Bob Shaw - Free Library Land Online - Biographies & Memoirs

One Million Tomorrows

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 00:15:32 +0300

Will Carewe had a good job, a beautiful wife, and the prospect of immortality lay before him. But ... if he were to take the shot to become immortal, he'd be giving up his virility. And would, Athene, lovely Athene with the sensuous body, want to stay married to a man like that?

But suddenly that problem was solved: a new variety of the drug had been developed, one that would leave him a fully functioning man. Carewe rejoiced in his luck, took the shot, and ...

And suddenly his life, which had seemed so rosy just yesterday, was developing into a nightmare. Athene became distrustful of him, friends shied away, and someone seemed to be trying to kill him.

He was the biggest target on Earth: the immortal man who'd given up nothing for it. Nothing, perhaps, except his life.

The Two-Timers

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 00:15:33 +0300

It began as a very ordinary evening for John Breton and his slim, beautiful wife Kate: two friends had come to dinner, and now they were quietly talking over after-dinner drinks. Then the phone rang, and shattered forever the peace of Breton's well-planned life.

For the voice at the other end told him, "You've been living with my wife for nine years—and I'm coming to take her back."

And a short time later that other man arrived on Breton's doorstep—and John Breton found himself staring incredulously into his own face!

THE TWO-TIMERS is an unpredictable and fascinating novel of a man literally fighting himself . . . while the univ

Tomorrow Lies in Ambush

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 12:18:21 +0200

Bob Shaw SF Gateway Omnibus

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:16:28 +0300

Contains:

Orbitswille

A Wreath of Stars

The Ragged Astonauts

Short Fiction Collected (2024 Corrected Edition)

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 20:06:24 +0200

Scanned, converted, re-formatted, proofed, custom title page, custom book cover and eBook creation by Jerry

Land and Overland - Omnibus

Thu, 11 Nov 1993 17:25:52 +0200

A Full Member of the Club

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 16:30:50 +0300

Orbitsville Departure o-1

Mon, 28 Nov 1983 16:30:48 +0300

A sequel to Orbitsville . Alien beings, Ultrans, built an enormous sphere, millions of times the size of Earth, which contains its own sun as a trap for sentient beings of the universe. The artificial world attracts the world’s population to such an extent that soon Earth is a half-deserted historical curiosity. Scientist Garry Dallen learns of the Ultrans’ plans second before Orbitsville and its population are whisked millions of light years into outer space.

Vertigo

Wed, 28 Nov 1979 16:30:48 +0300

The invention of a cheap and easy-to-use antigravity harness revolutionises society. Humanity takes to the skies in its millions, with huge resultant problems for governments and police. Virtually all aircraft are grounded, because of the risk of collision with a stray flyer. Airborne delinquents and criminals are practically impossible to control and can be lethal. Robert Hasson is a good policeman. But a near-fatal airborne confrontation with a psychopath has left him shattered, both physically and mentally. Sent to Canada to recuperate (and to escape the attentions of a local businessman whose son he has put away), Hasson is a broken man, unable to face human company, haunted by nightmares and certain that he will never again put on an anti-gravity harness. But his Canadian host, police chief Al Werry, has a major problem on his hands in the shape of a towering unfinished hotel, the Chinook, whose upper levels are inaccessible from the ground, and are used as an illegal meeting place by local gangs of flyers. Worse, the hotel's owner, Buck Morlacher, intends to take the law into his own hands to deal with them. The violence that has been simmering in the town threatens to erupt and Werry seems powerless to stop it. Unwillingly, Hasson finds himself drawn into the conflict and forced to face his own problems. “Vertigo” is vintage Bob Shaw, fast-moving, intelligent and immensely readable. “Terminal Velocity” (1991) contains the same story as “Vertigo” but also includes, as a prologue, an 11-page short story by Bob Shaw that was first published as “Dark Icarus” in Science Fiction Monthly vol. 1, No. 4 (1974), then retitled as “A Little Night Flying” for “ If - Worlds of ScienceFiction” (August 1974), and also included in “Cosmic Kaleidoscope” (1976).

The Fugitive Worlds

Sun, 11 Nov 1990 22:21:59 +0300

EDITORIAL REVIEW: The concluding volume of the trilogy which began with "The Ragged Astronauts" and "The Wooden Spaceships" finds the twin worlds of Land and Overland facing a strange new threat. Bob Shaw's previous novels have earned him a world-wide reputation and he has won the British Science Fiction Award.

The Ragged Astronauts lao-1

Fri, 28 Nov 1986 16:30:49 +0300

Land and Overland — twin worlds a few thousand miles apart. On Land, humanity faces a threat to its very survival — an airborne species, the ptertha, has declared war on humankind, and is actively hunting for victims. The only hope lies in migration. Through space to Overland. By balloon. The Ragged Astronauts — first volume in an epic adventure filled with memorable characters, intense action, engaging notions, exotic locales. Won BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1987.

Dark Night in Toyland

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 14:46:09 +0200

The Peace Machine

Thu, 28 Nov 1985 16:30:47 +0300

First published in 1971 as Ground Zero Man, this novel was revies by the author and published in 1985 as The Peace Machine . It is 1988, and an obscure scientist, Lucas Hutchman, has made a momentous discovery. He can build a neutron resonator: a device which, once triggered, will detonate every nuclear warhead in the planet. In a future on the brink of nuclear suicide (Damascus has just been wiped out by a terrorist nuclear bomb), the temptation is irresistible to use his invention as a gun held against the heads of the world’s leaders. Lucas constructs the machine, and then sends plans to prominent scientists and politicians everywhere, giving a deadline on which he will activate it. They will be forced to dismantle their weapons, and the world will breathe again. Very quickly, Lucas discovers that he has pitched himself into a world with which he is ill-equipped to cope: the world of secret agents, espionage, kidnapping and murder. His problem is to stay under cover and survive long enough to implement his plan.

Orbitsville Trilogy

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:38:36 +0200

A Trilogy collection of Bob Shaw's Orbitsville.

Orbitsville

When the young son of Elizabeth Lindstrom, the autocratic president of Starflight, falls to his death, Vance Garamond, a flickerwing commander, is the obvious target for Elizabeth's grief and anger. Which, since Elizabeth is not a forgiving employer, leaves Garamond little choice but to flee. And fleeing Elizabeth's wrath means leaving the Solar System far behind, for ever, and hiding somewhere in deep space. Pursued remorselessly by Earth's space fleet, the somewhere that Garamond finds is an unimaginably vast, alien-built, spherical structure which could just change the destiny of the human race...

Orbitsville Departure

Two hundred years ago mankind found Orbitsville, a vast sphere whose habitable inner surface comprised living space equivalent to five billion Earths. The resulting migration was enthusiastic - and nearly total. Earth itself is a backwater now, a place with which the people of Orbitsville maintain only marginal contact. But just because it's backward doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.

Orbitsville Judgement

Orbitsville - scene of two of Bob Shaw's novels - is a vast hollow world completely enclosing its sun and habitable across its entire inner surface. At the end of "Orbitsville Departure", the whole world was shifted to an alternate universe and this book tells what happens next.