This small dystopia confirms the status of Robert Sheckley as an unsurpassed master of fantastic ideas, a filigree stylist and a subtle connoisseur of human souls. Two alternative ways of developing society - the planet-prison Omega and the Earth - an oasis of order and stability, in which everything is predetermined for you in advance....
Carse Hawk reached the borders of space when Saturn was borderline planet that was years before fast patrol ships brought Earth law and order in these vast regions. A casual look at his slim figure did not betray that he was to become the greatest adventurer in outer space so that his name bears such a deadly character in subsequent years. But upon closer inspection, a number little things became apparent...
One of the many interesting things that Randall Garrett did in his long and long career was writing a series of novels and stories taking place in a world where magic is as complex a science as physics or chemistry in our world. Magic is a licensed field. The setting for this story is slightly different - and yet it resembles the stories of D'Arcy. Kenneth Malone, sometimes called Sir Kenneth of the Royal FBI, had problems with telepathic spies and not only crazy telepathic counterspies. But the case of the disappearance of criminals was, at least, just as bad....
The story begins with a comet that touches the Earth during flight and collects a few small pieces. About forty people of different nations and ages are doomed to a two-year journey through a comet. They form a mini-society and cope with the hostile environment of the comet (mainly with cold). The size of the "comet" is about 2,300 kilometers in diameter - much larger than any comet or asteroid that even exists....
The protagonist of this novel is the Square, living in a flat country - Flatland. After a lengthy account of customs and social hierarchy, Kvadrat tells about a dream in which he saw the one-dimensional country of Lainland and communicated with its king. Every millennium, a voluminous world comes into contact with a flat world. On the threshold of 2000, the Sphere is the Square and introduces it to three-dimensional space. At the same time, a law was passed in Flatland, according to which everyone who talks about the world outside is recognized as heretics and subject to execution or...
From the atomic age in Atlantis to a world remote in space and time, two incredible ancient races, the Arises and the Eddorians, are in the midst of an interstellar war with the Earth as a reward. The Arises, using advanced mental technology, foresaw an invasion of the corrupt and evil Eddorians in their galaxy, so they begin a breeding program on every planet in their universe. Their goal ... to produce super warriors that can hold back the Eddorian invasion....
Bellamy's fantastic utopian novels made a great contribution to the theory of American socialism. In his main work, “After a Hundred Years,” the author described the social system that had come to him. The hero of the book, under the influence of hypnosis, fell asleep in a lethargic dream in 1887, and woke up already in 2000 and was surprised to find that over the past 113 years, a society of universal equality had emerged in the process of peaceful evolution in America. All implements of production are nationalized, the people represent the “industrial army of labor”, competition, business,...
Three friends built a time machine, set off on it in the distant past, 150 thousand years ago, and founded the state of Mastodonia there. Will they be able to achieve political recognition of Mastodonia in our time, because no one believes in the existence of such a country?...
