La scrittura di Jerry Pournelle è caratterizzata da un profondo coinvolgimento con temi militari, esplorando spesso forze mercenarie fittizie con un approccio radicato alla tecnologia. Attingendo al suo background nell'industria aerospaziale e nelle proiezioni strategiche, le sue narrazioni offrono approfondimenti realistici su tattiche e probabilità. Pournelle consigliava costantemente agli scrittori aspiranti di dare priorità alla scrittura costante e al completamento dei loro progetti. Ha anche ricoperto un ruolo di leadership come presidente della Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
"Welcome to Infernoland," an unearthly voice hisses. And the late, great Allen Carpentier plunges into ht efantastic abyss of an ingenious, living hell. His is a one-way journey through dim nether-regions where flame-colored demons wield diabolically sharp pitchforks . . . where tormented vixens reign forever in a pond of sheer ice. There, in this land of torment and terror, he discovers the amazing truth of the ultimate adventure that lies beyond the grave.
After losing three significant battles to the humans, the Kzin begin to wonder if their combative diplomatic style is working, and they decide to reevaluate their strategy
For the first few years, Rick Galloway and his band of mercenaries were doing well just to survive. They'd been swept off a hilltop in Africa by a flying saucer, and deposited on an alien world where the other inhabitants were human - but from various and unfriendly periods of history, all collected by flying saucer raids. Rick has faced facts: This place is going to be home, permanently. To create a society safe for themselves and the families they are gradually building, they need to do more than just survive. The must convince the others that a unified, peaceful society is better than a collection of warring tribes. Force would not be Rick's chosen method of persuasion,but on a planet where the other dominant culture is one brought straight from ancient Rome, force may be the only way.
Contents * xi • Introduction (Nebula Award Stories 16) • (1982) • essay by Jerry Pournelle * 1 • Grotto of the Dancing Deer • (1980) • shortstory by Clifford D. Simak * 22 • Why Is There So Little Science in Literature? • (1982) • essay by Gregory Benford * 31 • Ginungagap • (1980) • novelette by Michael Swanwick * 65 • Unicorn Tapestry • (1980) • novella by Suzy McKee Charnas * 124 • 1980: Whatever Weirdness Lingers • (1982) • essay by Michael Glyer * 137 • Rautavaara's Case • (1980) • shortstory by Philip K. Dick * 149 • 1980: The Year in Fantastic Films • (1982) • essay by Bill Warren * 168 • The Ugly Chickens • (1980) • novelette by Howard Waldrop * 192 • What Did 1980 Mean? • (1982) • essay by Algis Budrys * 210 • Secrets of the Heart • (1980) • shortstory by Charles L. Grant * 220 • Nebula Awards • essay by uncredited * 225 • Hugo Awards • essay by uncredited
Rick Galloway never anticipated volunteering to fight Cubans in Angola would lead to an extraordinary adventure. Stranded on the planet Tran after being abandoned by his CIA superiors, he finds himself raising drugs for an alien cartel within a civilization run by enslaved humans. Over 13 years, Rick has navigated mutinies, civil wars, and battles against various factions, all while grappling with the devastating effects of unchecked climate change. Through love and loss, he has risen to nobility, yet remains acutely aware that his alien employers may obliterate humanity when their agenda is fulfilled. Despite his efforts to improve life for the inhabitants of Tran, Rick is weary and disillusioned. Just when he thinks he has managed to maintain a fragile balance, new Starmen arrive with perilous gifts and advanced weaponry, challenging everything he believed about his mission. As the situation escalates, Rick is thrust into a pivotal role, with everyone looking to him for solutions. The stakes have never been higher, and the weight of expectation threatens to overwhelm him.
alternate cover for ISBN 0708813623 The chances that Lucifer's Hammer would hit the earth head-on were one in a million. Then one in a thousand. Then one in a hundred. And then ... even less.
The people of Tep's Town are desperate. Monstrous invaders have emerged from the desert, and people are being slaughtered. Danger on the roads means no trade. No trade means that Tep's Town itself will die. The fire god Yangin-Atep has retreated into myth, leaving the town's residents unprotected for the first time in its history - and they now face an army of fearsome birds with blades for wings, consumed by an inexorable lust for blood. Lord Sandry and his beloved, Burning Tower, must travel far beyond the walls of their home to discover the origin of these terror birds. They enter a world where magic is still strong - and someone or something has been waiting to destroy them ...
In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched. In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization--at least one million years old--that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they've been unable to solve in over a million years
The colonists from Earth have spent a century in cold sleep to make the first journey, one way, to settle a planet in another solar system. Avalon seems perfect, a verdant, livable world still in its prehistoric age. The biologists and engineers who busy themselves planting and building scoff at the warnings of professional soldier Cadmann Weyland until a large, unnaturally fast and cunning predator begins stalking the colony. Learning how to kill the beast is only the first step, for they must then reevaluate their entire understanding of Avalon's ecology. The novel is best in its sympathetic treatment of the once formidable scientists who wake from cold sleep with impaired mental powers.
High tech war -- and how to avoid itThe answer is simple: you would have peace? Then prepare for war. This wisdom is as old as armies. Yet after a few generations, the peace that was paid for with soldiers' blood comes to seem the normal thing, the ordinary thing, and the guardians of peace come to be the symbol of it's opposite.That is the theme of the second volume in this series: in the future as in the past, you must _guard_ your peace, or there will be war.In times of danger, survival isn't easy. It takes intelligence, strategy-- and a certain ruthlessness on the part of leaders who know that public safety depends on public strength.Every society will have it's wars. Thus every society must have it's army -- or be prepared to surrender to one.
