Gateway Essentials
5 total works
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.
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1986
For 'refusing to co-operate' the Emm Luther Special Police took out Earth agent Sam Tallon's eyes and imprisoned him on a dark and eerie swamp from which nobody ever escaped.
But then Tallon invented a way of seeing - ludicrous, agonizing, yet still a way to make escape possible. He 'saw' through the eyes of a bird. A dog, a woman guard and, later, even saw himself through the eyes of his enraged Lutheran pursuers. Madness and death were his constant companions as he schemed and fought and struggled for his life. Any other man would have gladly given up, but then, Sam Tallon had no choice, for he was the unfortunate possessor of the single most important secret in the universe - a secret which had to be returned to Earth, somehow.
Shrouded by its shell of drifting lunar fragments, the planet Mnemosyne is a refuge for creative artists and poets, a place isolated from the desperate, losing struggle of the humans against the Syccans.
But then COMsac, theFederation's High Command, come to Mnemosyne, and suddenly the planet is more a military colony than a place for artists.
For Mack Taverner, the dilemma is stark: either go along with the brutal military visitation or join the hopeless resitance and become a 'traitor'. His choice has awesome and extraordinary consequenses . . .