Showing results by author "David Gerrold" in All Categories

ADRIFT IN THE SEA OF SOULS — they call themselves travelers, hopping from body to body, from life to life, but in reality they are body-snatchers. Who are they and what do they want from the stranger who fell into their world? (First publication!) THE WHITE PIANO — In a locked away room, hidden under a sheet, rests a faded old piano. In its glory days it was dazzling white with gold trim, but now in war-torn England, its paint is gray and peeling. No one is allowed to go near it, but sometimes after midnight, a lonely little girl still hears beautiful music. (Reprinted from The Magazine...

The first work in David Gerrold's Star Wolf trilogy, this tale pits the human members of the Star Wolf space vessel against the superhuman Morthan crew. Captain Jonathan Korie, hampered by the loss of most of the human fleet to the Morthans and a nearly disabled ship of his own, faces the Morthan threat driven by the need for survival and the desire for revenge.

Alternative Liberties gathers together some of the finest minds in speculative fiction to address the implications of current politics. Adam-Troy Castro answers the classic question “What happens if this keeps on?” in a riveting story of a quiet citizen undergoing an increasingly surreal house arrest. Renowned fantasy author Louise Marley writes from the perspective of a future academic, proposing a Ph.D. thesis about our times. Harry Turtledove, a master of alternate history, gives us the tale of a woman enthralled by the Terrific Leader. In Brenda Cooper’s “A Better President,” ...

This funny and insightful science fiction classic introduces Shoogar, the greatest wizard ever known in his village. His spells can strike terror in the hearts of even his most powerful enemies. But the enemy he faces now is like none he has ever seen before. The stranger has come from nowhere and is ignorant of even the most basic principles of magic. But the stranger has an incredibly powerful magic of his own. There is no room in Shoogar's world for an intruder whose powers match his own, let alone one whose powers might exceed his.

Still reeling from the alien plagues that killed two-thirds of the planet's population, humanity now confronts the most deadly enemy Earth has ever known - the giant man-eating Chtorr. Lieutenant James McCarthy has grown to manhood under the shadow of the terrifying invasion of the Chtorr. As a student, he learned all he could to understand their alien behavior. As a Special Forces commando, he made violent first contact. Now this battle-hardened warrior faces a profound challenge.

With the human population ravaged by a series of devastating plagues, the alien Chtorr arrive to begin the final phase of their invasion. Even as many on Earth deny their existence, the giant wormlike carnivores prepare the world for the ultimate violation--the enslavement of humanity for food!

The story of humanity's courageous struggle for survival against the greatest threat Earth has ever known. As the tenacious invaders remake Earth's violated surface, transforming its flora and fauna into a replica of their own terrifying home world, a handful of scientists, soldiers, and citizens prepare to fight back - hoping it isn't already too late. In Mexico, a dead Chtorr leads to a stunning discovery about the aliens.

McCarthy was drafted from his college biology studies and became a member of the Special Forces. Then he is given the opportunity to contact the Chtorr, but when a helicopter crash leaves him and his companions stranded in enemy territory, he must decide whether to communicate with the Chtorr--or kill them!

Hella is a planet where everything is oversized. The trees are mile-high, the dinosaur herds are huge, and the weather is extreme - so extreme, the colonists have to migrate twice a year to escape the blistering heat of summer and the atmosphere-freezing cold of winter. Kyle is a neuro-atypical young man, emotionally challenged, but with an implant that gives him real-time access to the colony's computer network. When an overburdened starship arrives, he becomes the link between the established colonists and the refugees from a ravaged Earth.

HARLIE is the first self-aware intelligence engine. But instead of answers, he has questions—too many questions, and most of his questions have no answers at all. First published in 1972, When HARLIE Was One was immediately hailed as a groundbreaking debut novel, examining the most fundamental question of all: What does it mean to be human?

Gerrold, a science fiction writer from California, adopts a son who has a slight behavioral problem. He believes himself to be a Martian. Gerrold begins the long, involving work of trying to earn the acceptance of Dennis, a hyperactive eight-year-old who desperately wants a father's love, but is so insecure he feels he must be an alien. Gerrold's semi-autobiographical memoir of the first two years with Dennis is a funny, endearing, heartbreaking, and beautifully written testament to fatherhood.

This conclusion to the Star Wolf trilogy finds Executive Officer Korie and the crew of the Star Wolf answering a distress call from a mysteriously lifeless ship. On board the Norway, they discover half-wave, half-particle clusters of golden light - and a dead man. The lights are the energy form of bloodworms, a fatal infestation that feeds off the energy of living bodies, which scientists on the Norway have developed for use in the Alliance’s war against the Morthans.

Mass is humanoid, but genetically evolved to cope with greater pressures, stronger gravity, and heavier densities than those of an ancient planet he never knew, nor probably ever would. For Mass, Earth is millennia in the past. His companions are equally diverse, differently evolved, and most unsuitable to him and to one another. Each live on a separate plane they had grown on separate worlds. Yet survival might depend on communication.

More Alternative Truths is an exploration of the potential consequences of today’s politics in our daily lives. More than our individual lives, but our American identity. This exploration defines this anthology. So many of the stories ask what has America become? What will it be in the future? Will it devolve into a Russian style oligarchy, or will we rise to the challenge and use our hearts, our minds and our votes to return to a rational democracy, of, by, and for the people. No one knows for sure. But these top-tier talented authors from around the world, from Philip Brian Hall to ...

David Gerrold’s classic space opera Under the Eye of God tells the story of a group of unlikely rebels on a mission to reclaim the galaxy from ruthless vampire overlords known as the Phaestor. The dark, burnt world of Thoska-Roole, infamous for its harsh climate and equally callous inhabitants, might be the last place in the galaxy anyone would turn for aid in times of crisis. But the small, orange planet is home to the band of rebels who hold the fate of the entire galaxy in their hands.

A trip to the Moon? Sounds like the perfect family vacation. Only for 13-year-old Charles "Chigger" Dingillian his family is anything but perfect. His parents fight so much they put the "dis" into dysfunctional. So when he and his brothers find themselves halfway to the Moon, Chigger hits on a plan: if his parents can't find a way to work things out, why not just divorce them? Sound crazy? Until it works. Charles and his brothers are on their own. But their bid for freedom hits a roadblock when Chigger suspects they are targets of an interstellar manhunt.

The Morthans were physically and mentally superior. Descended from humans, they were now, literally, “more-than" human … and considered the human race to be little better than animals. They would stop at nothing to conquer the remaining human-controlled worlds. Docked for repairs after a harrowing battle with a Morthan ship, Jonathan Korie and his crew discover they have a Morthan imp aboard—a Morthan weapon so quick they have no chance of catching it, so clever they have no hope of outsmarting it and so deadly they have no choice but to try.

Sometimes you go to the movies. And sometimes, the movies—and their monsters—come to you. At any moment, without notice, monsters once relegated to the screen become a reality. Aliens and demons, dragons and ghosts, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and seemingly ordinary people who are just plain evil.

Sherlock Holmes has died. It looks like natural causes, but Watson suspects murder. Can he prove it? The evidence isn't there, but he can't give up. This stunning novella reveals Watson's own remarkable abilities to investigate an impossible case. The dilemma is real, the solution is surprising, and the conclusion is a fitting coda to the Holmes canon. Written by David Gerrold, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author behind The Trouble with Tribbles, The Man Who Folded Himself, and The Martian Child. Read by two-time Emmy Award-winning narrator Daniel Penz.