Black Star Rising, published in 1986, is a dystopian science fiction novel by American author Frederik Pohl. [1] It is about a post-nuclear war future in which a conquered United States becomes a Chinese farming colony. The main character is an American who the Chinese send to meet a race of warlike aliens who come to Earth.
After a nuclear war, the countries on Earth are conquered by India and China, which each take over different countries. China turns the mostly ruined United States into a colony which is used for agriculture. An educated American working as a farm labourer, Pettyman Castor, becomes embroiled in a criminal investigation.
When he is allowed to use a computer as part of the investigation, Castor finds out that an alien space vessel (they are called "erks") is rapidly on its way to Earth. After the Chinese conquerors learn that the aliens demand to speak to the President of the United States, given that that state no longer exists, the Chinese develop a plan to use Castor as an envoy to the aliens: they appoint him as a mock President of the United States. Castor is taken by the aliens onto their spaceship, and then transported to another planet where the aliens live.
In addition, to erks, he meets patriotic American interplanetary castaways on the planet. They are the descendants of American astronauts from a previous space voyage who got stranded on the alien planet. The American castaways and the aliens develop a plan to free the United States from the Chinese colonists. However, Castor becomes concerned when he learns that the aliens are war-loving conquerors who usually leave no survivors when they invade.
Dave Langford reviewed Black Star Rising for White Dwarf #81, and stated that "Good-natured stuff with a few sharp points." [2]
Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner. The "M" in Kornbluth's name may have been in tribute to his wife, Mary Byers; Kornbluth's colleague and collaborator Frederik Pohl confirmed Kornbluth's lack of any actual middle name in at least one interview.
Foundation and Earth is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series. It was published in 1986, four years after the first sequel to the Foundation trilogy, which is titled Foundation's Edge.
The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously disappeared. They left behind bases containing artifacts, including working starships, which are discovered and exploited by humanity.
Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome, John A. Sentry, William Scarff, and Paul Janvier. He is known for the influential 1960 novel Rogue Moon.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
Man of Two Worlds (1986) is a science fiction novel by American writers Brian and Frank Herbert.
The Coming of the Quantum Cats is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. It was originally serialized in Analog science-fiction magazine, January–April 1986.
The Status Civilization is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Sheckley, first published in 1960.
Eon is a science fiction novel by American author Greg Bear published by Bluejay Books in 1985. Eon was nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It is the first novel in The Way series; followed by Eternity.
Heechee Rendezvous is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1984 by the Del Rey imprint of Ballantine Books. It is a sequel to Gateway (1977) and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1981) and is set about three decades after Gateway. It has been cataloged as the third book in a six-book series called Heechee or The Heechee Saga but Kirkus reviewed it as completing a trilogy and a German-language edition of the three books was published as the Gateway trilogy after all six were out.
Across the Sea of Suns is a 1984 hard science fiction novel by American writer Gregory Benford. It is the second novel in his Galactic Center Saga, and continues to follow the scientist Nigel Walmsley, who encountered an extraterrestrial machine in the previous book, In the Ocean of Night, aboard an expeditionary spacecraft, searching for life. Eventually Nigel discovers evidence of the major conflict in the galaxy.
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon is a book by American writer Philip K. Dick, a collection of 10 science fiction short stories and one essay. It was first published by Doubleday in 1985 and was edited by Mark Hurst and Paul Williams. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy and Science Fiction, Worlds of Tomorrow, Amazing Stories, Interzone, Rolling Stone College Papers, The Yuba City High Times, Omni and Playboy.
The Merchants' War is a 1984 satirical science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. Set in a near future commercial dystopian interplanetary society, the novel was a sequel to The Space Merchants, and was originally co-published with it as Venus, Inc. Pohl's collaborator in the first novel, C.M. Kornbluth, died in 1958, and so did not contribute to this sequel.
Tales from the Planet Earth is a 1986 anthology of science fiction stories edited by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull It presents 19 stories, sharing a common background developed by Pohl and Hull, by 18 authors from 18 different countries; each author's story is set in his native country, plus one extra story by Pohl. According to its cover, it contains stories about aliens which came to "occupy our bodies and inhabit our souls" and they "must find humans capable of hosting personalities and thoughts transmitted across the cosmos".
The Planet on the Table is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Kim Stanley Robinson, published in hardcover by Tor Books in 1986. A British paperback edition appeared in 1987, as well as a Tor paperback reprint; a French translation was issued in 1988. The collection was republished in the 1994 Tor omnibus Remaking History and Other Stories. The collection takes its title from a poem by Wallace Stevens, which provides the book's epigraph.
The Annals of the Heechee is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1987 by Ballantine Books. It is about a dead space explorer's machine-stored version who is trying to discover why the Assassins, a mysterious type of pure energy beings, are threatening the stability of the universe. It is part of Pohl's Heechee Saga, which is about the Heechee, a fictional alien race created by Pohl. The Heechee developed advanced technologies, including interstellar space travel, but then disappeared.
The Years of the City is a novel by Frederik Pohl published in 1984.
Pohlstars is a collection by Frederik Pohl published in 1984.
Dinner at Deviant's Palace is a novel by Tim Powers published in 1985.
Chernobyl is a novel by Frederik Pohl published in 1987. It is based on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
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