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2012: a hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic. Two of the world's most powerful corporations, each headed by an eccentric and brilliant man, race to find a way to raise and preserve the doomed luxury ocean liner. Two multi-billion-dollar technologies are tested in a plan to raise the ship that will stun the world and create a media feeding frenzy. The rival CEOs gather and together the twenty-first century's most brilliant minds, including Roy Emerson, technical problem solver and the prodigy behind the glass microsphere; computer geniuses Donald and Edith Craig, darkly fixated by the enigmatic mathematical "Mandelbrot-Set"; and the grand old man of deep-water operations, Jason Bradley, pilot of a state-of-the-art high-pressure heliox suit named "Jim". Two adversary technologies under four hundred atmospheres of pressure at the bottom of the ocean. To each of the undersea explorers, the quest to uncover the secrets of the wreck and to reclaim her for all time becomes an obsession...and for some, a fatal one. Cover art by Paul Swendsen. -
Previews of the coming space age...The universe is full of voices, calling from star to star in myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation, though it may be ages before we cross the mega-mega-miles sundering us from our equals, and our masters. This is Clarke's log of a voyage which has only just begun - Man's odyssey from Earth, his first home, among the planets, to the stars, and across the universe. There are also plenty of snippets of his life slipped into the essays. -
In 2061, when two Suns share the skies of Earth, Halley's Comet returns to the inner Solar System. Soon the fates of two spacefaring expeditions are entwined by human necessity and the immutable laws of astrophysics. Centenarian Heywood Floyd must again confront Dave Bowman, a newly independent HAL and the limitless power of an alien race that has decided humanity must play a part in the evolution of the galaxy - whether it wants to or not...Cover at by Michael Whelan. -
Omnibus edition featuring: The City And The Stars: Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar. For millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rule the stars. But then, as legend has it, the invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders. The Deep Range: A hundred years into the future, humanity lives mostly on the oceans - tending vast whale herds and plankton farms. Walter Franklin works on a submarine patrol - and his adventures under the sea are told in this riveting tale, set against the backdrop of a world both futuristic and familiar...A Fall Of Moondust: For a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess, below the root of the mountains. Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat. For a fraction of a second he wondered if a fan blade had hit some submerged obstacle; then, quite literally, the bottom fell out of his world. It fell slowly, as all things must upon the Moon. The sea was alive and moving . . . Every stage of that nightmare transformation was pitilessly illuminated by the earth light, until the crater was so deep that its firewall was completely lost in shadow, and it seemed as if Selene were racing into a curving crescent of utter blackness – an arc of annihilation. In darkness and in silence, they were sinking into the Moon...Rendezvous With Rama: At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door... -
Clarke looks back at the early days of the science fiction field, offering some humorous anecdotes and insightful observations of the Golden Age notables of the genre. He reminisces on Astounding Science Fiction (now Analog) and its effect on him as a schoolboy; it's half Clarke's two-pronged memoirs and half chronicle of his scientific/engineering career. Told with humor and humility and throughout, his lifelong love of learning shines through. Cover art by Chris Consani. -
Eighteen shorts by the master of sci-fi: In this volume: The Nine Billion Names of God: A Tibetan monastery hires a super-computer to list the nine billion names of God - with horrific results. All the Time in the World: Time is altered so that the world's treasures can be stolen. But who's behind it? Encounter at Dawn: A survey starship with three scientists aboard find a planet on the far rim of the Milky Way, inhabit by bipeds very similar to themselves, but with vastly lower levels of technology. The Sentinel: A lunar exploration mission stumbles across a sentinel left by an ancient space-faring civilisation. Into the Comet: A space ship exploring the nucleus of a comet experiences a dangerous computer malfunction. 'If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth...': A young lad living in a lunar colony is curious about his home planet of Earth. The Forgotten Enemy: After the solar system dives into a cloud of cosmic dust and Britain's climate turns from temperate to arctic, a professor who has elected to stay with his books gets to observe some very sudden changes. The Reluctant Orchid: Keating, a timid orchid breeder with an overbearing aunt, comes across a carnivorous orchid - can he use it to commit the perfect murder and get rid of his hateful aunt? Security Check: A set designer for a science fiction TV programme seems to get too close to the truth. No Morning After: An advanced alien race attempts to warn humans that the Sun is about to explode - but the only human they can find is a drunk! Who's There? A space-station supervisor, receives a call that there is a small object in the same orbital projectory and that someone needs to go retrieve it. He decides to go himself - but has he just put on a haunted space-suit? Hide and Seek: During an interplanetary war, an agent must outrun the enemy and get his vital information to his mother ship. Robin Hood, FRS: A tale of the efforts by the joint expedition members to recover an automatic supply rocket that has landed just out of reach, through a very unorthodox method. Feathered Friend: Sven, a space construction worker, smuggles his pet canary aboard the space station. An Ape About the House: A bored housewife encourages her laboratory-bred serving ape to take up painting - and astonishes the art world. Green Fingers: A Russian team member - a botanist - secretly engineers plant life that could survive on the Moon's surface. Trouble with the Natives: Aliens visit a small English village and get frustrated with trying to communicate! Cover art by Peter Elson. -
After a terrifying nightmare in outer space, Walter Franklin needs to discover a reason for living. He found it in the ocean depths when strangers defied life to give it back to him. Freedom to roam above and below the great waters should have been enough for any man - but Franklin was haunted by an echo - an echo that could solve the oldest mystery of the sea. Cover art by W. F. Phillipps. -
A fabulous representation from the founding father of modern sci-fi. This volume includes: Travel by Wire (1937); Retreat From Earth (1938); The Awakening (1942); Whacky (1942); Castaway (1947); History Lesson (1949); Hide And Seek (1949); Second Dawn (1951); The Sentinel (1954); The Star (1955); Refugee (1955); Venture to the Moon (1956); Into The Comet (1960); Summertime On Icarus (1960); Death And The Senator (1961); Hate (1961); Sunjammer (1965); A Meeting With Medusa (1972). Cover art by Chris Foss. -
An immensely readable and stimulating collection of essays examining the enormous possibilities the human race now has for creativity and destruction. Against Orwell's ominous date 1984 he has deliberately set the hopeful word Spring because he feels the worst of the world's long winter may well be over. Clarke's passionate interest in space exploration, vast knowledge of technological and scientific developments and his informed, optimistic humanism are communicated in a style that will strike a responsive chord in the hearts and minds of all readers concerned for the future of humankind on - and off - Earth.
