Classics Fantasy Fiction Sci-Fi Fantasy Science Fiction Speculative Fiction Time Travel

Time and Again

Name: Time and Again
Rating: 3.88 (3834 reviews)
Author: Clifford D. Simak

Clifford D. Simak January 1, 1951

3.88 3.8k Ratings

Ongoing Status

21 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

‘One of those complex and enormously inventive stories… based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.’
– Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science Fiction

Asher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write.
Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Aldebaran XII.

Books similar to Time and Again

Intervention

★ 4.28

Julian May

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...

Nightfall

★ 4.06

Isaac Asimov

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.

City

★ 4.08

Clifford D. Simak

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 Door Into Summer

★ 4.02

Robert A. Heinlein

Electronics engineer Dan Davis has finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot with extraordinary abilities, destined to dramatically change the landscape of everyday routine. Then, Dan was tricked by an unscrupulous greedy business partner and a greedier fiancee into spending thirty years in suspended animation, the long sleep, just when he was on the verge of a success beyond his wildest dreams.

They never imagine that the future time in which Dan, a modern-day and future-time, Rip Van Winkle, will awaken has mastered time travel, giving him a way to get back to them, and at them, and get his revenge!.

Shadow & Claw

★ 4.04

Gene Wolfe

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.

Always Coming Home

★ 4.07

Ursula K. Le Guin

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.

Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick

★ 4.26

Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut. Collected here are twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers.

In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we follow the story of one man whose very reality may be nothing more than a nightmare. The collection also includes such classic stories as "The Minority Report," the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for the film Total Recall. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a magnificent distillation of one of American literature's most searching imaginations.

» Introduction by Jonathan Lethem
1. Beyond Lies the Wub (wikipedia)
2. Roog (wikipedia)
3. Paycheck (wikipedia, imdb)
4. Second Variety (wikipedia, imdb)
5. Imposter (wikipedia)
6. The King of the Elves (wikipedia, imdb)
7. Adjustment Team (wikipedia, imdb)
8. Foster, You're Dead! (wikipedia)
9. Upon the Dull Earth (wikipedia)
10. Autofac (wikipedia)
11. The Minority Report (wikipedia, imdb)
12. The Days of Perky Pat (wikipedia)
13. Precious Artifact
14. A Game of Unchance
15. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (wikipedia, imdb)
16. Faith of Our Fathers (wikipedia)
17. The Electric Ant (wikipedia)
18. A Little Something for Us Tempunauts (wikipedia)
19. The Exit Door Leads In (wikipedia)
20. Rautavaara's Case (wikipedia)
21. I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (wikipedia)

Pilgrimage: The Book of the People

★ 4.29

Zenna Henderson

255 page mass market paperback science fiction masterpiece.