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San Marino, CA 91108
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Rare Books
A science fiction novel about a sentient ocean that was the ruling intelligence of Solaris. Its vast mindand enigmatic personality exerted a powerful force on those humans who contacted it. And to Kris Kelvin, a galactic researcher from Earth, it had presented a strange and awesome gift ...
660906
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Rare Books
The last book of Lewis's sci-fi trilogy is a breakneck journey of suspense in which Dr. Ransom must choose sides in a battle between science and ethics. Like Perelandra and Out of the Silent Planet, this is a compelling work of fiction that is also, at its heart, a timeless allegory of good and evil. Written during the dark hours immediately before and during the Second World War, C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of which That Hideous Strength is the third volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus's The Plague and George Orwell's 1984 as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of its moral concerns. For the trilogy's central figure, C. S. Lewis created perhaps the most memorable character of his career, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom. Appropriately, Lewis modeled Dr. Ransom on his dear friend J. R. R. Tolkien, for in the scope of its imaginative achievement and the totality of its vision of not one but two imaginary worlds, the Space Trilogy is rivaled in this century only by Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Readers who fall in love with Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia as children, unfailingly cherish his Space Trilogy as adults; it, too, brings to life strange and magical realms in which epic battles are fought between the forces of light and those of darkness. But in the many layers of its allegory, and the sophistication and piercing brilliance of its insights into the human condition, it occupies a place among the English language's most extraordinary works for any age, and for all time. In That Hideous Strength, the final installment of the Space Trilogy, the dark forces that have been repulsed in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are massed for an assault on the planet Earth itself. Word is on the wind that the mighty wizard Merlin has come back to the land of the living after many centuries, holding the key to ultimate power for the force that can find him and bend him to its will. A sinister technocratic organization that is gaining force throughout England, N.I.C.E. (the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments), secretly controlled by humanity's mortal enemies, plans to use Merlin in their plot to "recondition" society. Dr. Ransom forms a countervailing group, Logres, in opposition, and the two groups struggle to a climactic resolution that brings the Space Trilogy to a magnificent, crashing close.
620475
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Visual Materials
Image of planet Earth surrounded by stars in an evening sky with North America and South America visible.
ephJLC_CIT_000275
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Rare Books
"Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. Far from Earth, two sister planets, Saint Anne and Saint Croix, circle each other in an eternal dance. It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in back of the beyond. In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man's mythic dreamquest for his darker half; and the bizarre chronicle of a scientist's nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape. With a new introduction by O. Henry Award winning author Brian Evenson"--
660910
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Manuscripts
A.MS. (5p.); 16 and 27cm. Also: envelope with autograph notes. Also: comic strip; "A Feminist Critique of Science Fiction," 6p., "What is racism?," and other articles by Clifton Amsbury, 38p.; clipping about signing apes, 4p., with note.
OEB 329
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Rare Books
An imaginative group of stories that often bridge the gap between fantasy and science fiction. One hundred of Bradbury's science fiction, fantasy, horror, and midwestern short stories.
610008