writers.' New Scientist
Warhammer 40,000 is the war-torn universe of the 41st millennium. This is the second book of a series in which a new threat faces embattled mankind, and Jaq Draco, Inquisitor, must keep the Darkness at bay.
The megalomaniac Godmind is still planning to use all the minds in creation to make a vast 'lens', and if necessary it will burn out all life in the process. Back beside the river and literally born again, Yaleen represents to the guild of riverwomen the perfect proof of salvation, of life after death. In fact, she is desperately searching for a way to save the whole universe from imminent destruction.
A review of the homeopathic theory of miasms, taking Hahnemann's groundbreaking hypothesis as the starting point, and extending it to include positive as well as negative traits, exploring how miasms can and do contribute to a growth in human consciousness.
The final installment in the epic Inquisition War trilogy finds Jaq Draco hunted by Imperial and alien enemies across the ravaged universe, searching for the means to decipher the Eldar Book of Fate. Tempted to surrender to the powers of Darkness to find the answers, Jaq is haunted by the knowledge that, should he fail, the ultimate apocalypse awaits. Original.