This is the re-written version of the original story.
To Terran Jeff Kerwin the distant planet he remembered only as a childhood dream was home. But when years of planning finally brought him back to Darkover, ha found that there was no peace for him there–not for someone with both the red hair of a Com’yn lord and the bastard strains of Terrani in his blood; not for someone who carried a Darkovan matrix jewel without knowing where it came from; not for someone who managed to win the trust of the sacred Keepers and the secrets of their Tower, only to be accused of betraying them to his Terran masters…
The 21st century was drawing to a close, and metapsychic humankind was poised at last to achieve Unity to be admitted into the group mind of the already unified alien races of the Galactic Milieu. But a growing corps of rebels was plotting to keep the people of Earth forever separate in the name of human individuality. And the rebels had a secret supporter: Fury, the insane metapsychic creatrue that would stop at nothing to claim humanity for itself. Fury's greatest enemy was the mutant genius Jack the Bodiless, whose power it craved. But Jack would never be a tool for Fury . . . And so it turned to Dorothea Macdonald, a young woman who had spent a lifetime hiding her towering mindpowers from the best mind readers of the Milieu. But she could not hide them from Fury or from Jack. Time and again she rejected their advances, unwilling to be drawn into the maelstrom of galactic politics or megalomaniacal dreams. And in the end, no one not Jack, not Fury, not even the Galactic Milieu would be a match for the awesome powers of the girl who would come to be called Diamond Mask . . .
In the year 2051, Earth stood on the brink of acceptance as full member of the Galactic Milieu, a confederation of worlds spread across the galaxy. Leading humanity was the powerful Remillard family, but somebody--or something--known only as "Fury" wanted them out of the way. Only Rogi Remillard, the chosen tool of the most powerful alien being in the Milieu, and his nephew Marc, the greatest metapsychic yet born on Earth, knew about Fury. But even they were powerless to stop it when it began to kill off Remillards and other metapsychic operants--and all the suspects were Remillards themselves. Meanwhile, a Remillard son was born, a boy who could represent the future of all humanity. His incredible mind was more powerful even than his brother Marc's--but he was destined to be desroyed by his own DNA...unless Fury got to him first!
"FASCINATING . . . May has cemented her position as one of this generation's foremost storytellers. . . .This satisfying end to a remarkable feat of the imagination is a necessary purchase." --Library Journal
By the mid-twenty-first century, humanity is beginning to enjoy membership in the Galactic Milieu. Human colonies are thriving on numerous planets, life on Earth is peaceful and prosperous, and as more humans are being born with metapsychic abilities, it will not be long before these gifted minds at last achieve total Unity.
But xenophobia is deeply rooted in the human soul. A growing corps of rebels plots to keep the people of Earth forever separate, led by a man obsessed with human Marc Remillard. Marc's goal is nothing less than the elevation of human metapsychics above all others, by way of artificial enhancement of mental faculties. His methods are unpalatable, his goal horrific. And so Marc and his coconspirators continue their work in secret.
Only the very Unity he fears and abhors can foil Marc's plans. And only his brother, Jack the Bodiless, and the young woman called Diamond Mask can hope to lead the metaconcert to destroy Marc, Unify humanity, and pave the way for the Golden Age of the Galactic Milieu to begin . . .
In 1941, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a short story by a little-known writer named Isaac Asimov. The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend. Now, the Grand Master of Science Fiction teams with Robert Silverberg, one of the field's top award-winning authors, to explore and expand an apocalyptic tale that is more spellbinding today than ever before -- Nightfall: The Novel.
Imagine living on a planet with six suns that never experiences darkness. Imagine never having seen the stars. Then, one by one the suns start to set, gradually leading into darkness for the first time ever. Kalgash is a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the unyielding rationalism of scientists. Lurking beneath it all is a collective, instinctual fear of the Darkness. For Kalgash knows only the perpetual light of day; to its inhabitants, a gathering twilight portends unspeakable horror. And only a handful of people on the planet are prepared to face the truth, their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in over two thousand years, signaling the end of civilization as it explodes in the awesome splendor of Nightfall.
Encompassing the psychology of disaster, the tenacity of the human spirit, and, ultimately, the regenerative power of hope, Nightfall is a tale rich in character and suspense that only the unique collaboration of Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg could create.
Intervention sets the scene for Julian May's new trlogy of the Galactic Milieu. This has been split into two books: The Surveillance (containing Prologue, The Surveillance, and The Disclosure) and The Metaconcert, containing The Intervention and Epilogue.
For 60 000 years the five races of the Galactic Milieu have watched and waited for the time when human mental development on Earth is ready for the Intervention ...
As the twentieth century draws to its end, phenomenal mental powers are displayed by 'operants' all across our planet... They can 'farspeak' one another telepathically. They can build mental shields and they are capable of coercion by power of mind.
One of there is Rogatien Remillard, a dealer in secondhand books, whose memories - written a century on - form the core of this chronicle. They tell of a world where the mind has become a weapon; and of two brothers, each possessed of extraordinary powers - one a peace-bringer, the other an advocate of evil...
Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home is a major work of the imagination from one of America's most respected writers. More than five years in creation, it is a novel unlike any other.
A rich and complex interweaving of story and fable, poem, artwork, and music, it totally immerses the reader in the culture of the Kesh, a peaceful people of the far future who inhabit a place called the Valley on the Northern Pacific Coast. The author makes the inhabitants of the valley as familiar, as immediate, as wholly human as our own friends or family.
Spiraling outward from the dramatic life story of a woman called Stone Telling, Le Guin's Always Coming Home interweaves wry wit, deep insight and extraordinary compassion into a compelling unity of vision.
Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition available here.
Simak's City is a series of connected stories, a series of legends, myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands.
The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.
The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.
The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly, and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century" by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume.
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